"Ith it over?" The question was asked softly, barely audible above the quiet grunting and bleating.

"Yes." I hesitated, but she seemed in no need of my support; I could see better now-she had a small kid curled in her lap, her fingers stroking the small, silky head. "Are you quite all right, Mrs. Beardsley?"

Silence, then the heavy figure shrugged and settled, some tension seeming to leave her.

"I thcarthely know," she said softly. I waited, but she neither moved nor spoke further. The peaceful company of the goats seemed as likely as mine to be a comfort to her, so I turned and left them, rather envying her the warm refuge of the barn and her cheerful companions.

We had left the horses in the dooryard, still saddled, tethered to an alder sapling. Jamie had loosened their girths and removed their saddlebags when he went to fetch my medicine box, but had not taken the time to unsaddle them. I did that now; plainly it would be some time yet before we could leave. I took off the bridles as well, and hobbled them, turning them loose to graze on the winter-brown grass that still grew thickly at the edge of the pines.

There was a hollowed half-log on the western side of the house, plainly meant to serve as a horse trough, but it was empty. Welcoming the chore for the delay it allowed me, I raised water from the well and emptied bucket after bucket into the trough.

Wiping my wet hands on my skirt, I looked round for further useful occupation, but there wasn't any. No choice, then. I braced myself, poured more water into the bucket, dropped in the hollow drinking gourd that stood on the edge of the well, and carried it back around the house, concentrating fiercely on not spilling any, in order to avoid thinking about the prospects within.

When I raised my eyes, I was startled to see that the back door stood open. I was sure it had been closed before. Was Jamie inside? Or Mrs. Beardsley?

Keeping a wary distance, I craned my neck to peep into the kitchen, but as I sidled closer, I heard the steady chuff chuff of a spade shifting dirt. I went around the far corner to find Jamie digging near a mountain-ash tree that stood by itself in the yard, a short distance from the house. He was still in shirtsleeves, and the wind blew the stained white linen against his body, ruffling the red hair over his face. of a spade shifting dirt. I went around the far corner to find Jamie digging near a mountain-ash tree that stood by itself in the yard, a short distance from the house. He was still in shirtsleeves, and the wind blew the stained white linen against his body, ruffling the red hair over his face.

He brushed it back with one wrist, and I saw with a small sense of shock that he was crying. He wept silently and somehow savagely, attacking the soil as though it were an enemy. He caught my movement from a corner of his eye, and stopped, swiping a blood-smeared shirtsleeve quickly across his face, as though to wipe away sweat from his brow.

He was breathing hoarsely, loud enough to hear from a distance. I came silently and offered him the gourd of water, along with a clean handkerchief. He didn't meet my eyes, but drank, coughed, drank again, handed back the gourd, and blew his nose, gingerly. It was swollen, but no longer bleeding.

"We won't sleep here tonight, will we?" I ventured to ask, seating myself on the chopping block that stood under the ash tree.

He shook his head.

"God, no," he said hoarsely. His face was blotched and his eyes bloodshot, but he had firm hold of himself. "We'll see him decently buried and go. I dinna mind if we sleep cold in the wood again-but not here." I agreed wholeheartedly with that notion, but there was one thing more to be considered.

"And ... her?" I asked delicately. "Is she in the house? The back door is open."

He grunted, and thrust in his shovel.

"No, that was me. I'd forgot to leave it open when I came out before-to let the soul go free," he explained, seeing my upraised eyebrow.

It was the complete matter-of-factness with which he offered this explanation, rather than the fact that it echoed my own earlier notion, that made the hairs prickle along my neck.

"I see," I said, a little faintly.

Jamie dug steadily for a bit, the shovel biting deep into the dirt. It was loamy soil and leaf mold here; the digging was easy. At last, without breaking the swing of the blade, he said, "Brianna told me a story she'd read once. I dinna recall all about it, quite, but there was a murder done, only the person killed was a wicked man, who had driven someone to it. And at the end, when the teller of the tale was asked what should be done, he said, 'Let pass the justice of God.'"

