I woke with a start, banging against the headboard. Clouds were moving across the stars, and wind was banging tree limbs against the roof. Then a shadow crossed the window. Had someone glanced inside? Rising quickly, I opened the sliding glass door. But no one was standing on the little porch, nor were there any trees or bushes behind which someone might hide. Deciding I’d imagined the thing in the window, I pulled curtains across the door. The dream that awakened me was vivid still, and gave rise to this series of thoughts:
The man named Haig knew things he hadn’t told Hannigan.
There was a passage in Crail’s book with clues to MacDuff’s mysterious inscription, “Sunrise at noon. August 6 again, but 1950.”
I should read the letters Hannigan had gotten with reports of possible Shivas sightings. There were connections between them that we had missed.
The dream—and my reaction to it—made sleep impossible now. Listening to rain against the windows, I decided to leave the hotel at dawn and drive back to the village near the Ramsay Distillery. People there could tell me how to find the property’s former caretaker, the man named Haig who claimed that his body had somehow been altered by forces that lived in the place.
CHAPTER TEN
NEAR PORTINNISHERRICH, A village south of MacDuff’s former property, there is a narrow unpaved road that runs east from Loch Awe and the B840. It winds through stands of conifers, some of which had been brutally clear-cut in 1987, past fields bordered with low rock walls toward higher elevations. On this rainy afternoon, its rutted surface forced me to drive with care until I reached Haig’s little house on a slope of Beinn Bhreac, more than a thousand feet above the loch.
The stone cottage was enclosed by a dry-rock wall. Behind it, on a field that rose toward Beinn Bhreac’s summit, sheep and milk cows grazed. I got out of the car and looked around me. To the west and far below, Loch Awe was barely visible through silken drizzle, framed on its western shore by the wooded ridges of Inverinan Forest. Again I was struck by the majesty of the Scottish Highlands. Vistas such as these caused thoughts to stop. For several minutes I watched mist-shrouded peaks appear as the rain receded.
Then I turned and walked past an empty cowshed and a battered Land Rover. Though the sky was darkly overcast, there was no light in the house or smoke coming from its chimney. On each side of a rough wooden door, like baleful eyes, deeply recessed windows faced me. “Mr. Haig?” I called. “Mr. Haig, are you there?”
There was no answer. “Haig!” I called more loudly. “Mr. Lauder, the innkeeper, knows me. He said I should see you!” This wasn’t exactly true, but was warranted, I told myself, by the importance of what the man might tell me. My search for the truth of Shivas Irons was as legitimate as Haig’s passion for privacy.
There were no sounds inside the house, nor movement in the cowshed. Maybe Haig had gone to tend his animals in the hills nearby. After leaving a note that I wanted to ask him about the distillery, I walked back to my car and put on my running shoes. Something told me not to leave. Perhaps I could see him from higher ground.
I started up a narrow path through the field behind the house, stopping occasionally to enjoy the view. Sheep scattered as I approached, and two calves ran away down the hill. Then I hesitated. Near the path about twenty yards from me, a cow faced in my direction. Or was it a bull? No udder was visible through the knee-high grass in which it stood, its neck was formidable, and it seemed to be glowering at me. Certainly Haig wouldn’t keep a bull here. This wasn’t a breeding farm. But if it charged, was there a place to hide? Glancing back at my car I saw that a man stood near the house, watching me intently. Neither he, nor I, nor the animal moved.
“Hello!” I shouted. “Is that a bull?”
He didn’t respond, but the animal lowered its head and aimed its horns like a pair of guns.
Alarmed, I backed away. I seemed to remember that bulls didn’t like to charge downhill. Could I outrun it to the house? The man stood motionless, some fifty yards from me. How long would it take to reach him? The animal stood perfectly still, its nose pointed toward the ground, its eyes rolled back as if to fix me in its sights. Disconcertingly, I thought of England’s Princess Diana. She sometimes had this very look, her head bowed slightly with eyes looking up in earnest engagement. But there wasn’t time for such thoughts. The creature snorted, took a few steps, and charged.
I turned and sprinted down the hill. Behind me there was a clatter of hooves, in front of me a tricky slope covered with stubble and animal droppings. As I hurdled the rock wall near the house, the man threw up his arms. “Eeyah!” he shouted, commanding the animal to stop. “Eeyah! Go back!”
