still clouded withoifceevesro. ft and husky "It didna take much effort, Sassenach," he said, his v
m sleep. "Not dying was harder."
He made no pretence of not understanding me. In the light of day, I saw ly what exhaustion and the aftereffects of shock had stopped me seeing the t before. His insistence on his own bed. The open shutters, so he could the. voices of his family below, his tenants outside. And me beside him. He very carefully, and without saying a word to me, decided how and where wanted to die -
-you thought you were dying when we brought you up here, didn't you?" I My voice sounded more bewildered than accusing.
it took him a moment to answer, though he didn't look hesitant. it was ore as though he was looking for the proper words,
41Well, I didna ken for sure, no," he said slowly. "Though I did feet verra ill.' eyes closed, slowly, as though he were too tired to keep them open. "I still '" he added, in a detached sort of voice. "Ye needna worry, though-I've ade my choice."
"What on earth do you mean by that?" hot again, I groped beneath the covers, and found his wrist. He was warm
fact, and with a pulse that was too fast, too shallow. Still, it was so different 'from the deathly chill I had felt in him the night before that my first reaction was relief.
s, then turned his head and opened his eyes He took a couple of deep breath
to look at me
an I could have died last night."
"I me t what he meant. He made it sound He could, certainly-and yet that wasn'
like a conscious- I ve decided not to die, "What do you mean you ve made your choice? You
after all?" I tried to speak lightly, but it wasn't working very well. I remembered all too well that odd sense of timeless stillness that had surrounded us.
"it was verra strange," he said, "And yet it wasna. strange at all." He sounded faintly surprised.
,I think," I said carefully, keeping a thumb on his pulse, "you'd better tell M, iust what happened."
He actually smiled at that, though the smile was more in his eyes than his ed his lips lips. Those were dry, and painfully cracked in the corners, I touch
with a finger, wanting to go and fetch some soothing ointment for him, some water, some tea-but I put aside the impulse, steeling myself to stay and hear. ccl dinna really know, Sassenach-or rather, I do, but I canna think quite
how to say it." He still looked tired, but his eyes stayed open. They lingered on my face, a vivid blue in the morning light, with an expression almost of curiosity, as though he hadn't seen me before.
800 Diana Gabaldon
"You are so beautiffil," he said, softly. "So verra beautiful, mo cbridhe.-
My hands were covered with fading blue blotches and overlooked smears of buffalo blood, I could feel my hair clinging in unwashed tangles to my neck, and I could smell everything from the stale-urine odor of dye to the reek of fear-sweat on my body. And yet whatever he saw fit his face as though he were looking at the full moon on a summer night, pure and lovely.
His eyes stayed fixed on my face as he talked, absorbed, moving slightly as they seemed to trace my features.
"I felt verra badly indeed when Arch and Roger Mac brought me up," he th throbbing with each heartsaid. "Terribly sick, and my leg and my head bo
beat, so much that I began to dread the next. And so I would listen to the spaces between. Ye wouldna think it," he said, sounded vaguely surprised, "but there is a great deal of time between the beats of a heart."
He had, he said, begun to hope, in those spaces, that the next beat would not come. And slowly, he realized that his heart was indeed slowing-and that the pain was growing remote, something separate from himself.
His skin had grown colder, the fever fading from both body and mind, leaving the latter oddly clear.
"And this is where I canna really say, Sassenach." He pulled his wrist from my grip in the intensity of his story, and curled his fingers over mine. "But I ... saw. 59
"Saw what?" And yet 1 already knew that he couldn't tell me. Like any doctor, I had seen sick people make up their minds to die-and I knew that look they sometimes had; eyes wide-fixed on something in the distance.
He hesitated, struggling to find words. I thought of something, and jumped in to try to help.
"There was an elderly woman," I said. "She died in the hospital where I was on staff-all her grown children with her, it was very peaceful." I looked down, my own eyes fixed on his fingers, still red and slightly swollen, interlaced with my own stained and bloody digits.
-she was dead, I could see her pulse had stopped, she wasn't "She died
breathing. All her children were by her bedside, weeping. And then, quite suddenty, her eyes opened. She wasn't looking at any of them, but she was seeing something. And she said, quite clearly, 'Oooh!' Just like that-thrilled, like a litde girl who's just seen something wonderful. And then she closed her eyes again." I looked up at him, blinking back tears. "Was it-like that?"
