Highland Laddie Gone (7 page)

“She won’t be out in this downpour!” cried Geoffrey. “I think we ought to wait it out on the hill under the trees. But first I’m going to stash this cat somewhere!”

Beside a stack of boards and Some concrete drainpipes, Geoffrey noticed a long wooden box with a latched door. Reasoning that this was probably a cage meant for Cluny in the first place, Geoffrey flipped up the latch and shoved the bobcat in headfirst. A rumble of thunder covered any sounds of feline displeasure at such cavalier treatment, and Geoffrey, the rain dribbling down his neck, closed the door and sped up the hill toward Cameron.

A few moments later they were settled at the base of a relatively dry oak, watching the sports field turn into a mud puddle.

“Do you come to these things often?” asked Cameron politely.

“God, no! It’s a boot camp for lunatics.” Cameron laughed at that, and Geoffrey added, “That’s a line from
Brigadoon.
My community theatre group is doing the play, so I came to soak up atmosphere.”

“Is it about Scotland?”

“Don’t you know it? It’s a Lerner and Loewe musical. Brigadoon is an eighteenth-century Scottish village that doesn’t want to be corrupted by progress, so their minister prays for a miracle to keep them from having to change.”

“What happens?”

“The village only exists one day out of every century. See, they’d go to bed in 1753, and when they woke up in the morning it would be 1853, and so on. But the village always stays the same. Neat trick, huh?”

Cameron frowned. “Well, it has some drawbacks, you know. One day they will wake up to find themselves in the parking lot of the Aberdeen Hilton, I bet.”

“Great idea! I wonder if I could talk Sinclair into doing an epilogue?”

“Have the games given you any inspiration?”

“The costumes are quite good. I may make a few sketches tonight. But what has really been interesting is viewing everything from the context of
Brigadoon.
I mean, this farce practically
is
Brigadoon. The festival exists one day a year; and no matter what’s happening in Scotland, it’s still Bonnie Prince Charlie-time here on the mountain.”

“Spot on!” Cameron nodded. “It certainly isn’t the Scotland I come from. But at least they seem to be enjoying themselves. Your cousin, for instance.”

“I think the rain is beginning to slack off. Cloud must be moving,” said Geoffrey, peering up at the sky. “You’re right, of course, about—did she tell you the family’s pet name for her, by the way?”

“No.”

Geoffrey smiled. “I thought not. When Elizabeth was little, her older brother Bill claimed not to be able to pronounce the name, so he called her something else.”

“That’s not uncommon. Elizabeth is difficult to say, I should think.”

“Yes, but they will never convince me that three-year-old Bill, unable to say
Elizabeth,
should do such a first-rate job of pronouncing
Lizard-Breath.”
“That’s what he called her?” asked Cameron, laughing.

“That was it. You ought to try it sometime and see what she says.” Improvisational melodrama was Geoffrey’s specialty.

“Right. Well, I think that’s it for the storm. I suppose we should go down and let the cat out of the box,” said Cameron.

“Good idea. If we’re both standing there, he can’t zip out of the box and escape.”

Geoffrey opened the wooden door carefully, motioning for Cameron to be ready. Nothing happened. After a few seconds of silence, Geoffrey leaned down and peered into the box. “Kitty? Kitty? Oh my God!”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“Nothing. He’s happy as a clam at high tide. Oh my God. I’m doomed. I knew I shouldn’t have quoted
Macbeth
this afternoon.”

Cameron opened the door again and looked. There was Cluny in his tartan ribbon, surrounded by feathers, chewing contentedly on a sinewy bone.

“What is it?” whispered Geoffrey.

“Oh, fowls, absolutely,” Cameron informed him. “See
this bone here? There’s been more than one of them, too. I’d say he’s eaten them all.”

Geoffrey put his hand to his brow.
“All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?”
“There you go again,” said Cameron, recognizing the quote.

“The herding ducks! These things were going to be used in the sheepdog trials tomorrow. Elizabeth will kill me. How many were there?”

Cameron pulled on Cluny’s lead, drawing the reluctant bobcat out of the box in a cloud of feathers. After a brief examination, he turned to Geoffrey: “Five, I think. All white—domestic ducks.”

“Good,” muttered Geoffrey. “Those shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“Find?”

“Come on. I’ve got the car keys. But you have to promise not to tell anyone about this—especially not my cousin!”

