The Last Sunset (21 page)

“Well, he kindae thinks that you’re really good
at this looking intae the future lark.”

“What? He thinks Ah made all this maself?”

“No, not yerself, but he thinks you picked up
the designs in your visions.”

Andy groaned horribly.

“Look at it from the bright side,” Jamie went
on. “You’re gonnae be quite a catch around here. Ah mean, he seemed really
chuffed that you were interested in Ishbel.”

“Aw naw, tell me ye didn’t…”

“Aye, sorry, that just kind of slipped out as
well.”

Macmillan unleashed a stream of oaths under his
breath.

“Who’s Ishbel?” laughed Shawnee.

“Achnacon’s older daughter. She’s really bonny.
Ah think Andy has a wee thing for her, if ye know what Ah mean…”

Macmillan glowered evilly at his comrade. Before
he could translate this into words, Achnacon was at the table.

“I trust the food was to everybody’s
satisfaction?”

“Yeah, really nice, thank you,” said Shawnee.

“Good. Good.” The Highlander turned to the
despondent figure of Macmillan. “Young Andy; if ourselfs could have a moment together?”

The corporal glared at Macsorley before
following the old clansman outside, like a condemned man on his way to the
gallows.

Shawnee looked worriedly at Jamie. “What d’you
think? Is he gonna be mad at poor Andy, or what?”

Jamie appeared totally untroubled. “No way. Ah
knew what Ah was doing. People like Andy just need a wee push.”

Shawnee’s face held the faintest of smiles. “I
dunno, Jamie, maybe there’s a certain etiquette that shoulda been observed
here…”

“That’s true,” Sam agreed. “God only knows what
the correct protocol is for this kinda thing.”

Jamie glanced anxiously at the door. “Ye don’t
think Achnacon’s giving him a hard time?”

“Well, we are talking about the guy’s daughter,”
Sam winked at Shawnee. “For all y’know your buddy might be in the middle of a
duel right now.”

Jamie was appearing less and less confident by
the minute.

“Maybe Ah should go outside and see if
everything’s all right.”

At that moment the door opened and Andy
re-entered the cottage on his own. Jamie stared wide-eyed as the corporal stood
over him, clasped his head with both hands, and planted a kiss on the top of
his skull.

Shawnee clapped her hands with delight.

“See? Ah told ye,” beamed the young cupid. “Some
people just need a wee push.”

“What did the old guy say?” asked Sam.

Andy lowered himself gingerly into his seat. “He
wanted tae know if Ah wished tae pay court tae his daughter. Ah asked him what
Ishbel thought of this, and it seems an approach from Corporal Andy would not
be looked upon unfavourably. So it looks like Ah’ve got a date.”

“Where’s Achnacon now?”

“He’s away tae make arrangements for the
funerals tomorrow.” Andy turned to his friend. “Gonnae check with me first the
next time ye fix me up with a lassie?”

“Aye.” Jamie condescendingly gave the idea some
consideration. “Ah’ll think about it.”

Andy was woken shortly after daybreak by a
succession of moans, which were stifled before they reached a crescendo. The ensuing
silence was fringed by the soft whisperings of the lassies as they prepared
breakfast. The girl who’d applied the ointment to Andy’s legs sat before the
fire with the Americans’ friend, Rhona. Both were busy tending the cauldron,
which hung suspended over the smouldering peat.

He could hear Colin and Alistair chattering
quietly to each other in Gaelic, and decided now was as good a time as any to
meet Alistair. Colin sat on the edge of his brother’s mattress and gaped
blankly at Andy as he approached.

“Hi, how’s it going? Name’s Andy Macmillan.
Lately of the Highland Fusiliers; now part of the Jacobite army, apparently.”

The older brother nodded impassively as he took
Andy’s hand. “I’m Alistair Cameron; you’ve met my brother, Colin.”

Alistair looked pale and tired, but his voice
was clear and his grip reasonably firm. “I’m sorry if it was myself that woke
you. Colin tells me I’ve become a terrible noisy sleeper.”