He nodded, speechless, and his hand tightened on mine. "Something like," he said, very softly.
He had felt oddly suspended, in a place he could by no means describe, feeling completely at peace-and seeing very clearly.
It was as if there was a-it wasna a door, exactly, but a passageway of some kind-before me. And I could go through it, if I wanted. And I did want to,51 he said, giving me a sideways glance and a shy smile.
He had known what lay behind him, too, and realized that for that moment, he could choose. Go forward-or turn back.
"And that's when you asked me to touch you?"
"I knew ye were the only thing that could bring me back," he said simply. "I didna have the strength, myself."
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There was a huge lump in my throat; I couldn't speak, but squeezed his hand very tight.
"Why?" I asked at last. "Why did you ... choose to stay?" My throat was still fight, and my voice was hoarse. He heard it, and his hand tightened on mine; a ',,%host of his usual firm grip, and yet with the memory of strength within it.
"Because ye need me," he said, very softly. "Not because you love me?"
He looked up then, with a shadow of a smile.
"Sassenach ... I love ye now, and I will love ye always. Whether I am ether we are together or apart. You know it is true," he said dead--or you-wh
quietly, and touched my face. "I know it of you, and ye know of it of me as well."
He bent his head then, the bright hair swinging down across his cheek.
"I didna mean only you, Sassenach. I have work still to do. I thought-for a bit-that perhaps it wasna so; that ye all might manage, with Roger Mac and auld Arch, Joseph and the Beardsleys. But there is war coming, and-for my sins-" he grimaced slightly, "I am a chief.'
He shook his head slightly, in resignation. must do it, "God has made me what I am, He has given me the duty-and I
whatever the cost." ng something harsher than resignation ."The cost," I echoed uneasily, heari ced, almost off-handed, toward the in his voice. He looked at me, then glan
foot of the bed. e he said, matter-of-factly, "but it's no better. I "My leg's no much worsi
think ye'll have to take it off.
I SAT IN MY SURGERY, staring out the window, trying to think of another way. There had to be something else I could do. Had to.
He was right; the red streaks were still there. They hadn't advanced any farhe oral and topical penither, but they were still there, ugly and threatening. T
cillin had evidently had some effect on the infection, but not enough. The It affect maggots were dealing nicely with the small abscesses, but they couldn
the underlying bacteremia that was poisoning his blood. ird fall. it might help I glanced up at the brown glass bottle; only about a th wasn't him hold his ground for a little longer, but there wasn't enough-and it e likely to have sufficient effect, administered by mouth-to eradicate whatev r deadly bacterium was multiplying in his blood. elf. Recom-
"Ten
thousand to ten million rnilligrams," I murmured to mys 11, mended dosage of penicillin for bacteremia or sepsis, according to the MerManual, the physician's basic desk reference. I glanced at Daniel Rawlings' casebook, then back at the bottle. With no way of telling what concentration of penicillin I had, administration was likely still more efficacious than the combi-
-but not enough to matter I nation of snakeroot and garlic Rawlings advised
was afraid.
The amputation saw was still lying on the counter, where he had left it the Yiven it back.
day before. I'd given him my word-and he'd g
802 Diana Gabaldon
1 clenched my hands, a feeling of unutterable frustration washing over me, so strongly as almost to overwhelm my sense of despair. Why, why, why hadn't I started more penicillin breNving at once? How could I have been so feckless, so careless-so bloody fiicking stupid?
Why had I not insisted on going to Charleston, or at least Wilmington, in hopes of finding a glassblower who could make me the barrel and plunger for a hypodermic syringe? Surely I could have improvised something for a needle. All that difficulty, all that experimentation, to get the precious substance in the first place-and now that I desperately needed it ...
A tentative movement at the open door made me turn round, struggling to get my face under control. I'd have to tell the household what was happening, and soon. But it would be better to choose my time, and tell them all together.
It was one of the Beardsleys. With their hair grown out and neatly trimmed to the same length by Lizzie, it was increasingly difficult to tell them apartunless one was close enough to see their thumbs. Once they spoke, of course, it was simple.
"Ma'am?" It was Kezzie.
"Yes?" No doubt I sounded short, but it didn't matter; Kezzie couldn't distinguish nuances of speech,
He was carrying a cloth bag. As he came into the room, I saw the bag twitch and change shape, and a small shudder of revulsion came over me. He saw that, and smiled a little.
