Highland Laddie Gone (4 page)

“Isn’t this exciting, kitty?” Elizabeth was saying. “All these beautiful colors! Let’s go to the Chattan booth and see who’s on duty now.”

The first tent on Clan Row belonged to the Campbells.
They were flying the family standard: a boar’s head emblazoned with the motto
Ne Obliviscaris
(Forget Not), and a cardboard poster on an easel listed the family names associated with Clan Campbell. A woman in a white sundress was straightening a stack of brochures while several other people sat in lawn chairs under the canopy watching the milling tourists. Elizabeth, who felt that being Maid of the Cat obliged her to be friendly to all festival participants, waved and smiled.

The woman with the brochures smiled back, but a voice from the tent called out, “Just a minute, young woman!”

Elizabeth flinched. She recognized the voice.

A gnome of a man in a green and white kilt marched out from the shade of the tent, squinting and scowling.

“Would you like to pet the kitty?” asked Elizabeth innocently.

“I would not,” snapped the old man. “I suppose you’re the Chattan’s Maid of the Cat this year?” Elizabeth nodded. “It’s a lot of damned foolishness. Not traditional at all. But if you’re bound to do it, I think you ought to observe the Highland customs.”

“Oh, really?”

“Women … do … not … wear … 
kilts!”
He seemed to be strangling with rage.

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “And MacPhersons do not take orders from Campbells!”

“At least we don’t permit our womenfolk to go around pretending to be men,” snapped Dr. Campbell, who was enjoying himself hugely.

“This isn’t Scotland; it’s America. And a lot of people here would say that
you
were in drag!” Elizabeth jerked Cluny’s leash and stalked off.

Colin Campbell’s face turned Stewart-of-Appin red. “Young woman, do you know who I am?” he thundered after her.

Elizabeth looked back over her shoulder. “Yes,” she said. “I recognized you from your picture on the banner.”

It was a good exit line, Elizabeth thought as she swept off in the direction of the Chattan tent, but she felt guilty about having used it. Mother would kill me, she thought. She had just been—never mind the provocation—openly rude to an elderly gentleman, something that well-brought-up young ladies did not do. But, she told herself with a giggle, Geoffrey will love it!

Even so, she decided to be more diplomatic henceforth. She was Maid of the Cat, after all, and she saw that role as a variation of the beauty-queen-on-the-float function: be pretty if you can but be charming if it kills you.

Having resolved to be an ambassador of goodwill, Elizabeth smiled encouragingly at an adorable little boy at the Stewart tent. Little blond boys were so cute, she thought. This one looked about ten years old and he was wearing jeans; she thought he’d look wonderful in a kilt.

“Hello, there!” She beamed at him. “This is Cluny, the Chattan bobcat. Would you like to pet him?”

The boy stared at her, his face a cherubic blank. “No.”

“Oh, it’s all right! He’s had his claws removed, and he doesn’t bite. He won’t hurt you.”

“So?”

Here’s a chance to be charming against overwhelming
odds, thought Elizabeth. She tried another smile. “Do you have any questions?”

“Just one,” said James Stuart McGowan. “If you gain another five pounds, will you have to buy a new kilt, or can they let out this one?”

Elizabeth’s smile froze into a grimace. “Are you a Campbell, little boy?” she growled between clenched teeth.

James Stuart shrugged. “I doubt it.”

“Well, you ought to be!”

By the time she arrived at the Clan Chattan tent, Elizabeth was feeling more like the Queen of Hearts than the queen of the Rose Bowl. Off with their heads! She had now been rude to old people and children; she felt like a boiled owl in her wool outfit; and so far she had not seen anyone she knew. “Not one of my better days,” said Elizabeth to Cluny. He was washing his paw and did not bother to look up.

“We’re here!” she called out with as much cheerfulness as she could muster.

A plump woman in white shorts got up from a lawn chair. Pinned to the shoulder of her white blouse was a scarf of the MacPherson tartan. “Oh, dear,” she murmured. “I’m not sure what to do with the mascot. Betty is in charge, and she isn’t here yet. They had an out-of-town guest, I think …”

Elizabeth sighed. “I’ll settle for a drink. Cluny probably needs one, too. Do you have an ice chest? We can drain off the water into a cup for him.”

The woman edged away from them. “He won’t bite, will he?”

“If he doesn’t get some water, he might. Where are the cups?”

