Drums of Autumn

  “You have to teach me to do that.” She bounced on her toes, leaning toward him.

  “Do what?”

  “Roll your r’s like that.” She puckered her brows and made an earnest attempt, sounding like a motorboat in low gear.

  “Verra nice,” he said, trying not to laugh. “Keep it up. Prractice makes perfect.”

  “Well, did you bring your guitar, at least?” She stood on tiptoes, trying to look behind him. “Or that groovy drum?”

  “It’s in the car,” Brianna said, putting away her keys as she came up beside Roger. “We’re going to the airport from here.”

  “Oh, too bad; I thought we could hang around and have a hootenanny afterward, to celebrate. Do you know ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ Roger? Or are you more into protest songs? But I guess you wouldn’t be, since you’re English—oops, I mean Scotch. You guys don’t have anything to protest about, do you?”

  Brianna gave her friend a look of mild exasperation. “Where’s Uncle Joe?”

  “In the living room, kicking the TV,” Gayle said. “Shall I entertain Roger while you find him?” She linked one arm cosily through Roger’s, batting her eyelashes.

  “We got half the doggone MIT College of Engineering here, and nobody who can fix a doggone television?” Dr. Joseph Abernathy glared accusingly at the clusters of young people scattered around his living room.

  “That’s electrical engineering, Pop,” his son told him loftily. “We’re all mechanical engineers. Ask a mechanical engineer to fix your color TV, that’s like asking an Ob-Gyn to look at the sore on your di—ow!”

  “Oh, sorry,” said his father, peering blandly over gold-rimmed glasses. “That your foot, Lenny?”

  Lenny hopped storklike around the room to general laughter, clutching one large sneaker-clad foot in exaggerated agony.

  “Bree, honey!” The doctor spotted her and abandoned the television, beaming. He hugged her enthusiastically, disregarding the fact that she topped him by four inches or so, then let go and looked at Roger, his features rearranged in a look of wary cordiality.

  “This the boyfriend?”

  “This is Roger Wakefield,” Brianna said, narrowing her eyes slightly at the doctor. “Roger, Joe Abernathy.”

  “Dr. Abernathy.”

  “Call me Joe.”

  They shook hands in mutual assessment. The doctor looked him over with quick brown eyes, no less shrewd for their warmth.

  “Bree, honey, you want to go lay hands on that piece of junk, see can you bring it back to life?” He jerked a thumb at the twenty-four-inch RCA sitting in mute defiance on its wire stand. “It was working fine last night, then today…pffft!”

  Brianna looked dubiously at the big color TV, and groped in the pocket of her jeans, coming out with a Swiss Army knife.

  “Well, I can check the connections, I guess.” She flicked out the screwdriver blade. “How much time do we have?”

  “Half hour, maybe,” called a crew-cut student from the kitchen doorway. He glanced at the crowd clustered around the small black-and-white set on the table. “We’re still with Mission Control in Houston—ETA thirty-four minutes.” The muted excitement of the TV commentator came in bursts through the more vivid excitement of the spectators.

  “Good, good,” said Dr. Abernathy. He laid a hand on Roger’s shoulder. “Plenty of time for a drink, then. You a Scotch man, Mr. Wakefield?”

  “Call me Roger.”

  Abernathy poured a generous measure of amber nectar and handed it over.

  “Don’t imagine you take water, do you, Roger?”

  “No.” It was Lagavulin; astonishing to find it in Boston. He sipped appreciatively, and the doctor smiled.

  “Claire gave it to me—Bree’s mama. Now, there was a woman with a taste for fine whisky.” He shook his head nostalgically, and raised his glass in tribute.

  “Slàinte,” Roger said quietly, and tipped his own glass before drinking.

  Abernathy closed his eyes in silent appreciation—whether of the whisky or the woman, Roger couldn’t tell.

  “Water of life, huh? I do believe that particular stuff could raise the dead.” He set the bottle back in the liquor cabinet with reverent hands.

  How much had Claire told Abernathy? Enough, Roger supposed. The doctor picked up his tumbler and gave him a long look of assessment.

  “Since Bree’s daddy is dead, I guess I get to do the honors. Reckon we got time for the third degree before they land, or shall we keep it short?”

  Roger raised one eyebrow.

  “Your intentions,” the doctor elaborated.

  “Oh. Strictly honorable.”

  “Yeah? I called Bree last night, to see if she was coming tonight. No answer.”

  “We’d gone to a Celtic festival, up in the mountains.”

  “Uh-huh. I called again, eleven p.m. And midnight. No answer.” The doctor’s eyes were still shrewd, but a good deal less warm. He set his glass down with a small click.

  “Bree’s alone,” he said. “And she’s lonely. And she’s lovely. I wouldn’t like to see anybody take advantage of that, Mr. Wakefield.”

