“I don’t know . . .” he said uncertainly, glancing round again. “Hodge, he’s kind of gnarly. He shot one guy, a few days ago. Didn’t even say anything, just walked up to him, pulled his gun, and boom!”
“What for?”
He shrugged, shaking his head.
“I don’t even know, man. Just . . . boom, you know?”
“I know,” I assured him, holding on to temper and sanity by a thread. “Look, let’s not trouble with the horses, then. Let’s just go.” I lurched awkwardly onto one knee, hoping that I would be able to rise in a few moments, let alone walk. The big muscles in my thighs were knotted hard in the spots where Boble had kicked me; trying to stand made the muscles jump and quiver in spasms that effectively hamstrung me.
“Shit, not now!” In his agitation, the young man seized my arm and jerked me down beside him. I hit the ground hard on one hip and let out a cry of pain.
“You all right there, Donner?” The voice came out of the darkness somewhere behind me. It was casual—obviously one of the men had merely stepped out of camp to relieve himself—but the effect on the young Indian was galvanizing. He flung himself full-length upon me, banging my head on the ground and knocking all the breath out of me.
“Fine . . . really . . . great,” he called to his companion, gasping in an exaggerated manner, evidently trying to sound like a man in the throes of half-completed lust. He sounded like someone dying of asthma, but I wasn’t complaining. I couldn’t.
I’d been knocked on the head a few times, and generally saw nothing but blackness as a result. This time I honestly did see colored stars, and lay limp and bemused, feeling as though I sat tranquilly some distance above my battered body. Then Donner laid a hand on my breast and I came instantly back to earth.
“Let go of me this instant!” I hissed. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Hey, hey, nothing, nothing, sorry,” he assured me hastily. He removed the hand, but didn’t get off me. He squirmed a bit, and I realized that he was aroused by the contact, whether intended or not.
“Get off!” I said, in a furious whisper.
“Hey, I don’t mean anything, I mean I wouldn’t hurt you or nothing. It’s just I haven’t had a woman in—”
I grabbed a handful of his hair, lifted my head, and bit his ear, hard. He shrieked and rolled off me.
The other man had gone back toward the fire. At this, though, he turned and called back, “Christ, Donner, is she that good? I’ll have to give her a try!” This got a laugh from the men by the fire, but luckily it died away and they returned to their own concerns. I returned to mine, which was escape.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Donner whined in an undertone, holding his ear. “I wasn’t going to do anything! Christ, you got nice tits, but you’re like old enough to be my mother!”
“Shut up!” I said, pushing myself to a sitting position. The effort made my head spin; tiny colored lights flickered like Christmas-tree bulbs at the edge of my vision. In spite of this, some part of my mind was actively working again.
He was at least partly right. We couldn’t leave immediately. After drawing so much attention to himself, the others would be expecting him to come back within a few minutes; if he didn’t, they’d start looking for him—and we needed more than a few minutes’ start.
“We can’t go now,” he whispered, rubbing his ear reproachfully. “They’ll notice. Wait ’til they go to sleep. I’ll come get you then.”
I hesitated. I was in mortal danger every moment that I spent within reach of Hodgepile and his feral gang. If I had needed any convincing, the encounters of the last two hours had demonstrated that. This Donner needed to go back to the fire and show himself—but I could steal away. Was it worth the risk that someone would come and find me gone, before I had got beyond pursuit? It would be more certain to wait until they slept. But did I dare wait that long?
And then there was Donner himself. If he wanted to talk to me, I certainly wanted to talk to him. The chance of stumbling on another time-traveler . . .
Donner read my hesitation, but misunderstood it.
“You’re not going without me!” He grabbed my wrist in sudden alarm, and before I could jerk away, had whipped a bit of the cut line around it. I fought and pulled away, hissing to try to make him understand, but he was panicked at the thought that I might slip away without him, and wouldn’t listen. Hampered by my injuries, and unwilling to make enough noise to draw attention, I could only delay but not prevent his determined efforts to tie me up again.
“Okay.” He was sweating; a drop fell warm on my face as he leaned over me to check the bindings. At least he hadn’t put the noose round my neck again, instead tethering me to the tree with a rope around my waist.
“I shoulda known what you are,” he murmured, intent on his job. “Even before you said ‘Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.’”
“What the hell do you mean by that?” I snapped, squirming away from his hand. “Don’t bloody do that—I’ll suffocate!” He was trying to put the cloth strip back in my mouth, but seemed to pick up the note of panic in my voice, because he hesitated.
“Oh,” he said uncertainly. “Well. I guess—” Once again, he looked back over his shoulder, but then made up his mind and dropped the gag on the ground. “Okay. But you be quiet, all right? What I meant—you don’t act afraid of men. Most of the women from now do. You oughta act more afraid.”
And with that parting shot, he rose and brushed dead leaves from his clothes before heading back to the fire.
