A Breath of Snow and Ashes (71 page)

Ian gave a perfunctory smile, but shook his head.

“Nay, we’d best ransom her. Or—” He looked consideringly at the two Indians, industriously eating their way through the remainder of the food in the saddlebags. “Might we ask Bird to adopt them?”

That was a thought, to be sure. For once they had got the young woman back, by whatever means, she and the brothers would be in the same dire case—wandering and hungry.

The brothers frowned, though, and shook their heads.

“Food is a good thing,” Goose said, licking his fingers. “But we saw them kill our family, our friends. If we hadn’t seen it ourselves, it would be possible. But—”

“Aye, I see,” Jamie said, and was struck for an instant by mild astonishment that he
did
see; evidently, he had spent longer among the Indians than he supposed.

The brothers exchanged glances, obviously communicating something. Decision made, Light made a gesture of respect to Jamie.

“We are
your
slaves,” he pointed out with some diffidence. “It is yours to decide what to do with us.” He paused delicately, waiting.

Jamie rubbed a hand over his face, considering that perhaps he hadn’t spent quite enough time with Indians after all. Ian didn’t smile, but seemed to emit a low vibration of amusement.

MacDonald had told him stories of campaigns during the French and Indian War; soldiers who took Indian prisoners commonly either killed them for scalp money or sold them as slaves. Those campaigns lay a scant ten years in the past; the peace since had been frequently uneasy, and God knew the various Indians made slaves of their prisoners, unless they chose—for whatever inscrutable Indian motive—to adopt or kill them, instead.

Jamie had captured the two Tuscarora; ergo, by custom, they were now his slaves.

He understood quite well what Light was suggesting—that
he
adopt the brothers, and doubtless the young woman, too, once he’d rescued her—and how in God’s name had he suddenly become responsible for doing that?

“Well, there’s nay market for their scalps just now,” Ian pointed out. “Though I suppose ye could
sell
the two of them to Bird. Though they’re no worth a great deal, scrawny and ill-feckit as they are.”

The brothers stared at him, impassive, awaiting his decision. Light belched suddenly, and looked surprised at the sound. Ian
did
laugh at that, a low creaking noise.

“Oh, I couldna do any such thing, and the three of ye ken that perfectly well,” Jamie said crossly. “I should have hit ye harder and saved myself trouble,” he said to Goose, who grinned at him, with gap-toothed good nature.

“Yes, Uncle,” he said, bowing low in deep respect.

Jamie made a displeased sound in response, but the two Indians took no notice.

It would have to be the medals, then. MacDonald had brought him a chest bulging with medals, gilt buttons, cheap brass compasses, steel knife blades, and other bits of attractive rubbish. Since the chiefs derived their power from their popularity, and their popularity increased in direct proportion to their ability to give gifts, the British Indian agents exerted influence by distributing largesse to those chiefs who indicated a willingness to ally themselves to the Crown.

He’d brought only two small bags of such bribery; the rest left at home for future use. What he had on hand would, he was sure, be sufficient to ransom Mrs. Light, but to expend it all in such fashion would leave him empty-handed with respect to the other village chiefs—and that wouldn’t do.

Well, and he supposed he must send Ian back, then, to fetch more. But not until he’d arranged the ransom; he wanted Ian’s help in that matter.

“Fine, then,” he said, standing up. He fought off a wave of dizziness. “But I am
not
adopting them.” The last thing he needed just this minute was three more mouths to feed.

44

SCOTCHEE

A
RRANGING THE RANSOM was, as he had supposed, a simple matter of bargaining. And in the end, Mrs. Light came fairly cheap, at the price of six medals, four knives, and a compass. Granted, he hadn’t seen her until the conclusion of the dealing—if he had, he might have offered even less; she was a small, pockmarked lass of perhaps fourteen, with a slight walleye.

Still, he reflected, there was no accounting for taste, and both Light and Goose had been willing to die for her. Doubtless she had a kind heart, or some other excellent quality of character, such as a talent and affinity for bed.

He was quite shocked to find himself thinking such a thing, and looked at her more closely. It was in no way obvious—and yet, now that he
did
look—she did radiate that strange appeal, that remarkable gift, held by a few women, that bypassed such superficial appreciations as looks, age, or wit, and caused a man simply to wish to seize her and—

He choked the sprouting image off at the root. He’d known a few such women, most of them French. And had thought more than once that perhaps it was his own wife’s French heritage that was responsible for her possession of that most desirable but very dangerous gift.

He could see Bird eyeing the girl thoughtfully, quite obviously regretting that he had let her go for so little. Fortunately, a distraction occurred to drive the matter from his attention—the return of a hunting party, bringing with them guests.

