“I scarcely know, tell ’ee true, miss. Only as it was . . . dark, like. A form, as you might say; I thought ’twas a woman’s. But . . . terrible,” he finished, helpless.
Well, that was too bad. Hallucination wasn’t an uncommon side effect, but I hadn’t expected it with such a brief dose.
“Well, I imagine it was just a bit of nightmare,” I said soothingly. “You know, it’s a form of sleep, so it’s not surprising that you might get the odd bit of dreaming now and then.”
To my surprise, Lizzie shook her head at this.
“Oh, no, ma’am,” she said. “It’s no sleep at all. When ye sleep, ken, ye give your soul up to the angels’ keeping, so as no ghoulies shall come near. But this . . .” Frowning, she eyed the bottle of ether, now safely corked again, then looked at me.
“I did wonder,” she said, “where does your soul go?”
“Er . . .” I said. “Well, I should think it simply stays with your body. It must. I mean—you aren’t dead.”
Both Lizzie and Bobby were shaking their heads decidedly.
“No, it doesn’t,” Lizzie said. “When ye’re sleepin’, ye’re still there. When ye do that”—she gestured toward the mask, a faint uneasiness on her small features—“ye’re not.”
“That’s true, mum,” Bobby assured me. “You’re not.”
“D’ye think maybe ye go to limbo, wi’ the unbaptized babes and all?” Lizzie asked anxiously.
Malva gave an unladylike snort.
“Limbo’s no real place,” she said. “It’s only a notion thought up by the Pope.”
Lizzie’s mouth dropped open in shock at this blasphemy, but Bobby luckily distracted her by feeling dizzy and requiring to lie down.
Malva seemed inclined to go on with the argument, but beyond repeating, “The Pope . . .” once or twice, simply stood, swaying to and fro with her mouth open, blinking a little. I glanced at Lizzie, only to find her glassy-eyed as well. She gave an enormous yawn and blinked at me, eyes watering.
It occurred to me that I was beginning to feel a trifle light-headed myself.
“Goodness!” I snatched the ether mask from Malva’s hand, and guided her hastily to a stool. “Let me get rid of this, or we’ll all be giddy.”
I flipped open the mask, pulled the damp wad of cotton wool out of it, and carried it outside at arm’s length. I’d opened both the surgery windows, to provide ventilation and save us all being gassed, but ether was insidious. Heavier than air, it tended to sink toward the floor of a room and accumulate there, unless there was a fan or some other device to remove it. I might have to operate in the open air, I thought, were I using it for any length of time.
I laid the cotton-wool pad on a stone to dry out, and came back, hoping that they were all too groggy now to continue their philosophical speculations. I didn’t want them following that line of thought; let it get around the Ridge that ether separated people from their souls, and I’d never get anyone to let me use it on them, no matter how dire the situation.
“Well, thank you all for helping,” I said, smiling as I entered the room, relieved to find them all looking reasonably alert. “You’ve done something very useful and valuable. You can all go along about your business now, though—I’ll tidy up.”
Malva and Lizzie hesitated for a moment, neither girl wanting to leave Bobby to the other, but under the impetus of my shooing, drifted toward the door.
“When are ye to be wed, Miss Wemyss?” Malva asked casually—and loudly enough for Bobby to hear—though she certainly knew; everyone on the Ridge did.
“In August,” Lizzie replied coolly, lifting her small nose half an inch. “Right after the haying—Miss Christie.” And then I shall be Mrs. McGillivray, her satisfied expression said. And you—Miss Christie—without an admirer to your name. Not that Malva attracted no notice from young men; only that her father and brother were assiduous in keeping them away from her.
“I wish ye great joy of it,” Malva said. She glanced at Bobby Higgins, then back at Lizzie, and smiled, demure beneath her starched white cap.
Bobby stayed sitting on the table for a moment, looking after the girls.
“Bobby,” I said, struck by the deeply thoughtful expression on his face, “the figure you saw under the anesthetic—did you recognize it?”
He looked at me, then his eyes slid back to the empty doorway, as though unable to keep away.
“Oh, no, mum,” he said, in such a tone of earnest conviction that I knew he lied. “Not at all!”
43
DISPLACED PERSONS
THEY HAD STOPPED to water the horses by the edge of the small lake the Indians called Thick Rushes. It was a warm day, and they hobbled the horses, stripped, and waded into the water, spring-fed and gloriously cold. Cold enough to shock the senses and, for a moment at least, drive away Jamie’s moody contemplation of the note MacDonald had delivered him from John Stuart, the Indian Superintendent of the Southern Department.
It had been complimentary enough, praising his celerity and enterprise in drawing the Snowbird Cherokee into the British sphere of influence—but had gone on to urge more vigorous involvement, pointing out Stuart’s own coup in directing the choice of leaders among the Choctaws and the Chickasaw, at a congress he had himself convened two years before.