"This for Himself," he said, in his loud, slightly flat voice, holding up the bag. "Him-old Aaron-said this works good. A big snake bite you, get you a little 'un, cut his head off, drink his blood." He thrust out the bag, which I very gingerly accepted, holding it as far away from me as I could. The contents of the sack shifted again, making my skin crawl, and a faint buzzing noise issued through the cloth.
"Thank you," I said faintly. "I'll ... ah ... do something with it. Thank you." Keziah beamed and bowed his way out, leaving me in personal custody of a sack containing what appeared to be a small but highly annoyed rattlesnake. I looked round frantically for some place to put it. I didn't dare throw it out of the window; Jemmy often played in the dooryard near the house.
Finally, I pulled the big clear glass jar of salt over to the edge of the counter, and-holding the bag at arm's length-used my other hand to dump the salt out on the counter. I dropped the bag into the jar and slammed the lid on it, then rushed to the other side of the room and collapsed on a stool, the backs of my knees sweaty with dread.
I didn't really mind snakes in theory; in practice, though ... Brianna poked her head through the door.
"Mama? How's Da this morning?"
"Not all that well." My face evidently told her just how serious it was, for she"came into the room and stood beside me, frowning.
Really bad?" she asked softly, and I nodded, unable to speak. She let her breath out in a deep sigh.
"Can I help?"
I let out an identical sigh, and made a helpless gesture. I had one vague
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803
Slimmering of an idea-or rather, the return of an idea I'd had in the back of tny mind for some time.
"The only thing I can think of doing is to open the leg----cut down deep ough the muscle-and pour what penicillin I have left directly into the unds. it's much more effective against bacterial infections if you can inject it,
is'l-I nodded at the bottle-"is _father than give it orally. Raw penicillin like th enough would make it stable in the presence of acid. It's not likely
,very un
ough the stomach to do any good."
I ,That's more or less what Aunt Jenny did 7isn5t it? That's what made that huge scar on his thigh." usively over my knees. I didn't normally I nodded,wiping my palms unobtr
suffer from sweaty hands', but the feel of the amputation saw was much too Clear in my memory.
"I'd have to do two or three deep cuts. it would likely cripple him permaI,kently-but it might w.ork." I tried to give her a smile. "I don't suppose MIT er a hy
taught you how to engine , podermic syringe, did they?"
"Why didn't you say so before?" she said calmly. "I dorit know if I can make syringe, but I'd be really surprised if I can't figure out something that does the same thing. How long have we go0'5
I stared at her, my mouth half open, then shut it with.a snap.
-A few hours, at least. I thought if we didn't get any Improvement with the hot poultices, I'd have to either cut or amputate, by this evening." o that!" ,Amputate!" All the blood drained out of her face. "You can't d
"I can-but my God, I don't want to." My hands curled hard, denying their Skill. still pate, but the shock was passing as ,Let me think, then." Her face was . g to leave lemmy her mind began to focus. ,Oh-where's Mrs. Bug? I was goin
with her, but-"
"She's gone? Are you sure she isn't just out in the hencoop?"
up to the house. I didn't see her any"No, I stopped there when I came
where-and the kitchen fire is smoored-" come to the house as usual to make That was more than odd; Mrs. Bug had again) I hoped Arch hadWt breakfast-what could have induced her to leave
suddenly been taken ill; that would just about put the cocked hat on things. ,Where,s jemmy, then?" I asked, looking round for him. He didn't tiormauy go far away from his mother, though he was beginning to wander a bit, as small boys did.
I'Lizzie took him upstairs to see D-a- I'll ask her to took after him for a while." "Fine. Oh!"
MY exclamation made her turn back at the door, eyebrows raised in Cluestion.
"Do you think you could take that"-I gestured distastefully at the big glass jar-,'outside, darling? Dispose of it somewhere?" - rattlesnake "Sure. What is it?" Curious, she walked over to the jar. The little
had crawled out of its bag and was coiled up in a suspicious dark knot; as she extended a hand toward the jar, it lunged, striking at the glass, and Brianna jumped back with a yelp.