The guests were Cherokee of the Overhill Band, far from their home in the Tennessee mountains. And with them was a man Jamie had often heard of, but never met until this day—one Alexander Cameron, whom the Indians called “Scotchee.”

A dark, weathered man of middle-age, Cameron was distinguishable from the Indians only by his heavy beard and the long, inquisitive shape of his nose. He had lived with the Cherokee since the age of fifteen, had a Cherokee wife, and was much esteemed among them. He was also an Indian agent, thick with John Stuart. And his presence here, two hundred miles from home, caused Jamie’s own long, inquisitive nose to twitch with interest.

The interest was frankly mutual; Cameron examined him with deep-set eyes in which intelligence and wiliness showed in equal measure.

“The redheided Bear-Killer, och, och!” he exclaimed, shaking Jamie warmly by the hand, and then embracing him in the Indian fashion. “I’ve heard such tales of ye, ken, and fair dyin’ to meet ye to see were they true.”

“I doubt it,” Jamie said. “The last one I heard myself, I’d done for three bears at once, killin’ the last of them high in a tree, where he’d chased me after chewin’ off my foot.”

Despite himself, Cameron looked down at Jamie’s feet, then looked up and hooted with laughter, all the lines of his face curving in such irresistible merriment that Jamie felt his own laughter bubble up.

It was not, of course, proper to speak of business yet awhile. The hunting party had brought down one of the woods buffaloes, and a great feast was preparing: the liver taken away to be singed and devoured at once, the strap of tender meat from the back roasted with whole onions, and the heart—so Ian told him—to be shared among the four of them: Jamie, Cameron, Bird, and Running Fox, a mark of honor.

After the liver had been eaten, they retired to Bird’s house to drink beer for an hour or two, while the women made ready the rest of the food. And in the course of nature, he found himself outside, having a comfortable piss against a tree, when a quiet footfall came behind him, and Alexander Cameron stepped up alongside, undoing the fall of his breeches.

It seemed natural—though plainly Cameron had intended it—to walk about together for a bit then, the cool air of the evening a respite from the smoke inside the house, and speak of things of common interest—John Stuart, for one, and the ways and means of the Southern Department. Indians, for another; comparing the personalities and means of dealing with the various village chiefs, speculating as to who would make a leader, and whether there might be a great congress called within the year.

“Ye’ll be wondering, I expect,” Cameron said quite casually, “at my presence here?”

Jamie made a slight motion of the shoulders, admitting interest, but indicating a polite lack of inquisition into Cameron’s affairs.

Cameron chuckled.

“Aye, well. It’s no secret, to be sure. It’s James Henderson, is what it is—ye’ll ken the name, maybe?”

He did. Henderson had been Chief Justice of the Superior Court in North Carolina—until the Regulation had caused him to leave, climbing out the window of his courthouse and fleeing for his life from a mob bent on violence.

A wealthy man, and one with a due regard for the value of his skin, Henderson had retired from public life and set about increasing his fortune. To which end, he proposed now to buy an enormous tract of land from the Cherokee, this located in Tennessee, and establish townships there.

Jamie gave Cameron an eye, apprehending at once the complexity of the situation. For the one thing, the lands in question lay far, far inside the Treaty Line. For Henderson to instigate such dealings was an indication—had any been needed—of just how feeble the grasp of the Crown had grown of late. Plainly, Henderson thought nothing of flouting His Majesty’s treaty, and expected no interference with his affairs as a result of doing so.

That was one thing. For another, though—the Cherokee held land in common, as all the Indians did. Leaders could and did sell land to whites, without such legal niceties as clear title, but were still subject to the
ex post facto
approval or disapproval of their people. Such approval would not affect the sale, which would be already accomplished, but could result in the fall of a leader, and in a good deal of trouble for the man who tried to take possession of land paid for in good faith—or what passed for good faith, in such dealings.

“John Stuart knows of this, of course,” Jamie said, and Cameron nodded, with a small air of complacency.

“Not officially, mind,” he said.

Naturally not. The Superintendent of Indian Affairs could hardly countenance such an arrangement officially. At the same time, it would be smiled on unofficially, as such a purchase could not help but further the department’s goal of bringing the Indians further under the sway of British influence.

Jamie wondered idly whether Stuart profited in any personal way from the sale. Stuart had a good reputation and was not known to be corrupt—but he might well have a silent interest in the matter. Then again, he might have no financial interest himself, and be turning an officially blind eye to the arrangement only in furtherance of the department’s purposes.

Cameron, though . . . He couldn’t say, of course, but would be most surprised if Cameron had no finger in the pie.

He did not know where Cameron’s natural interest lay, whether with the Indians among whom he lived or with the British to whom he had been born. He doubted that anyone did—perhaps not even Cameron. Regardless of his abiding interests, though, Cameron’s immediate goals were clear. He wished the sale to be met with approval—or at least indifference—by the surrounding Cherokee, thus keeping his own pet chiefs in good odor with their followers, and allowing Henderson to go forward with his plans with no undue harassment by Indians in the area.

