A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Jamie accompanies MacDonald partially home, stopping at the McGillivray’s on his way back. Robin McGillivray is working in his gun smithy, aided by sketches from Brianna on how to improve his guns. Jamie commissions Robin to create, and enlist other smithies to help create, 30 muskets for him in three months, paid for in cash. Sworn to secrecy, Robin agrees to help and to speak to other gunmakers around.

Jamie leaves Gideon, his sought-after stallion, to breed for trade with a neighbor’s mare and walks home alone. He thinks about the coming war and the fact that he will have to be revealed as a rebel and a traitor at some point. He worries about how to break this news to the Cherokee and to Lord John, and how to convince them to fight for the rebellion and the republic.

When he runs into Brianna, she tells him about the Trail of Tears. In about 60 years, the American government will lie and cheat the Cherokee into walking thousands of miles to Oklahoma, and many will die en route. A small group of them will survive by hiding in the mountains. Brianna wants Jamie to warn Bird, as maybe that group owes their survival to Bird’s foreknowledge of events. Jamie writes to Lord John on April 2, 1774, requesting Lord John sell the gemstone discreetly on his behalf.

Bobby returns with gifts from Lord John. At breakfast one morning, Claire asks him and Lizzie if she can practice putting them under anesthesia using the ether she’s brewed. He agrees when he hears that Malva will be assisting, to Lizzie’s jealousy. Lizzie goes first. Using a mask and drops of ether, the experiment goes perfectly. They repeat it with Bobby. Malva is thrilled with her newfound ability: “I’ve never seen the like. It’s such a feeling, is it not? Like as we killed him and brought him alive again” (551). When Bobby awakens, he throws up, telling them he saw a dark vision of a person just before vomiting. He and Lizzie agree that being put under puts their soul in limbo. All start getting woozy, so Claire takes the ether mask outside. Malva and Lizzie both vie for Bobby’s attention, but Claire sends them off.

Jamie and Ian stop at a stream to bathe and water the horses. Jamie is angry and disgusted by a letter MacDonald has given him from another Indian agent named John Stuart. Stuart created a competition for the tribal leaders to participate in, then hand-picked which would be most helpful to their cause.

Jamie hears rustling in the bushes and sees two young Tuscarora men creeping up to steal their horses. He attacks them, fighting brutally with one and knocking the other out. Ian and Rollo join them quickly. They are Light on Water and his brother, Goose. Goose is injured from a Cherokee attack on their village. Light’s wife has been abducted, and they’re trying to get her back. The Cherokee were from Bird’s village.

Jamie and Ian agree to help get Light’s wife back to him. Light and Goose consider themselves Jamie’s slaves now, as he’s captured them. Uncomfortable with this, Jamie decides to try to simply buy Light’s wife from Bird’s village using the medals and trinkets given him by MacDonald.

Jamie bargains for Light’s wife easily. She’s only 14 years old; all the men are drawn to her. Among a group of visiting Tennessee Cherokee is Alexander Cameron, an Indian agent they call Scotchee. Cameron is there to investigate a possible sale of land deep within Cherokee land to Henderson, former Chief Justice of the court, before he was driven off by Regulators: “Cameron […] wished the sale to be met with approval […] allowing James Henderson to go forward with his plans with no undue harassment by Indians in the area” (566).

Jamie doesn’t care about this business, knowing the revolution is coming, but he uses the information to his advantage. He gets Cameron to agree to take the young Tuscarora men and Light’s wife back with him. Cameron notes that more and more stragglers, and entire villages, are perishing.

That night, they share stories and pass a pipe. Jamie surprises himself by recounting a battle in Scotland. His hallucination starts again and he’s unable to finish the story or speak, feeling like he’s somewhere or someone else for a moment. He still doesn’t know if he killed Randall or not. Later, he tells Bird and Cameron about the women in his family seeing the future. He explains the Trail of Tears and reveals that a few Cherokee will survive in their homeland.

When he goes to bed, he finds Bird’s best joke of all; he’s sent his mother to Jamie’s tent. She merely combs his hair, however, soothing his mind. She tells him to speak so he does, in Gaelic, letting everything out. He sees three specters in the tent; two of them are Randall.

Working in the garden in June 1774, Claire meets with Manfred, Lizzie’s fiancé, who wishes to speak to her alone. He says he can’t marry Lizzie because he loved a woman named Myra, a prostitute in Hillsboro. Manfred’s just learned that she’s died from syphilis, which he most likely has now. Claire takes him to Jamie, who is furious. She then takes him back to her surgery to begin treatment with penicillin. She draws his blood. Jamie goes to get Lizzie’s father to speak with Manfred. Hearing footsteps in the hall, Manfred flees out the window before Claire can tell him she can cure it. Ian arrives with Lizzie in his arms; she has fainted from a malarial attack. They rub the balm into her skin. Claire begins inspecting Manfred’s blood under her crude microscope, searching for signs of the disease.

Ian returns with a black eye and the news that Manfred is overcome with despair and suicidal ideations. Jamie tells the McGillivrays about Manfred.

Ute comes to their house in the middle of the night, pounding on the door. She rushes upstairs and attacks Claire for spreading lies about her son. Claire goes into a trauma flashback, beating Ute harshly in response. Ute tells Claire that she and her family are shunned. Manfred has disappeared, and Ute blames Claire. She says neither her family nor her friends will trade with the Frasers again, then departs.