804 Diana Gabaldon
`Ifrinn!' she said, and I laughed, in spite of the general stress and worry. "Where did you get him, and what is he for?" she asked. Recovering from the initial shock, she leaned forward cautiously and tapped lightly on the glass. The snake, who appeared irascible in the extreme, struck the side'of the jar with an audible thump, and she jerked her hand away again.
"Kezzie brought him in; Jamie is meant to drink his blood as a cure," I explained.
She reached out a cautious forefinger, and traced the path of a small droplet of yellowish liquid, sliding down the glass. Two droplets, in fact.
"Look at that! He tried to bite me right through the glass! That's a really mad snake; I guess he doesn't think much of the idea."
He didn't. He-if it was a he-was coiled again, tiny rattles vibrating in an absolute frenzy of animosity.
"Well, that's all right," I said, coming to stand beside her. "I'm sure Jamie wouldn't think much of the idea, either. He's rather strongly anti-snake at the moment."
"Mmphm." She was still staring at the little snake, a slight frown drawing down her thick red brows. "Did Kezzic say where he got it?"
"I didn't think to ask. Why?"
"It's getting cold out-snakes hibernate, don't they? In dens?"
"Well, Dr. Brickell says they do," I replied, rather dubiously. The good doctor's Natural Histoiy of North Carolina made entertaining reading, but I took leave to doubt some of his observations, particu
larly those pertaining to snakes and crocoUes, of whose prowess he appeared to have a rather exaggerated opinion.
She nodded, not taking her eyes off the snake.
"See, the thing is," she said, sounding rather dreamy, "pit-vipers have beautiffil engineering. Their jaws are disarticulated, so they can swallow prey bigger than they are-and their fangs fold back against the roof of their mouth when they aren't using them."
"Yes?" I said, giving her a slightly fishy look, which she ignored.
"The fangs are hollow," she said, and touched a finger to the glass, marking the spot where the venom had soaked into the linen cloth, leaving a small yelIoNvish stain. "They're connected to a venom sac in the snake's cheek, and so when they bite down, the cheek muscles squeeze venom out of the sac ... and down through the fang into the prey. Just like a-"
"Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ," I said.
She nodded, finally taking her eyes off the snake in order to look at me.
"I was thinking of trying to do something with a sharpened quill, but this would work lots better-it's already designed for the job."
"I see," I said, feeling a small surge of hope. "But you'll need a reservoir of some kind.
"First I need a bigger snake," she said practically, turning toward the door. "Let me go find jo or Kezzie, and see if that one did come from a den-and if so, if there are more of them there."
She set off promptly on this mission, taking the glass jar with her, and leaving me to return to a contemplation of the antibiotic situation with renewed
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"hope. If I was going to be able to inject the solution, it needed to be strained ,,.wid purified as much as possible. know I would have liked to boil the solution, but didn't dare to; I didn't
Whether high temperatures would destroy or inactivate raw penicillin-if in fact, there still was active penicillin in there. The surge of hope I had experi;nced at Brianna's idea dimmed somewhat. Having a hypodermic apparatus wouldn't help, if I had nothing useful to inject.
I Restlessly, I moved around the surgery, picking things up and putting them down again.
, Steeling myself, I put my hand on the saw again, and closed my eyes, delib rrately reliving the movements and sensations, trying also to recapture the sense of otherworldly detachment with which I had killed the buffalo
of course, it was Jamie who'd been talking to the otherworld this time. Nice oryou to give him the choice, I thought sardonically. I see you aren Itgoing to make -it easy on him, though.
I But he wouldn't have asked for that- I opened MY eyes, startled. I didn't I: know whether that answer came from my own subconscious, or elsewhereV,
but there it was in my mind, and I recognized the truth of it
Jamie was accustomed to make his choice and abide by it, no matter the cost. He saw that living would likely mean the loss of his leg and all that that implied-and had accepted that as the natural price of his decision.
I ,well, I don't bloody accept it!" I said out loud, chin uplifted toward the window. A cedar waxwing swinging on the end of a tree limb gave me a sharp look through his black robber's mask, decided I was mad but harmless, and went about his business.
I pulled open the cupboard door, threw open the top of my medicine chest, and fetched a sheet of paper, quill, and ink from Jamie's study.
A jar of dried red wintergreen berries. Extract of pipsissewa. Slippery elm bark. Willow bark, cherry bark, fleabane, yarrow. Penicillin was by far the most effective of the antibiotics available, but it wasn't the only one. People had
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