Under the Same Sky (13 page)

“Help them help them help them
,” he heard, as clearly as if she whispered in his ear.

Andrew woke, gasping, and leaped to his feet. The sudden movement woke Iain, who automatically reached for his dirk. Andrew looked around the yard beyond the house, confused and disoriented. His eyes lit on a pony, and he ran toward her.

“Come wi’ me,” Andrew called to Iain. “We must catch up to Hector.”

“What?” Iain exclaimed. “Why—”

“It’s about the children,” Andrew shouted over his shoulder as he reached the pony. “Hurry!”

Simon stared curiously as the other two sprinted past. Iain shrugged and hauled himself onto his pony.

“MacDonnell says we must go. Come on!”

Simon frowned, but mounted his own pony, nudging her into a gallop along the path.

An hour’s ride at Geoffrey’s and Hector’s comfortable gait meant Andrew and the other men could reach them in half of that. The voice in Andrew’s head still cried,
“The children, the children!”
and he pushed his labouring pony to her limit. The rain had stopped, but mud flew in wet slabs from the ponies’ hooves, slapping against trees as they passed. Iain called out from behind, protesting the pace, but Andrew kept moving, with Iain and Simon thundering behind him.

Then they heard them: sounds they knew intimately, which made Andrew’s stomach clench. The clashing of metal on metal. The grunts of men in the midst of battle.

The ponies streaked through the trees, slipping on the slick ground, recovering and still running. Andrew swiped a hand across his eyes to clear them of rainwater, and leaned lower over his pony’s neck.

Andrew, Iain, and Simon crashed through the brush, and a half-dozen red-coated soldiers swung around at the explosion of sound. The Scots leaped from their ponies and joined the fight.

Geoffrey was blood-smeared and labouring, defending himself with desperate swipes of his sword. He looked up with relief when the other men arrived, but lost his balance and slipped in the mud, giving his opponent an easy target. The soldier stepped toward Geoffrey’s prone body, sword ready to strike. Before he could attack, Andrew was at his friend’s side and, using both hands on the hilt for strength, swung his own sword across the soldier’s chest, slicing the army-issue shirt and the underlying skin to ribbons. The soldier’s sword dropped into the mud and the man collapsed to his knees, clutching at his chest with both hands. Blood squeezed through his fingers and ran down his wrists, staining the white cuffs of his sleeves. Then he fell forward and his face hit the earth with a dull thud.

Geoffrey, weakened by exertion and injuries, dragged himself to the edge of the conflict. Beside him, paralysed astride two nervous ponies, sat the children, staring slack-jawed at the scene before them.

Hector had lost his sword to an English strike and now clutched his dirk as a last resort. As sharp a blade as it was, a dirk lacked the reach of a sword. Its strength lay in close combat. Hector was quick, spinning and ducking, somehow avoiding the soldier until the light English sword finally sliced deep into Hector’s arm, just below his shoulder. Hector dropped to his knees, looking up as the soldier
stepped toward him with the heady confidence of certain victory. Before the soldier had an opportunity, Simon flung himself at the man, roaring in a voice that couldn’t quite disguise his youthful zeal. He stabbed his father’s attacker, yanked his sword from the body, and ran to Hector’s side.

Geoffrey had torn a strip of linen from his own shirt and tied it tightly around his father’s injured arm. The blood flow slowed, but the wound was deep. Hector laid his head on the ground and breathed through the pain while his son tended him.

Across the clearing, Iain took charge. The fury he had kept buried since Culloden ripped through him. He growled at the British soldiers, flexing his back and shoulders, readying his muscles. A huge sword swung from his right hand and a dirk from his left. Without a moment’s hesitation, he took on two soldiers at once. His sword caught one through the chest just before his dirk sliced through the other’s throat. Then he was beside Andrew, standing against the final two soldiers. The Scots finished the battle quickly, using their hatred as a weapon, sharper than any blade.