. . . The competition and anxiety of the candidates for medals and commissions was as great as can be imagined and equalled the struggles of the most aspiring and ambitious for honours and preferment in great states. I took every step to be informed of characters and filled the vacancies with the most worthy and likely to answer the purposes of maintaining order and the attachment of this nation to the British interest. I urge you to strive for similar good results to be achieved among the Cherokee.
“Oh, aye,” he said aloud, popping up among the rushes and shaking water from his hair. “I’m to depose Tsisqua, nay doubt by assassination, and bribe them all to install Pipestone Carver”—the smallest and most self-effacing Indian Jamie had ever seen—“as peace chief. Heugh!” He sank again, in a rush of bubbles, entertaining himself by cursing Stuart’s presumption, watching his words rise up in wavering quicksilver balls, to disappear magically at the bright light of the surface.
He rose again, gasping, then gulped air and held his breath.
“What was that?” said a startled voice nearby. “Is it them?”
“No, no,” said another, low and urgent. “There are only two; I see them both, over there, do you see?”
He opened his mouth and breathed like a zephyr, striving to hear over the pounding of his heart.
He had understood them, but for an instant, could not put a name to their tongue. Indians, aye, but not Cherokee, they were . . . Tuscarora, that was it.
He hadn’t spoken with any Tuscarora for years; most of them had gone north in the wake of the measles epidemic that had destroyed so many—going to join their Mohawk “fathers” in the lands ruled by the Iroquois League.
These two were arguing in whispers, but near enough that he made out most of what they said; they were no more than a few feet from him, hidden by a thick growth of rushes and cattail plants that stood nearly as high as a man’s head.
Where was Ian? He could hear distant splashing, at the far end of the lake, and turning his head gently, saw from the corner of his eye that Ian and Rollo were sporting in the water, the dog submerged to his ruff, paddling to and fro. If one didn’t know—and the beast didn’t sense the intruders and bark—it looked very much like two men swimming.
The Indians had concluded that this was likely the case—two horses, thus two men, and both safely distant. With much creaking and rustling, they began to make their way stealthily in the direction of the horses.
Jamie was half-inclined to let them try to take Gideon and see how far they got with such an enterprise. But they might only make off with Ian’s horse and the pack mule—and Claire would be fashit, did he let them take Clarence. Feeling himself very much at a disadvantage, he slithered naked through the reeds, grimacing at the rasp of them on his skin, and crawled up among the cattails, into the mud of the shore.
Had they the wit to look back, they must have seen the cattails shaking—and he hoped Ian would see—but they were intent on their errand. He could glimpse them now, skulking in the tall grass at the forest edge, glancing to and fro—but never in the right direction.
Only two, he was sure of that now. Young, from the way they moved, and unsure. He couldn’t see if they were armed.
Slimed with mud, he crept further, sinking onto his belly in the rank grasses near the lake, squirming rapidly toward the shelter of a sumac bush. What he wanted was a club, and quickly.
In such circumstances, of course, nothing came to hand but twigs and long-rotted branches. For lack of better, he seized a good-sized stone, but then found what he wanted: a dogwood branch cracked by wind and hanging in reach, still attached to the tree. They were approaching the grazing horses now; Gideon saw them and lifted his head abruptly. He went on chewing, but his ears lay half back in patent suspicion. Clarence, the ever-sociable, took notice and raised his head, as well, ears twitching to alertness.
Jamie seized the chance, and as Clarence emitted a welcoming bray, he ripped the branch from the tree and charged the intruders, roaring, “Tulach Ard!” at the top of his voice.
Wide eyes met his, and one man bolted, long hair flying. The other followed, but limping badly, going down on one knee as something gave way. He was up again at once, but too slow; Jamie swept the branch at his legs with a two-handed fury that knocked him flat, and leapt on his back, driving a vicious knee into his kidney.
The man made a strangled noise and froze, paralyzed by pain. Jamie had dropped his rock—no, there it was. He snatched it up and thumped the man solidly behind the ear, for luck. Then he was off and running after the other, who had made for the wood but sheered off, blocked by a rock-bound streamlet in his path. Now the man was bounding through the sedges; Jamie saw him cast a terrified look toward the water, where Ian and Rollo were making their way toward him, swimming like beaver.
The Indian might have made it to the sanctuary of the forest, had one foot not suddenly sunk in soft mud. He staggered sideways, and Jamie was on him, feet sliding in the mud, grappling.
The man was young and wiry and fought like an eel. Jamie, with the advantage of size and weight, managed to push him over, and they fell together and rolled about in the sedges and mud, clawing and thumping. The Indian caught Jamie’s long hair and yanked, bringing tears to his eyes; he punched the man hard in the ribs to make him let go, and when he did, butted him in the face.
Their foreheads met with a dull thunk, and blinding pain shot through his head. They fell apart, gasping, and Jamie rolled up onto his knees, head spinning and eyes watering, trying to see.
There was a blur of gray and a shriek of terror. Rollo gave one deep-chested, snarling bark, then settled into a rumbling, continuous growl. Jamie shut one eye, a hand to his throbbing forehead, and made out his opponent lying flat in the mud, Rollo poised over him, black lips drawn back to show all his teeth.