  “Neither would I—Dr. Abernathy.” Roger drained his glass and set it down hard. Warmth burned in his cheeks, and it wasn’t due to the Lagavulin. “If you think that I—”

  “THIS IS HOUSTON,” boomed the television. “TRANQUILITY BASE, WE HAVE TOUCH-DOWN IN TWENTY MINUTES.”

  The inhabitants of the kitchen came pouring out, waving Coke bottles and cheering. Brianna, flushed with her labors, was laughing and brushing off their congratulations as she put away her knife. Abernathy put a hand on Roger’s arm, to keep him.

  “Mind me, Mr. Wakefield,” Abernathy said, his voice low enough not to be heard over the crowd. “I don’t want to hear that you’ve made that girl unhappy. Ever.”

  Roger carefully released his arm from the other’s grip.

  “D’ye think she looks unhappy?” he asked, as politely as he could.

  “No-oo,” said Abernathy, rocking back on his heels and squinting hard at him. “On the contrary. It’s the way she looks tonight that makes me think I should maybe punch you in the nose, on her daddy’s behalf.”

  Roger couldn’t help turning to look at her himself; it was true. She had dark circles under her eyes, wisps of hair were coming down from her ponytail, and her skin was glowing like the wax of a lighted candle. She looked like a woman who’d had a long night—and enjoyed it.

  As though by radar, her head turned and her eyes fixed on him, over Gayle’s head. She went on talking to Gayle, but her eyes spoke straight to him.

  The doctor cleared his throat loudly. Roger jerked his attention away from her, to find Abernathy looking up at him, his expression thoughtful.

  “Oh,” the doctor said, in a changed tone. “Like that, is it?”

  Roger’s collar was unbuttoned, but he felt as though he were wearing a tie tied too tight. He met the doctor’s eyes straight on.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Like that.”

  Dr. Abernathy reached for the bottle of Lagavulin, and filled both glasses.

  “Claire did say she liked you,” he said in resignation. He lifted one glass. “Okay. Slàinte.”

  * * *

  “Turn it the other way—Walter Cronkite’s orange!” Lenny Abernathy obligingly twirled the knob, turning the commentator green. Unaffected by his sudden change of complexion, Cronkite went on talking.

  “In approximately two minutes, Commander Neil Armstrong and the crew of the Apollo 11 will make history in the first manned landing on the moon…”

  The living room was darkened and packed with people, everyone’s attention riveted on the big TV as the footage shifted to a replay of the Apollo’s launch.

  “I’m impressed,” Roger said in Brianna’s ear. “How did you fix it?” He leaned against the end of a bookshelf, and pulled her snug against him, his hands on the swell of her hips, his chin on her shoulder.

  Her eyes were on the television, but he felt
her cheek move against his own.

  “Somebody kicked the plug out of the wall,” she said. “I just plugged it back in.”

  He laughed and kissed the side of her neck. It was hot in the room, even with the air conditioner humming, and her skin tasted moist and salty.

  “You’ve got the roundest arse in the world,” he whispered. She didn’t answer, but deliberately nestled her bottom against him.

  A buzz of voices from the screen and pictures of the flag the astronauts would plant on the moon.

  He glanced across the room, but Joe Abernathy was as hypnotized as any of them, face rapt in the glow of the television screen. Safe in the darkness, he wrapped his arms around Brianna, and felt the soft weight of her breasts on his forearm. She sighed deeply and relaxed against him, putting her hand over his and squeezing tight.

  They would both be less bold if there were any danger to it. But he was leaving in two hours; there was no chance of it going further. The night before, they had known they were playing with dynamite, and been more cautious. He wondered if Abernathy would actually have punched him, had he admitted that Brianna had spent the night in his bed?

  He had driven them down the mountain, torn between trying to stay on the right side of the road, and the excitement of Brianna’s soft weight, pressed against him. They’d stopped for coffee, talked long past midnight, touching constantly, hands, thighs, heads close together. Driven on to Boston in the wee hours, the conversation dying, Brianna’s head heavy on his shoulder.

  Unable to keep awake long enough to find his way through the maze of unfamiliar streets to her apartment, he had driven to his hotel, smuggled her upstairs, and laid her on his bed, where she had fallen asleep in seconds.

  He had himself spent the rest of the night on the chaste hardness of the floor, Brianna’s woolly cardigan across his shoulders for warmth. With the dawn, he’d got up and sat in the chair, wrapped in her scent, silently watching the light spread across her sleeping face.

  Yeah, it was like that.

  “Tranquility Base…the Eagle has landed.” The silence in the room was broken by a deep collective sigh, and Roger felt the hair rise on the back of his neck.