I nodded. I was in agreement, though it seemed a trifle hard on the person who found himself required to be the instrument of such justice.

"Do you suppose that's what it was, in this case? Justice?"

He shook his head; not in negation, but in puzzlement, and went on digging. I watched him for a bit, soothed by his nearness and by the hypnotic rhythm of his movements. After a bit, though, I stirred, steeling myself to face the task awaiting me.

"I suppose I'd best go and lay out the body and clear up the loft," I said reluctantly, drawing my feet under me to rise. "We can't leave that poor woman alone with such a mess, no matter what she did."

"No, wait, Sassenach," Jamie said, pausing in his digging. He glanced at the house, a little warily. "I'll go in with ye, in a bit. For now"-he nodded toward the edge of the wood-"d'ye think ye could fetch a few stones for the cairn?"

A cairn? I was more than slightly surprised at this; it seemed an unnecessary elaboration for the late Mr. Beardsley. Still, there were undoubtedly wolves in the wood; I'd seen scats on the trail two days before. It also occurred to me that Jamie might be contriving an honorable excuse for me to postpone entering the house again-in which case, hauling rocks seemed a thoroughly desirable alternative.

Fortunately, there was no shortage of suitable rocks. I fetched the heavy canvas apron that I wore for surgery from my saddlebag, and began to trundle to and fro, an ant collecting laborious crumbs. After half an hour or so of this, the thought of entering the house had begun to seem much less objectionable. Jamie was still hard at it, though, so I kept on.

I stopped finally, gasping, and dumped yet another load out of my apron onto the ground by the deepening grave. The shadows were falling long across the dooryard, and the air was cold enough that my fingers had gone numb-a good thing, in view of the various scrapes and nicks on them.

"You look a right mess," I observed, shoving a disheveled mass of hair off my own face. "Has Mrs. Beardsley come out yet?"

He shook his head, but took a moment to get his breath back before replying.

"No," he said, in a voice so hoarse I could scarcely hear him. "She's still wi' the goats. I daresay it's warm in there."

I eyed him uneasily. Grave-digging is hard work; his shirt was clinging to his body, soaked through in spite of the coldness of the day, and his face was flushed-with labor, I hoped, rather than fever. His fingers were white and as stiff as mine, though; it took a visible effort for him to uncurl them from the handle of the shovel.

"Surely that's deep enough," I said, surveying his work. I would myself have settled for the shallowest of gouges in the soft earth, but slipshod work was never Jamie's way. "Do stop, Jamie, and change your shirt at once. You're wringing wet; you'll catch a terrible chill."

He didn't bother arguing, but took up the spade and carefully neatened the corners of the hole, shaping the sides to keep them from crumbling inward.

The shadows under the pine trees were growing thick, and the chickens had all gone to roost, feathery blobs perched in the trees like bunches of brown mistletoe. The forest birds had fallen silent, too, and the shadow of the house fell long and cold across the new grave. I hugged my elbows, and shivered at the quiet.

Jamie tossed the shovel onto the ground with a clunk, startling me. He climbed up out of the hole, and stood still for a minute, eyes closed, swaying with weariness. Then he opened his eyes and smiled tiredly at me.

"Let's finish, then," he said.

WHETHER THE OPEN DOOR had indeed allowed the deceased's spirit to flee, or whether it was only that Jamie was with me, I felt no hesitation in entering the house now. The fire had gone out, and the kitchen was cold and dim, yet there was no sense of anything evil within. It was simply ... empty.

Mr. Beardsley's mortal remains rested peacefully under one of his own trade blankets, mute and still. Empty, too.

Mrs. Beardsley had declined to assist with the formalities-or even to enter the house, so long as her husband's body remained inside-so I swept the hearth, kindled a new fire, and coaxed it into reluctant life, while Jamie took care of the mess in the loft. By the time he came down again, I had turned to the main business at hand.

