He stared at me, disbelief plain in his burning eyes.
“Yes, there are,” he said positively. “There have to be. I gotta get out of here!”
“Why?”
“Never you mind. I gotta go, and quick.” He swallowed, eyes darting around the kitchen, as though the gems might be sitting casually on the sideboard. “Where are they?”
A hideous crash from the surgery, followed by an outbreak of shouted curses, prevented any reply I might have made. I moved by reflex toward the door, but Donner moved in front of me.
I was infuriated at this invasion, and beginning to be alarmed. While I’d never seen any indication of violence from Donner, I wasn’t so sure about the men he’d brought with him. They might eventually give up and leave, when it became apparent that there were in fact no gems on the premises—or they might try to beat the location of said gems out of me.
I pulled my cloak more tightly around myself and sat down on a bench, trying to think calmly.
“Look,” I said to Donner. “You’ve taken the house apart—” A crash from upstairs shook the house, and I jumped. My God, it sounded as though they’d tipped over the wardrobe. “You’ve taken the house apart,” I repeated, through gritted teeth, “and you haven’t found anything. Wouldn’t I give them to you, if I had any, to save you wrecking the place?”
“No, I don’t reckon you would. I wouldn’t, if I was you.” He rubbed a hand across his mouth. “You know what’s going on—the war and all.” He shook his head in confusion. “I didn’t know it would be this way. Swear to God, half the people I meet don’t know which way is up anymore. I thought it’d be like, you know, redcoats and all, and you just keep away from anybody in a uniform, keep away from the battles, and it’d be fine. But I haven’t seen a redcoat anywhere, and people—you know, just plain old people—they’re shooting each other and running around burning up each other’s houses. . . .”
He closed his eyes for a minute. His cheeks went from red one moment to white the next; I could see he was very ill. I could hear him, too; the breath rattled wetly in his chest, and he wheezed faintly. If he fainted, how would I get rid of his companions?
“Anyway,” he said, opening his eyes. “I’m going. Going back. I don’t care what things are like then; it’s a hell of a lot better’n here.”
“What about the Indians?” I inquired, with no more than a touch of sarcasm. “Leaving them to their own devices, are you?”
“Yeah,” he said, missing the sarcasm. “Tell you the truth, I’m not so keen on Indians anymore, either.” He rubbed absently at his upper chest, and I saw a large, puckered scar through a rent in his shirt.
“Man,” he said, longing clear in his voice, “what I wouldn’t give for a cold Bud and a baseball game on TV.” Then his wandering attention snapped back to me. “So,” he said in a halfway reasonable tone, “I need those diamonds. Or whatever. Hand ’em over and we’ll leave.”
I had been turning over various schemes for getting rid of them, to no particular avail, and was getting more uneasy by the moment. We had very little worth stealing, and from the looks of the rifled sideboard, they’d already got what there was—including, I realized, with a fresh stab of alarm, the pistols and powder. Before too much longer, they’d grow impatient.
Someone might come—Amy and the boys were likely at Brianna’s cabin, which they were in process of moving into; they could come back at any moment. Someone could come looking for Jamie or myself—though the chances of that receded by the moment, with the dying light. Even if someone did, though, the effect was likely to be disastrous.
Then I heard voices on the front porch, and the stamping of feet, and leapt to my own feet, my heart in my mouth.
“Would you quit doin’ that?” Donner said irritably. “You’re the jumpiest twat I ever saw.”
I ignored him, having recognized one of the voices. Sure enough, in the next moment, two of the thugs, brandishing pistols, shoved Jamie into the kitchen.
He was wary and disheveled, but his eyes went immediately to me, running up and down my body to assure himself that I was all right.
“I’m fine,” I said briefly. “These idiots think we have gemstones, and they want them.”
“So they said.” He straightened himself, shrugging to settle the coat on his shoulders, and glanced at the cupboards, hanging open, and the despoiled sideboard. Even the pie hutch had been overturned, and the remains of a raisin pie lay squashed on the floor, marked with a large heelprint. “I gather they’ve looked.”
“Look, mate,” said one of the thugs, reasonably, “all we want’s the swag. Just tell us where it is, and we go, no ’arm done, eh?”
Jamie rubbed the bridge of his nose, eyeing the man who’d spoken.
“I imagine my wife has told ye that we have no gems?”
“Well, she would, wouldn’t she?” the thug said tolerantly. “Women, you know.” He seemed to feel that now Jamie had showed up, they could get on with things in a more businesslike fashion, man-to-man.
Jamie sighed and sat down.
“Why d’ye think I’ve got any?” he inquired, rather mildly. “I have had, I admit—but no longer. They’ve been sold.”
“Where’s the money, then?” The second thug was obviously quite willing to settle for that, no matter what Donner thought.