It stopped when it got to the wall, mooed in a plaintive way, and looked at me with soulful eyes. Between its legs there was an udder, and its horns were shorter than I’d thought. The man was cursing, in Gaelic or thick Scots English. “Ye scared the bejesus out o’ it,” he snarled. “Go awa’ now, lassie. Git bach!”
The man had a gnarled elfin face, was five feet seven or eight inches tall, and wore a grey shirt and black pants held up by purple suspenders. “It’s a wonder ye didna’ break yer neck.” He looked me up and down. “If ye’re lookin’ for strays from the distillery, ye’ve come to the wrong place. I read yer note. I’ve nothin’ to do wi’ the Ramsays or their whiskey noo’. They’re bastards, all of ’em, and I wouldna’ work in tha’ hellhole again if ye promised me a thousand pounds.”
“This has nothing to do with the Ramsays.” I decided that niceties would get me nowhere. “I’m here to find out about the hauntings. I know Buck Hannigan.”
“Ye’re a journalist? If so, ye’ll have to excuse me. Eeyah!” He waved his arms at the cow, which still was standing by the wall. “Go bach, lassie. The man’ll not disturb yer calves. Now git!” Limping and slightly bent from the waist, Haig walked swiftly to the front of the house. At the front door he stepped on a flagstone that brought him up to my height. “I’ve nothin’ to tell ye,” he said with a hard, penetrating voice. “I’ve not been back to the Ramsay Distillery for ower two yeers. Talk to their new caretakers.”
“I’m sorry to bother you.” I pretended apology. “I know this is an imposition. But if you don’t mind, I brought something for you. Lauder said you liked the whiskey from Oban. I brought you a couple of bottles.”
We faced each other in silence, our faces no more than three feet apart. “Ye brought me whiskey?” he asked after a moment’s pause. “And wha’ is it ye want to talk about?”
“Wait just a minute!” I said. “Let me get it.” Before he could respond, I turned and walked to the car for the box with three bottles of whiskey I’d bought at an inn near Portinnisherrich. Haig looked confused when he took it from me. He seemed to be caught between desire for the whiskey and a growing suspicion of me. He lifted the box as if judging its weight. “There’s moor than two bottles heer.” He scowled. “What else is in it?”
“It has three bottles, not two.”
Straightening his back, he looked down from his flagstone perch with a hint of embarrassment. “What’s yer name?” he asked.
“Murphy. Michael Murphy.”
“Well, that explains it. Ye’re lookin’ for leprechauns.” A tiny smile appeared. “And ye probably want a drink.”
“It’s a little early for that.” I smiled back. “But yes, I’m looking for leprechauns.”
“Well, I suppose it’ll be the only way to get rid o’ ye.” Placing a hand on the door, he paused, as if undecided whether to ask me inside. “Let me put this away,” he said. “It’ll be better to talk outside.” A moment later, he reappeared with a walking stick and led me swiftly up the hill. Though he looked to be in his late sixties, he moved like someone younger. “There’s a good place to sit up there.” He pointed to a high grey cliff on the incline above us. “We can talk there while I watch the animals.”
Five minutes later, we sat on a ledge beneath the cliff with a view of Haig’s sheep and cows. “Ye want to talk about Ramsay�
��s distillery,” he said, hardly winded. “Well, ye can see part o’ it down there, three ridges past my house.” Following the line of his pointing finger, I recognized MacDuff’s two-story house, nestled several miles away between a wooded rise and grass-covered hills beyond it. The rain had stopped, and we could see what seemed to be the entire length of Loch Awe, winding through mist-shrouded ridges toward the distant peaks of Ben Cruachan.
“That’s where I want to keep it,” said Haig, nodding toward the abandoned distillery. “Far away from me. It might look nice from heer, but it’s a hellhole, I tell ye. A godforsaken place. But not because it’s haunted. That’s a story the locals made up. There was an owner there before the Ramsays, a crazy old bugger named Seamus MacDuff, who had atomic waste dumped on a golf course he built around the house. That’s what the Ramsays won’t admit. None of ’em! Atomic waste! Spread all ower the place for reasons just the old bugger knew.” He shook his head disgustedly. “They don’t want to pay for cleanin’ it up. Nor me for my injuries there. Nor the workers who were poisoned by it.”
