by Leigh Barker
everything that goes on?”
Mackenzie sat up a little straighter, with anger flashing in his eyes, which after a moment’s effort was replaced by a caricature of cunning, his head tilted and finger pointing unsteadily. “And who is the commanding officer of this… scouting?”
Ah!
Calum smiled a nice, friendly smile. “I scout for Angus Mackintosh.”
Mackenzie snorted a laugh. “Then you are a scout without a commander.”
He started to pick up his beer, but Calum put his hand on it and stopped him. “What do you mean by that?”
Mackenzie pushed Calum’s hand away and stood up drunkenly, knocking over his chair with a crash that instantly brought the barroom to silence. His men started to get up, reaching for their dirks, but sat back down quickly when the tip of John’s broadsword tapped gently on the table.
“Now, boys,” John said, sliding the tip of his sword across the cluttered tabletop, “don’t you think your man can handle this wee laddie?” He lifted his sword, but nobody moved. “Or m’be I should fetch one of the serving wenches for him to fight.”
Mackenzie growled and stepped away from the table, shaking his arms to loosen them up for the pounding he was going to give this loudmouth little man.
John looked at his friend’s scowl and raised his eyebrows at the silent rebuke.
Calum turned back to Mackenzie and looked him up from his toes to his face, then smiled. As expected, the move incensed Mackenzie, and he put his head down and charged, and Calum sidestepped it like a matador and shook his head. “You tell me where Captain Mackintosh is and you can get back to your drinking… without bleeding all over the floor.”
Mackenzie charged again. Clearly not too bright.
Calum sidestepped again, put his hand on the back of Mackenzie’s head, and swung it down and under, flipping him through a complete somersault to land sprawling across a table full of drinks, sending the table and the men around it into a beer-soaked heap.
The other drinkers moved back, clutching their beer, and Mackenzie extricated himself and stood up growling. He came forward again, this time much more slowly, his big fists balled and ready.
Calum smiled at him and waited for the one-two he could see the man setting up for. When it came, he ignored the left feint and leaned back out of the arc of the right cross, waited for the punch to turn Mackenzie, then snapped a chopping left hook to his exposed jaw. The cracking blow shook him, but he stayed on his feet, and he backed off.
“Like I said,” said Calum, his hands loose at his sides and showing no signs of getting ready to fight, “you can tell me where Angus is, or…” He shrugged.
Mackenzie went for ‘or’, jumped forward, and threw a huge looping right up and over in a move that had been devastating many times. Calum stepped forward and let the hook pass over his left shoulder, while he slammed a left to the man’s ribs and a vicious uppercut to his solar plexus with the full strength of his legs pushing up behind it. It lifted Mackenzie off his feet and draped him over Calum’s shoulder for a moment, before he dumped him bodily onto the floor to mop up the spilled beer with his hair.
This was not how it was supposed to work. Mackenzie climbed up onto his hands and knees and shook his head. He would tear the arms and legs off the little man who’d tripped him up, and he climbed slowly to his feet, blood running from the cut on his face where Calum’s hook had done its work. Then he would rip off his head and feed it to the big man with the sword.
Calum watched him stand and steady himself. The man was going to grab him like a bear and crush him. He stood up straight to give him something to grab, waited, and when Mackenzie lumbered up to him, ready for the crush, he ducked under his outstretched left arm and snapped a straight right to his exposed ribs.
Mackenzie coughed and staggered forward, caught his balance and turned, ready for another go.
“Calum,” said John, his voice loud in the silence of the barroom.
Calum glanced at him.
“I’m thirsty. Will ya stop playing around, and let’s get down to some serious drinking.”
Mackenzie looked from John to Calum, growled like an injured bear, and came forward, throwing lefts and rights like a whirlwind. Any one of them would have dropped Calum. Had it landed.
He timed them, first the right, two feet short, then the left, closer. And here it came, the right that was expected to take his head off. Wait. Wait. Now. Calum raised his left heel to tilt him to the right by no more than a few inches, but it was enough. The massive straight right roared past his left ear, as he took a half-step out, turned a little and ripped a right corkscrew hook out and round. It made a cracking sound as it broke Mackenzie’s jaw and dropped him like he’d been boned, the speed and momentum spinning Calum and setting him up for the follow-up backfist that would have splattered Mackenzie’s nose. Had it been needed.