Andy shook his head dismissively. “Ah don’t know
how much Colin has told ye…”

Alistair glanced at his brother, who seemed
intimidated by Andy’s presence. “Colin has told me about yourself and your
friends; that none of you belong to our… time. He says our cottage at
Inverlaragain is a ruin in your world.”

Andy rubbed the back of his neck, massaging away
the overnight stiffness. “Ah’m sorry that came out as it did. Ye have tae
understand; in nineteen seventy-six you guys had been missing for sixty years.”

Alistair took a moment to absorb this
confirmation of his brother’s ravings. “Ourselves never made it home, then?”

Andy shook his head.

“Alistair, maybe this is God’s will,” Colin put
in. “Maybe you were never meant to return to France.”

“Och wheesht, man,” said his brother scathingly.
“I’ll have been posted as a deserter; everyone will be thinking I’m a coward,
and you’re blethering about God’s will…”

“Ah don’t know about any of this being the will
of God,” Andy intervened. “But we’re up tae our necks now in a different kind
of war. Ah heard the gunfire yesterday coming from this direction. What d’ye
have: a Lee Enfield?”

Colin shook his head. His brother’s anger had
brought a pink flush to his cheeks. “We both have hunting rifles. When you’re
in the hills there’s always a chance of taking a beast for the pot. Anyway,
with these new-fangled underwater submarines the Germans have got, you never
know who might have been landed off the west coast.”

“Aye, well, at least that’s one thing we won’t
have to worry about.”

Alistair nodded. “Himself has been telling me
about the war; he says it doesn’t end until nineteen hundred and forty-five.”

Andy scratched his head awkwardly. “Right,
sorry; somebody should’ve clarified that. The First World War armistice was
declared in November nineteen eighteen…”

“The
first
world war? God in heaven, how
many has there been?”

Andy glanced uneasily at the sleeping figures of
Sam and Shawnee. “There’ll be time enough tae answer yer questions. It’s
probably best you rest up for now.” He wanted to leave Alistair with a last
encouraging thought, soldier to soldier, but something in those dark tormented
eyes prevented him from even trying. “Anyway, look, we’ll, we’ll talk again
later, eh? Okay?”

He couldn’t get out of the cottage quickly
enough. Outside, the clear skies of the previous night had given way to a grey
cloak of cloud and drizzle. He leaned against the wall of the cottage and
closed his eyes, to find the after-image of that haunted face imprinted on his
retinas. To his surprise he was soon joined by Colin, a bowl of porridge in
each hand.

“Alistair says no soldier should be left to
break his fast alone.”

Andy took the food with a nod of appreciation.

“Alistair never talks about France. I think he
feels guilty that he has survived while most of his friends were killed. I hear
him sometimes calling their names in his sleep.”

Andy nodded. “Highlanders were an endangered
species by the time that bloody war was over.”

“These hills have always given birth to
soldiers,” Colin explained. “How could any man who does not enlist look those
people in the eye; the ones who have lost sons or brothers? I was also about to
enlist, to fight alongside Alistair.”

“Aye? Well, Ah think ye’ll get the chance before
too long.”

A proud smile spread across Colin’s face. “We
fought together yesterday, Mister Macmillan, when the redcoats were here.”

“Andy.”

Colin nodded. “I thought they were going to keep
coming until they had all been shot down, but I think some of them enjoyed life
more than others. But, och, man, you should have seen Alistair. The blood was
pouring from his arm like a red burn; he couldn’t even reload his rifle, but he
wouldn’t fall, not until they had turned and ran. Being so brave and
everything, that must be why himself has survived so long in France.”

Colin’s naivety brought a grin to Andy’s face.

“What’s this thing between your brother and
Mary? She’s like something ye’d rub from a genie’s lamp.”

Instead of the bashful smile Andy expected, a
dark shudder ran through the young man.

“Just before… it all happened, Alistair and
myself saw Mary appear out of the mist. A soldier was with her; a redcoat
soldier. They were like something that belonged to the mist; but what that
brute did to her was terrible… Andy.”

