Mack froze.
A moment later Sidney Lennox appeared with a pistol in each hand.
Mack stood there helpless. Despair engulfed him like the river in his dream. He had not escaped after alclass="underline" they had caught him.
But where was Lizzie?
The one-eyed man from South River ford, Deadeye Dobbs, rode up, also carrying a rifle, with Peg on another horse beside him, her feet tied together under the horse’s belly so she could not get off. She did not seem to be injured, but she looked suicidally miserable and Mack knew she blamed herself for this. Fish Boy was walking alongside Dobbs’s horse, tied by a long rope to Dobbs’s saddle. He must have led them here. His hands were covered with blood. For a moment Mack was mystified: the boy had shown no sign of injury before. Then he realized that he had been tortured. He felt a wave of disgust for Jay and Lennox.
Jay was staring at the blankets on the ground. It was obvious that Mack and Lizzie had been sleeping together. “You filthy pig,” he said, his face working with rage. “Where’s my wife?” He reversed his rifle and swung the butt at Mack’s head, hitting him a bone-crunching blow to the side of the face. Mack staggered and fell. “Where is she, you coal-mining animal, where’s my wife?”
Mack tasted blood. “I don’t know.”
“If you don’t know I might as well have the satisfaction of shooting you through the head!”
Mack realized Jay meant it. Sweat broke out all over him. He felt the impulse to beg for his life but he clamped his teeth together.
Peg screamed: “No—don’t shoot—please!”
Jay pointed the rifle at Mack’s head. His voice rose to a hysterical pitch. “This is for all the times you’ve defied me!” he screamed.
Mack looked into his face and saw murder in his eyes.
Lizzie lay belly down on a grassy tuft behind a rock, with her rifle in her hand, waiting.
She had picked her spot the night before, after inspecting the riverbank and seeing the footprints and droppings of deer. As the light strengthened she watched, lying dead still, waiting for the animals to come to drink.
Her skill with a rifle was going to keep them alive, she reckoned. Mack could build a house and clear fields and sow seed, but it would be at least a year before they could grow enough to last them through a winter. However, there were three big sacks of salt among their supplies. Lizzie had often sat in the kitchen of High Glen House watching Jeannie, the cook, salting hams and haunches of venison in big barrels. She knew how to smoke fish, too. They would need plenty: the way she and Mack were behaving, there would be three to feed before a year passed. She smiled happily.
There was a movement in the trees. A moment later a young deer came out of the woods and stepped daintily to the water’s edge. Bending its head, it stuck out its tongue and began to drink.
Lizzie cocked the flintlock of her rifle silently.
Before she could aim, another deer followed the first, and within a few moments there were twelve or fifteen of them. If all the wilderness is like this, Lizzie thought, we’ll grow fat!
She did not want a big deer. The horses were fully loaded and could not carry spare meat, and anyway the younger animals were more tender. She picked her target and took aim, pointing the rifle at its shoulder just over the heart. She breathed evenly and made herself still, the way she had learned back in Scotiand.
As always, she suffered a moment of regret for the beautiful animal she was about to destroy.
Then she pulled the trigger.
The shot came from farther up the valley, two or three hundred yards away.
Jay froze, his gun still pointed at Mack.
The horses started, but the shot was too distant to give them a serious scare.
Dobbs brought his mount under control then drawled: “If you shoot now, Jamisson, you’ll warn her and she could get away.”
Jay hesitated, then slowly lowered his gun.
Mack sagged with relief.
Jay said: “I’ll go after her. The rest of you stay here.”
Mack realized that if only he could warn her, she might yet escape. He almost wished Jay had shot him. It might have saved Lizzie.
Jay left the clearing and headed upstream, gun held ready.
I have to make one of them fire, Mack realized.
There was an easy way to do that: run away.
But what if I’m hit?
I don’t care, I’d rather die than be recaptured.
Before caution could weaken his resolve he broke into a run.
There was a moment of stunned silence before anyone realized what was happening.
Then Peg screamed.
Mack ran for the trees, expecting a bullet to slam into his back.
There was a bang, followed by another.
He felt nothing. The shots had missed him.
Before more shots came he stopped in his tracks and raised his hands in the air.
He had done it. He had given Lizzie her warning.
He turned slowly, keeping his hands up. It’s up to you now, Lizzie, he thought. Good luck, my love.
Jay stopped when he heard shooting. It had come from behind him. It was not Lizzie who had fired, but someone back in the clearing. He waited, but there was no more gunfire.
What did it mean? McAsh could hardly have got hold of a weapon and loaded it. Anyway, the man was a coal miner, he knew nothing of guns. Jay guessed that Lennox or Dobbs had shot McAsh.
Whatever the truth, the all-important task was to capture Lizzie.
Unfortunately, the shooting had warned her.
He knew his wife. What would she do?
Patience and caution were foreign to her. She rarely hesitated. She reacted quickly and decisively. By now she would be running this way. She would be almost back in the clearing before she thought to slow down and look ahead and make a plan.
He found a spot where he could see clearly for thirty or forty yards along the bank of the stream. He hid himself in the bushes. Then he cocked the flintlock of his rifle.
Indecision struck him like a sudden pain. What would he do when she came into his sights? If he shot her all his troubles would be over. He tried to pretend he was hunting deer. He would aim for the heart, just below the shoulder, for a clean kill.
She came into view.
She was half walking and half running, stumbling along the uneven riverbank. She was wearing men’s clothing again, but he could see her bosom heaving with exertion. She carried two rifles under her arm.
He aimed at her heart, but he saw her naked, straddling him on the bed in the Chapel Street house, her breasts quivering as they made love; and he could not shoot.
When she was ten yards away he stepped out of the undergrowth.
She stopped in her tracks and gave a cry of horror.
“Hello, darling,” he said.
She gave him a look of hatred. “Why couldn’t you just let me go?” she said. “You don’t love me!”
“No, but I need a grandchild,” he said.
She looked scornful. “I’d rather die.”
“That’s the alternative,” he said.
There was a moment of chaos after Lennox fired his pistols at Mack.
The horses were frightened by the close-range shooting. Peg’s ran away. She stayed on, tied as she was, and hauled on the reins with her bound hands, but she could not stop it and they disappeared into the trees. Dobbs’s horse was bucking and he fought to bring it under control. Lennox began hastily to reload his weapons.
That was when Fish Boy made his move.
He ran at Dobbs’s horse, jumped on behind him, and wrestled Dobbs out of the saddle.
With a burst of exhilaration Mack realized he was not yet beaten.
Lennox dropped his pistols and ran to the rescue.
Mack stuck out a foot and tripped Lennox.
Dobbs fell off his horse, but one ankle got tangled in the rope by which Fish Boy was tied to the saddle. The horse, now terrified, bolted. Fish Boy clung to its neck for dear life. It ran out of sight, dragging Dobbs along the ground after it.