Highland Laddie Gone (2 page)

“It will be nice to have you along,” she admitted. “These Scottish gatherings tend to be mostly families and old men. Unattached young men will be at a premium.”

Geoffrey struck a pose. “Young men like me would be at a premium in
heaven,
my dear.”

Elizabeth nodded. “There will be very few of you there, if that’s what you mean.”

“It sounds like a senior citizens’ costume party. Whatever did you want to come for?”

“It can be a lot of fun. I used to come every year until I went off to college. Once I got third place in the country dancing.”

“Just the two of you competing, I suppose?” asked Geoffrey solemnly.

Elizabeth sighed. “Should we keep score this weekend?”

“I think not. Your best bet is an unconditional surrender. Now, to get back to this Highland fling you’ve dragged me to: I hope I am not expected to wear a kilt.”

“No. Lots of people wear ordinary clothes.”

“I could never be accused of that,” Geoffrey assured her, smoothing his yellow poplin slacks. “That reminds me. I did bring along something to get into the spirit of things.”

He reached into the pocket of his navy blue blazer and drew out a red and green plaid necktie. “There! Now, how do you say
tacky
in Gaelic?”

Elizabeth glanced at the tie, swerved the car, and fixed her eyes firmly on the road again. “You’re not going to wear that,” she informed him.

“Why not? I thought it was rather fetching. Though not perhaps with yellow slacks.”

“It’s the Royal Stewart tartan, Geoffrey.”

He clutched the tie to his chest. “Possession is nine-tenths of the law!”

“Idiot. I mean, it’s the plaid of the Scottish royal family. No one but them is supposed to wear it.”

“Then there must be an awful lot of them, because I see it on stadium blankets, dog coats—”

“I know, but remember that this is a Scottish festival, where they enforce rules like that. At least, Dr. Campbell does.”

“Who?”

“If we’re lucky he won’t be here this year, But I doubt if wild horses could keep him away. He’s the president of the local chapter of Clan Campbell, and he is the most exasperating old grouch alive! He’s a stickler for Scottish etiquette, and an absolute bore about family trees.”

“Not unlike yourself, in fact,” Geoffrey observed.

“You are not wearing that tie, Geoffrey,” Elizabeth replied calmly. “If you want to join in, you can wear a MacPherson tie; or you can find out if the Chandlers were affiliated with any clan; but wear the Royal Stewart you may not. I won’t be seen with anyone doing that. Or wearing Campbell colors, of course.”

“What are Campbell colors? Purple and orange?”

“The tartan, I mean. You can’t be a Campbell. Honestly, I don’t know why they even come to these gatherings.”

“They sound marvelous,” said Geoffrey, with the first trace of interest he had thus far displayed. “Do they kidnap
children? Dip snuff? Play acid rock on their bagpipes?”

Elizabeth was so distracted by this last possibility that she nearly forgot to answer. “Of course not,” she finally said. “They were on the wrong side, that’s all. It’s like going to a Civil War reenactment and being a Yankee.”

“Does this have something to do with Bonnie Prince Charlie—he of my forbidden necktie?” asked Geoffrey, fingering the object in question.

“Of course. In 1745 the Highland clans backed Charles Edward Stuart against the Hanovers for the throne of England. He raised an army in Scotland, and—”

“The MacPhersons were on his side, I take it?”

“Naturally.”

“And the Campbells … weren’t?” Geoffrey beamed with pride at the magnitude of his deduction.

“Right. The final battle was at Culloden in 1746. The Highland clans with swords and an inoperative cannon stood against the British army
and
the Campbells, who were armed with muskets and bayonets!”

Geoffrey blinked. “There seems to be nothing wrong with the Campbells’
intelligence,
then. The MacPhersons, on the other hand—”

“It was a massacre,” said Elizabeth, ignoring him. “And
after
the battle, the Duke of Cumberland’s army spent months in the Highlands, killing every man, woman, and child they could find. They virtually obliterated the Highland clans.”

“Hardly that,” Geoffrey protested. “Judging from these Scottish gatherings, I’d say you were all breeding like hamsters.”

“We’re the refugees,” snapped Elizabeth, glossing over a few centuries. “The ones who could escaped to Ireland, and then to America or Canada.”

Geoffrey nodded comprehension. “I see! But, Elizabeth, what are the Campbells doing here then? Shouldn’t they all be back in Scotland, living it up, having the place all to themselves?”