Elizabeth scooped out some ice water for the bobcat while the substitute hostess straightened pamphlets and murmured, “I’m sure Betty will be here soon.” The occupants of the other lawn chairs were discussing home computers.

“Do you want Cluny to stay here? I wanted to go over and see the border collies, but I’m afraid he might scare them.”

The woman didn’t know, she was sure.

Elizabeth sat down in the grass and began to stroke Cluny’s brindled fur. “I wonder what Geoffrey’s doing,” she mused.

James Stuart McGowan had managed to give his parents the slip, and he was wandering around the meadow looking for something to do. The only other children he’d seen so far were toddlers; he certainly didn’t want to be bothered with them. He was briefly tempted by the refreshment tent, but that would be the first place his parents would look for him—better avoid it for a while. If he knew Babs, he had about another hour before she lost it completely and had him paged over the loudspeaker system.

He edged his way past the dancing platforms with an ill-concealed sneer and wandered over to a souvenir booth. The old man behind the counter looked like the wizard in
Star Wars.
That qualified him as mildly interesting, James Stuart thought. Behind the white ruff of beard lay a pleasant expression and a pair of sharp blue eyes that twinkled all the same. James Stuart didn’t think
the man looked grandfatherly:
his
grandfather lived in a chrome-and-glass apartment and went to a tanning salon. The lack of resemblance was in the stranger’s favor, but he had his doubts about the wardrobe. The man wore a tartan tarn, a lace-up shirt with white puffed sleeves, and the full regalia of a kilt. The only other person nearby was a young guy in yellow slacks who was flipping through the tie racks.

James Stuart noticed the fancy daggers in the display case, and decided that this was as good a place as any to waste a couple of minutes. He leaned forward to examine the jewel on the dagger’s hilt. The costumed proprietor turned away from the tie racks with a regulation smile and bore down upon the new customer.

“Hoots man, and what would a wee bairn like yoursel’ be wantin’ wi’ a dirk o’ that ilk? And where might ye be from, laddie?”

James Stuart looked him up and down with his most withering stare. “Earth,” he said at last.

Geoffrey looked up from his perusal of a Campbell necktie and laughed. “Pretty clever, kid!” he said admiringly. “I’ll buy you a drink on the strength of that. Want a root beer?”

The icy gaze transferred itself to Geoffrey. “No, mister. And I don’t want to ride in your car either.” James Stuart felt a glimmer of satisfaction as he watched the red-faced young man stalk off in the direction of the refreshment tent. “How much is the dagger?” he asked.

“Depends, lad,” said the proprietor with a considerably diminished accent. “Will you be taking it or wearing it between your shoulder blades?”

James Stuart smiled. This grown-up knew his way around. “What do you call these knives?”

“Skian dubh.
That translates to black knife. Natural stag horn with sterling silver fittings, that one is. The Highlanders used to wear them in their socks. Not fancy ones like these, though. I reckon they cut their onions with it.”

“It’s real, isn’t it?”

“That it is, Jimmy.”

James Stuart looked up sharply. “How did you know my name?”

The old man smiled. “Why, didn’t ye know that Celtic people have The Sight?” he asked. “You know—what you call the ESP.”

James Stuart nodded. “What’s your name?”

The old man inclined his head. “Lachlan Forsyth at your service. Want to tell me the rest of yours?” He added hastily, “I don’t like to overstrain mah powers, you know.”

“James Stuart McGowan. At school they call me Jimmy.”

“McGowan, eh?” Lachlan Forsyth nodded. “I take it you’re a hostage?”

“What?”

“Dragged here by your parents, man. Given ’em the slip, have you?”

James Stuart smirked. “They never find me unless I want them to.”

“Don’t be too sure of that, lad.” Over the boy’s shoulder, Lachlan could see two interesting figures: one anxious blond woman approaching the stall at full speed and one diffident young man in a Buchanan tartan who
kept signaling for Lachlan to come and talk to him. The old man gave him a slight nod, and turned back to the matter at hand. “Might that be your mother coming now?”

James Stuart turned around just as his mother reached the stall. “Hello,” he said coolly. “Put my picture on any milk cartons yet?”

His mother decided to ignore him, in favor of the third party present. “I’m really sorry if he’s been bothering you,” she told Lachlan. “I only turned my back for an instant.”

“Nae bother,” said Lachlan with his most practiced smile. “Are you needing him for something?”

