His mind was plainly made up, and for once I was in complete agreement with him.
“I’ll drink to that,” I said, lifting the bottle in salute to him. He smiled, took it, and drained it.
“Elspeth Cunningham and I shared a bottle of your second-best whisky,” I said, taking the empty bottle and setting it down under the stool. “We talked about her son. I told her that you wouldn’t let the captain raise a Loyalist militia under your nose, so to speak.”
“Nor will I.”
“Naturally not. But what she said in reply—and mind you, she was exhausted, in pain, and fairly well intoxicated by that time, so I don’t think she was lying—she said that it wouldn’t be up to you, in the end. Because General Cornwallis is sending an officer—a very effective officer, she said, and one supported by the power of the Crown—to raise Loyalist regiments of militia throughout the Carolinas. To suppress local rebellions.”
He stood quite still for a long moment, eyes creased against the wind, which had risen again.
“Aye,” he said at last. “Then it will have to be the Overmountain men—Cleveland and Shelby and their friends.”
“It will have to be them for what?”
He picked up the stool and empty bottle and shook his head, as though thinking to himself.
“I’ll have to make alliance wi’ them. They have an understanding wi’ Mrs. Patton to provide powder for them from her mill, and if I agree to stand with them in need, they’ll let her know to supply me. And they’ll presumably come to my aid, should I call.” I heard that “presumably” and moved close to him, feeling suddenly colder than before. He was essentially alone, without Roger or Young Ian at hand, and he knew that all too well.
“Do you trust Benjamin Cleveland and the rest?”
“Sassenach, there are maybe eight people in the world I trust, and Benjamin Cleveland isna one o’ them. Luckily, you are.”
He put an arm around me and kissed my forehead. “How’s your foot?”
“I can’t feel either of my feet.”
“Good. Let’s go down and warm ourselves wi’ a bit of the sailors’ burgoo.”
“That sounds di—” The word died on my lips as I saw a movement on the far side of the clearing below, at the head of the wagon road that led down behind Bobby Higgins’s cabin. “Who’s that?”
I groped automatically for my spectacles, but I’d left them in the surgery. Jamie looked over my shoulder, squinting against the wind, and made an interested noise.
It was a person on foot; I could see that much. And a woman, moving slowly, in the manner of someone putting one foot before another out of sheer determination.
“It’s the lassie who came to fetch ye to her mother’s childbed,” he said. “Agnes Cloudtree, was it?”
“Are you sure?” I squinted, too, but it didn’t help much; the figure remained a blur of brown and white against the darker dirt of the road. A stab of fear went through my heart, though, at the name “Cloudtree.” I’d thought often of the twins I’d delivered, of their mother’s stoic heroism … and the very peculiar circumstance of that birth; a circumstance made the more peculiar by the simplicity of it. I could feel the sense of that small body in my hands now. Nothing dramatic; no tingling or glowing. Just the sure and certain knowledge of life.
If this was indeed Agnes Cloudtree coming toward us, I hoped against hope that she hadn’t come to tell me that her small sister was dead.
“I think it’s all right, Sassenach.” Jamie had continued watching the small, dogged figure, his arm still round my middle. “I can see she’s weary—and no wonder, if she’s walked all the way from the Cherokee Line—but her shoulders are square and her heid’s unbowed.” The tension in his arm relaxed. “She doesna come in sorrow.”
WE OPENED THE front door in welcome, but stayed sheltering in the front hall from the wind until she should come closer. Fanny looked warily past Jamie’s elbow, at the small figure coming up the hill, and suddenly stiffened.
“She’s coming to stay!” she said, and looked accusingly at me.
“What?” I said, startled, and Fanny relaxed a little, seeing that my surprise at this remark was genuine.
“Th—she has her things.” She nodded at Agnes, who was now close enough that I could see her long, wispy blond hair escaping from a grubby cap. Agnes was indeed carrying a flour sack, the neck of it tied in a knot and the weight swinging like a pendulum as she walked.