This man, this whole scenario, had gone beyond confusing, past surreal, and was moving well into madness. That he kept mentioning yet another famous seventeenth-century figure eclipsed her pain and slammed her back into reality. She took a moment to focus.
“What?” she asked.
“I asked what you are to the Campbell.”
She knew her history well, knew Graham and Campbell had been enemies, but what did the latter have to do with the gun?
“How about you talk first?” Haley held her body as straight as she could, trying to minimize the fresh stabbing in her ribs with a rigid spine. Stars glittered for a moment over her vision, and she was forced to swallow convulsively from a sudden wave of nausea and the saliva it brought to the back of her tongue. “I know you know about the gun.”
“Gun?”
She gritted her teeth and pressed on. “What do you know about James Graham?” Her question was an accusation, and she felt the man stiffen as he tucked the last of the tartan into itself.
“What do you know of Graham?” He affected a cavalier tone, but Haley wasn't fooled.
“I don't think he died like people said,” she replied. He went still, and Haley felt gratified. She knew it. He was some sort of wacked-out academic rival. The competition made her cocky. “In fact, I'm almost certain he didn't die when people said he did.”
A single violent movement and he held her face between two viselike hands. “Who are you?” he snarled. “Are you Campbell's spy?”
His sudden movement jarred her. She flinched, and glass shattered in her chest. Haley gasped clipped breaths in andout through her pinched nostrils. “Campbell? What the… ”
What kind of a freak show was this, where she found herself immersed in some strange flashback? MacColla, Graham, and now this insistence on Campbell too?
The hollow thunk of a flask dropping to the ground startled them. “You'd be wise not to try my brother.”
Haley wrenched her face free of MacColla's grip and stared with unmitigated fury at his sister, standing hands on hips beside them. “They call him Fear Thollaidh nan Tighean, and he is bested by no man. And certainly by no woman.”
The strange Gaelic phrase resonated in the back of Haley's mind, but she quickly shoved it aside to concentrate on the girl in front of her. Certainly by no woman, my ass. It was creatures like this who gave women a bad name.
“You've got me cornered.” Haley made as if to concede. She needed to rest up, not rouse suspicions, if she were to eventually get away from them. “Look. I'm hurt. I'm tired. I don't know any Campbell. ”
She scooted back and the pain threatened, ready to explode, like a flame divining a whiff of kerosene. She stilled, the stabbing in her chest lending truth to her charade. “I don't have the gun, if that's why I'm here. I locked it up before you took me. ”
They stared at her dumbly and she chattered on. “Get it? The gun's locked up. I don't have it. I know you want to ride some more, but can I please just lie down and rest for a while?”
The need for sleep had grown critical. The binding around her chest had dulled her pain, and Haley felt the hysteria draining from her, leaving limp, exhausted shock in its wake. She realized her hands were freezing, and she held them before her, watching dumbly as they trembled.
The man muttered some curse under his breath. Black spots swam across her vision, dispersed just as quickly, then came again, slowing and growing into a cool darkness that swallowed her back and down.
Haley heard him issue some order to his sister, followed at once by the snap of branches. Felt his hands on her shoulders, then the rough ground at her back. There was the weight of fabric over her. Then blackness.
* * *
“Royalist or Covenanter, brother?”
“Hm?” MacColla watched the strange woman as she slept. It would be time to rouse her soon. He was desperate to be on his way, but he kept getting waylaid by the needs of these two women. He should be ravaging Campbell's lands in Argyll, not making camp.
He needed to push south, getting Jean to safe harbor with his family in Kintyre as soon as possible. But he'd realized in frustration that the women would require a day of true shelter, with rest and hot food, if they were to keep up his pace.
Lately, allies bled from Campbell's control as if from a ruptured vein, and MacColla knew of a place in Argyll where they might find sympathetic refuge on the way.
“Fincharn Castle,” his sister replied testily. The return of his gaze over and again to the sleeping stranger seemed to make Jean peevish, her waning patience putting questions on her tongue for which she'd normally have no concern. “I ask of the residents of Fincharn. Do we find a friend there, or a castle full of Covenanters residing in Campbell's pocket?”
MacColla spared a smile for his sister. He had to admit, she was dogged in her efforts to split his attentions from the stranger. “We find both,” he said. “It was once a MacMartin stronghold, but Clan Scrymgeour holds the castle now. And though the father was a Covenanter, his son John is the one awaiting us now. He supports the king, as we do.”
“And when is it we return to our own home, on Colon -say?”
Her chin trembled now.