“Not this time. Once in a long while, something comes over ye—the red thing, is what I’ve always called it.” He glanced at me, almost shyly. “I had it—well, I was far beyond that—when I charged the field at Culloden. This time, though—” He ran a hand slowly through his hair. “In the dream … it was different. I wasna afraid at all, nor tired—do ye ever sweat in your dreams, Sassenach?”

“If you mean literally, yes. If you mean am I conscious of sweating in the dream … no, I don’t think so.”

He nodded, as though this confirmed something.

“Aye. I dinna think one smells things in a dream, either, unless it’s maybe smoke because the house took fire around ye whilst ye slept. But I felt things, just now, dreamin’. The rasp o’ the moor plants on my legs, gorse stuck to the edge of my kilt, and the feel o’ grass on my cheek when I fell. And I felt cold from the water I was lyin’ in, and felt my heart grow chill in my chest, and the beating grow slower … I kent I was bleeding, but nothing hurt—and I wasna afraid, either.”

“Did you take your clothes off in your dream?” I asked, touching his bare chest. He looked down at my finger, blank-faced. Then let his breath out explosively.

“God. I’d forgot that part. It was him—Jack Randall. He came out o’ nowhere, walking through the fight, stark naked.”

“What?”

“Well, dinna ask me, Sassenach, I dinna ken why. He just … was.” His hand floated back to his chest, gingerly touching the small hollow in his breastbone. “And I dinna ken why I was, either. I just … was.”

140

Three Rounds with a Rhinoceros

Fraser’s Ridge

September 16, 1780

“ONE WOULD THINK YOU’D done this before,” I remarked, smiling up between Brianna’s knees.

“If one thinks I’m ever doing this again …” she panted, but broke off, her sweating face contorting like a gargoyle’s. “NRRRRGH.”

“Wonderful, darling,” I said, my fingers on the rounded, hairy object showing briefly between her legs. I felt it for only a second before it disappeared again, an instant’s throbbing pulse, but that was enough; there was no sense of distress, only of bewilderment and an intense curiosity.

“Jesus, it looks like a coconut,” Roger blurted from his spot kneeling on the floor behind me.

“ARRRGHHHH! NGGGGHHH! I’m going to kill you! You—effing—” Brianna stopped, panted like a dog, then drove her blood-streaked legs hard into the straw-covered floor, half-rose from the birthing chair, and the baby shot out and fell heavily into my hands.

“Oh, my God,” said Roger.

“Don’t faint back there,” I said, busy swabbing the little boy’s nose and mouth. “Fanny? If he falls over, drag him out of the way.”