* * *
“I can stay with you through part of the calling of the clans,” Roger said, “but I’ve a bit to do at the end of it, so I’ll have to leave you. Will you be all right?”
“Yes, of course,” she said firmly. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
He looked at her a little anxiously, but let it pass. Neither of them had mentioned her precipitous departure earlier; by the time he had made his way through the congratulatory well-wishers and gone to find her, she had had time to find a Ladies’ and get herself under control with cold water.
They had spent the rest of the afternoon strolling through the festival, shopping a bit, going outside to watch the pipe-bands’ competition, coming in half deafened to see a young man dance between two swords crossed on the ground. The photographs stayed safely out of sight in her handbag.
It was nearly dark now; people were leaving the eating area and heading for the open stands outside, at the foot of the mountain.
She had thought the families with young children would leave, and some did, but there were small bodies and sleepy heads drooping among the older people in the stands. A tiny girl lay limp, sound asleep on her father’s shoulder as they made their way into one of the upper rows of the stands. There was a clear, flat space in front of the bleachers, in which a huge heap of wood had been piled.
“What’s the calling of the clans?” she heard a woman ask her companion in the row ahead. The companion shrugged, and Brianna looked at Roger for enlightenment, but he only smiled.
“You’ll see,” he said.
It was full dark, and the moon not risen; the bulk of the mountainside rose up as a darker black against the star-flecked sky. There was an exclamation from somewhere in the crowd, a scattering of more, and then the notes of a single bagpipe came faintly through the air, silencing everything else.
A pinpoint of light appeared near the top of the mountain. As they watched, it moved down, and another sprang up behind it. The music grew stronger, and another light came over the top of the mountain. For nearly ten minutes, the anticipation grew, as the music grew louder, and the string of lights grew longer, a blazing chain down the mountainside.
Near the bottom of the slope, a trail came out from the trees above; she had seen it during her earlier exploration. Now a man stepped out of the trees into sight, holding a blazing torch above his head. Behind him was the piper, and the sound now was strong enough to drown even the oohs and ahhs of the crowd.
As the two moved down the trail and toward the cleared space in front of the bleachers, Brianna could see that there were more men behind them; a long line of men, each with a torch, all dressed in the finery of the Highland chieftains. They were barbarous and splendid, decked in grouse feathers, the silver of swords and dirks gleaming red by the torchlight, picked out amid the folds of tartan cloth.
The pipes stopped abruptly, and the first of the men strode into the clearing and stopped before the stands. He raised his torch above his head and shouted, “The Camerons are here!”
Loud whoops of delight rang out from the stands, and he threw the torch into the kerosene-soaked wood, which went up with a roar, in a pillar of fire ten feet high.
Against the blinding sheet of flame, another man stepped out, and called, “The MacDonalds are here!”
Screams and yelps from those in the crowd that claimed kinship with clan MacDonald, and then—
“The MacLachlans are here!”
“The MacGillivrays are here!”
She was so entranced by the spectacle that she was only dimly aware of Roger. Then another man stepped out and cried, “The MacKenzies are here!”
“Tulach Ard!” bellowed Roger, making her jump.
“What was that?” she asked.
“That,” he said, grinning, “is the war cry of clan MacKenzie.”
“Sounded like it.”
“The Campbells are here!” There must have been a lot of Campbells; the response shook the bleachers. As though that was the signal he had been waiting for, Roger stood up and flung his plaid over his shoulder.
“I’ll meet you afterward by the dressing rooms, all right?” She nodded, and he bent suddenly and kissed her.
“Just in case,” he said. “The Frasers’ cry is Caisteal Dhuni!”
She watched him go, climbing down the bleachers like a mountain goat. The smell of woodsmoke filled the night air, mixing with the smaller fragrance of tobacco from cigarettes in the crowd.
“The MacKays are here!”
“The MacLeods are here!”
“The Farquarsons are here!”
