Chapter 3: The Man in the Wood

In this chapter, we learn that the 18th century is a terrifying shitstorm of violence and misogyny.

Claire is unhurt, but disoriented after traveling through the stones. She hears gunfire and sees redcoats chasing men in kilts and thinks she must be in the middle of a film shoot.

She tries to get away, but is soon captured by a man she thinks is Frank. Nope, it's Black Jack Randall! Apparently, an uncanny family resemblance can be passed down through 6 or 7 generations.

Claire runs, Black Jack chases her. Knocks her to the ground.

He ground his hips hard against mine, and his hands pinned my shoulders to the earth. My mouth fell open in outrage.

Is this our first attempted rape? Would it be possible to keep an accurate count for the whole novel?

Black Jack calls Claire "Chuckie" and "Chuck." Why? I do not know.

I screamed directly into his earhole, and he jerked as though I had run a hot wire into it.

My daughter did this to me once. It is indeed painful and triggers an instinct-driven protective response. I'm surprised Black Jack didn't throw Claire into a bush.

They go back and forth, her trying to get away, him trying to deduce whether she is, in fact, a prostitute. 

There was a sudden whoosh from above, followed immediately by a blur before my eyes and a dull thud . . . The Captain's struggling legs, shiny in tall brown boots, relaxed quite suddenly.

Kill it! Murtagh, man, you have this one shot. Slit his throat. Bash him with a rock. Stab him through the belly. You already know who you're dealing with here — you can definitely spare the 15 seconds it would take you to deal with Black Jack Randall once and for all. Assuming this is Murtagh, as it is in the show. I guess we don't know that yet.

Maybe-Murtagh drags Claire away. At one point, he pushes her to the ground and rolls on top of her. "Not again!" Claire thinks. This is not really an attempted rape, just an attempt to shut Claire up so that she doesn't draw the Redcoats' attention. But Claire doesn't experience it that way, at least not at first, so I'm ok chalking this up as sort of attempted rape #2, if only because it's important to realize how many times Claire is bludgeoned over the head with a sense of her own vulnerability. 

Of course, Claire is then actually bludgeoned over the head and loses consciousness. How big is Murtagh? He carries Claire around and heaves her up onto horseback while she's unconscious? Claire notes that he is "several inches shorter" than herself and "sparely built," so this is impressive.

They arrive at a cottage and someone confirms that Claire's captor is indeed Murtagh. It's Dougal! 

The dark man looked me over carefully, no expression on his face. He was good-looking, I thought, and not unfriendly. There were lines of strain between his brows, though, and it wasn't a face one would willingly cross.

Confession: I was #TeamDougal for the first several episodes of the TV show and barely even noticed Jamie.

We meet the rest of our merry band of MacKenzies. Hello, Rupert!

The dark man ignored me, establishing a pattern that I was to grow tired of very quickly.

Again, something Claire would have struggled with as a mid-century faculty wife as well as in the 18th century.

Rupert delivers rape threat #3. Though I suppose he's just the only one to make it explicit, as several of the other men are giving Claire "openly lascivious looks."

"I don't hold wi' rape, and we've not the time for it, anyway."

Well ok then.

I bit my tongue, repressing a number of more or less injudicious remarks that were bubbling toward the surface.

So Claire does have some measure of self control. Good to know.

And here's our first sighting of Jamie!

Not looking so good. Shot in the shoulder, and the same shoulder dislocated.

The mustached man, a Scot, and educated, to judge by his accent, was probing the shoulder, making the lad grimace in pain.

Who is this? Ned Gowan?

All this time, Claire is gathering up evidence that she is not in Kansas anymore: the men's dress, their vocabulary, no electric lights, the appearance of Black Jack Randall, etc. But she still has not entertained the idea that she is actually in the 18th century.

This scene is mostly as it is in the TV show. The men try to fix Jamie's shoulder, have no idea what they are doing, and are on the point of doing real damage when Claire intercedes. I am impressed with the TV writers' faithfulness to the novel, right down to the dialogue in this whole scene.

