“Jamie,” I said softly, at last, and touched his hand lightly. “No place is safe now. Not Savannah. Not Salisbury or Salem. Not here.”
He grew still. Not here.
“No,” he said softly, and squeezed my hand. “Not here.”
82
Jf Special
JAMIE CAME INTO THE surgery with three bottles of whisky cradled in one arm and another gripped with his free hand.
“Oh—presents?” I asked, smiling.
“Well, this one’s yours—or for your patients, at least.” He set the bottle in his hand on my counter, amidst the scatter of dried herbs, mortar and pestle, bottles of oil, and stacks of gauze squares. I dusted crumbs of goldenseal off my hands, picked it up, pulled the cork, and sniffed.
“I take it this is not the Jamie Fraser Special,” I said, coughing a little, and put the cork back in. “It smells like paint remover.”
“I might be offended at that, Sassenach,” he said, smiling. “Save that I didna make it.”
“Who did?”
“Mr. Patton. Husband of Mary Patton, who makes gunpowder in Tennessee County.”
“Really?” I squinted at the bottle, which was squat and square. “Well, I suppose one might need a dram at the end of the day, if you’ve spent said day grinding powder that might blow you to kingdom come at any moment. I do hope nobody there is drinking it to steady their nerves before going to work.”
“The man doesna drink whisky himself,” Jamie informed me, setting the other bottles on the table. “Only beer. Which accounts for the taste of it, I suppose. He’s selling it to the folk who come for his wife’s powder. Or so he says.”
I glanced at him.
“You think he’s selling it to the Indians?” The Powder Branch of the Wautauga River, where the Patton powder mill was located, was very near the Cherokee Treaty Line. Jamie lifted one shoulder briefly.
“If he isn’t now, he soon will be. Unless his wife stops him. She’s a good bit wiser than he is—and most of the money is hers. She buys land with it.”
“Well, that does sound prudent.” I looked at the three bottles stood on my surgery table. “Are those also from Mr. Patton’s still?”
“No,” he said, in a tone of mingled pride and regret. “These are the Jamie Fraser Special—the last three bottles. There are two more small kegs in the cave, and maybe one or two more back in the rocks—but that’s the end, until I can brew again.”
“Oh, dear.” The malting shed had been destroyed by the gang that had attacked the Ridge, and the thought of it made my stomach knot. The still itself had been damaged, too, but Jamie had been putting it in order, in the brief interstices of house building. “And then it still needs to be aged.”
“Ach, dinna fash,” he said, and picking up one of the Special bottles uncorked it and poured a dram into one of my medicine cups, which he handed me. “Enjoy it while ye can, Sassenach.”
I did, though my enjoyment of the dram was tempered by the knowledge that whisky was our main source of income. Granted, he likely had more of the lesser vintages—did whisky have a vintage? Possibly not …
Jamie interrupted these musings by reaching into his sporran, from whence he withdrew a small wooden object.
“I almost forgot. Here’s the wee bawbee ye asked me for.”
It was a cylinder, roughly two inches in diameter, three inches long, and tapered so that it was wider at the top. It had been carefully sanded and rubbed with oil, the sides glossy smooth, and the edges beveled and smoothed as well.
“Oh, that’s lovely, Jamie—thank you!” He’d made it from a piece of rock maple, and the grain swirled beautifully around the curve of the wood.
“Aye, nay bother, Sassenach,” he said, clearly pleased that I admired it. “What is it meant for, though? Ye didna tell me. Is it a toy for Amanda, or a teether for Rachel’s bairn?”
“Ah. No. It’s—” I stopped abruptly. I’d turned the object over in my hand and saw that he had—as he usually did with things he made—scratched his initials, JF, into the bottom of the piece.
“What’s wrong, a nighean?” He came to look, and taking my hand in his, turned it over so the peg lay exposed in my palm.
“Er … nothing. It’s just … Um. Well.” I could feel my ears getting warm. “It’s a, uh, present for Auld Mam.”
“Aye?” he looked at it, baffled.
“Do you happen to remember Roger telling me he’d been visiting up there and talked to her and she told him that when she, er, visited the privy, her … womb … fell out into her hand?”