Iain stepped around the bodies of the slain soldiers, reaching the children in three long strides. He lifted the girl from the saddle, and her arms and legs wrapped around him as if she were a spider. The little boy took a gasping breath, and Andrew collected him against his chest. Tremors shook the little frame until they finally burst through in a flood of tears. He clung to Andrew’s neck with twig-like arms, and his tears soaked through Andrew’s shirt.

“Hush, laddie,” Andrew whispered. “Ye’ll be all right.”

The sound of crashing underbrush had them all suddenly alert and scanning the forest.

“There!”

Hector pointed at a flash of red tearing through the trees.

“I’ve got him,” Andrew said, untangling the tiny hands from around his neck.

He placed the boy, still heaving with sobs, on the grass beside Iain, then ran toward the sound. The bright red uniform betrayed the fleeing soldier, and Andrew threw himself into the brush, racing after him, oblivious to the branches that whipped at his face.

Andrew’s thoughts raced as quickly as his legs. The enemy soldiers had been on foot, not carrying much in the way of supplies. They had seemed well rested and their uniforms showed relatively little wear. That meant their camp was probably fairly close. If this one man escaped, he would head straight to the English camp, and the army would strike back at Andrew and his friends without mercy.

Andrew ran on, crushing roots under his feet, vaulting fallen trees. A branch caught his plaid and tore a jagged hole in the wool, but he kept running, catching himself when his foot slipped on a rock. The soldier had escaped into the trees long before the Scots spotted him, so there was a substantial distance between Andrew and his quarry. Andrew was already tired from the fight, his knees weak beneath him, but he couldn’t give up.

For a moment, Andrew lost sight of the man. It was as if the soldier had simply vanished. Then the
crack
of a musket ball blasted a tree beside Andrew, sending shards of bark flying in all directions and attuning him to the source. He locked on to the bloodred jacket and aimed directly for it. He cut the distance in half, in half again, until the man was only a few feet ahead.

The soldier looked back to see Andrew and panicked. He tripped on a tree root, landed hard on his chest, and skidded across a moss-covered rock. He rolled over, grabbing for the pistol at his belt, but Andrew was faster. He leaped onto his prey, banged the soldier’s head on the rock, then plunged his dirk through to the man’s heart.

When the soldier ceased moving, Andrew climbed off and rose
wearily to his feet. He stared at the body and wiped his bloodied blade on his plaid. Something like regret flitted through his mind at the sight of the corpse. He was so tired of fighting, and now he had killed again. Then he recalled Ciaran’s dead eyes. His mother’s empty skull. The weeks he had spent alone, searching for someone. Anyone. His regret at killing this one man was short-lived. Andrew left the body where it lay and, gasping for breath, walked back through the woods.

His friends had dragged the bodies under a concealing screen of shrubs by the time he returned to the clearing. They had collected weapons and provisions from the fallen soldiers and packed them securely onto the ponies. Geoffrey held the reins of Andrew’s pony, who stomped impatiently at a clump of damp, fallen leaves. Still breathing hard, Andrew nodded his thanks and swung up onto the animal’s back. He reached down and lifted the little boy from Geoffrey’s arms, letting the child’s simple presence ease the fury that still pulsed in his bloodied palms.

The men headed down the trail in single file, Hector and his sons first, Andrew and Iain in the back, holding the children. Iain sat astride a stocky black pony, plodding behind Andrew’s.

“MacDonnell.”

Andrew turned to face his friend, whose expression was guarded. A sleeping angel drooped against the big man’s chest, breathing noisily through her mouth, strands of copper hair hanging over her gaunt white cheeks.

“Aye?” Andrew asked.

He wants to know
, Andrew thought.
He wants to know how I knew to come here.
He could see Iain trying to summon his question, but he must have changed his mind. Instead, Iain nodded and passed Andrew the shadow of a smile.

PART 3: MAGGIE

Changed Existence

I pried my reluctant eyelids open and gazed at my surroundings, wondering if I were dreaming. An unfamiliar hum of voices bubbled around me, acquiring muted colours and taking on the shapes of women. If it was a dream, it was a good one. I blinked twice, proving to myself I was awake.

