“And we’re to turn these poor beasties who have served us so well out into it, to die?” Fitz raged. “So that we can eat their few bits of fish for ourselves? No, I say! I went along with using that poor little bitch for dog food. But I’ll not agree to this.” He shook his head furiously. “We might as well just carve them up for stew and be done with it!”
Which was, in fact, exactly what Sam had first proposed to Duncan. The Indian was a practical man. If his dog had to die so that the men might live, he would bear it.
Duncan had once been forced to eat the horse that had been shot out from under him. Still, though he might have been tempted to throttle the dog Klute with his bare hands, he found the idea of actually eating him afterward unpleasant. And he knew that there was no possibility that Hugh Fitzcairn would agree to any such notion.
But he had recognized the truth of what Sam had said about the food. So he had proposed instead that the animals be set free to fend for themselves—a suggestion that was no more acceptable to Fitz.
How far could he push his friend? What price would he pay for a few bits of fish?
Then help came from an unexpected source.
“It not sure they die,” Sam said.
Fitz turned toward him. “This was your idea?” he asked sharply.
“No. I say we eat dogs. Scotsman not agree.”
Fitz looked back at Duncan, who shrugged helplessly.
“Rip, Vixen—I know long time. Klute, I watch. Like dog that run away in the valley—the wild calls to them.”
“And you will, of course, share with us exactly what that means?” Fitz said.
“Set them free. They go. They hunt. They maybe run with wolves.” He stopped, catching his breath. “They not die for sure.”
“And Bigfoot?” Duncan asked, curious.
The Indian did not reply.
Fitz looked around the cabin. Rip lay by the bed, alert as always. Bigfoot was sound asleep by the fire. Klute, still tied up, was on his feet, growling at nothing.
And Vixen sat by the table, her head cocked as though she were following the discussion.
“It’s fond of the brown dog you are, Hugh,” Danny said. “But would you be having us starve to death because of her?”
Reluctantly, Fitz gave in. But he would not be a part of it. So Duncan and Danny gathered the dogs together. The door was opened, then closed.
And in time the sound of the wind drowned out Bigfoot’s cries, as he whined to be let back in.
There were three then. The singer, the silent one, and the one who whispered. On and on, she whispered, ’til he could hardly hear MacLeod giving him orders or Hugh questioning him or the heathen dying in the bed.
He could still not see them clearly, but he had no doubt they were here in the cabin, with him all the while.
They’d followed him back from the woods, from the red-stained killing ground where he’d found what was left of the yellow dog.
The nasty gray brute had probably done him in, the heathen said.
Hugh had turned away at that.
Should have shot him when you had the chance, Danny-boy.
That was the brown-eyed one, whispering.
They’d come back with him because he’d finally, alone in the woods with no one to hear, spoken aloud to them.
If angels you are, he’d said, then help us. We can’t go on. We can’t stay back. We need to find food. We need the cold to break. We need the snow to stop.
Oh, we’ll be here, in sunshine, in shadow,
the singer sang.
That was no good answer. But it was all they had to give him, save laughter that shimmered like crystal in the air.
The green-eyed silent one had led him from the forest, shyly peering back over a cloudlike wing, melting through the cabin wall.
He’d found her inside, hovering above the crooked table. They’d been there since, all three of them.
Blasted snowshoes! An abomination, that’s what they were. Webbed feet were the proper state of ducks or geese. Not Englishmen.
Fitz lay spread-eagled, flat on his back in five feet of snow.
The thought of resting there for a while gazing at the clear blue of the sky was mightily tempting. It had stopped snowing at long last. The weak sun was shining, and the air was crisp and still.
But his hat had come off when he fell, and quite a bit of snow had worked its way down his neck. It was wet. And cold.
He sighed.
Duty, in the form of the hand ax and the surrounding trees, called.
He rolled over awkwardly. The well-worn piece of fur lay on the snow, just out of reach.
As he flailed toward the hat, a brown-and-white shape darted out of the woods and snatched it up.
Fitz laughed. Vixen backed up, wagging her tail.
“Well now, beastie. Tag, I’m it, then?” He lunged at the dog, who narrowly avoided him.