Elizabeth was shaken by this hitherto unconsidered question. “Never mind about that!” she muttered. “They’re probably all descended from younger sons who got booted out to the colonies.”

“That’s right,” smiled Geoffrey. “I’d forgotten that everyone in Virginia is descended from the English nobility. Not a yeoman in the state.”

Elizabeth made a face at him.

“With all that fiction going around, I don’t see why I couldn’t be a Royal Stewart. Wasn’t Bonnie Prince Charlie called The Pretender? It fits right in.”

“Forget it, Geoffrey.”

“You are so unreasonable. You won’t even indulge me in my one bit of whimsy, when I have been a perfect saint about putting up with
your
eccentricity.”

Geoffrey turned around and stared meaningfully at the passenger in the backseat, who returned the glare with malevolent yellow eyes.

   “P
OOR
Cluny!” cried Elizabeth, glancing again into the rearview mirror. “Does he look hungry?”

“He’s gazing longingly at my throat,” said Geoffrey. “It may not be the same thing.”

“We’d better feed him. Can you reach that cooler on the floor of the backseat?”

“With my
hand?”

“I can’t believe that he would condescend to bite you, but I’ll stop the car anyway.”

Cluny, the clan mascot, was a regal bobcat who embodied the Chattan motto:
Touch Not the Cat.
He lounged on the backseat, wearing a tartan ribbon over his metal collar, and a look of heavy-lidded insolence. Several times a year, Cluny’s owner lent him out to attend Scottish festivals, where he enjoyed overeating and sneering at the antics of the primates. Since Cluny was de-clawed and had never found anyone worth the energy to bite, he was generally believed to be tame, but his expression of cordial dislike kept most admirers at bay. “My ancestors used to eat your ancestors,” he seemed to be thinking behind his yellow stare.

Elizabeth stopped the car on a level stretch of grass beside the road. “Poor pussums,” she cooed. “Is-ums hungry?”

Cluny yawned and flexed a paw against the upholstery.

“I wish you had been that solicitous when I wanted to stop and eat,” Geoffrey remarked.

“Get the cooler out of the backseat,” said Elizabeth. “I’ll walk him around.”

Geoffrey hoisted the plastic ice chest, which was heavier than he expected, and deposited it ungently on the grass. “What’s in this thing? Judge Crater?”

“The bobcat bill of fare for the entire weekend. All I have to do is keep adding ice to the cooler—and there should be lots of that around, considering how those doctors drink. Come on, Cluny, din-din.” She opened the box. “Let’s see what we have here. How about ground chuck?”

“As opposed to Geoffrey Tartare,” murmured Geoffrey, edging out of the way.

“He must be very expensive to feed,” Elizabeth remarked as Cluny inhaled a fist-size chunk of meat.

“Consider the alternative.”

“Dry cat food?”

“Door-to-door salesmen, Jehovah’s Witnesses …”

“I keep telling you, he’s not dangerous. Just a little reserved. I hope he’ll get along with dogs. Marge may be there.”

Geoffrey smiled. “Does she know what you think of her?”

“What? … Oh, I see. What I meant was that Marge Hutcheson always brings border collies to the games, and I wouldn’t want them to chase Cluny. Or vice versa. Marge was always one of my favorite people at the games. I used to help her set up the gates and ramps for the herding competition.”

“Do you mean to tell me there will be sheep at this ordeal?” asked Geoffrey, inspecting the sole of his shoe as if anticipating future indignities.

“No. Of course, in Scotland border collies herd sheep; but for the games here, sheep are too much trouble to haul around, so most exhibitors use ducks. It’s amazing what the dogs can get those ducks to do.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I’ll bet if we got a giant carnivore to slink around after you, you’d be doing amazing things, too.” He paused to look at Elizabeth, who was hopping on one foot with one hand arched over her head.

“I’m shedding,” she informed him, placing her left foot in front of her knee, then behind it, then in front again.

“A balsam conditioner would do you a world of good, but why are you bouncing around like that?”

Elizabeth pretended to stop in order to answer his question, and Geoffrey pretended not to see her gasping for breath. “Shedding,” she said between heaves. “Name of … dance step … Highland fling … practicing.”

“You’re not going to practice too much, are you, dear? Father insisted that we learn CPR, but it’s been
years.”

