by Paul Kenyon
"I will na' cook the damned thing."
The fat man grew purple. "You will do as I say!"
Jaimie turned on his heel and walked away. "It will have to be hung for a week. Collops, that's what you'll ha'e for your supper."
"Schottisch lout!" the fat man shouted. Grumbling to himself, he started to sit down. Then he caught sight of Tony and the Baroness.
"Ah, Lord Cavendish," he said, hurrying over. "Wie geht's? This is a pleasure." His manner was fawning and eager.
"Hello, Schmidt," Tony said, not bothering to hide his distaste. "We were just leaving."
Schmidt hovered over the table, the shredded bird still dangling from one pudgy hand, the loaded shotgun in the other. "Oh?" he said. "I hoped that you and the charming lady might join me."
"Sorry. Maybe another time."
Tony got to his feet, taking the Baroness by the arm.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Schmidt called desperately after them.
As they climbed the stairs to their rooms, the Baroness said, "A friend of yours?"
"You have to do business with all sorts of people these days," Tony said defensively.
"Oh? How do you know him?"
"We're on the boards of a couple of corporations together. On the Continent."
"My goodness," she said. "And just yesterday you were pitying Sir Angus for having to put up with people like that."
"Knock it off, Penny!" he said angrily.
"All right, darling," she said. She patted his arm. "Let's go to bed."
They mounted the wrong-way spiral staircase together. Somewhere up above, the ghostly bagpiper was still playing.
* * *
"It's Black Tom!" someone said.
Fiona looked up. A dark, lean young man in a wind-breaker was standing in the cottage doorway, a little out of breath. His name was Ian, she remembered, and he lived over at the next croft toward the loch.
"Douse the lights," MacEwan said. "Ian, I thank you, and you'd best be on your way."
"Here, out the back way," said the man from Glasgow. "And mind you, don't let yourselves be seen on your way back to your homes." He turned to MacEwan. "I'll be back tomorrow night. When the black rain falls."
"When the black rain falls," MacEwan said ritualistically.
Chair legs scraped, and there was the low murmur of goodbyes. There was a lot of bumping and shuffling as people groped their way outside.
"Do you want me to go, too?" Fiona said.
"Och, noo, o' course not," Mrs. MacEwan said. "You have every right to be here, a visitor fro' America. And let Black Tom be damned."
"Maxwell," said MacEwan, "you stay, too. And Jennie. You're Fiona's cousins…"
"Third cousins," Fiona said.
"…cousins," MacEwan repeated firmly, "and it's naught but natural that ye'd be paying a social call."
"Could we have a wee light, then?" Jenny said. She was a spirited, dark-haired girl who, with her husband, worked eighty hours a week to make a go of their croft. "I know the paraffin's dear, but even a MacEwan isn't that clarty a pinchfist as to make his guests sit in the dark."
They all laughed nervously as Mrs. MacEwan turned up one of the kerosene lamps. Outside, the chained dogs were barking. Black Tom would be coming across the yard now.
"Excuse me for asking," Fiona said, "but why are we being so careful? The Scottish Independence Party hasn't been declared illegal."
"Not yet, lassie," MacEwan said. "Not yet." He sat back, rocking in his chair.
"But the police are beginning to take an interest in our movements," Maxwell said. "They're putting the blame on SIP for those bombings in Aberdeen at the oil company offices."
"And is SIP responsible?" Fiona said, taking a chance. They didn't know her quite well enough to trust her all the way yet.
Maxwell and MacEwan exchanged a glance. "Weel, noo," MacEwan said, puffing on his pipe, "there's nane as can prove it."
Fiona let it drop. SIP, the Scottish Independence Party, was rapidly getting a reputation as a budding Scottish version of the IRA. They'd been disavowed by the Scottish National Party and the rest of the legitimate Scottish separatist movement. They had a reputation for violence. Their leaders liked to keep underground, like the man from Glasgow who had come to beef up the local chapter.