Dead, Beardsley seemed much less grotesque than he had in life; the twisted limbs were relaxed, the air of frantic struggle gone. Jamie had placed a linen towel over the head, though when I peeked beneath it, I could see that there was no gory mess to deal with; Jamie had shot him cleanly through the blind eye, and the ball had not burst the skull. The good eye was closed now, the blackened wound left staring. I laid the towel gently back over the face, its symmetry restored in death.

Jamie climbed down the ladder, and came quietly to stand behind me, touching my shoulder briefly.

"Go and wash," I said, gesturing behind me to the small kettle of water I had hung over the fire to heat. "I'll manage here."

He nodded, stripped off his sodden, filthy shirt, and dropped it on the hearth. I listened to the small, homely noises he made as he washed. He coughed now and then, but his breathing sounded somewhat easier than it had outside in the cold.

"I didna ken it might be that way," he said from behind me. "I thought an apoplexy would kill a man outright."

"Sometimes that's so," I said, a little absently, frowning as I concentrated on the job at hand. "Most often that's the way of it, in fact."

"Aye? I never thought to ask Dougal, or Rupert. Or Jenny. Whether my father-" The sentence stopped abruptly, as though he had swallowed it.

Ah. I felt a small jolt of realization in my solar plexus. So that was it. I hadn't remembered, but he had told me of it, years before, soon after we were married. His father had seen Jamie flogged at Fort William, and under the shock of it, had suffered an apoplexy and died. Jamie, wounded and ill, had been spirited away from the Fort and gone into exile. He had not been told of his father's death until weeks later-had no chance of farewell, had been able neither to bury his father nor honor his grave.

"Jenny would have known," I said gently. "She would have told you, if ..." If Brian Fraser had suffered a death of such lingering ignominy as this, dwindled and shrunken, powerless before the eyes of the family he had striven to protect.

Would she? If she had nursed her father through incontinence and helplessness? If she had waited days or weeks, suddenly bereft of both father and brother, left alone to stare death in the face as it approached, moment by slow moment ... and yet Jenny Fraser was a very strong woman, who had loved her brother dearly. Perhaps she would have sought to shield him, both from guilt and from knowledge.

I turned to face him. He was half-naked, but clean now, with a fresh shirt from his saddlebag in his hands. He was looking at me, but I saw his eyes slip beyond me, to fasten on the corpse with a troubled fascination.

"She would have told you," I repeated, striving to infuse my voice with certainty.

Jamie drew a deep, painful breath.

"Perhaps."

"She would," I said more firmly.

He nodded, drew another deep breath, and let it out, more easily. I realized that the house was not the only thing haunted by Beardsley's death. Jenny held the key of the only door that could be opened for Jamie, though.

I understood now why he had wept, and had taken such care with the digging of the grave. Not from either shock or charity, let alone from regard for the dead man-but for the sake of Brian Fraser; the father he had neither buried nor mourned.

I turned back and drew the edges of the blanket up, folded them snugly over the cleaned and decent remains, and tied it with twine at head and feet, making a tidy, anonymous package. Jamie was forty-nine; the same age at which his father had died. I stole a quick glance at him, as he finished dressing. If his father had been such a one as he was ... I felt a sudden pang of sorrow, for the loss of so much. For strength cut off and love snuffed out, for the loss of a man I knew had been great, only from the reflection I saw of him in his son.

Dressed, Jamie circled round the table to help me lift the body. Instead of putting his hands under it, though, he reached across and took my hands in both of his.

"Swear to me, Claire," he said. His voice was nearly gone with hoarseness; I had to lean close to hear it. "If it should one day fall to my lot as it did to my father ... then swear ye will give me the same mercy I gave this wretched bugger here."

There were fresh blisters on his palms from the digging; I felt the strange softness of them, fluid-filled and shifting as he gripped my hands.