“Atomic waste?” I said. “How do you know that?”
“From surveyors in Cladich and Inveraray, and other locals who know.” He pointed to his neck and the small of his back. “The place gave me arthritis, headaches, the gout. And more. It did somethin’ to my dreams, my sleep, my digestion. To my mental state. It’s a creepy place, I tell ye. Sometimes at night ye can see it glowin’. Radiation all ower the stinkin’ little course he built, producin’ God knows what kind o’ monsters. ’Tis said by some that old MacDuff was tryin’ to mutate himself! To grow a new head or eyeballs or fingers or somethin’.”
“What do your doctors say?”
“Doctors. Aagh!” He spit the words out. “Wha’ do they know? No doctor ’round heer knows how to deal with somethin’ like this, and I canna’ afford the ones in Glasgow.”
He sat about four feet from me, avoiding eye contact as he glowered at the abandoned distillery. I asked how long he had worked there.
“Nine months, in ’83 and ’84, after the place was closed. Worked until I could barely move! Toward the end, the pain nearly killed me. I’ve not been able to walk right since. Or sleep a full night without wakin’ up.”
“But you almost ran up this mountain,” I protested. “I could hardly keep up!”
“Aye, but it hurt like hell. Hurt like hell. I should be able to walk here. I’ve done it most of my life, and I’m not fifty yet.” I was stunned. He looked to be twenty years older. “So, Murphy,” he said, still looking away from me, “what’s yer question? What is it ye want to know?”
Having interviewed people for many years about their experiences at the edge of the strangeness curve, I was aware of the difficulties involved. Usually it’s best to let interviewees reveal themselves at their own pace, as they come to trust you, especially when they are deeply defended against the things they have perceived. A conversation about such matters can drift away, or end abruptly, if it becomes too threatening. Whatever it was that happened to Haig had created defenses in him that bordered on paranoia. It would take patience and luck to get past them.
“It’s not for a story, in case that’s what you’re thinking. And I won’t tell anyone what you say if you tell me it’s off the record.”
“Off the record?” he exclaimed. “You a government man?”
“No! No!” I exclaimed. “I’ve never worked for the government.”
“Wha’ do ye do for a livin’?”
I hesitated, then decided to take a plunge. “I’m writing a book about things that are hard to explain. That’s what led me here. Hannigan and Lauder said you had some experiences that fit what I’m writing about. It’s a kind of scientific research.” The ploy had worked before. For the sake of science, certain people not given to self-disclosure are willing to open up.
But not Haig. “Scientific research?” he said. “I’ll not submit to that! Ye’re tellin’ me ye want to put me in a book?”
“Not without your permission.”
“What’s yer background, Murphy?” His eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What kind o’ writer are ye?”
“Psychology. Philosophy. Religion. Sports …” I was fumbling for words. “I still have a problem telling my publisher what the book’s about.”
He cocked his head to one side, as if to appraise me from another angle. Then the hint of a smile—just the smallest hint—appeared in his eyes. “Wha’ does he think it’s about?” he asked.
“He has faith. Great faith. At times he’s almost saintly.”
It was my first stroke of luck. “Aye, Murphy!” he said with a twinkle. “Faith. Perhaps ’cause he has no other course!” Though it seemed to strain his facial muscles and was lined with broken yellow teeth, his smile had a charm that surprised me. But it didn’t last long. Shaking his fist at MacDuff’s estate, he started to talk about his strange experiences, interrupting his story two or three times to shout at his animals with a snarling, resonant, and penetrating voice that cut the air like a whip. I said little, for I knew that much can be learned nonverbally during confessional narratives of this kind. Experience at the limits of the strangeness curve is revealed as much by unintended hints, innuendos, and things not said as it is by explicit verbal report.