“Can we go now?” John asked with a smile. He moved the tip of his sword across the table again without looking, just to remind everyone that it was there.
Calum waved him silent, crossed to the table, and lifted one of the men by the front of his shirt. “Now,” he said, without even breathing heavily, “I’m going to ask you once.” He smiled as if he’d made a new friend of the man squirming in his grasp. “You tell me where Angus is, and I won’t rip your head off and pour this beer down your throat.”
The man followed his pointing finger to the mug of beer and back to Calum’s calm face. He was going to tell him, but who wouldn’t?
The man nodded. Swallowed. Nodded.
“Well?” said Calum, tightening his grip.
“The rebels took him prisoner,” the man said with a strangled voice.
Calum dropped him back into his chair, and the shaken man straightened his shirt and tried to look tough, while easing the chair away from the table and the little man who would surely have ripped his head off. He glanced at the others, but no help was coming from them. His mouth was sawdust dry, and he glanced at the beer, but the thought of having it poured down his headless throat put him off.
“They’ll have hung him by now,” he said in the best tough voice he could manage, and backed the chair away a little more.
“Who took him?”
The man frowned. “I told you. The rebels.”
“Yes,” said Calum, “but which ones?” He saw the frown again. “Which clan?”
“The Camerons,” said one of the other highlanders. “Camerons have the Mackintosh?” There was a sneer in his voice. “Not promising for the man.” He raised his beer. “Here’s to a dead—”
John knocked him out with an effortless left to the side of his head, and looked at the others one by one, but they were done. He sheathed his broadsword and stepped up to Calum. “How are we going to leave?” he said quietly.
Calum glanced at him, then at the crowd of royalists watching him with murder in their eyes. Good question. He took a casual step back in the direction of the door that suddenly seemed a long way off. The royalists began to murmur like a pack of animals suddenly awoken from their winter sleep. John rested his hand on the hilt of his sword and looked around slowly with hard eyes that promised death to anyone who moved.
Calum also looked around. There were too many of them, that was obvious. If one of them started to move, they all would. They would kill some of them, perhaps a lot of them, but the end would be the same.
“What is going on here?” said a voice that was clearly used to being obeyed.
Everyone looked towards the door and Colonel York standing with his hands on his hips. Calum had never been pleased to see an Englishman. Until now.
“You,” said York, pointing at Calum. “You’re the scout, are you not?”
Calum nodded and took the opportunity to cross to the door. “I am.”
York glanced at Calum’s sword and looked up quickly. “What are you doing here? I told you to get about your scouting.”
The question threw Calum for a moment for its stupidity. “There’s not
hing to scout… sir. You… we lost.”
York fixed him with hard eyes for a moment, then looked at Mackenzie being helped to his feet by his men. “It seems you found a way to console yourself at… our loss.”
Calum looked back. “I asked a question. He didn’t answer.”
“And the question?”
Calum was silent for a moment, then decided it couldn’t hurt. “I am looking for Captain Angus Mackintosh. One of your officers.”
York watched him steadily for several seconds. “The rebels have him,” he said at last. “He was careless.”
As if that made it acceptable.
Calum stepped past the man, tired of his arrogance, and John followed, but being twice Calum’s size, his exit needed a bit more room.
York looked back sharply as they started to leave. “Where do you think you are going?”
“To get Angus,” said Calum without turning.
“He is hanged by now,” York said with his customary sneer.
“Then,” said Calum, closing the door, “we will fetch his body.”
The cold rain slanted out of the night and hit Calum in the face as they trudged over yet another muddy hill. They were on foot now, Angus’ thoroughbreds lost to the mob. He stopped and squinted into the downpour, then pointed down the hill at the ruined farmhouse in the misty glen. John nodded gratefully as he saw the campfires burning all around the broken buildings. Fires meant shelter and maybe food. Food would be good.
Calum went a little ahead and approached the biggest fire in the