“I shall not, of course, say anything for a day or two,” Cameron told him, and he nodded. There was a natural rhythm to such business. But of course, Cameron had told him now so that he might be of help when the subject arose in due course.

Cameron took it for granted that he
would
help. There was no explicit promise of a bit of Henderson’s pie for himself, but no need; it was the sort of opportunity that was a perquisite of being an Indian agent—the reason that such appointments were considered plums.

Given what Jamie knew of the near future, he had neither expectation nor interest in Henderson’s purchase—but the subject did give him a welcome opportunity for a useful
quid pro quo.

He coughed gently.

“Ye ken the wee Tuscarora lassie I bought from Bird?”

Cameron laughed.

“Aye. And he’s most perplexed what ye mean to do with her; he says ye willna take any of the lasses he sends to warm your bed. She’s no so much to look at—but still . . .”

“Not that,” Jamie assured him. “She’s marrit, for the one thing. I brought two Tuscaroran lads with me; she belongs to one of them.”

“Oh, aye?” Cameron’s nose twitched with interest, scenting a story. Jamie had been waiting for this opportunity since the sight of Cameron first gave him the notion, and he told it well, with the satisfactory outcome that Cameron agreed to take the three displaced young Tuscaroras with him, and sponsor their adoption into the Overhill Band.

“It’ll no be the first time,” he told Jamie. “There are more and more of them—wee scraps of what were villages, even whole peoples—wandering about the country starved and wretched. Heard of the Dogash, have ye?”

“No.”

“Nor are ye like to,” Cameron said, shaking his head. “There’s no but ten or so of them left. They came to us last winter; offered themselves as slaves, only so that they might survive the cold. No—dinna fash yourself, man,” he assured Jamie, catching sight of Jamie’s expression. “Your wee lads and the lass won’t be slaves; my word on it.”

Jamie nodded his thanks, pleased with the business. They had wandered some distance outside the village, and stood talking near the edge of a gorge, where the wood opened suddenly over a vista of mountain ranges, rolling away and away like furrows plowed in some endless field of the gods, their backs dark and brooding beneath a starlit sky.

“How can there ever be people enough to settle such a wilderness?” he said, moved suddenly by the sight of it. And yet the smell of woodsmoke and cooking meat hung heavy in the air. People did inhabit it, few and scattered as they were.

Cameron shook his head in contemplation.

“They come,” he said, “and they keep on coming. My ain folk came from Scotland. You have,” he added, teeth a brief gleam in his beard. “And dinna mean to go back, I’ll warrant.”

Jamie smiled at that, but made no answer, though a queer feeling rose in his wame at the thought. He did not mean to go back. Had said goodbye to Scotland at the rail of the
Artemis,
knowing full well it was likely his last sight of the place. And yet, the notion that he would never set foot there again had never fully settled on him ’til this moment.

Calls of “Scotchee, Scotchee” summoned them, and he turned to follow Cameron back to the village, conscious all the time of the glorious, terrifying emptiness behind him—and the more terrifying emptiness within.

THEY SMOKED THAT night, after feasting, in ceremonious observance of Jamie’s bargain with Bird, in welcome to Cameron. When the pipe had gone twice around the fire, they began to tell stories.

Stories of raids, of battles. Exhausted from the day, head still throbbing, mellowed by food and spruce beer, and slightly intoxicated by the smoke, Jamie had meant only to listen. Perhaps it was the thought of Scotland, so casually evoked by Cameron’s remark. But at some point, a memory had stirred, and when the next expectant silence fell, he was surprised to hear his own voice, telling them of Culloden.

“And there near a wall I saw a man I knew, named MacAllister, besieged by a horde of enemies. He fought with gun and sword, but both failed him—his blade was broken, his shield shattered upon his breast.”

The fume of the pipe reached him and he raised it and drew deep, as though he drank the air of the moor, hazed with rain and the smoke of the day.

“Still they came, his enemies, to kill him, and he seized up a piece of metal, the tongue of a wagon, and with it, killed six”—he held up both hands, fingers stuck up in illustration—“six of them, before he was at last brought down.”

Sounds of awe and tongue clicks of approval greeted this recounting.

“And you yourself, Bear-Killer, how many men did you kill in this battle?”

The smoke burned in his chest, behind his eyes, and for an instant he tasted the bitter smoke of cannon fire, not sweet tobacco. He saw—he
saw
—Alistair MacAllister, dead at his feet among the red-clothed bodies, the side of his head crushed in and the round curve of his shoulder shining solid through the cloth of the shirt, so wetly did it cling to him.