SIP's aim was a free and independent Scotland. The new oil revenues from the North Sea would make it possible. An oil-rich Scotland would be no third-rate, poverty-stricken emerging nation. They'd taken as their slogan an utterance by the Brahan Seer, a wandering seventeenth-century mystic named Kenneth Mackenzie, whose uncanny prophecies recalled those of Nostradamus. The Seer had said, "When the black rain jails in Scotland, Scotland will be jree." The Scottish nationalists — and not only SIP — had taken the "black rain" to mean the newly discovered riches of oil.
Fiona had arrived in the vicinity of Crombie Loch, looking very fetching in a skirt of the Maxwell tartan, searching for near-forgotten family connections. She'd slept with a couple of the local lads. She'd been a firebrand about Scottish independence, more fanatic than the natives — a common syndrome among visitors from the United States and Nova Scotia. In the Crombie pub, she'd actually been cautioned not to be so outspoken. Now, here she was, staying with the MacEwans and being allowed to attend a SIP meeting.
There was the crunching of boots outside the cottage door. MacEwan removed the pipe from his mouth. "Aye, there's himself now," he said.
The door was flung wide open with a crash that made the china knickknacks on the mantel rattle. The man who stood framed against the night was square and bulky, with bushy black eyebrows that were strikingly prominent against his oatmeal-pale face. He had thin lips and shifty eyes. He wore an old tweed cap, open-necked shirt, brown vest, and corduroy trousers that were as round and wrinkled as an elephant's legs.
"Och, if it is na' Tom Dubh," MacEwan said, using the Gaelic. "And isn't it nice of you to pay us a visit, Tom."
"Did ye never learn to knock, man?" Maxwell said.
Black Tom looked them over with a sour expression, then stepped inside. He was followed by a burly, kilted man carrying a shotgun.
"Fergus, you stay outside," MacEwan said sharply. "I dinna recall inviting you!"
"I will na' have a gun in the hoose," Mrs. MacEwan said.
Flushing, Fergus retreated. They could see his thick shape silhouetted against the stars, the shotgun held crosswise at a slant.
Black Tom sniffed the air. It was still smoky from all the cigarettes. The chairs of The Room were still set in a visitors' square, and the fireplace hearth was littered with cigarette butts.
"You've been having a grand party, have you, MacEwan?" Black Tom said with a sneer. "A regular ceilidh, I don't doubt."
MacEwan puffed complacently on his pipe. "Just Miss Maxwell, fro' the States. And her cousins, here to make the lass welcome. Mind you, don't give her a poor impression of Crombie manners, Tom."
"Just the three of them, and you're entertaining them in The Room, are you? I'd think the kitchen would be more the style of a poor croftie like yourself, MacEwan."
MacEwan's expression never changed, but his face grew dark with anger. "Speak your piece, mon, and get out."
"You were not seen at the last Rent Day," Black Tom said.
"I cannot be bothered with that feudal nonsense," MacEwan said, "to stand in front of the laird, hat in hand. I mailed in a check, as you well know."
"I received no check," Black Tom said.
"Do na' be sly, Tom, or I shall report the laird to the Crofting Commission."
It was Black Tom's turn to go dark. "You are a drain on the laird's resources, you and all the crofters. The rent you pay amounts to charity from Sir Angus. You are little more than parasites, all of you. The land could be put to productive use if you were gone."
"The clearances all over again, Tom?" MacEwan said. "Aye, I ken that Sir Angus Bane would like nothing better than to sweep the crofters off the land and burn down the houses."
&n
bsp; Maxwell flared: "Aye, but thanks to the law and the Crofting Commission, he will na' have the opportunity, as his grandfather did."
Black Tom turned a baleful glare on him. "You had best hold your tongue, Maxwell," he said. " Tis well known that you are barely making a go of it. If you should lose a few more sheep, or have your hay crop burn, you will be forced off the land with your bare bottom showing."
"You stay away from my croft, Tom Dubh," Maxwell said. "I'm no helpless widow woman like Mrs. MacInsh to have my cottage burn and be frightened off the land."
MacEwan looked at Black Tom with a deliberate, insolent stare. "Aye, Tom Dubh," he said softly, "remember what was done to your grandfather. Well it is that you do na' wear the kilt."
The effect on Black Tom was extraordinary. His oatmeal face turned purple and seemed to blow up like a balloon. His nostrils flared, showing dark red linings. The bushy black eyebrows crawled like caterpillars over his forehead. He turned abruptly on his heel and stomped out.