"I'll do what must be done," I whispered back, at last. "Just as you did." I squeezed his hands and let them go. "Come now and help me bury him. It's over."

28

BROWNSVILLE

IT WAS MID-AFTERNOON before Roger, Fergus, and the militia reached Brownsville, having missed their road and wandered in the hills for several hours before meeting two Cherokee who pointed the way.

Brownsville was half a dozen ramshackle huts, strewn among the dying brush of a hillside like a handful of rubbish tossed into the weeds. Near the road-if the narrow rut of churned black mud could be dignified by such a word-two cabins leaned tipsily on either side of a slightly larger and more solid-looking building, like drunkards leaning cozily on a sober companion. Rather ironically, this larger building seemed to operate as Brownsville's general store and taproom, judging from the barrels of beer and powder and the stacks of drenched hides that stood in the muddy yard beside it-though to apply either term to it was granting that more dignity than it deserved, too, Roger thought.

Still, it was plainly the place to start-if only for the sake of the men with him, who had begun to vibrate like iron filings near a magnet at sight of the barrels; the yeasty scent of beer floated out like a welcome. He wouldn't say no to a pint, either, he thought, waving a hand to signal a halt. It was a numbingly cold day, and a long time since this morning's breakfast. They weren't likely to get anything beyond bread or stew here, but as long as it was hot and washed down with some sort of alcohol, no one would complain.

He slid off his horse, and had just turned to call to the others when a hand clutched his arm.

"Attendez." Fergus spoke softly, barely moving his lips. He was standing beside Roger, looking at something beyond him. "Do not move." Fergus spoke softly, barely moving his lips. He was standing beside Roger, looking at something beyond him. "Do not move."

Roger didn't, nor did any of the men still on their horses. Whatever Fergus saw, so did they.

"What is it?" Roger asked, keeping his voice low, too.

"Someone-two someones-are pointing guns at us, through the window."

"Ah." Roger noted Jamie's good sense in not riding into Brownsville after dark the night before. Evidently, he knew something about the suspicious nature of remote places.

Moving very slowly, he raised both his hands into the air, and jerked his chin at Fergus, who reluctantly did the same, his hook gleaming in the afternoon sun. Still keeping his hands up, Roger turned very slowly. Even knowing what to expect, he felt his stomach contract at sight of the two long, gleaming barrels protruding from behind the oiled deerskin that covered the window.

"Hallo the house!" he shouted, with as much authority as could be managed with his hands over his head. "I am Captain Roger MacKenzie, in command of a militia company under Colonel James Fraser, of Fraser's Ridge!"

The only effect of this intelligence was to cause one gun barrel to swivel, centering on Roger, so that he could look straight down the small, dark circle of its muzzle. The unwelcome prospect did, though, cause him to realize that the other gun had not been trained on him to start with. It had been, and remained, pointing steadily over his right shoulder, toward the cluster of men who still sat their horses behind him, shifting in their saddles and murmuring uneasily.

Great. Now what? The men were waiting for him to do something something. Moving slowly, he lowered his hands. He was drawing breath to shout again, but before he could speak, a hoarse voice rang out from behind the deerskin.

"I see you, Morton, you bastard!"

This imprecation was accompanied by a significant jerk of the first gun barrel, which turned abruptly from Roger to focus on the same target as the second-presumably Isaiah Morton, one of the militiamen from Granite Falls.

There was a scuffling noise among the mounted men, startled shouts, and then all hell broke loose as both guns went off. Horses reared and bolted, men bellowed and swore, and drifts of acrid white smoke fumed from the window.

Roger had thrown himself flat at the first explosion. As the echoes died away, though, he scrambled up as though by reflex, flung mud out of his eyes, and charged the door, headfirst. To his detached surprise, his mind was working very clearly. Brianna took twenty seconds to load and prime a gun, and he doubted that these buggers were much faster. He thought he had just about ten seconds' grace left, and he meant to use them.

