Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone

“CAN YE THINK OF anything I’ve left out?” Jamie asked, watching as I read this.

“No. That’s … quite thorough.” I felt a cold heaviness in my stomach. These were all men I knew well. I’d greeted them and their wives as they’d come to the Ridge, many of them with nothing save the clothes on their backs, full of hope and gratitude for a place in this wild new world. I’d visited their cabins, delivered their children, tended their ills. And now …

I could see that Jamie felt the same heaviness of heart. These were men he’d trusted, accepted, given land and tools, encouragement and friendship. I set the letter down, my fingers cold.

“Would you really shoot them if they come back?” I asked quietly.

He looked at me sharply, and I saw that while he might be heavy of heart, that heart was also burning with a deep anger.

“Sassenach,” he said, “they betrayed me, and they hunted me like a wild animal, across my own land, for the sake of what they call the King’s justice. I have had enough of that justice. Should they come within my sight, on my land, again—aye. I will kill them.”

I bit my lip. He saw and put a hand on mine.

“It must be done so,” he said quietly, looking into my eyes to make sure I understood. “Not only because they’ll make trouble themselves—but these are not the only men on the Ridge and nearby whose minds turn in that direction, and I ken that well. Many have kept quiet so far, watching to see am I weak, will I fall or be taken? Will someone come here, like Major Ferguson? They’re afraid to declare themselves one way or the other, but was I to show these”—he flicked his other hand at the notice—“mercy, allow them to keep not only their lives but their land and weapons, it would give the timid ones confidence to join them.”

Not only their lives …

I felt the world shift, just slightly, under my feet. To this point, I’d been able to think that whatever might be happening in the world outside the Ridge, the Ridge itself was a solid refuge. And it wasn’t.

Not only their lives. Ours.

He didn’t need to say that he might not command sufficient men—or guns—to stand off a larger-scale insurrection on the Ridge by himself.

“Yes, I see that,” I said, and swallowing, picked up the paper gingerly, seeing not only the names of men but the faces of women. “It’s only—I can’t help feeling for the wives.” And the children, but mostly for the wives, caught between their homes, the needs of their families, and the danger of their husbands’ politics. Now to be evicted from their homes, with nothing but what they could carry away and nowhere to go.