“Why … er … no. In fact, his father and I have been invited to a little get-together, and we weren’t sure—”

“See? You’re not able to have any fun yourselves, being burdened with the baby-sitting chores, whereas I’m stuck her in this wee stall in dire need of a capable young assistant like Jimmy here.”

Babs McGowan blinked. She was so used to apologizing for her son that it took her a moment to frame an alternate reply.

“In fact,” Lachlan went on smoothly, “the lad and I were just coming to an agreement about this lovely
skian dubh,
a relic of your very own clan, madam. We had just decided that he could help me out selling the goods here for a commission of five per cent, which he could use to buy the dagger. It would be ever so much of a help for an old man like myself to be able to take a wee break now and again.”

“How about ten per cent?” countered James Stuart.

“Can’t spare the profit margin, lad,” said Lachlan, still twinkling. “But a’course, if you’d rather spend the holiday with your mum and dad, there’ll be no hard feelings from here.” He took the dagger out of the jewelry case and began to polish its metal sheath with a tartan scarf.

“It looks a little dangerous,” said Babs McGowan doubtfully.

“Five percent, then!” cried James Stuart. “I’ll start now.”

“I’m not sure …”

Lachlan waved her away. “You’ve a party to get to, haven’t you? Leave the lad to me. As another of your clansmen put it: ‘You deserve a break today.’ Right, Jimmy? We’ll see you in a wee while, madam.”

Babs McGowan wandered away, wondering how long it would be before she was paged and implored to return for her son.

“Now then,” said Lachlan Forsyth when she was out of earshot, “I’ll just give you a bit of an intro to the goods here, right? Now, most of the prices are marked on the items. See, here on this key chain, there’s a four-dash. That means four dollars. Your biggest problem will be the folks who come up wanting clan items without a clue as to which one they belong to. They don’t belong to any, like as not. But look here: this little book lists all the surnames associated with Scottish clans. So you get the bloke to tell you his last name, and you look it up, right?”

James Stuart frowned. “Suppose the name isn’t in here?”

“Well, you ask for other family names. Their mum’s maiden name, or their granny’s. Sooner or later you’re
bound to hit one that turns up in the book, and then you sing it out and find the tartan for whatever clan it is.”

“But I don’t know tartans.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to, lad. They’re all marked on the back with little silver stickers. And see this one? That’s the Caledonia tartan, which belongs to no family at all. It’s just general Scots plaid, for anybody. So if you can’t match up a name with a clan, you just give them this one and they’ll be happy.”

James Stuart began to leaf through the clan book. “Harper … 
Buchanan;
Hathorn … 
MacDonald …
Miller … 
MacFarlane.
Got it.”

“Dead easy, isn’t it?”

“I guess so. But aren’t you fooling them with that Caledonia one?”

“Aren’t you the trusting one, though? I’ll tell you, Jimmy, seeing as how we’re in business together now: it’s no more of a sham than the rest of ’em.”

“It isn’t? Why?”

“Because clan ties aren’t as easy as coming up with the right last name, of course, but people don’t want to know that. Here, I’ll give you an example. This one, Miller—
Clan Buchanan
it says, right? Well, you’ve only got to think about last names to see how daft that is. Because the great majority of surnames came in one of two ways, lad: occupation or patronym.”

“What was that last one?”

“Patronym. The first name of your dad. So you might be John’s son—Johnson; or Robert’s son—Robertson; or Andrew’s son—Anderson. You see the way of it?” James
Stuart nodded. “But all the Johnsons aren’t related, are they? Cause why?”

James Stuart smirked. “Because they were probably descended from a thousand different Johns.”

“Right you are, lad. And it gets even stickier than that. Here, what’s your dad’s first name?”

“Stuart.”

“And what about
his
dad?”

“Um … Arthur. Why?”

“Because last names didn’t stay the same in the old days, not when people took their fathers’ names. See, your dad would be Stuart Mac Arthur—son of Arthur—but you’d be Jimmy MacStuart, because you’re the son of Stuart. Now, all that changed around the sixteenth century, most likely when the bureaucrats decided to get things organized. So they say to you: we can’t be having all this surname-changing ’cause we don’t know who’s who; so from now on your lot will be MacStuarts, and it won’t change. But you see—if they’d put a stop to the name-changing twenty years earlier, in your grandad’s time, your family would be Mac Arthurs instead. Do you see? So a Johnson might just as easily have been a MacDonald or a Robertson. It was the luck of his dad’s name when the changing stopped, and it doesn’t prove a pennyworth of kinship with anybody else.”