Cameron trailed off after Geoffrey, the bobcat at his heels, wondering if duck-rustling was a hanging offense in the States these days. Coming to America seemed to be much akin to falling down a rabbit hole.…

“I think it’s stopped raining,” said Elizabeth. She was sitting on a campstool in the doorway of Marge Hutcheson’s tent, with a mug of tea balanced in her lap.

“Finish your tea,” said Marge. “Somerled doesn’t need all that much practice.” The border collie pricked up his ears at the sound of his name, and then stretched back out on the floor of the tent. His mistress—a hardy, gray-haired
woman in tweeds and jodhpurs—rumpled his fur affectionately, “Nosy brute!”

“I expect I’m a nosy brute, too,” said Elizabeth shyly. “But I was really shocked to hear about—you know—Dr. Hutcheson.”

Marge grunted. “Poor Walter. Sometimes a dog will chase a truck just to prove he can keep up with it. I don’t suppose they ever give any thought to what will happen if they catch it.”

“What’s she like? I guess I could find out for myself, since I was invited to their party tonight. But that was because of Cameron.”

“Who’s Cameron?”

Elizabeth sighed. “He’s from Scotland.”

“Not a very high recommendation with me nowadays,” said Marge dryly.

“Oh, dear, I forgot. So is
she.
Dr. Hutcheson was bragging about her being the niece of the Duke of something … Rothesay?”

“The Earl of Rothes, I expect,” said Marge. “He’s the chief of Clan Leslie. Used to be in publishing.”

“Umm … I thought he said Duke, but he may have got it wrong. He wasn’t as up on those things as you are.”

“No, Walter is a bit of a liability in everything except medicine. Still, this is the first I’ve heard of it, so he’s sure to know more than I.”

“Did you know her?”

Marge smiled. “We weren’t best friends, dear. Somebody or other brought her to the country club once, and she managed to get Walter to give her golf lessons. I’m sure she plays much better than he does. Anyway, the first I heard of it was a few months later, when Walter decided
that we weren’t the same people we used to be and that he wanted to
find himself.”
She shrugged. “We had Sanderson draw up the property settlement, and the divorce went through. I didn’t even go to court for the occasion.”

“That’s terrible!” cried Elizabeth. “After all these years.”

“I expect it’s worse for Walter,” said Marge complacently. “Imagine living with somebody who thinks of John Lennon as Julian Lennon’s
dad.
Of course, Walter married her trying to feel young again, but I doubt if he’s succeeding at it.”

“Yes, but how do you feel?”

“I get by. I guess I feel most of the time as though someone has rearranged the furniture: you know, everything’s familiar, but not quite right somehow. But I have the farm and the dogs, and I stay busy.” She grinned. “I suppose you thought I ought to be after her with a pistol?”

Elizabeth blushed. “I didn’t think I ought to go to the party. Because of you.”

“Nonsense! And miss a chance to snoop? By all means go. You won’t hurt my feelings a bit.”

“Well … maybe Cameron will enjoy meeting another Scot.”

“Perhaps. How long has he been here?”

Elizabeth burst out laughing. “All day!” she managed to say.

“Oh, right. Well, I doubt if he’s quite that desperate for the company of his fellow countrymen, then. But by all means, go to the party. I take it you’d like an excuse to spend some more time with this young man?” Elizabeth nodded shyly. “Well, out with it! What’s he like?”

“Very proper. And very witty in a deadpan sort of
way.… Did I mention that he has a Ph.D. in marine biology? And he speaks BBC British with trilled r’s.”

“Edinburgh,” grunted Marge. “What is it, Somerled? Are you tired of being inside? Well, come on, then. I’ll give you a walk. And as for you, young miss, you should go back to your cabin and get out of that stifling kilt getup. You’ll feel much better in summer clothes.”

“But I’m Maid of the Cat,” Elizabeth protested.

Marge Hutcheson shrugged. “Please yourself. But if your Scottish fellow is anything like the Brits I know, he has a sense of smell like a blind bloodhound.”

“I’m on my way!” cried Elizabeth, lunging for the door.

Walter Hutcheson, his ducal package still under his arm, was making the rounds of clan tents, making sure that he had invited all the chiefs to the party. Marge had always taken care of the inviting before, but Heather hardly knew anyone, so he couldn’t expect her to do it. He hoped she would remember the ice this time. Heather was still learning the art of entertaining. Marge had made it seem so easy that he’d never given it much thought.