He had leased the Ramsay place to run his sheep in 1983, a few months after the distillery was closed, until the summer of 1984. For the entire nine months, he had used the house to cook his meals, but after two weeks he couldn’t sleep there. “It’s not built right,” he said. “Seems to lean when it gets cold, and howls at times like a family o’ banshees. MacDuff was an engineer, but he didna’ know how to build a place fit to live in. It’s a wonder it doesna’ collapse. Forget the rumors about its ghosts. The whinin’, the bangin’, the howlin’, they come from the wind, and loose joints when thunder hits. I know. For two weeks, I spent every night there. ’Twas then that my troubles started.” He pointed to his neck and the small of his back. “On the second night. That’s when the pains began and I got my first hints about the old bugger’s experiments. Aye, Murphy, the house—ye’ve heard some o’ the stories—all o’ it started to glow. The walls, the floors, the roof. Even the windowpanes! All o’ it! Tha’ was the first clue I got that MacDuff had dumped atomic waste around the place. Got it, some people suspect, after the war from people he knew through his work with missiles.”
Masking my disbelief, I asked if it glowed every night.
“No. It takes certain kinds o’ weather. But I could feel it every night. I could feel it, Murphy. A kind o’ radiation, comin’ from all around, from the ground and the buildings and the air itself, above and below and inside me. That was the clue. It was comin’ from both inside and outside me. That’s the way it works, all right. Makes ye buzzy and jumpy all ower. Sometimes with little points o’ light, ye can see ’em everywhere. I’ve read books about it. Radioactive elements spread like manoor all ower the property. Ye can bet that some o’ it is buried still in cellars under the house. ’Tis amazin’ that no one’s found it.
“Aye, on that second night. That’s when the pain began.” He pointed to the base of his spine. “It started heer. In this very spot. Like a fire. Like a knife. And then, at the moment I saw the place glowin’, it went up with a rush to my skull. Every day after that it spread, tightenin’ me here, tightenin’ me there, until I was sufferin’ all ower. Then I had nightmares. Dreamt one night that I was walkin’ back ’n forth through the walls lookin’ for a way to escape, until I rose up through the ceilin’ into MacDuff’s old study on the second floor. And woke to find myself in the room, up there wanderin’ in my sleep! After that I slept in the distillery and felt a little better, but my ailments have never gone away.”
“Haig,” I said, “let me ask you a strange-sounding question. Was there any point where this stuff, these points of light, whatever it is, made you feel good?”
“Good?” he exclaimed. “Now, that’s what I call a stupid question. A really
dumb one. Why’n hell d’ye ask me that?”
“Because some people exposed to radioactivity say that for a while, they have new energy.”
“Murphy,” he said caustically, “I think ye made that up. I’ve never heard o’ it. Never heard o’ it. Don’t try to tell me that atomic waste gives people energy.”
“But some people feel that way.” I persisted in the fabrication. “Did you?”
“Not for a minute. I never felt good in the place, not once. None o’ my parts have worked right since. I’m just forty-seven, but look at me! See what the radiation’s done? It’s an old man ye’re lookin’ at. An old man!” He seemed to be growing more defensive. Had my fabrication triggered the beginnings of a self-recognition?
“But you can walk faster than me, and look, you don’t have a sweater. We’re almost the same age, but you’re stronger and more energetic.”
“That’s a crock! A real crock.” He was visibly angry now. “It’s been hell since ’83. Hell, I tell ye. MacDuff and the Ramsays, they’ve poisoned me. Every cell in my body is filled with the stuff.” He paused. “So ye might as well know this, Murphy. Sometimes at night I see the glowin’ heer. That’s right. The same glowin’ heer, the same as it is in MacDuff’s old house! On some nights it’s spread all ’round me, all ower my arms and legs, from the plutonium in my cells.” Sadness came into his gnarled face. “I don’t know wha’ to do about it. Don’t know wha’ to do. I suppose it’s just a matter of time before the cancer comes.”
Suddenly he seemed completely vulnerable. For a moment we didn’t speak. Finally I broke the silence. “In writing this book, I’ve come across cases like yours that don’t have anything to do with radioactivity.”
“That’s news to me,” he said. “I never heard o’ it, and dinna’ believe it. But go ahead and tell me.”
There are moments when crucial recognitions can either come to fuller life or be swallowed by one’s usual defenses. Was Haig approaching such a juncture? “It’s past five,” I ventured. “Any chance we could have some of that Oban whiskey. I could use a shot.”
The Kingdom of Shivas Irons Page 15