“Spent,” Jamie said briefly. “I’m a colonel of militia—surely ye ken that much? It’s an expensive business, provisioning a militia company. Food, guns, powder, shoes—it adds up, aye? Why, the cost in shoe leather alone—and then, to say nothing of shoon for the horses! Wagons, too; ye wouldna believe the scandalous cost of wagons. . . .”
One of the thugs was frowning, but half-nodding, following this reasonable exegesis. Donner and his other companion were noticeably agitated, though.
“Shut up about the damn wagons,” Donner said rudely, and bending, he snatched up one of Mrs. Bug’s butcher knives from the floor. “Now, look,” he said, scowling and trying to look menacing. “I’ve had it with the stalling around. You tell me where they are, or—or I’ll—I’ll cut her! Yeah, I’ll cut her throat. Swear I will.” With this, he clutched me by the shoulder and put the knife to my throat.
It had become clear to me some little time ago that Jamie was stalling for time, which meant that he expected something to happen. Which in turn meant he was expecting someone to come. That was reassuring, but I did think the apparent nonchalance of his demeanor in the face of my theoretically impending demise was perhaps carrying things a trifle too far.
“Oh,” he said, scratching at the side of his neck. “Well, I wouldna do that, if I were you. She’s the one who kens where the gems are, aye?”
“I what?” I cried indignantly.
“She is?” One of the other thugs brightened at that.
“Oh, aye,” Jamie assured him. “Last time I went out wi’ the militia, she hid them. Wouldna tell me where she’d put them.”
“Wait—I thought you said you sold ’em and spent the money,” Donner said, plainly confused.
“I was lying,” Jamie explained, patient.
“Oh.”
“But if ye’re going to kill my wife, well, then, of course that alters the case.”
“Oh,” said Donner, looking somewhat happier. “Yeah. Exactly!”
“I believe we havena been introduced, sir,” Jamie said politely, extending a hand. “I am James Fraser. And you are . . . ?”
Donner hesitated for a minute, unsure what to do with the knife in his right hand, but then shifted it awkwardly to his left and leaned forward to shake Jamie’s hand briefly.
“Wendigo Donner,” he said. “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.”
I made a rude noise, but it was drowned by a series of crashes and the sound of breaking glass from the surgery. The lout in there must be clearing the shelves wholesale, flinging bottles and jars on the floor. I grasped Donner’s hand and pulled the knife away from my throat, then sprang to my feet, in much the same state of insane fury in which I had once torched a field full of grasshoppers.
This time, it was Jamie who seized me around the middle as I darted toward the door, swinging me half off my feet.
“Let go! I’ll frigging kill him!” I said, kicking madly.
“Well, wait just a bit about that, Sassenach,” he said, low-voiced, and lugged me back to the table, where he sat down with his arms wrapped around me, holding me firmly pinned on his lap. Further sounds of depredation came down the hall—the splintering of wood and crunch of glass under a bootheel. Evidently, the young lout had given up searching for anything and was simply destroying for the fun of it.
I took a deep breath, preparatory to emitting a scream of frustration, but stopped.
“Jeez,” Donner said, wrinkling his nose. “What’s that smell? Somebody cut one?” He looked accusingly at me, but I paid no attention. It was ether, heavy and sickly sweet.
Jamie stiffened slightly. He knew what it was, too, and essentially what it did.
Then he took a deep breath and carefully moved me off his lap, setting me on the bench beside him. I saw his eyes go to the knife sagging in Donner’s hand, and heard what his keener ears had already picked up. Someone was coming.
He moved a little forward, getting his feet under him to spring, and flicked his eyes toward the cold hearth, where a heavy Dutch oven was sitting in the ashes. I nodded, very briefly, and as the back door opened, made a lunge across the kitchen.
Donner, with unexpected swiftness, stuck out a leg and tripped me. I fell headlong and slid, fetching up against the settle with a head-ringing thump. I groaned and lay still for a few moments, eyes closed, feeling all at once that I was much too old for this sort of carry-on. I opened my eyes reluctantly, and very stiffly got to my feet, to find the kitchen now full of people.
Donner’s original sidekick had returned with two others, presumably Richie and Jed, and with them, the Bugs, Murdina looking alarmed, and Arch, coldly furious.
“A leannan!” Mrs. Bug cried, rushing toward me. “Are ye hurt, then?”
“No, no,” I said, still rather dazed. “Just let me . . . sit down for a moment.” I looked at Donner, but he no longer held his knife. He had been frowning at the floor—evidently he had dropped it when he tripped me—but his head jerked up at sight of the newcomers.
“What? Did you find anything?” he asked eagerly, for both Richie and Jed were beaming with self-importance.
“Sure did,” one of them assured him. “Looka here!” He was holding Mrs. Bug’s workbag, and at this, he upended it and shook the contents out onto the table, where a mass of woolly knitting landed with a massive thunk! Eager hands pawed the wool away, revealing an eight-inch-long ingot of gold, the metal shaved away at one end, and stamped in the center with the royal French fleur-de-lis.