Outlander Book Club: The Fiery Cross Chapter 104 breakdown
Just the Outlander chapter
The chapter starts with Claire and Jamie getting to River Run, where Phaedre is the first to meet with them. She’s grateful that it’s them, knowing that Campbell would have been the usual first visitor after the latest events and that would have spelled trouble.
It turns out that Lieutenant Wolff turned up at River Run in an attempt to kill Duncan Innes. While the two men fought, Ulysses also turned up and he did end up killing Wolff. Had Duncan killed the lieutenant, there probably wouldn’t have been as much trouble. It would have been some hassle, but it would have been self-defense.
The fact that it was Ulysses who killed Wolff is the big problem. A Black man killing a white man meant certain death for the Black man. So, Ulysses had to run away as fast as possible. It left Jocasta and Duncan (who broke his leg) with Wolff’s body to deal with. Eventually, someone will notice that Wolff has gone missing, but someone finding the body is too much of a problem.
Jamie decides that Wolff’s body should be buried in the Cameron mausoleum. While they’re there, Jamie notes a bad smell. There’s a reason for this, and it’s not Hector Cameron.
Jocasta turns up and requests that Jamie stay away from the wall. When Jamie looks in, he realizes that there’s a body already in there. That’s where the smell is coming from. The body belongs to Dr. Rawlings, and Hector killed him when Rawlings was at the plantation just days before Hector’s death. Jocasta decided to bury him in the mausoleum but left the coffin that’s meant for her empty.
Jamie and Claire start to put everything together. Rawlings knew something about the gold, and Hector didn’t want him saying anything. Of course, we know from a previous chapter that Rawlings talked the last time he’d been there.
Jamie needs to do something with Wolff’s body, though. He can’t not carry on with what he’s doing. However, he does say that he’ll take Rawlings’s body to Fraser’s Ridge where the man can lie amongst friends.