“Dinna worry about me, laddie!” snapped Elizabeth.

“Oh, now really, this is too much! I can take the costumes and the peculiar dancing, but if you start lapsing into a vaudeville Scottish burr, I will lock you in the trunk for the duration of the festival.”

“You’re not going to be any fun at all.”

“Nonsense! I shall be indispensable. With all those demented hams running around pretending to be Jacobites, I shall be that all-important figure: the audience. I expect to enjoy myself hugely.”

“You’ll be lucky if no one brains you with a bagpipe,” muttered Elizabeth.

Dr. Colin Campbell glared at the gaggle of pipe-band members trying to dash across the road to the cafe, apparently trusting their youth and stamina to transport them before his Winnebago mowed them down. They couldn’t be presuming on Dr. Campbell’s good-will: the nonexistence of
that
was an accepted fact among the games crowd.

Just what you’d expect of a Campbell, most people said, thereby overlooking an important psychological point. Highland games festivals spent a lot of time emphasizing Scottish traditions and lauding Bonnie Price Charlie, whose band of overconfident nincompoops were slaughtered, sword in hand, by the musket-toting Campbells. To the idealists enamored of lost causes, coming to a battle well fed, with state-of-the-art weaponry and a sizable army to back you up, was cheating; and the Campbells were vilified in song and jest for their calculating and unsportsmanlike behavior. Some two hundred and forty-odd years after the Battle of Culloden, the Campbells were still considered the flies in the broth of Scotland, which explains why Colin Campbell thrived on ill will. What other sort of person would go, year after year, to a gathering at which he was guaranteed to be hated?

Dr. Campbell waited until he could see the whites of the pipe band’s eyes before pumping his horn, which blared out, “The Campbells are coming! Hooray! Hooray!” As he sped off in the direction of the campsite, he could see them in his rearview mirror shaking their fists and shouting Campbell epithets. Colin smiled; it was an auspicious beginning for the games.

*  *  *

Jerry Buchanan winced as he removed his kilt from the monogrammed clothes bag. Whoever had inquired “What’s in a name?” had not been a Buchanan of Scottish origin. In Scotland, last names denote clan affiliation, and thereby clan tartan, which meant that Jerry Buchanan would spend a lifetime of Highland festivals running around in a tartan of red, green, and yellow with a predominant orange stripe, in marked contrast to the muted grays and browns he wore the rest of the time. Why couldn’t he have been a Gordon or a Douglas, with their tasteful blues and greens?

Jerry was tired of having to be good-natured about the jokes—that Barnum and Bailey were septs of Clan Buchanan; that Buchanan was Gaelic for
rainbow.
He’d almost rather be a Campbell. He had considered quitting the games circuit, but he did enjoy the sporting events, and he had quite a reputation as a hurler. The trophies looked good in his office waiting room, and it gave him something in common with MacDonald and Ogilvy, his partners at the clinic. Someday it might even be worth more than that.

Jerry glanced out the window to see if a battered old AirStream had pulled into the campgrounds yet. Someday all this Highland business might pay off very well indeed, he told himself. Jerry didn’t usually dabble in politics, but this was different. He wondered what news would be arriving with the man in the AirStream. Perhaps he would speak to him about changing the Buchanan colors—when he had the power to do it, of course. When he was the Earl of Buchanan.

Jerry smiled, picturing his little dental office tucked into
the turret of a castle and his receptionist decked out in a kilt of tasteful blue and gray.

Cameron Dawson hadn’t said anything for six miles, ever since he had realized that nobody was going to talk about porpoises; but his hosts hadn’t noticed his silence. Probably never would, at the rate they were nattering about this festival they were taking him to. From what he could gather, they all thought it was the most amazing stroke of good fortune that their visiting professor from Scotland had arrived just as the Highland festival was about to begin: it solved the problem of how to entertain him for the weekend.

Cameron Dawson was less sanguine about the coincidence: he would have preferred to be given a tour of fast-food restaurants and then left alone with a big-screen color television hooked up to cable. But it was not to be. He wasn’t sure just what to expect of an American Scottish festival, but if the previous hour’s conversation was any example, it was going to be the longest weekend of Cameron Dawson’s life.

“You’re sure you don’t have a kilt, Dr. Dawson?” asked Mrs. Carson with a disbelieving smile.