"What was done to his grandfather?" Fiona said.
Mrs. MacEwan laughed. "Och, 'tis na' a fit tale for the ears of a young girl."
"Tell her," Jennie said.
MacEwan cleared his throat. "Black Tom's grandfather was factor to Sir Angus' grandfather. It runs in the family. They called him Robbie Mo Thogair — Robbie 'It makes no difference to me' — for that's what he'd say when he harried some poor woman from her home. Oh, he was a great one for squeezing the rent, then pocketing it, and squeezing it again for the laird. And it was said that now and again he would visit a cottage when the man was away and force himself on the wifie, and she afraid to say no, or to tell her husband afterward. He went too far one day and abused a wee lass. Some lads came and got him and they held him down and castrated him. And they sent his bloody things to the laird with the message, 'This is the rent for the year from all Crombie, for it was taken from the same place it went to.' And the laird dared not collect the rent for that year."
"I gather that Black Tom is as charming as his grandfather was," Fiona said.
"Aye," MacEwan said. "Auld Robbie lived on, an old man with a limp, an object lesson for the next factor. And," he laughed, "neither Tom's father nor Tom ever wore the kilt. Afraid it would leave them too exposed, I don't wonder. Still, I well remember that when Tom was a wee schoolboy, the other lads would pull down his trousers for a look and threaten him for a joke."
"And that's the story of Robbie Mo Thogair," Maxwell said.
"I also gather," Fiona said, "that Sir Angus Bane is about as popular around here as his grandfather was."
"Och, I dinna say that," MacEwan protested. "Sir Angus is a busy man with lofty things on his mind."
"Yes," Maxwell said. " 'Tis not a good idea to say anything against Sir Angus in the vicinity of Crombie Loch. The folk at the meeting here tonight were carefully chosen. Not a Bane clansman among them."
MacEwan said, "Aye, he takes care of his own a' right, and they take care of him. Half the village of Crombie are Banes, and it's Banes that control everything around here."
"I see," Fiona said.
"Och, now," Mrs. MacEwan said, "that's enough about Sir Angus and Black Tom and all such gloomy things. How about some tea, and I have scones in the oven."
"A wee dram would be more like it," Maxwell said.
"For the ladies, then," Mrs. MacEwan said.
"I'm with my cousin," Fiona said.
"And I, too," Jennie added.
MacEwan poured them some of the local brew, a one hundred-proof pure malt whiskey. Fiona raised her glass and said, "Here's to the Scottish Independence Party. A sip for SIP."
"Aye, and rightly named we are, lass, for that's what we'll do."
"What do you mean?"
Maxwell said, "He means we'll have a sip of their oil."
"After a while," Fiona said cautiously. "If Scotland gets its independence. Right now, the oil belongs to the English. And everybody else."
MacEwan's fist crashed on the table. "It belongs to us!" he cried with sudden passion. "And we'll have it! We'll take the oil away from the bastards!"
Maxwell studied her over the rim of his glass. "One way or another."
* * *
The noise brought her bolt upright, out of sleep. Fiona sat motionless, listening. It was a faint scratching just outside her window.
They'd put her to bed in what they called "The Room room," the little slant-ceilinged loft over the all-purpose parlor chamber downstairs. The other half of the space under the eaves was called "The Kitchen room," and that was where the MacEwans slept. The only furniture was a commode, a small chest, and a bed with a corn-chaff mattress. Her clothes were hanging from a hook under the eaves on the other side of the room. Her gun was with them. She'd have had to cross in front of the window to get at it.
She slipped from under the blanket and tiptoed, naked, to the side of the window. The scratching grew more insistent, and then the dim starlight was occluded by a dark shape blocking the little window.
A head poked through, then a pair of shoulders. Fiona flattened herself against the wall.
The intruder hesitated, then continued on through.
Fiona waited until he was through the window as far as the waist, and off balance. Then she grabbed him.
Her fragile, fine-drawn appearance was deceptive. Underneath the slender model's body was a fine, wiry musculature, developed by the hours and hours of physical training that the Baroness insisted on. Fiona heaved with all her might and flipped him over on his back.