“Ye think this is still tae happen?”

“It started to happen just before the fight
yesterday, the same soldier, with Mary. We were able to stop him; Alistair
mostly. That’s why she has eyes for no other. The American, Sam, said the
redcoats will be back. Perhaps Mary is still destined to fall beneath that
beast.”

“There’s people around her now who’ll make sure
it’ll never happen.”

Colin looked uncertainly at the soldier. “Your
friend, Jamie, said he would stand and fight, but yourself and the others…?”

“Rae and Ferguson are a law untae themselves.
But Ah won’t be going anywhere; ye have ma word on it. Far as Sam and Shawnee
are concerned, when push comes tae shove, Ah think he’ll do whatever Shawnee
tells him.”

Colin smiled shyly. “I like the way you say
things; it’s like you’re speaking another language. Does everybody talk like
yourself in nineteen hundred and seventy-six?”

Andy grinned at the young man’s candour. “See
Mary? She’s what we would call a pure doll.”

“A pure doll.”

“That’s right. A wee cracker.”

“A wee cracker…”

“Ye know Ah’m surprised ye haven’t thought about
moving in there yerself.”

“Moving in there myself?”

“Ye know? Making a move. Chancing yer arm. Ah
mean, the redcoats didn’t just run from yer brother yesterday.”

Colin’s cheeks became tinged with scarlet. “Och
no, I’m not very good with the lassies; I never know what to say. Besides, I
thought the wee cracker who tended to your legs yesterday was awfully nice.”

Andy laughed. “Ah tell ye what, Colin; you take
these bowls inside and get us another helping of that porridge, and while ye’re
in there why don’t ye try chatting up yer wee cracker?”

“Chatting up?”

“Talk tae the lassie; get her interested in ye;
use a wee bit of the old charm, ye know?” Andy wiggled his hips, to demonstrate
the required body language.

“Och, I don’t think that would work very well
for myself. I would probably knock the lassie into the fire.”

“Aye, maybe yer right at that, wee man,” grinned
the soldier. “Tae tell ye the truth, Ah’ve never been all that good at chatting
them up either.”

Left on his own, the smile faded from Andy’s
face. The ointment that Colin’s wee cracker had applied to his legs had been so
effective he hadn’t even thought to check them before now. Most of the blisters
had subsided, leaving little more than discoloured patches on his calves and
thighs. He drew another breath of West Highland mist into his lungs. The
surrounding hills were no more than invisible sensations in the murk. It would
be so easy to believe that beyond there lay his own familiar world. But this
probably had as much to do with the timelessness of the Highland landscape, as
the struggle of his mind to accept the new reality.

“…Here’s your porridge,” Colin announced, a
fresh bowl in each hand. “The wee cracker; her name is Catriona Macphail. The
other girl, Rhona, says that Catriona lost her father yesterday. I don’t think
she’ll want to be bothered with anybody chatting up her for a wee while to
come.”

“Aye,” said Andy. “Best tae leave it for a wee
while, right enough.”

The young man looked brightly at his new friend.
“You said something earlier about a second great war…?”

“Aye,” said the soldier heavily. “Ah did, didn’t
Ah?”

As soon as all the strangers had breakfasted
Rhona passed on the message left with her by Achnacon:

‘If young Andy, and Muirshearlach, and the other
chentlemen could find it in themselfs to offer their assistance, perhaps they
would care to make their way to the cemetery. Achnacon understood the Lady
Shawnee must follow the customs of her own land, and do as herself thinks
best.’

Shawnee insisted on accompanying the men, but
not before Rhona had found her a calf-length dress to protect her from the
elements. Colin elected to remain behind with his brother, but the prospect of
the legendary Highland funeral feast enticed Rae and Ferguson along.

It was well after 10am by the time they left
Meall
An Fhraoich
. As they followed the old track westward a clachan would
occasionally appear out of the mist and they would catch the faint echo of peat
smoke where a meal had been cooked that morning. Otherwise they encountered few
signs of life. Drained of colour and warmth, the land itself was like a corpse
awaiting internment.