He wondered for the tenth time if he should have invited Marge: one heard so much these days about “civilized” divorces, but he would have been embarrassed as hell to have her present. Not that Marge would make a scene. Nothing ever seemed to upset her. But he kept imagining his former wife watching him and Heather at the party and being—in her quiet, well-bred way—quite amused. The thought of appearing ridiculous to someone as sensible as Marge troubled him when he allowed himself to consider it—which was not often, and never for long.

He banished the scene from his mind just as he came
face-to-face with the one clan chief he had not intended to invite: Colin Campbell. Dr. Hutcheson’s antipathy toward Colin lay not in the traditional MacDonald-Campbell feuds, but in the much more personal area of hospital politics, in which Dr. Campbell, by any other name, would still have been a pain in the ass. Since the games were a social event, Dr. Hutcheson tried to pass off their meeting with a cordial nod, but it was part of Colin Campbell’s lack of charm that he never separated business from pleasure.

“So it’s you, is it?” he growled, squinting at Walter. “What’s this rubbish I hear about a personnel board?”

“Colin, there have been some complaints about you. Personally, I mean, not medically.”

“Personally is nobody’s business.”

“Well, Colin, you know … You just put people’s backs up. Like when you asked the young lady on 3B to get you some coffee and a doughnut.”

“She’s complaining about that?”

“She’s a neurosurgeon.”

“Well, she ought to see about her own nerves if she’s as touchy as that. I don’t see that it’s worth calling a meeting over.”

“No. Parkes said he waited until the complaint folder on you was too full to stay closed, and then he decided to convene. This one was just the final straw.”

Dr. Campbell’s eyes narrowed. “I suppose you volunteered to head this kangaroo court?”

“Somebody had to do it.”

“Somebody’s going to regret it, too,” said Colin Campbell, his voice rising. “You know that lake property
you Ve invested in? I’ll bet you don’t know who your fellow owners are.”

“Nonsense, Colin. The university owns a good bit of the land.” Walter Hutcheson sounded a bit shaken. His investments hadn’t been going so well since Marge had turned it all over to him. She used to be phenomenally lucky.

“Don’t forget that I’m a trustee, Walter. If we declare that lake a wildlife preserve, your little condo scheme is going straight down the tubes. And since my interest in marine biology is well known, no one’s going to be too surprised when I suggest it.”

“Colin, I doubt that a trustee—Anyway, you’re talking about a lot of money here. A childish reaction, really. We both know that there’s not a thing they can do to you, not even if they have a dozen meetings!”

“Childish am I? And I suppose you’re the one who’s going to send me to the principal’s office? Well, I hope you get your money’s worth.”

Dr. Hutcheson didn’t realize that he was shouting. “If you ruin this lake project for me, I’ll see you in hell,
doctor
!”

A woman in a Logan tartan shied and hurried away. Honestly, she thought, the real ones are as bad as on
General Hospital.

Colin Campbell ambled along the row of clan tents humming contentedly to himself. Quite a lot of the Campbells were inclined to forget the age-old feuds between the clans and to behave like everybody else at these festivals, but Colin believed in keeping the traditions alive. It relieved the monotony of life, for one thing. Colin didn’t
like people, as a rule, which might seem strange for a physician, but actually the two were not incompatible. Colin Campbell rarely thought of his patients as people: they were anatomical projects. He worked on them as a jackleg mechanic might tinker with cars, and he didn’t trouble himself over whether he liked them individually. There were exceptions, of course. Colin Campbell liked
some
people very well indeed, but they were merely the exceptions proving the rule. Having been thoroughly objectionable to everyone all afternoon, thus upholding the Campbell reputation, Colin was treating himself to a visit with one of his few friends.

He found her in the practice meadow walking her border collie.

“Always dogs!” he chided her. “Don’t you ever associate with people?”

“I’m fond of beasts!” Marge Hutcheson called back. “And you qualify. Want to walk with us?”

“I might as well. I’ve just had a run-in with that husband of yours, and I need to work off steam.”

Marge raised her eyebrows. “I assume you mean Walter.”

“I said your husband, didn’t I?” He flushed. “Oh, sorry. I forgot that he’s been even more of a damned fool than usual. Anyway, the bit of fluff is such a nonentity that I keep forgetting she exists.”