Siwash Sam had been right—again. Fitz was glad of it.
Vixen seemed to be faring well on her own. She came around at least once a day, and he slipped her bits of food. But he had no sense that she was in dire need of it.
MacLeod had seen Rip once or twice. Klute had vanished, after apparently making a meal of poor Bigfoot.
Good riddance, there.
Blasted snowshoes! He struggled to his feet and dived once more at the dog. This time, she allowed herself to be caught.
Man and dog wrestled in the snow over the prize of the fur hat.
“To the victor,” Fitz shouted, as he pried the soggy fur from her jaws, “go the spoils!” She barked and butted him with her head, nosing at his pocket.
He thumped her soundly on her side, then took out a sliver of dried meat.
Vixen ate it delicately, gave a muffled woof, and bounded away. He stood watching her.
“Take care, beastie,” he murmured. The notion that the dog Klute might still be about weighed on his mind.
Then he turned back to the task at hand.
There now—off to the right. A tree, already downed. It was but a few minutes’ work to cut it into manageable lengths. Leaving the ax behind, he loaded his arms with wood, and started back to the cabin.
A few steps, and he stumbled. Something under the snow held his right leg fast. He pitched forward. The wood went flying, as he landed full on his face.
Had there ever been a time when he had thought snow pleasing to the eye? He remembered a sunset on Salisbury Plain, after a snowfall that left the great henge iced with white. It had been glorious.
So young. So foolish, he thought, as freezing water dripped from the end of his nose.
He attempted to pull himself to his knees—and felt the whole of his right boot, snowshoe and all, come off.
Fitz lay absolutely still for a moment. Then he sat up and tried to pry the boot free. To no avail.
“Bloody hell.”
He frowned. To shout or not to shout?
Oh well, he wasn’t that far from the cabin. It wouldn’t be an easy go with only one snowshoe, but he’d make the best of it. And he could always raise the alarm when he got closer.
After they’d peeled off the three layers of heavy wool socks, caked with ice, Duncan had gently held Fitzcairn’s right foot up so that Sam could see it.
The foot was black, from the toes to the ankle. It looked as if Fitzcairn had been walking in soot.
“Frostbite?” Duncan asked.
Sam nodded.
“It doesn’t hurt, you know,” Fitzcairn said. “It’s—numb.”
“It will,” Sam said. “Bad.”
Fitz made a face.
“I need to restore the circulation,” Duncan said. He touched the foot. It was like marble.
“No rub,” Sam said, sharply.
Duncan, who had been about to do just that, stopped.
“Toes break off,” Sam explained.
“Oh, well—what’s a toe here or there?” Fitz said, his voice high. “I can always grow new ones.”
“I don’t think so, Fitz,” Duncan said.
“It’s not possible then?” Danny handed Fitzcairn a cup of hot tea, laced with the very last of the brandy. “I’d thought maybe—”
“Danny,” Duncan said sharply. Danny frowned, but he held his tongue.
“What does Siwash Sam say I should do?” Duncan asked the Indian.
“Best heat is heat of body. Skin to skin.”
Duncan contemplated the foot. If Sam were not there, he would have been inclined to wait. Fitz was an Immortal. The frostbite would heal, eventually. He’d had no experience with the problem, so how long it would take was open to question. But like a wound or broken bone, it would heal and leave no trace.
However, Sam was awake. He had seen. So what had to be done had to be done.
“Fitzcairn, the next time you decide to take a barefoot stroll in the snow—don’t.”
“I wasn’t barefoot,” Fitzcairn replied, as Duncan loosened his shirt and drew the foot under his armpit. “Do you think me a complete fool?”
Duncan didn’t reply. And in a short while, as the feeling came back to the frozen foot, anything he might have had to say could not have been heard over the sound of Fitzcairn’s screams.
It was freezing in the room. That little minx Arianna had wrapped herself in the satin-and-goosedown coverlet, leaving him bare-naked. He rolled to his feet—
And Gina was there, running a warm hand over the cold flesh of his buttock.
“So lifelike,” she murmured.
“So detailed,” Arianna added.
A chorus of voices agreed. He looked down from his pedestal upon a garden of blooming beauties, bright faces turned up to him, eyes shining with appreciation.