Lizzie appears in the doorway, asking after her fiancé: “‘Poxed and gone,’ Ian said curtly, drawing himself up. ‘Ye didna give him your maidhood, I hope’” (591). The resultant scandal and gossip spreads throughout the colonies. Lizzie doesn’t mind losing Manfred, but she regrets the loss of a mother in Ute. Many families continue trading with the Frasers, but Claire feels many cold shoulders when she leaves the ridge. Malva continues to apprentice with Claire, who explains sex to her in the frame of teaching her about syphilis.

Searching for a swarm of bees that left her hive, Claire finds herself on the hill above the Christie’s cabin. She witnesses Christie requiring Malva to cut a switch and then spanking her bare bottom with it. Malva seems angry but used to such treatment. Claire hides, and neither see her. Claire tells Jamie, but he’s unconcerned. She remembers him hitting her with his belt once, long ago, and they get in an argument about the incident, with Jamie indicating that he could do it again if he wanted: “I was, for the most part, able to ignore the fact that I was legally his property. That didn’t alter the fact that it was a fact—and he knew it” (601).

Jamie tells Claire about his sister, Jenny Murray, and her marriage to Ian. Sometimes, Jenny would goad Ian into spanking her with his belt for pleasure, which Claire can’t comprehend. Jamie explains about men having to always be in charge, whether they like it or not, and how taking a strap to those in their charge is part of that. By letting Ian strike her, Jenny was letting him feel like a man, from Jamie’s perspective. Jamie overpowers Claire and holds her wrist, her back against a tree, in a display of his strength. He compares her to Laoghaire, how he never wanted to own his former wife, but he must own Claire. Claire reminds him that she owns him too, a fact he says he knows well.

Jamie speaks with Malva, trying to find out about her relationship to her father. She seems somewhat afraid of Christie, but no more than what Jamie considers normal. He learns that Christie’s wife followed him to America, then left him and returned to Scotland. Christie tells people she died of influenza. Malva is very pretty but has no suitors. She asks Jamie to not tell Christie about the young men pining after her.

In July 1774, Jamie arrives to help Brianna dig for clay. She advises him to take off his shirt so that it doesn’t get muddy, which embarrasses him. Jem and Germain help, too. Brianna hasn’t gotten the hang of making anything in the kiln yet. Jamie offers to speak to the ceramicist in the next community over, as many are still not doing business with the Frasers because of the Manfred syphilis scandal.

Near the river, they see someone had made a small fire on a rock. Human hand bones are in the ashes. Jamie thinks it’s a Highlander’s charm and tells Brianna not to touch it. Jamie swims with Jem and Germain (Jem’s first time swimming) and then they walk back to the Big House together.

Brianna asks Mrs. Bug about the fire and bones. Mrs. Bug immediately recognizes it as an old Scottish love charm called the Venom of the North Wind. She recites it for Brianna. One of the ingredients is bones from an old man, freshly buried. Brianna wonders if Mrs. McCallum is trying to put the charm on Roger. She goes to the cemetery and sees the earth around the grave of Ephraim, the unknown man who lived in Treaty lines and whose body was returned by a Cherokee, has been disturbed.

Roger visits Mrs. McCallum again. People have been talking about how he spends more time with them than with his own wife. (He wasn’t helping Brianna with the digging the day before because he was checking up on the McCallums.) He feels a particular burden for young mothers because his own mother was young and alone.

One of the days he went to Mrs. McCallum’s, he came upon Malva embracing Bobby in the woods. Malva told him she would tell everyone she saw him kissing Mrs. McCallum if he told anyone about her and Bobby.

Meanwhile, young Aiden MacCallum is in serious pain. Roger takes him to Claire, who diagnoses him with acute appendicitis. She sends Roger to fetch Malva, as they’ll need to use the ether.

Malva is not at home, and Roger tells Christie and Allan, Malva’s brother, that Claire needs her help in the surgery. When Roger finds Malva in the creek, she tells him she can’t come because her father will beat her if he finds out she’s working with ether. Roger says he’ll tell Christie about Bobby if she doesn’t come. She does.

Claire performs the appendectomy without incident, with Malva and Brianna assisting. As she finishes, Christie and Allan arrive, furious with Malva. Roger tries to defend her, and Allan punches him. They tumble outside, fighting. Brianna hears Allan call Roger an adulterer and leaves abruptly. Aiden stops breathing, and Claire resuscitates him using CPR, to Christie’s amazement.

Roger and Brianna get into an argument about the adultery rumors and the time Roger spends helping other women and not his own family: “‘You’ll help any woman but me,’ she said, opening her eyes. ‘Why is that?’” (646). Roger responds that he doesn’t think Brianna needs him, then walks out the door to help Malva.

One morning, Roger and Jamie fish together. Roger tells his father-in-law that he wants to become a minister to help people because he knows how, and it must be done. Jamie is the first person he’s told, even before his wife. Jamie supports him, gently asking why Roger hasn’t talked to Brianna about it (he’s afraid she’ll think him cowardly) and if he thinks he’ll turn Quaker (he doesn’t). They both lament the coming war.

Roger tells Brianna he wants to become a minister, and she is stunned but relieved to have an explanation for his behavior. He says he doesn’t want her to convert to Protestantism, so his flock will have to accept that their minister has a Catholic wife. Relieved, Roger goes off to play with Jem, climbing a tree and howling at the moon. Jamie sits beside Brianna, and she tells him about Disneyland. She’s sad Jem won’t ever go there, but she knows his life and family will be full of laughter and joy.