Excerpt from An Echo in the Bone

I put by the letter. Time enough to finish it later, I thought. I'd been working on it as time allowed over the last few days; not as though there was any rush to catch the outgoing mail, after all. I smiled a little at that, and folded the sheets carefully, putting them in my new workbag for safe-keeping. I wiped the quill and put it by, then rubbed my aching fingers, savoring for a little longer the sweet sense of connection the writing gave me. I could write much more easily than Jamie could, but flesh and blood had its limits, and it had been a very long day.

I looked over at the pallet on the far side of the fire, as I had been doing every few minutes, but she was still quiet. I could hear her breath, a wheezing gurgle that came at intervals so long that I could swear she had died between each one. She hadn't, though, and from my estimation, wouldn't for awhile. I was hoping that she would, before my limited supply of laudanum gave out.

I didn't know how old she was; she looked a hundred or so, but might be younger than I. Her two grandsons, boys in their teens, had brought her in two days before. They had been traveling down from the mountains, meaning to take their grandmother to relatives in Fayetteville [ck. for better] before heading to Wilmington to join the militia there, but the grandmother had "been took bad," as they put it, and someone had told them there was a conjure-woman on the Ridge nearby. So they had brought her to me.

Grannie MacLeod--I had no other name for her; the boys had not thought to tell me before departing, and she was in no condition to do so herself--almost certainly was in the terminal stages of a cancer of some kind. Her flesh had wasted, her face pinched with pain even while unconscious, and I could see it in the grayness of her skin.

The fire was burning low; I should stir it, and add another stick of pine. Jamie's head was resting against my knee, though, Could I reach the woodpile without disturbing him? I put a light hand on his shoulder for balance and stretched, just getting my fingers on the end of a small log. I wiggled this gently free, teeth set in my lower lip, and managed by leaning to poke it into the hearth, breaking up the drifts of red-black embers and raising clouds of sparks.

Jamie stirred under my hand and murmured something unintelligible, but when I thrust the log into the freshened fire and sat back in my chair, he sighed, resettled himself, and fell back into sleep.

I glanced at the door, listening, but heard nothing save the rustle of trees in the wind. Of course, I thought, I would hear nothing, given that it was Young Ian I was waiting for.

He and Jamie had been taking it in turns to watch, hiding in the trees above the burned ruins of the big house. Ian had been out for more than two hours; it was nearly time for him to come in for food and a turn at the fire.

"Someone's been trying to kill the white sow," he'd announced at breakfast three days ago, looking bemused.

"What?" I handed him a bowl of parritch, garnished with a lump of melting butter and a drizzle of honey--luckily my kegs of honey and boxes of honeycomb had been in the springhouse when the fire happened. "Are you sure?"

He nodded, taking the bowl and inhaling its steam in beatific fashion.

"Aye, she's got a slash in her flank. Not deep, and it's healing, Auntie," he added, with a nod in my direction, evidently feeling that I would regard the sow's medical well-being with the same interest as that of any other resident of the Ridge.

"Oh? Good," I said--though there was precious little I could have done if she weren't healing. I could--and did--doctor horses, cows, goats, stoats, and even the occasional non-laying chicken, but that particular pig was on her own.

Amy Higgins crossed herself at mention of the sow.

"Likely ‘twas a bear," she said. "Nothing else would dare. Aidan, mind what Mr. Ian says, here! Dinna be wandering far from the place, and mind your brother outside."

"Bears sleep in winter, Mam," Aidan said absently. His attention was fixed on a new top that Bobby had carved for him, and which he hadn't yet got to spin properly. Giving it a cross-eyed glare, he set it gingerly on the table, held the string for a breathless moment, and yanked. The top shot across the table, ricocheted off the honey-jar with a sharp crack! and headed for the milk at a high rate of speed.

Ian reached out and snatched the top in the nick of time. Chewing toast, he motioned to Aidan for the string, rewound it, and with a practiced flick of the wrist, sent the top whizzing straight down the center of the table. Aidan watched it, open-mouthed, then dived under the table as the top fell off the end.

"No, it wasna an animal," he said, finally succeeding in swallowing. "It was a clean slash. Someone went for her wi' a knife or a sword."

Jamie looked up from the burnt piece of toast he had been examining.

"Did ye find his body?"

Ian grinned briefly, but shook his head.