  “One…small…step for man,” said the tinny voice, “one giant leap…for mankind.” The picture was fuzzy, but not through any fault of the television. Heads strained forward, avid to see the bulky figure making its ginger way down the ladder, setting foot for the first time on the lunar soil. Tears gleamed on one girl’s cheeks, silver in the glow.

  Even Brianna had forgotten everything else; her hand had fallen from his arm and she was leaning forward, caught up in the moment.

  It was a fine day to be an American.

  He had a momentary qualm, seeing them all so fiercely intent, so fervently proud, and she so much a part of it. It was a different century, two hundred years from yesterday.

  Might there be common ground for them, a historian and an engineer? He facing backward to the mysteries of the past, she to the future and its dazzling gleam?

  Then the room relaxed in cheers and babbling, and she turned in his arms to kiss him hard and cling to him, and he thought perhaps it didn’t matter that they faced in opposite directions—so long as they faced each other.

  PART THREE

  Pirates

  6

  I ENCOUNTER A HERNIA

  June 1767

  I hate boats,” Jamie said through clenched teeth. “I loathe boats. I view boats with the most profound abhorrence.”

  Jamie’s uncle, Hector Cameron, lived on a plantation called River Run, just above Cross Creek. Cross Creek in turn lay some way upriver from Wilmington; some two hundred miles, in fact. At this time of year, we were told, the trip might take four days to a week by boat, depending on wind. If we chose rather to travel overland, the journey could take two weeks or more, depending on such things as washed-out roads, mud, and broken axles.

  “Rivers do not have waves,” I said. “And I view the notion of trudging on foot for two hundred miles through the mud with a lot more than abhorrrrence.” Ian grinned broadly, but quickly exchanged the grin for an expression of bland detachment as Jamie’s glare moved in his direction.

  “Besides,” I said to Jamie, “if you get seasick, I still have my needles.” I patted the pocket where my tiny set of gold acupuncture needles rested in their ivory case.

  Jamie exhaled strongly through his nose, but said no more. That little matter settled, the major problem remaining was to manage the boat-fare.

  We were not rich, but did have a little money, as the result of a spot of good fortune on the road. Gypsying our way north from Charleston, and camping well off the road at night, we had discovered an abandoned homestead in the wood, its clearing nearly obliterated by new growth.

  Cottonwood saplings shot like spears through the beams of the fallen roof, and a hollybush sprouted through a large crack in the hearthstone. The walls were half collapsed, black with rot and furred with green moss and rusty fungus. There was no telling how long the place had been abandoned, but it was clear that both cabin and clearing would be swallowed by the wilderness within a few years, nothing left to mark its existence save a tumbled cairn of chimney stones.

  However, flourishing incongruously among the invading trees were the remains of a small peach orchard, the fruit of it burstingly ripe and swarming with bees. We had eaten as much as we could, slept in the shelter of the ruins, then risen before dawn and loaded the wagon with heaping mounds of smooth gold fruit, all juice and velvet.

  We had sold it as we went, and consequently had arrived in Wilmington with sticky hands, a bag of coins—mostly pennies—and a pervasive scent of fermentation that clung to hair, clothes, and skin, as though we had all been dipped in peach brandy.

  “You take this,” Jamie advised me, handing me the small leather sack containing our fortune. “Buy what ye can for provisions—dinna buy any peaches, aye?—and perhaps a few bits and pieces so we dinna look quite such beggars when we come to my kinsman. A needle and thread, maybe?” He raised a brow and nodded at the large rent in Fergus’s coat, incurred while falling out of a peach tree.

  “Duncan and I will go about and see can we sell the wagon and horses, and inquire for a boat. And if there’s such a thing as a goldsmith here, I’ll maybe see what he’d offer for one of the stones.”

  “Be careful, Uncle,” Ian advised, frowning at the motley crew of humanity coming and going from the harbor nearby. “Ye dinna want to be taken advantage of, nor yet be robbed in the street.”

  Jamie, gravely straight-faced, assured his nephew that he would take due precaution.

  “Take Rollo,” Ian urged him. “He’ll protect ye.”

  Jamie glanced down at Rollo, who was surveying the passing crowds with a look of panting alertness that suggested not so much social interest as barely restrained appetite.

  “Oh, aye,” he said. “Come along then, wee dog.” He glanced at me as he turned to go. “Perhaps ye’d best buy a few dried fish, as well.”

  * * *

  Wilmington was a small town, but because of its fortuitous situation as a seaport at the mouth of a navigable river, it boasted not only a farmer’s market and a shipping dock, but several shops that stocked imported luxuries from Europe, as well as the homegrown necessities of daily life.