Her chest felt tight, from the smoke and from emotion. The clans had died at Culloden—or had they? Yes, they had; this was no more than memory, than the calling up of ghosts; none of the people shouting so enthusiastically owed kinship to each other, none of them lived any longer by the claims of laird and land, but…
“The Frasers are here!”
Sheer panic gripped her, and her hand closed tight on the clasp of her bag.
No, she thought. Oh, no. I’m not.
Then the moment passed, and she could breathe again, but jolts of adrenaline still thrilled through her blood.
“The Grahams are here!”
“The Inneses are here!”
The Ogilvys, the Lindsays, the Gordons…and then finally, the echoes of the last shout died. Brianna held the bag on her lap, gripped tight, as though to keep its contents from escaping like the jinn from a lamp.
How could she? she thought, and then, seeing Roger come into the light, fire on his head and his bodhran in his hand, thought again, How could she help it?
5
TWO HUNDRED YEARS FROM YESTERDAY
You didn’t wear your kilt!” Gayle’s mouth turned down in disappointment.
“Wrong century,” Roger said, smiling down at her. “Drafty for a moonwalk.”
“You have to teach me to do that.” She bounced on her toes, leaning toward him.
“Do what?”
“Roll your r’s like that.” She puckered her brows and made an earnest attempt, sounding like a motorboat in low gear.
“Verra nice,” he said, trying not to laugh. “Keep it up. Prractice makes perfect.”
“Well, did you bring your guitar, at least?” She stood on tiptoes, trying to look behind him. “Or that groovy drum?”
“It’s in the car,” Brianna said, putting away her keys as she came up beside Roger. “We’re going to the airport from here.”
“Oh, too bad; I thought we could hang around and have a hootenanny afterward, to celebrate. Do you know ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ Roger? Or are you more into protest songs? But I guess you wouldn’t be, since you’re English—oops, I mean Scotch. You guys don’t have anything to protest about, do you?”
Brianna gave her friend a look of mild exasperation. “Where’s Uncle Joe?”
“In the living room, kicking the TV,” Gayle said. “Shall I entertain Roger while you find him?” She linked one arm cosily through Roger’s, batting her eyelashes.
“We got half the doggone MIT College of Engineering here, and nobody who can fix a doggone television?” Dr. Joseph Abernathy glared accusingly at the clusters of young people scattered around his living room.
“That’s electrical engineering, Pop,” his son told him loftily. “We’re all mechanical engineers. Ask a mechanical engineer to fix your color TV, that’s like asking an Ob-Gyn to look at the sore on your di—ow!”
“Oh, sorry,” said his father, peering blandly over gold-rimmed glasses. “That your foot, Lenny?”
Lenny hopped storklike around the room to general laughter, clutching one large sneaker-clad foot in exaggerated agony.
“Bree, honey!” The doctor spotted her and abandoned the television, beaming. He hugged her enthusiastically, disregarding the fact that she topped him by four inches or so, then let go and looked at Roger, his features rearranged in a look of wary cordiality.
“This the boyfriend?”
“This is Roger Wakefield,” Brianna said, narrowing her eyes slightly at the doctor. “Roger, Joe Abernathy.”
“Dr. Abernathy.”
“Call me Joe.”
They shook hands in mutual assessment. The doctor looked him over with quick brown eyes, no less shrewd for their warmth.
“Bree, honey, you want to go lay hands on that piece of junk, see can you bring it back to life?” He jerked a thumb at the twenty-four-inch RCA sitting in mute defiance on its wire stand. “It was working fine last night, then today…pffft!”
Brianna looked dubiously at the big color TV, and groped in the pocket of her jeans, coming out with a Swiss Army knife.
“Well, I can check the connections, I guess.” She flicked out the screwdriver blade. “How much time do we have?”
