Read Online An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon - Free Book Online

Almost before it hit the ground, he was running, hobbling, his right leg buckling under him with every step.
    “God, no, God, no,” he was saying, and it sounded like someone else’s voice.
    A voice came through snow and night, calling out in desperation. Then Rollo was bounding past him, a blur—who had let him out?—and a rifle cracked from the trees. Ian bellowed, somewhere near, calling the dog, but Jamie had no time to look, was scrambling heedless over the blackened stones, slipping on the skim of fresh snow, stumbling, his leg was cold and hot at once, but no matter, oh, God , please, no …
    He reached the black figure and flung himself on his knees beside it, grappling. He knew at once; he’d known from the moment he realized the pistol had been held in her right hand. Arch, with his missing fingers, couldn’t fire a pistol right-handed. But, oh, God, no …
    He’d got her over, feeling the short, heavy body limp and unwieldy as a fresh-killed deer. Pushed back the hood of the cloak, and passed his hand, gentle, helpless, over the soft round face of Murdina Bug. She breathed against his hand—perhaps … but he felt the shaft of the arrow, too, against his hand. It had come through her neck, and her breath bubbled wet; his hand was wet, too, and warm.
    “Arch?” she said hoarsely. “I want Arch.” And died.

    LIFE FOR LIFE
    I TOOK JAMIE into the pantry. It was dark, and cold, particularly for a man with no breeches on, but I didn’t want to risk any of the Higginses being wakened. God, not now. They’d all erupt from their sanctum like a flight of panicked quail—and I quailed myself at thought of having to deal with them before I had to. It would be sufficiently horrible to tell them what had happened by daylight; I couldn’t face the prospect now.

    For lack of any better alternative, Jamie and Ian had laid Mrs. Bug in the pantry alongside Grannie MacLeod, tucked under the lowest shelf, her cloak drawn up over her face. I could see her feet sticking out, with their cracked, worn boots and striped stockings. I had a sudden vision of the Wicked Witch of the West, and clapped a hand to my mouth before anything truly hysterical could escape.
    Jamie turned his head toward me, but his gaze was inward, his face haggard, deep-lined in the glow of the candle he carried.
    “Eh?” he said vaguely.
    “Nothing,” I said, my voice trembling. “Nothing at all. Sit—sit down.” I put down the stool and my medical kit, took the candle and tin of hot water from him, and tried to think of absolutely nothing but the job before me. Not feet. Not, for God’s sake, Arch Bug.
    Jamie had a blanket wrapped round his shoulders, but his legs were necessarily bare, and I could feel the hairs bristling with gooseflesh as my hand brushed them. The bottom of his shirt was soaked with half-dried blood; it stuck to his leg, but he made no sound when I pulled it loose and nudged his legs apart.
    He had been moving like a man in a bad dream, but the approach of a lighted candle to his balls roused him.
    “Ye’ll take care wi’ that candle, Sassenach, aye?” he said, putting a protective hand over his genitals.
    Seeing his point, I gave him the candle to hold, and with a brief admonition to beware of dripping hot wax, returned to my inspection.
    The wound was oozing blood, but plainly minor, and I plunged a cloth into the hot water and began to work. His flesh was chilled, and the cold damped even the pungent odors of the pantry, but I could still smell him, his usual dry musk tainted with blood and frantic sweat.
    It was a deep gouge that ran four inches through the flesh of his thigh, high up. Clean, though.
    “A John Wayne special,” I said, trying for a light, dry tone. Jamie’s eyes, which had been fixed on the candle flame, changed focus and fixed on me.
    “What?” he said hoarsely.
    “Nothing serious,” I said. “The ball just grazed you. You may walk a little oddly for a day or two, but the hero lives to