And if he did, he wondered, looking at the wraithlike shapes of Silvia Hardman and her daughters on the horse ahead of him, what would he do when he found out the shifts his absence had put his wife to?
And what shifts has Emily been put to, without a man? She’d have people, though … A Mohawk woman would never be alone in the way Silvia Hardman was alone, and that thought comforted him slightly.
When they reached the Philadelphia road, he dismounted carefully, led his horse up to Silvia’s, and tied a neck rope to the pommel of her saddle, in case Patience should lose hold of the reins.
“Ye’ll go on ahead,” he said to Silvia, and pointed down the road, which was broad, clear, and empty in the waning light. “Ye mustn’t be anywhere near me while I’m taking care of Mr. Fredericks.”
She shuddered at the name, casting a haunted glance back at the humped shape on the third horse’s back.
“With luck, I’ll catch ye up within half an hour,” he said. “There’s nay moon, but it’s a snow-lit sky; I think ye’ll be able to see the road, even after full dark. If anyone offers to molest ye, tell them your husband is behind ye and ride on. Give them your bundle if they want it, but don’t let them get ye off the horses.”
“Yes.” Her voice was high with fear, and she coughed to lower it. “We will. We won’t, I mean. Thank thee, Ian.”
HE TOOK THEM half a mile down the Philadelphia road, to be sure they could manage the horses. They were only walking, but ye never kent when something might happen, and he warned them about paying attention and keeping hold of the reins.
Patience’s eyes were round as saucers when he slid off and tucked the reins into her hands.
“Alone?” she said, in a very small voice. “I’m riding … alone?”
“Not for long,” he assured her. “And your mam will be holding the rope. I’ll be back, quick as I can.”
He untied Fredericks’s horse then and led the gelding in the other direction, well past the lane that led to the Hardman cottage. It was beginning to snow in earnest, but the flakes were small and hard and only skittered across the hard-packed road, the wind making thin white lines on the dirt.
Being in the open, in possession of a fresh corpse, was never comfortable, but it was particularly uneasy work when in the vicinity of white people, who were inclined to think everyone’s private business was also theirs. Luckily, the cold weather had kept the body from swelling, and it wasn’t making eerie noises yet.
There it was: the tall pine, black against the snow-lit sky. He’d trampled down a patch of brush on his previous visit and now led the horse carefully into it, and between two close-spaced saplings. The horse was suspicious, but did follow, and one of the saplings gave way with a crack.
“Good, a charaid,” he murmured. “Nay more than another minute, all right?”
Beyond the scrim of oak and pine saplings, the land plunged down into a small ravine. He’d counted the steps to the edge of it on his first visit, and a good thing; the light was poor and the ravine full of brush and straggly small trees.
He tied up the horse a safe distance from the edge, then untied Fredericks and hauled him off, dropping him to the ground with a thud like a killed buffalo. Ian dragged the late Justice to the edge of the ravine, then went back to the foot of the big pine to retrieve the broken dead branch he’d selected earlier. The stick he’d used before was clearly from a fruit tree; he pulled it out and put it in his pouch for later disposal.
He wondered whether there was a Gaelic charm or prayer to cover the disposal of the body of someone ye’d murdered, but if there was, he didn’t know it. The Mohawk had prayers, all right, but they didn’t bother much wi’ the dead.
“I’ll ask Uncle Jamie later,” he said to Fredericks, under his breath. “And if there is one, I’ll say it for ye. For now, though, ye’re on your own.”
He felt his way over the cold, hard face, located the empty eye socket, and drove the sharp end of his branch into it as hard as he could. The scrape of bark and wood on bone and then the sudden yielding raised the hairs across his shoulders and down his arms.
Then he dragged the body to the edge of the ravine and pushed it over. For a moment, he feared it wouldn’t move, but it slid on the pine needles and, after a long moment, rolled almost lazily, once, twice, and disappeared into the brush at the bottom with a muffled crunch that was scarcely to be heard above the rising wind.
He was tempted to keep the horse; if anyone noticed it, he could just say he’d found it wandering on the road. But if he—and the horse—were to remain in company with Silvia Hardman and her weans in Philadelphia, it was too dangerous, and he took the horse back to the road and bade it farewell with a slap on the rump. He watched it go, then turned round and began to jog up the road in the thickening snow.