Pedestal? How curious …
A hand—was it Gina’s or Arianna’s—brushed his manhood
He didn’t move. He
couldn’t
move. He was a statue, lovingly rendered in the finest of marble.
The women continued to come and go in the room. They smiled at him. They spoke of Michelangelo and da Vinci. They caressed his perfect marble limbs.
Aisleen appeared. She smiled mischievously and began playing with his perfect marble toes, nibbling on them, tweaking them.
She gasped. Her eyes widened. She stepped back, his big toe held between her thumb and forefinger.
A cry of dismay rose. His right ear detached. His left hand cracked, dissolving into marble dust. One leg came off at the knee, shattering to bits as it struck the stone floor.
Then Arianna pointed to his groin and gave a strangled little cry. The crowd sobbed as one …
Fitz jerked awake in the chill darkness of the cabin.
It was only a nightmare, he thought. There was no need for him to worry. Of course he was still intact.
But …
Reassured, he rolled over, inching closer to the smoldering fire. He missed Vixen’s furry warmth beside him. He missed the solid warmth of a good meal in his belly.
Most of all, he missed the sweet warmth of a woman beneath him.
Some nightmares, he reflected, seemed never to end.
Dearest Claire,
It pains me to write these words, but the truth of it is that all that keeps us now in this cabin is Sam. And he will not be leaving here alive. Sam knows this. He knew it before any of us, I think. Indeed, he told us. But I didn’t want to believe him. We do what we can to make him comfortable, while we wait for the inevitable.
In the meantime, our days are taken up with our own efforts to survive …
Duncan flinched at the gunshot sound of a tree cracking in the cold.
He was some distance from the cabin, in a thickly wooded area, rifle in hand. The food stores, even with the addition of the salmon meant for the dogs, were running perilously low.
But so far, their hunting expeditions had yielded only a couple of hares. And he was having no more luck this day. Of what use were tracking skills if there is nothing to track?
The forest was as silent as death, save for the occasional snap of a frozen tree limb, and the slight sounds he made moving carefully forward.
His stomach rumbled. Loudly. Well, if there were any game around, that would have flushed it out!
But—wait. Ahead and to the left. There was
something.
A sound, an animal sound of some sort.
He crept forward cautiously. A few hundred yards and through the winter-bare branches he could see what he had heard.
The dog Klute, feeding off the carcass of a dead moose. It hadn’t been killed that long ago, he noted. The stains on the snow were still bright red.
Klute raised his head. He stared directly at Duncan. His lip curled back, baring his teeth in a guttural snarl. His muzzle was covered in blood.
Slowly, Duncan raised the rifle to his shoulder. The brute might know what that meant—he’d seen Pie shot—but he might not.
He did. He sprang back into the tree cover, fading into the general grayness.
No matter. If the kill didn’t look diseased, Duncan would be quite happy to take Klute’s leavings.
He pushed through the trees and knelt by the carcass. The moose had been old and scrawny, but there was no sign of sickness. It hadn’t died from anything other than a torn throat.
The dog had gone for the entrails, ripping into the stomach. None of the meat had yet been touched.
Duncan set the rifle aside and unstrapped a large knife from his thigh. His stomach was rumbling again, and he could feel saliva starting in his mouth. Meat, even raw meat, had awakened every hunger pang in his body.
First, he had to finish up the bloody job of gutting. He reached into the torn stomach …
Ninety pounds of fury struck him in the back, sending him sprawling over the dead moose. He felt the dog’s teeth ripping through the hood of his parka, lacerating the back of his head, seeking a death grip on his neck.
The brute’s full weight was on him. Though he still had the knife in his hand, there was no way he could manage a clear thrust.
Oaths that he hadn’t used in centuries, delivered in a burr that would have set Fitzcairn’s teeth on edge, poured out of him. He got his hands underneath his chest, and pushed himself up, first to his knees, then upright. The dog still clung to him, teeth buried in the nape of his neck.
The brute let go, finally, dropping to the ground. Duncan fell on him before he could gather himself to renew the attack. The knife blade flashed, up and down, again and again. All of the frustration he’d felt the last few weeks exploded in a frenzy.