"Nay, if she killed him, she ate him--and I didna find any leavings."

"Pigs are messy eaters," Jamie observed. He essayed a cautious bite of the burnt toast, grimaced, and ate it anyway.

"An Indian, d'ye think?" Bobby asked. Little Orrie was struggling to get down from Bobby's lap; his stepfather obligingly set him down in his favorite spot under the table.

Jamie and Ian exchanged glances, and I felt a slight stirring of the hair at the back of my neck.

"No," Ian answered. "The Cherokee near here all ken her weel, and wouldna touch her with a ten-foot pole. They think she's a demon, aye?"

"And traveling Indians from the north would have arrows or tomahawks," Jamie finished.

"Ye're sure it wasnae a painter?" Amy asked, dubious. "They hunt in the winter, no?"

"They do," Jamie assured her. "I saw pug-marks up by the green spring yesterday. D'ye hear me there?" he said, bending to speak to the boys under the table. "Go canny, aye?"

"But no," he added, straightening up. "Ian kens the difference between claw marks and a knife slash, I think." He gave Ian a grin. Ian politely refrained from rolling his eyes, and merely nodded, eyes fixed dubiously on the toast-basket.

No one suggested that any resident of the Ridge or from Brownsville might have been hunting the white sow. The local Presbyterians would not have seen eye-to-eye with the Cherokee on any other spiritual matter you might name, but they were in decided agreement on the sow's demonic character.

Personally, I wasn't sure they weren't right. The thing had survived even the burning of the Big House unscathed, emerging from her den beneath its foundations amid a shower of burnt wood, followed by her latest litter of half-grown piglets.

"Moby Dick!" I said aloud, inspired.

Rollo raised his head with a startled "Wuff?", gave me a yellow-eyed look and laid it down again, sighing.

"Dick Who?" said Jamie, drowsy. He sat up, stretching and groaning, then rubbed a hand over his face and blinked at me.

"I just thought what it is that sow reminds me of," I explained. "Long story. About a whale. I'll tell you tomorrow."

"If I live that long," he said, with a yawn that nearly dislocated his jaw. "Where's the whisky--or d'ye need it for yon poor woman?" He nodded at Grannie MacLeod's blanket-wrapped form.

"Not yet. Here." I bent and rummaged in the basket beneath my chair, coming up with a corked bottle.

He pulled the cork and drank, the color gradually coming back to his face. Between spending his days hunting or chopping wood and half the nights lurking in a freezing forest, even Jamie's great vitality was showing signs of flagging.

"How long will you keep this up?" I asked, low-voiced so as not to rouse the Higginses--Bobby, Amy, eight-and-a-half months pregnant, the two little boys, and Amy's two sisters-in-law from her first marriage, who had come to help, accompanied by a total of five children under the age of ten--all asleep in the small bedroom. The departure of the MacLeod boys had eased the congestion in the cabin slightly, but with Jamie, me, Ian, Ian's dog Rollo, and the old woman sleeping on the floor of the main room, and such possessions as we had managed to salvage from the fire stacked round the walls, I sometimes felt a distinct surge of claustrophobia. Little wonder if Jamie and Ian were patrolling the woods as much to get a breath of air, as from a conviction that there was something out there.

"No much longer," he assured me, shuddering slightly as a large swallow of whisky went down. "If we dinna see anything tonight, we'll--" He broke off, his head turning abruptly toward the door.

I hadn't heard anything, but saw the latch move, and an instant later, a freezing gust of air rolled into the room, poking frigid fingers under my skirts and stirring up a shower of sparks from the fire.

I hastily seized a rag and beat these out before they could set Grannie MacLeod's hair or bedding on fire. By the time I had the fire back under control, Jamie was putting pistol, shot-bag, and powder-horn on his belt, talking low-voiced with Ian by the door. Ian himself was red-cheeked with cold and clearly excited about something. Rollo was up too, nosing at Ian's legs, tail wagging in anticipation of an icy adventure.

"Best ye stay, [Gaelic - dog]," Ian told him, rubbing his ears with cold fingers. "Sheas."

Rollo made a disgruntled noise in his throat, and tried to push past Ian, but was deftly blocked by a leg. Jamie turned, shrugging on his coat, bent and kissed me hastily.

"Bolt the door, a nighean," he whispered. "Dinna open to anyone save me or Ian."

"What--" I began, but they were gone.

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