A sickle-moon was rising, bright over the trees, and I had little trouble finding the place I remembered. The stream ran cold and silver in the moonlight, chilling my hands and feet as I stood calf-deep in the water, groping for tubers of the arrowhead plant.
Small frogs sang all around me, and the stiff leaves of cattails rustled softly in the evening breeze. It was very, very peaceful, and all of a sudden I found myself shaking so hard that I had to sit down on the stream bank.
Anytime. It could happen anytime, and just this fast. I wasn’t sure which seemed most unreal; the bear’s attack, or this, the soft summer night, alive with promise.
I rested my head on my knees, letting the sickness, the residue of shock, drain away. It didn’t matter, I told myself. Not only anytime, but anywhere. Disease, car wreck, random bullet. There was no true refuge for anyone, but like most people, I managed not to think of that most of the time.
I shuddered, thinking of the claw marks on Jamie’s back. Had he been slower to react, not as strong…had the wounds been slightly deeper…for that matter, infection was still a major threat. But at least against that danger, I could fight.
The thought brought me back to myself, the squashed leaves and roots cool and wet in my hand. I splashed cold water over my face, and started up the hill toward the campfire, feeling somewhat better.
I could see Jamie through the thin scrim of saplings, sitting upright, outlined against the fire. Sitting bolt upright, in a way that must surely have been painful, considering his wounds.
I stopped, suddenly wary, just as he spoke.
“Claire?” He didn’t turn around, and his voice was calm. He didn’t wait for me to answer, but went on, voice cool and steady.
“Walk up behind me, Sassenach, and put your knife into my left hand. Then stay behind me.”
Heart hammering, I took the three steps that brought me high enough to see over his shoulder. On the far side of the clearing, just within the light of the fire, stood three Indians, heavily armed. Evidently the bear had been provoked.
* * *
The Indians looked us over with a lively interest that was more than returned. There were three of them; an older man, whose feathered topknot was liberally streaked with gray, and two younger, perhaps in their twenties. Father and sons, I thought—there was a certain similarity among them, more of body than of face; all three were fairly short, broad-shouldered and bow-legged, with long, powerful arms.
I eyed their weapons covertly. The older man cradled a gun in the curve of his arm; it was an ancient French wheelock, the hexagonal barrel rimed with rust. It looked as though it would explode in his face if he fired it, but I hoped he wouldn’t try.
One of the younger men carried a bow to hand, arrow casually nocked. All three had sinister-looking tomahawks and skinning knives slung in their belts. Long as it was, Jamie’s dirk seemed rather inadequate by comparison.
Evidently coming to the same conclusion, he leaned forward and placed the dirk carefully on the ground at his feet. Sitting back, he spread his empty hands and shrugged.
The Indians giggled. It was such an unwarlike noise that I found myself half smiling in response, even though my stomach, less easily disarmed, stayed knotted with tension.
I saw Jamie’s shoulders relax their rigid line, and felt slightly reassured.
“Bonsoir, messieurs,” he said. “Parlez-vous français?”
The Indians giggled again, glancing at each other shyly. The older man took a tentative step forward and ducked his head at us, setting the beads in his hair swinging.
“No…Fransh,” he said.
“English?” I said hopefully. He glanced at me with interest, but shook his head. He said something over one shoulder to one of his sons, who replied in the same unintelligible tongue. The older man turned back to Jamie and asked something, raising his brows in question.
Jamie shook his head in incomprehension, and one of the young men stepped into the firelight. Bending his knees and letting his shoulders slump, he thrust his head forward and swayed from side to side, peering nearsightedly in such perfect imitation of a bear that Jamie laughed out loud. The other Indians grinned.
The young man straightened up and pointed at the blood-soaked sleeve of Jamie’s shirt, with an interrogatory noise.
“Oh, aye, it’s over there,” Jamie said, gesturing toward the darkness under the trees.
Without further ado, all three men disappeared into the dark, from which excited exclamations and murmurings soon emerged.
“It’s all right, Sassenach,” Jamie said. “They willna harm us. They’re only hunters.” He closed his eyes briefly, and I saw the faint sheen of sweat on his face. “And a good thing, too, because I think I’m maybe going to swoon.”
“Don’t even think about it. Don’t you dare faint and leave me alone with them!” No matter what the savages’ possible intentions, the thought of facing them alone over Jamie’s unconscious body was enough to reknot my intestines with panic. I put my hand on the back of his neck and forced his head down between his knees.
“Breathe,” I said, squeezing cold water from my handkerchief down the back of his neck. “You can faint later.”
“Can I puke?” he asked, his voice muffled in his kilt. I recognized the note of wry jest in it, and let my own breath out with relief.
“No,” I said. “Sit up; they’re coming back.”
They were, dragging the bear’s carcass with them. Jamie sat up and mopped his face with the wet handkerchief. Warm as the night was, he was shivering slightly from shock, but he sat steadily enough.
The older man came over to us, and pointed with raised brows; first to the knife that lay at Jamie’s feet, then to the dead bear. Jamie nodded modestly.
“It wasna easy, mind,” he said.
The Indian’s brows rose higher. Then he ducked his head, hands spread in a gesture of respect. He beckoned to one of the younger men, who came over, untying a pouch from his belt.
Shoving me unceremoniously to one side, the younger man ripped open the throat of Jamie’s shirt, pulled it off his shoulder, and squinted at the injury. He poured a handful of a lumpy, half-powdery substance into his hand, spat copiously into it, stirred it into a foul-smelling paste, and smeared it liberally over the wounds.
“Now I really am going to puke,” Jamie murmured, wincing under the ungentle ministrations. “What is that stuff?”
“At a guess, it’s dried trillium mixed with very rancid bear grease,” I said, trying not to inhale the pungent fumes. “I don’t suppose it will kill you; at least I hope not.”
“That’s two of us, then,” he said under his breath. “No, I’ll do now, thank ye kindly.” He waved away further ministrations, smiling politely at his would-be doctor.
Joking or not, his lips were white, even in the dimness of the firelight. I put a hand on his good shoulder, and felt the muscles clenched tight with strain.
“Get the whisky, Sassenach. I need it badly.”
One of the Indians made a grab at the bottle as I pulled it from the bag, but I pushed him rudely away. He grunted with surprise, but didn’t follow me. Instead, he picked up the bag and began rooting through it like a hog hunting truffles. I didn’t try to stop him, but hurried back to Jamie with the whisky.