“Half hour, maybe,” called a crew-cut student from the kitchen doorway. He glanced at the crowd clustered around the small black-and-white set on the table. “We’re still with Mission Control in Houston—ETA thirty-four minutes.” The muted excitement of the TV commentator came in bursts through the more vivid excitement of the spectators.
“Good, good,” said Dr. Abernathy. He laid a hand on Roger’s shoulder. “Plenty of time for a drink, then. You a Scotch man, Mr. Wakefield?”
“Call me Roger.”
Abernathy poured a generous measure of amber nectar and handed it over.
“Don’t imagine you take water, do you, Roger?”
“No.” It was Lagavulin; astonishing to find it in Boston. He sipped appreciatively, and the doctor smiled.
“Claire gave it to me—Bree’s mama. Now, there was a woman with a taste for fine whisky.” He shook his head nostalgically, and raised his glass in tribute.
“Slàinte,” Roger said quietly, and tipped his own glass before drinking.
Abernathy closed his eyes in silent appreciation—whether of the whisky or the woman, Roger couldn’t tell.
“Water of life, huh? I do believe that particular stuff could raise the dead.” He set the bottle back in the liquor cabinet with reverent hands.
How much had Claire told Abernathy? Enough, Roger supposed. The doctor picked up his tumbler and gave him a long look of assessment.
“Since Bree’s daddy is dead, I guess I get to do the honors. Reckon we got time for the third degree before they land, or shall we keep it short?”
Roger raised one eyebrow.
“Your intentions,” the doctor elaborated.
“Oh. Strictly honorable.”
“Yeah? I called Bree last night, to see if she was coming tonight. No answer.”
“We’d gone to a Celtic festival, up in the mountains.”
“Uh-huh. I called again, eleven p.m. And midnight. No answer.” The doctor’s eyes were still shrewd, but a good deal less warm. He set his glass down with a small click.
“Bree’s alone,” he said. “And she’s lonely. And she’s lovely. I wouldn’t like to see anybody take advantage of that, Mr. Wakefield.”
“Neither would I—Dr. Abernathy.” Roger drained his glass and set it down hard. Warmth burned in his cheeks, and it wasn’t due to the Lagavulin. “If you think that I—”
“THIS IS HOUSTON,” boomed the television. “TRANQUILITY BASE, WE HAVE TOUCH-DOWN IN TWENTY MINUTES.”
The inhabitants of the kitchen came pouring out, waving Coke bottles and cheering. Brianna, flushed with her labors, was laughing and brushing off their congratulations as she put away her knife. Abernathy put a hand on Roger’s arm, to keep him.
“Mind me, Mr. Wakefield,” Abernathy said, his voice low enough not to be heard over the crowd. “I don’t want to hear that you’ve made that girl unhappy. Ever.”
Roger carefully released his arm from the other’s grip.
“D’ye think she looks unhappy?” he asked, as politely as he could.
“No-oo,” said Abernathy, rocking back on his heels and squinting hard at him. “On the contrary. It’s the way she looks tonight that makes me think I should maybe punch you in the nose, on her daddy’s behalf.”
Roger couldn’t help turning to look at her himself; it was true. She had dark circles under her eyes, wisps of hair were coming down from her ponytail, and her skin was glowing like the wax of a lighted candle. She looked like a woman who’d had a long night—and enjoyed it.
As though by radar, her head turned and her eyes fixed on him, over Gayle’s head. She went on talking to Gayle, but her eyes spoke straight to him.
The doctor cleared his throat loudly. Roger jerked his attention away from her, to find Abernathy looking up at him, his expression thoughtful.
“Oh,” the doctor said, in a changed tone. “Like that, is it?”
Roger’s collar was unbuttoned, but he felt as though he were wearing a tie tied too tight. He met the doctor’s eyes straight on.
“Yeah,” he said. “Like that.”
Dr. Abernathy reached for the bottle of Lagavulin, and filled both glasses.
“Claire did say she liked you,” he said in resignation. He lifted one glass. “Okay. Slàinte.”