Claire fixes Jamie up. Dougal decides to take her along, though his reasons don't seem all that convincing to me.

1. If the English find her, she'll tell them which way we went. Why not blindfold her? Or just ride off in a different direction and circle back?
2. If the English find her, they might rape her. Very noble of you, Dougal, but not very practical. Why do you care?
3. We might be able to ransom her. Ok, fair enough. Though it still seems like a lot of trouble to bring her along.
4. It would be good to have a healer around. Probably the strongest of the four. Still seems like a lot of effort and risk.

"Jamie, get yourself up," [Dougal] called. "The lass will ride wi' you."

This also sounds like a bad idea. Dougal says that Claire can help guide the horse, but isn't it more difficult to ride double? Why put the injured man in charge of balancing Claire? And the poor horse — shouldn't she ride with someone smaller? I don't know, I'm no equestrian. But I suspect that Dougal is basing his decisions on the demands of the plot, rather than on military necessity.

I could feel his thighs behind mine, shifting and pressing occasionally to guide the horse.

Indeed.

At some point, Claire recognizes Cocknammon Rock, a place that Frank pointed out to her as the site of various English ambushes. The TV show set this up well, but this is the first we're hearing of it in the book, so this feels a bit convenient.

Suddenly reining up next to a a large gorse bush, Jamie grabbed me round the waist and unceremoniously dumped me into it.

Eek. Isn't gorse covered with sharp thorns? Harsh, Jamie.

Claire seems curiously uninjured, aside from a single scratch on her hand, so I guess we'll let this slide. She makes a break for it while the Scots are busy fighting. Now that she has a minute alone, Claire finally begins to consider the possibility that she might be in the 18th century. She's still resistant, which makes sense. In retrospect, TV Claire did reach this conclusion fairly quickly.

"Dinna worry, lass. 'Tis me."

How did he find her?

Jamie's covered in blood from the skirmish. Should we keep a body count for him? Obviously, it can't really be complete, given that he has certainly killed people before Claire shows up. And we can't be sure that he killed all three of the redcoats he fought. However, given the arterial bleeding and the fact that no one is chasing him, I'm willing to take him at his word and give him full credit.

Claire attempts to resist going back with Jamie, but he drags her along. She "accidentally" thumps him in the injured shoulder. She scolds him; he brags about killing three people. Claire starts drinking.

Eventually, Jamie collapses from blood loss. Dougal insists that need to keep riding and tells Claire to fix him up as best she can.

"'Hold still, you bloody fool . . . oh you goddamned bloody bastard!'"

I find Claire's vocabulary delightful. It reminds you that she has just come out of a war zone and that she really does not have much of a filter.

"'You can mind your own bloody business,' I snarled, sweat dripping behind my ears, 'and so can St. Paul.'"

I'm really glad they kept this in the TV show.

"Goddamn it all to hell!"

This is the first moment I feel genuine sympathy for Claire. Her frustration with that uncooperative bandage rings true. So much has happened to her in the last few hours and this is beyond bearing.

We learn that Jamie once had a foul mouth as well, but had his swearing habit broken during an extended stay at the monastery of Ste. Anne.

"You wouldna do so either, if you'd been made to do penance for it by lying for three hours at midnight on the stone floor of a chapel in February, wearing nothin' but your shirt."

Huh. So the TV writers are, in fact, capable of omitting scenes in which Jamie appears half naked. Color me surprised.

"Feisty wee bitch, is she no?" said my patient, sounding amused.

I guess this does not count as profanity. He's not wrong, but it seems somewhat uncharitable to say that straight to Claire's face.

Claire's getting close to tears, but Dougal and Jamie go on ignoring her. Poor Claire.

This chapter does a good job of plopping us into the 18th century without making it seem romantic. It's all rape threats and oozing wounds. Even the men we are supposed to like seem pretty awful here. I think that the visuals of the TV show may undermine the point of this chapter a bit. You can't hide the fact that the actors are beautiful, and the cinematographer does love the look of firelight on Sam Heughan's naked torso. Without that, the written word paints a starker picture of Claire's predicament.

Body Count:

Jamie: 3