“A good bit of hillside came down wi’ the rain,” he said. “Trees and rocks and mud. But I canna say more than that. I dinna even ken where we were when it happened. Maybe somewhere near the wagon road.” He touched his chest gingerly, grimacing.
“That happened in a landslide?” I knew a cutlass wound when I saw one—and had an eight-inch scar down the inside of my left arm to prove it.
“Just before,” he said tersely. He hadn’t taken his eyes off young Esterhazy, and it finally occurred to me that the lieutenant might just be young enough, foolish enough, and under sufficient mental strain as to think he could take Jamie captive in his own house. He was wearing a pistol and an officer’s dirk. And Jamie isn’t armed. A small, cold finger touched the back of my neck, but then I looked carefully at the young man, then back at Jamie. I shook my head.
“No,” I said simply. “He’s worried about his friend. And probably his captain, too,” I added. Esterhazy turned sharply to stare at me, eyes wide.
“What’s happened to the captain? You said he was sleeping!”
“Shot,” I said briefly. “He’ll live, but he’s not going anywhere for the moment.”
“Did you shoot him, sir?” The young man addressed Jamie seriously.
“I tried,” Jamie replied dryly. “I fired just as he came at me wi’ his cutlass. I dinna ken if I hit him or no—but it wasna me that shot him in the back, I can tell ye that much. I saw his face plain, in the lightning. And then the mountain fell on us,” he added, as a distinct afterthought.
“Shot in the back?” Esterhazy turned to me, shocked.
“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” I said, only halfway under my breath. “Yes. I took the ball out and he’s resting comfortably. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, Lieutenant, I need you to help me get Colonel Fraser off the bloody floor and up to his bed. Now,” I repeated, seeing that he was disposed to ask further questions.
The conversation roused Fanny, and Agnes appeared from above, frowsty with sleep. Both of them were mortified at being seen by the lieutenant in their nightdresses and wrappers, but I made them go and start slicing onions for a poultice, grinding up goldenseal root, and seeing to Mrs. Cunningham’s bodily needs while Lieutenant Esterhazy and I levered Jamie up in stages, first to a seat on the bench, where Bluebell nosed him anxiously and licked his bare knees, and then to his feet, with the two of us gripping his elbows for dear life as he swayed to and fro, on the edge of fainting.
I grabbed him round the waist and the lieutenant got an arm round his rib cage from the back, and we lurched out of the kitchen and up the stairs like a mob of drunks being chivvied by the police.
We dropped him on the bed like a bag of cement and I was obliged to lean over and put my hands on my knees, gasping for air until the small black flecks left my field of vision. When I could stand up again, I thanked the lieutenant, himself red in the face and breathing like a steam engine, and sent him downstairs to be given something hot to drink. Then I went to stir up the fire and open the shutters; I was going to need both heat and light.
Jamie lay flat on the bed, pale as wax, the stained compress pressed grimly to his chest. I put a hand on his and pried his stiff fingers loose. Seen in the watery daylight from our window, the wound looked nasty but not terribly serious. It hadn’t severed any tendons, nor had it gone entirely through the pectoralis, and I thought it had barely nicked his collarbone.
“It bounced off your sternum,” I told him, as I prodded gently here and there. “Otherwise, it would have cut down deep into your chest on this side.”
“Oh, good,” he murmured. His eyelids were closed tight, but I could see the eyes under them moving restlessly to and fro.
“All right.” I swabbed the area carefully with saline and fished a threaded silk suture out of the jar. “Do you want something to bite on while I stitch this, or would you rather tell me what the hell happened last night?”
He opened bloodshot eyes and considered me for a moment, then closed them again, and—muttering something in which I thought I distinguished the words “Spanish Inquisition …”—he clenched both fists in the bedclothes, took a deep breath, and relaxed as much as possible under the circumstances.
“Have ye got a piece of paper nearby, Sassenach?” he asked. I glanced at the bedside table, where I’d left my current journal—nothing in the way of Deep Thoughts or spiritual meditations; more a noting of the trivia of which days are composed: the small copper pot had been left on the fire too long and had a small hole melted in it; I must remember to send it to Salem to be mended when Bobby Higgins went there next week; Bluebell had eaten Something Awful and the hearth rug in the girls’ room should be boiled …