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"Maybe you don’t, but I do!"

"I’ to die," he said fir I’ve a horror of it"

"Well, I’m not very keen on itand your life?"

"It’s not"

"It dahtest difference, I thought Two years or fifty, a Fraser was a Fraser, and no rock was ht," I said, between clenched teeth "Giveand I’ll put it away"

"Your word"

"My what?" I stared at hi me back the stare, with interest "I may be fevered and loseif I’m in no state to stop it"

"If you’re in that sort of state, I’ll have no choice!"

"Perhaps ye don’t," he said evenly, "but I do I’ve made it Your word, Sassenach"

"You bloody, unspeakable, infuriating--"

His srin in the ruddy face "If ye callto live"

A shriek fro round to the , in tiround The water geysered over her skirt and shoes, but she paid no attention I glanced hastily in the direction she was looking, and gasped

It had walked casually through the paddock fence, snapping the rails as though they were matchsticks, and stood now in thein its e and dark and wooly, ten feet away from Jemmy, who stared up at it with round, round eyes and open otten in his hands

Marsali let out another screech, and Jean to screah I were h I was surely not--snatched the saw neatly from Jamie’s hand, went out the door, and headed for the yard, thinking as I did so that buffalo looked so much smaller in zoos

As I cleared the stoop--I must have leaped; I had no memory of the steps--Brianna ca silently, ax in her hand, and her face was set, inward and intent I had no time to call out before she reached it

She had drawn back the ax, still running, swung it in an arc as she took the last step, and brought it doith all her strength, just behind the huge beast’s ears A thin spray of blood flew up and spattered on the pue forward

Bree dodged to one side, dived for Jes that bound him to the fence Fro Gaelic prayers and imprecations as she seized a newly dyed petticoat from the blackberry bushes

I had sos with tipes, then was onback across the dooryard Marsali had thrown the petticoat over the buffalo’s head; it stood bewildered, shaking its head and swaying to and fro, blood showing black on the yellow-green of the fresh-dyed indigo

It stood as tall as I at the shoulder, and it samey but oddly familiar, with a barn-sers into its wool, holding on I could feel the treh it; they shook me like an earthquake

I had never done it, but felt as though I had, a thousand ti lips, felt warreat pulse throbbed in the angle of the jaw; I could see it inblood, warainst my cheek where it pressed the sodden petticoat

I drew the saw across the throat, cut hard, and felt in hands and forearrate of bone, the snap of tendon, and the slippery, rubbery, blood-squirting vessels, sliding away

The world shook It shifted and slid, and landed with a thud When I ca in the middle of one nuht of the buffalo’s head, , sodden with its blood