“What tinker?” I stopped mashing and stared at him.
“Jo Beardsley told me he’d met a tinker in Salem two days ago, and he reckoned the man would be here sometime this week,” Germain explained. “He said the tinker’s got a sackload o’ simples, so I thought if ye needed anything, Grannie …”
I cast a quick, greedy glance at my medicine chest, depleted by a planting season rife with ax and hoe injuries, animal and insect bites, an outbreak of food poisoning, and a strange plague of respiratory illness among the MacNeills, accompanied by low fever, coughing, and bluish spots on the trunk.
“Hmmm …” I patted my pockets, wondering what I had to trade, come to think of it …
“There are two bottles left of the elderberry wine,” Jamie said, standing up straight. “Ye can use those, Sassenach. And I’ve got a good deerskin, and half of a wee barrel of turpentine.”
“No, I want to keep the turpentine,” I said, adding absently, “Hookworms, you know.”
Jamie and Germain exchanged a cynical glance.
“Hookworms,” Jamie said, and Germain shook his head.
Before I could enlighten them about hookworms, though, a shout came from the direction of the creek, and Duncan Leslie and his two sons appeared, one of the sons with a large ham tucked under one arm.
Jamie stood up to greet them, and they all nodded politely to me but didn’t seem to expect me to stop what I was doing in order to chat.
“I shot a good-sized pig last week,” Duncan said, motioning the son with the ham forward. “There was a bit to spare, and we thought ye might use it, what with your family come, and all.”
“I’m much obliged, Duncan,” Jamie said. “If ye dinna mind eating under the sky, come and share it with us … tomorrow?” he asked, turning to me. I shook my head.
“Day after tomorrow,” I said. “I have to go up to Beardsleys’ tomorrow and I won’t be back in time to make much more than sandwiches.” If Amy had made bread and had some to spare, I added silently to myself.
“Aye, aye,” Duncan said, nodding. “My wife will be happy to see ye, Missus. So, Jamie,” he added, tilting his head toward the foundation, “I see ye’ve got a fine big house laid out—twa chimneys, eh? Where’s the kitchen to be, then?”
Jamie rose smoothly to his feet, gave me a brief “See?” look over his shoulder, and led the Leslies off to tour the foundation, limping only slightly.
Germain laid the snake on my table and, saying, “Look after it for me, will ye, Grannie?” hurried to join the men.
BRIANNA PAUSED AT the top of the trail and blotted sweat from her face and neck. The cabin before them was tidy and neat—very neat. There were whitewashed stones lining the path that led to the door, and the paned-glass windows—glass—were so polished that she could see herself and Roger in them, tiny cut-up blobs of color amid the green flicker of the reflected forest.
“Who whitewashes rocks?” she said, instinctively lowering her voice, as though the cabin might hear her.
“Well, it can’t be someone with a lot of time on their hands,” he said, half under his breath. “So it’s either a frustrated landscape designer or someone with a neurotic need to control their environment.”
“I suppose there’s no reason why you wouldn’t find control freaks in any time,” she said, shaking dust and leaf fragments off her skirt. “Look at the people who designed Elizabethan mazes, I mean. What was it Amy said about these people? Cunningham, is that the name?”
“Yes. ‘They’re Methodists. Blue Light,’” Roger quoted, “‘be careful of thon people, Preacher.’” And with that, he straightened his shoulders and set foot on the path that led between the whitewashed stones.
“Blue Light?” she said, and followed, poking hastily at her broad-brimmed straw hat, worn sedately over a cap. God forbid the preacher’s wife should give scandal to the faithful …
The door swung open before Roger could set foot on the step, and a small, bristly man with shaggy gray eyebrows stood eyeing them with no particular look of welcome. He was neatly dressed in butternut homespun breeches and waistcoat, and his linen shirt, while slightly yellowed with age, had been recently ironed.
“Good day to ye, sir.” Roger bowed, and Brianna made a brief bob of respect. “My name is Roger MacKenzie, and this is my wife, Brianna. We’ve come just lately to the Ridge, and—”