He struggled wildly, but he was helpless. He'd lost his footing outside, and he had nothing inside the room to grab onto. She heard a sound that could only be a ladder falling away outside.
She had him under the chin. She was just about to snap his spine over the windowsill when he blurted, "Fiona, lassie, I dinna mean to startle you!"
She took a closer look at his face. It was Ian, the fellow who'd come to warn the MacEwans about Black Tom. She pulled him on through the window, and he fell heavily to the floor.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she said. "No, don't bother to answer."
His kilt was pulled up toward his waist, and she could see the answer under it, standing straight up in anticipation.
"Weel," he said sheepishly, arranging the kilt demurely and sitting up, "I thought…"
"I know what you thought," she said. She looked him over. He was a nice-looking lad, well put together. He was staring hopefully at her bare breasts. "Well," she said, "why not? But take off that damned kilt. It confuses me."
He was a fine, strong one, but by dawn she had him tired out. He struggled to a sitting position and reached for his clothes. "I'd best be going," he said.
"Just one more time," she said.
He looked ruefully down at his flaccid member. "I'm done, lass. That were the hardest night's wark I've ever done. Besides," he laughed in an attempt at levity, "I maun take the long way around the loch to avoid the fairies."
"There aren't any fairies around here," she said, stretching lazily. "At least not that I've noticed."
Ian was suddenly serious. "Oh, but there are."
She looked at him. "Ian, you mean it. You don't mean to tell me that you're superstitious?"
He tightened his lips stubbornly. "There be some as say there are kelpies in the loch."
"Water sprites? Evil spirits?"
"Aye, and they haunt the fjords in the form of a horse."
She laughed in his face. "Oh, Ian, you're too much! This is the twentieth century."
" 'Tis not that you know everything," he said, bristling. "There be educated men, men of science, who believe there is something fey about Crombie Loch and the firth."
Something in his tone alerted her. "Tell me about it," she said.
"The little men," he said, mollified. "They're swarming all over the loch."
"The fairies, you mean?"
"No, no," he said impatiently. "The Japanese."
"The Japanese? You've los
t me."
" 'Tis a grand scientific expedition from Japan. They arrived this afternoon. They will try to capture the monster."
"Monster? What monster?"
"Nessie's daughter, of course."
"Nessie. That's the Loch Ness Monster. And what's this about a daughter?"
"We here at Crombie Loch ha'e our own monster," he said proudly. "She has been seen many times, a long gray shape just under the surface of the water. She upset Donald MacDonald's boat one night when he was out fishing, and Mrs. Moy, who lives by the shore, has taken a picture of her with a camera."
Now Fiona remembered. There had been a few stories in the London press and an item in Time magazine. The pictures and sightings had been inconclusive, just as they had been in the case of the Loch Ness Monster. The Japanese, having failed to encounter Nessie in an earlier effort, had mounted a new expedition to capture the Loch Crombie Beastie. Loch Ness was less than forty miles away, and there was a popular theory that an underwater passageway connected Loch Ness and the Crombie Loch. Nessie and the Crombie Beastie were supposed to be the surviving members of a prehistoric species. The Japanese hoped to shoot the Beastie with a giant tranquilizer dart fired from a whaling cannon and tow it out in a net to a waiting Japanese whaling vessel anchored outside the firth. If they could get it back alive to Japan, they were going to put it on exhibition in the Yokohama aquarium.
"And do you think the Japanese will succeed in capturing the Beastie?" Fiona said.
"Never," Ian said. "The Beastie is verra shy. She stays out o' sight o' people. And besides, the laird does na' want those Jappie fellers tramping around the shores o' the loch. They'll get nae help from Crombie folk."
"So, Sir Angus doesn't want anybody messing around with his monster," Fiona said. "That's very interesting."
"It's a tourist attraction," Tan said helpfully.
"Of course," Fiona said. "That must be it."
After Tan had gone. Fiona sponged herself off, using the pitcher and washbasin the MacEwans had left for her. She got her douche out of her luggage and hung it on a nail, as high as she could reach. She hesitated for a long moment, holding the hard rubber fountainhead in her hand. It was awfully early in the morning.