  “Beans, all right,” Fergus said. “I like beans, even in large quantities.” He shifted the burlap sack on his shoulder, balancing its unwieldy weight. “And bread, of course we must have bread—and flour and salt and lard. Salt beef, dried cherries, fresh apples, all well and good. Fish, to be sure. Needles and thread I see also are certainly necessary. Even the hairbrush,” he added, with a sidelong glance at my hair, which, inspired by the humidity, was making mad efforts to escape the confinement of my broad-brimmed hat. “And the medicines from the apothecary, naturally. But lace?”

  “Lace,” I said firmly. I tucked the small paper packet containing three yards of Brussels lace into the large basket he wa
s carrying. “Likewise ribbons. One yard each of wide silk ribbon,” I told the perspiring young girl behind the counter. “Red—that’s yours, Fergus, so don’t complain—green for Ian, yellow for Duncan, and the very dark blue for Jamie. And no, it isn’t an extravagance; Jamie doesn’t want us to look like ragamuffins when we meet his uncle and aunt.”

  “What about you, Auntie?” Ian said, grinning. “Surely ye willna let us men be dandies, and you go plain as a sparrow?”

  Fergus blew air between his lips, in mingled exasperation and amusement.

  “That one,” he said, pointing to a wide roll of dark pink.

  “That’s a color for a young girl,” I protested.

  “Women are never too old to wear pink,” Fergus replied firmly. “I have heard les mesdames say so, many times.” I had heard les mesdames’ opinions before; Fergus’s early life had been spent in a brothel, and judging from his reminiscences, not a little of his later life, too. I rather hoped that he could overcome the habit now that he was married to Jamie’s stepdaughter, but with Marsali still in Jamaica awaiting the birth of their first child, I had my doubts. Fergus was a Frenchman born, after all.

  “I suppose the Madams would know,” I said. “All right, the pink, too.”

  Burdened with baskets and bags of provisions, we made our way out into the street. It was hot and thickly humid, but there was a breeze from the river, and after the stifling confines of the shop, the air seemed sweet and refreshing. I glanced toward the harbor, where the masts of several small ships poked up, swaying gently to the rocking of the current, and saw Jamie’s tall figure stride out between two buildings, Rollo pacing close behind.

  Ian hallooed and waved, and Rollo came bounding down the street, tail wagging madly at sight of his master. There were few people out at this time of day; those with business in the narrow street prudently flattened themselves against the nearest wall to avoid the rapturous reunion.

  “My Gawd,” said a drawling voice somewhere above me. “That’ll be the biggest dawg I believe I’ve ever seen.” I turned to see a gentleman detach himself from the front of a tavern, and lift his hat politely to me. “Your servant, ma’am. He ain’t partial to human flesh, I do sincerely hope?”

  I looked up at the man addressing me—and up. I refrained from expressing the opinion that he, of all people, could scarcely find Rollo a threat.

  My interlocutor was one of the tallest men I’d ever seen; taller by several inches even than Jamie. Lanky and rawboned with it, his huge hands dangled at the level of my elbows, and the ornately beaded leather belt about his midriff came to my chest. I could have pressed my nose into his navel, had the urge struck me, which fortunately it didn’t.

  “No, he eats fish,” I assured my new acquaintance. Seeing me craning my neck, he courteously dropped to his haunches, his knee joints popping like rifle shots as he did so. His face thus coming into view, I found his features still obscured by a bushy black beard. An incongruous snub nose poked out of the undergrowth, surmounted by a pair of wide and gentle hazel eyes.

  “Well, I’m surely obliged to hear that. Wouldn’t care to have a chunk taken out my leg, so early in the day.” He removed a disreputable slouch hat with a ragged turkey feather thrust through the brim, and bowed to me, loose snaky black locks falling forward on his shoulders. “John Quincy Myers, your servant, ma’am.”

  “Claire Fraser,” I said, offering him a hand in fascination. He squinted at it a moment, brought my fingers to his nose and sniffed them, then looked up and broke into a broad smile, nonetheless charming for missing half its teeth.

  “Why, you’ll maybe be a yarb-woman, won’t you?”

  “I will?”

  He turned my hand gently over, tracing the chlorophyll stains around my cuticles.

  “A green-fingered lady might just be tendin’ her roses, but a lady whose hands smell of sassafras root and Jesuit bark is like to know more than how to make flowers bloom. Don’t you reckon that’s so?” he asked, turning a friendly gaze on Ian, who was viewing Mr. Myers with unconcealed interest.

  “Oh, aye,” Ian assured him. “Auntie Claire’s a famous healer. A wise-woman!” He glanced proudly at me.

  “That so, boy? Well, now.” Mr. Myers’s eyes went round with interest, and swiveled back to focus on me. “Smite me if this ain’t Lucifer’s own luck! And me