THERE COMES A POINT when the body has simply had enough. It snatches at sleep, no matter what menace the future may hold. I’d seen that happen: the Jacobite soldiers who slept in the ditches where they fell, the British pilots who slept in their planes while mechanics fueled them, only to leap to full alert again in time to take off. For that matter, women in long labor routinely sleep between contractions.
In the same manner, I slept.
That kind of sleep is neither deep nor peaceful, though. I came out of it with a hand across my mouth.
The fourth man was neither incompetent nor brutal. He was large and soft-bodied, and he had loved his dead wife. I knew that, because he wept into my hair, and called me by her name at the end. It was Martha.
I CAME OUT of sleep again sometime later. Instantly, fully conscious, heart pounding. But it wasn’t my heart—it was a drum.
Sounds of startlement came from the direction of the fire, men rousing in alarm from sleep.
“Indians!” someone shouted, and the light broke and flared, as someone kicked at the fire to scatter it.
It wasn’t an Indian drum. I sat up, listening hard. It was a drum with a sound like a beating heart, slow and rhythmic, then trip-hammer fast, like the frantic surge of a hunted beast.
I could have told them that Indians never used drums as weapons; Celts did. It was the sound of a bodhran.
What next? I thought, a trifle hysterically, bagpipes?
It was Roger, certainly; only he could make a drum talk like that. It was Roger, and Jamie was nearby. I scrambled to my feet, wanting, needing urgently to move. I jerked at the rope around my waist in a frenzy of impatience, but I was going nowhere.
Another drum began, slower, less skilled, but equally menacing. The sound seemed to move—it was moving. Fading, coming back full force. A third drum began, and now the thumping seemed to come from everywhere, fast, slow, mocking.
Someone fired a gun into the forest, panicked.
“Hold, there!” Hodgepile’s voice came, loud and furious, but to no avail; there was a popcorn rattle of gunfire, nearly drowned by the sound of the drums. I heard a snick near my head, and a cluster of needles brushed past me as it fell. It dawned on me that standing upright while guns were blindly fired all round me was a dangerous strategy, and I promptly fell flat, burrowing into the dead needles, trying to keep the trunk of the tree betwixt me and the main body of men.
The drums were weaving, now closer, now farther, the sound unnerving even to one who knew what it was. They were circling the camp, or so it seemed. Should I call out, if they came near enough?
I was saved from the agony of decision; the men were making so much noise round the campfire that I couldn’t have been heard if I’d screamed myself hoarse. They were calling out in alarm, shouting questions, bellowing orders—which apparently went ignored, judging from the ongoing sounds of confusion.
Someone blundered through the brush nearby, running from the drums. One, two more—the sound of gasping breath and crunching footsteps. Donner? The thought came to me suddenly and I sat up, then fell flat again as another shot whistled past overhead.
The drums stopped abruptly. Chaos reigned around the fire, though I could hear Hodgepile trying to get his men in order, yelling and threatening, nasal voice raised above the rest. Then the drums began again—much closer.
They were drawing in, drawing together, somewhere out in the forest on my left, and the mocking tip-tap-tip-tap beating had changed. They were thundering now. No skill, just menace. Coming closer.
Guns fired wildly, close enough for me to see the muzzle flash and smell the smoke, thick and hot on the air. The faggots of the fire had been scattered, but still burned, making a muted glow through the trees.
“There they are! I see ’em!” someone yelled from the fire, and there was another burst of musket-fire, toward the drums.
Then the most unearthly howl rose out of the dark to my right. I’d heard Scots scream going into battle before, but that particular Highland shriek made the hairs on my body prickle from tailbone to nape. Jamie. Despite my fears, I sat bolt upright and peered round my sheltering tree, in time to see demons boil out of the wood.
I knew them—knew I knew them—but cowered back at sight of them, blackened with soot and shrieking with the madness of hell, firelight red on the blades of knives and axes.
The drums had stopped abruptly, with the first scream, and now another set of howls broke out to the left, the drummers racing in to the kill. I pressed myself flat back against the tree, heart chokingly huge in my throat, petrified for fear the blades would strike at any random movement in the shadows.
Someone crashed toward me, blundering in the dark—Donner? I croaked his name, hoping to attract his attention, and the slight form turned toward me, hesitated, then spotted me and lunged.
It wasn’t Donner, but Hodgepile. He seized my arm, dragging me up, even as he slashed at the rope that bound me to the tree. He was panting hard with exertion, or fear.
I realized at once what he was about; he knew his chances of escape were slight—having me to hostage was his only hope. But I was damned if I’d be his hostage. No more.
I kicked at him, hard, and caught him on the side of the knee. It didn’t knock him over, but distracted him for a second. I charged him, head down, butted him square in the chest, and sent him flying.
The impact hurt badly, and I staggered, eyes watering from the pain. He was up, and at me again. I kicked, missed, fell heavily on my backside.