Lawrence was sheltering under a dripping palm near the cave’s entrance. When he saw us, he sprang to his feet, a look of relief relaxing the creases of his face.
“It is all right?” he said, looking from me to a blood-stained Jamie.
Jamie gave him half a smile, nodding.
“It is all right,” he said. He turned and motioned to Ian. “May I present my nephew, Ian Murray? Ian, this is Dr. Stern, who’s been of great assistance to us in looking for ye.”
“I’m much obliged to ye, Doctor,” Ian said, with a bob of his head. He wiped a sleeve across his streaked face, and glanced at Jamie.
“I knew ye’d come, Uncle Jamie,” he said, with a tremulous smile, “but ye left it a bit late, aye?” The smile widened, then broke, and he began to tremble. He blinked hard, fighting back tears.
“I did then, and I’m sorry, Ian. Come here, a bhalaich.” Jamie reached out and took him in a close embrace, patting his back and murmuring to him in Gaelic.
I watched for a moment, before I realized that Lawrence was speaking to me.
“Are you quite well, Mrs. Fraser?” he was asking. Without waiting for an answer, he took my arm.
“I don’t quite know.” I felt completely empty. Exhausted as though by childbirth, but without the exultation of spirit. Nothing seemed quite real; Jamie, Ian, Lawrence, all seemed like toy figures that moved and talked at a distance, making noises that I had to strain to understand.
“I think perhaps we should leave this place,” Lawrence said, with a glance at the cave mouth from which we had just emerged. He looked slightly uneasy. He didn’t ask about Mrs. Abernathy.
“I think you are right.” The picture of the cave we had left was vivid in my mind—but just as unreal as the vivid green jungle and gray stones around us. Not waiting for the men to follow, I turned and walked away.
The feeling of remoteness increased as we walked. I felt like an automaton, built around an iron core, walking by clockwork. I followed Jamie’s broad back through branches and clearings, shadow and sun, not noticing where we were going. Sweat ran down my sides and into my eyes, but I barely stirred to wipe it away. At length, toward sunset, we stopped in a small clearing near a stream, and made our primitive camp.
I had already discovered that Lawrence was a most useful person to have along on a camping trip. He was not only as good at finding or building shelter as was Jamie, but was sufficiently familiar with the flora and fauna of the area to be able to plunge into the jungle and return within half an hour bearing handfuls of edible roots, fungi, and fruit with which to augment the Spartan rations in our packs.
Ian was set to gather firewood while Lawrence foraged, and I sat Jamie down with a pan of water, to tend the damage to his head. I washed away the blood from face and hair, to find to my surprise that the ball had in fact not plowed a furrow through his scalp as I had thought. Instead, it had pierced the skin just above his hairline and—evidently—vanished into his head. There was no sign of an exit wound. Unnerved by this, I prodded his scalp with increasing agitation, until a sudden cry from the patient announced that I had discovered the bullet.
There was a large, tender lump on the back of his head. The pistol ball had traveled under the skin, skimming the curve of his skull, and come to rest just over his occiput.
“Jesus H. Christ!” I exclaimed. I felt it again, unbelieving, but there it was. “You always said your head was solid bone, and I’ll be damned if you weren’t right. She shot you point-blank, and the bloody ball bounced off your skull!”
Jamie, supporting his head in his hands as I examined him, made a sound somewhere between a snort and a groan.
“Aye, well,” he said, his voice somewhat muffled in his hands, “I’ll no say I’m not thick-heided, but if Mistress Abernathy had used a full charge of powder, it wouldna have been nearly thick enough.”
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“Not the wound, no, though it’s sore. I’ve a terrible headache, though.”
“I shouldn’t wonder. Hold on a bit; I’m going to take the ball out.”
Not knowing in what condition we might find Ian, I had brought the smallest of my medical boxes, which fortunately contained a bottle of alcohol and a small scalpel. I shaved away a little of Jamie’s abundant mane, just below the swelling, and soused the area with alcohol for disinfection. My fingers were chilled from the alcohol, but his head was warm and comfortingly live to the touch.
“Three deep breaths and hold on tight,” I murmured. “I’m going to cut you, but it will be fast.”
“All right.” The back of his neck looked a little pale, but the pulse was steady. He obligingly drew in his breath deeply, and exhaled, sighing. I held the area of scalp taut between the index and third fingers of my left hand. On the third breath, I said, “Right now,” and drew the blade hard and quick across the scalp. He grunted slightly, but didn’t cry out. I pressed gently with my right thumb against the swelling, slightly harder—and the ball popped out of the incision I had made, falling into my left hand like a grape.
“Got it,” I said, and only then realized that I had been holding my breath. I dropped the little pellet—somewhat flattened by its contact with his skull—into his hand, and smiled, a little shakily. “Souvenir,” I said. I pressed a pad of cloth against the small wound, wound a strip of cloth round his head to hold it, and then quite suddenly, with no warning whatever, began to cry.
I could feel the tears rolling down my face, and my shoulders shaking, but I felt still detached; somehow outside my body. I was conscious mostly of a mild amazement.
“Sassenach? Are ye all right?” Jamie was peering up at me, eyes worried under the rakish bandage.
“Yes,” I said, stuttering from the force of my crying. “I d-don’t k-know why I’m c-crying. I d-don’t know!”
“Come here.” He took my hand and drew me down onto his knee. He wrapped his arms around me and held me tight, resting his cheek on the top of my head.
“It will be all right,” he whispered. “It’s fine now, mo chridhe, it’s fine.” He rocked me gently, one hand stroking my hair and neck, and murmured small unimportant things in my ear. Just as suddenly as I had been detached, I was back inside my body, warm and shaking, feeling the iron core dissolve in my tears.
Gradually I stopped weeping, and lay still against his chest, hiccuping now and then, feeling nothing but peace and the comfort of his presence.
I was dimly aware that Lawrence and Ian had returned, but paid no attention to them. At one point, I heard Ian say, with more curiosity than alarm, “You’re bleeding all down the back of your neck, Uncle Jamie.”
“Perhaps you’ll fix me a new bandage, then, Ian,” Jamie said. His voice was soft and unconcerned. “I must just hold your auntie now.” And sometime later I went to sleep, still held tight in the circle of his arms.
* * *
I woke up later, curled on a blanket next to Jamie. He was leaning against a tree, one hand resting on my shoulder. He felt me wake, and squeezed gently. It was dark, and I could hear a rhythmic snoring somewhere close at hand. It must be Lawrence, I thought drowsily, for I could hear Young Ian’s voice, on the other side of Jamie.