Most of our journey to this house was lost to memory. The Indian women had encouraged us to drink a strange-smelling tea, which calmed us. We lay on a travois the Indians had fashioned, then nestled into warm, creamy furs they tucked under our bodies. I was glad the tea muddled my thoughts. I couldn’t think clearly, and didn’t want to. I was beyond exhausted and needed peace. My visions had been absent throughout the rape. Without them I felt drained. The gentle jostling of the travois rocked me to sleep as we travelled.

*  *  *

I
had no idea how long the trip had taken, nor how long I slept once we’d arrived. Now I woke to a completely different world.

My bed was a layer of furs, pillowed over feathery boughs of hemlock and broomsage. The woven pine walls of the house were cushioned by tanned skins, the roof layered by bark and thatch. Shelves along the windowless walls were filled with baskets and utensils, and a small open fire provided light, dimly illuminating dried husks of corn that hung from the rafters over my head. It also kept the building warm. The heat was almost stifling under the furs. A woman sat near the hearth, constantly feeding small sticks to the fire. Thin curls of smoke wafted upward and drifted through a rectangular hole above our heads, entering the atmosphere and disappearing with the breeze.

Adelaide slept beside me, her breathing regular and steady, if a little louder than usual through her swollen features. Her bruises brought back the events of the past two days, and I struggled to blur the memories. I didn’t want to see, didn’t want to remember. I closed my eyes again and lay in silence, blending my breaths with the Indian women’s voices as they moved around the house.

But while I didn’t want to recall anything from before, I’d had enough sleep for now. The sounds around me were inviting, and I wanted to see more. I sat up slowly, moving through the ache of my battered muscles. The buffalo blanket slid from my shoulders, and I realised my clothing had been removed and replaced by soft buckskin. My body was entirely cleaned of blood and dirt.

A slender girl in a pale doeskin tunic walked toward me, and offered a clay cup filled with some kind of tea. I took it, smiling thanks. She squatted in front of me, nodding and making small gestures with her hands to encourage me to drink, ignoring the ends of her long black hair as they brushed the floor around her feet. I sipped experimentally at the hot liquid. It was slightly bitter, but her
smile helped me swallow. She stroked my hair, smoothing its brown tangles to mirror her own shining tresses. I smiled back but grimaced when my lip split with the effort. Without hesitation, she reached for a small bowl beside my bed and dipped in a graceful finger. She dabbed that same finger, topped with a brown tinged ointment, onto my lip and the pain was soothed immediately. I tried again, more successfully this time, to return her smile.

My expression encouraged her to open a one-sided conversation. I listened, but could make nothing of the strange syllables. That didn’t seem to matter to her. She chattered happily, her hands and eyes dancing as she spoke. She touched me occasionally, patting my arms with friendly reassurance. Eventually she stretched out her hand and helped me to my feet. My legs were stiff, but it felt good to stand again.

I looked down at Adelaide, still asleep beneath her coverings. I would let her sleep. She needed to heal. The girl seemed to read my thoughts. She gestured toward Adelaide and nodded. She led me toward the doorway, talking all the while, and drawing pictures in the air with her long fingers. I shuffled behind, reaching for the wall for balance. The hum of the girl’s words relaxed my mind into a familiar calm. I felt the energy of my dreams begin to flow again, tingling in my fingers, twinkling in my vision.

A large woman blocked the doorway to the outside. She was combing a nasty tangle out of a small boy’s hair, and he winced with every one of her strokes. My new friend said something and the woman grunted, shifting her massive body to the side to reveal the outdoors.

When the first shafts of light blazed into my eyes, I felt as if I’d been blinded. But it was more than the sudden shock of going from dark to light. In that moment, my world spun completely out of control. I stumbled forward and slumped in the doorway, hands
pressing against the sides of my head as image after image crashed through my mind. It wasn’t painful, but the confusion was overwhelming. My knees collapsed and I hit the ground hard. Instinct forced me to concentrate on breathing, circulating sanity through my brain. My new friend dropped to my side and took hold of my arms, helping me sit. Images stampeded past me, and I could see nothing else but them. In desperation, I seized one image and held on tight.