He hit the door with his shoulder, and it flew inward, smashing against the wall inside and causing Roger to rush staggering into the room and crash into the wall on the opposite side. He struck his shoulder a numbing blow on the chimney piece, bounced off, and managed somehow to keep his feet, stumbling like a drunkard.

Several people in the room had turned to gape at him. His vision cleared enough to see that only two of them were in fact holding guns. He took a deep breath, lunged for the nearest of these, a scrawny man with a straggling beard, and seized him by the shirtfront, in imitation of a particularly fearsome third-form master at Roger's grammar school.

"What do you think you are doing, you wee wee man, you!?" he roared, jerking the man up onto his toes. Mr. Sanderson would have been pleased, he supposed, at the thought that his example had been so memorable. Effective, too; while the scrawny man in Roger's grip did not either wet himself or snivel, as the first-form students occasionally had under such treatment, he did make small gobbling sounds, pawing ineffectually at Roger's hand clutching his shirt. man, you!?" he roared, jerking the man up onto his toes. Mr. Sanderson would have been pleased, he supposed, at the thought that his example had been so memorable. Effective, too; while the scrawny man in Roger's grip did not either wet himself or snivel, as the first-form students occasionally had under such treatment, he did make small gobbling sounds, pawing ineffectually at Roger's hand clutching his shirt.

"You, sir! Leave hold of my brother!" Roger's victim had dropped both his gun and powder horn when seized, spilling black powder all over the floor. The other gunman had succeeded in reloading his weapon, though, and was now endeavoring to bring it to bear on Roger. He was somewhat impeded in this attempt by the three women in the room, two of whom were blethering and pulling at his gun, getting in his way. The third had flung her apron over her head and was uttering loud, rhythmic shrieks of hysteria.

At this point, Fergus strolled into the house, an enormous horse pistol in his hand. He pointed this negligently at the man with the gun.

"Be so kind as to put that down, if you will," he said, raising his voice to be heard above the racket. "And perhaps, madame, you could pour some water upon this young woman? Or slap her briskly?" He gestured toward the screaming woman with his hook, wincing slightly at the noise.

Moving as though hypnotized, one of the women went slowly toward the screeching girl, shook her roughly by the shoulder, and began to murmur in the girl's ear, not taking her eyes off Fergus. The shrieking stopped, replaced by irregular gulps and sobs.

Roger felt an immense relief. Sheer rage, simple panic, and the absolute necessity of doing something something had got him this far, but he would freely admit that he had not the slightest idea what to do next. He took a deep breath, feeling his legs begin to tremble, and slowly lowered his victim, releasing his grip with an awkward nod. The man took several fast steps backward, then stood brushing at the creases in his shirt, narrowed eyes fixed on Roger in resentment. had got him this far, but he would freely admit that he had not the slightest idea what to do next. He took a deep breath, feeling his legs begin to tremble, and slowly lowered his victim, releasing his grip with an awkward nod. The man took several fast steps backward, then stood brushing at the creases in his shirt, narrowed eyes fixed on Roger in resentment.

"And who in blazes are you you?" The second man, who had indeed put his weapon down, looked at Fergus in confusion.

The Frenchman waved his hook-which, Roger noticed, seemed to fascinate the women-in a gesture of dismissal.

"That is of no importance," he said grandly, lifting his aristocratically prominent nose another inch. "I require-that is, we we require"-he amended, with a polite nod toward Roger-"to know who require"-he amended, with a polite nod toward Roger-"to know who you you are." are."

The inhabitants of the cabin all exchanged confused looks, as though wondering who they might in fact be. After a moment's hesitation, though, the larger of the two men thrust out his chin pugnaciously.

"My name is Brown, sir. Richard Brown. This is my brother, Lionel, my wife, Meg, my brother's daughter, Alicia"-that appeared to be the girl in the apron, who had now removed the garment from her head and stood tearstained and gulping-"and my sister, Thomasina."