Paying the Piper

by Sharyn McCrumb

He nodded. "That white building off to the left is my research station."

  "And you'll come to Banrigh every Saturday?" "Barring bad weather," Cameron said reasonably. "I'm not that good a sailor."

  "And will you come oftener if you miss me?"

  He smiled. "No. But I'll miss you all the same, hen."

  The remainder of the journey to the isle of Banrigh began two hours later, when the diggers and their gear had been transferred from die ferry to the green Moggie Thou—in several trips—and when the gear was stowed away on the old motor launch on loan to Cameron by the foundation for his seal research.

  There were more people headed for Banrigh than the launch could comfortably transport, but the trip was a relatively short one—just under an hour, if the wind and weather were good—so it was decided that they would forego the elbow room in me interest of making only one trip.

  Elizabeth found the voyage much less enjoyable than she had anticipated. It did not turn out to be a romantic journey, reminiscent of the Young Pretender's sail to Skye, nor was it a quiet time of togetherness before she and Cameron went their separate ways. Elizabeth decided that it was like being in steerage with a party of mental patients. She found herself stuck with Callum, Denny, and Alasdair, all of whom were discussing soccer rivalries, while Cameron had been cornered by Derek Marchand, who wanted to hear about the seal research.

  "Not going to kill the beasts, are you?" he asked. "I hear that in Canada they club the young ones for their fur."

  "We don't have fur seals," Cameron said politely. "Ours are gray seals, Halichoerus giyphus."

  "The ones I've seen are brown," said Marchand.

  Cameron smiled. "Gray seals can be brown, silver, or any shade of gray."

  "And what are you wanting to know. Dietary habits?"

  "Oh, no. We know that. They eat herring, halibut, pollack, and even crustaceans. My project is to find out how far they go, and in what direction."

  "Going to follow them about, are you?"

  "In a high tech way, yes. We've put radio collars on a dozen or so, and I plan to keep track of them electronically.''

  "Think you can tell a seal from a Russian sub?"

  Cameron blinked. "I imagine so, unless one of the crew is wearing a radio collar."

  This reply amused Derek Marchand so much mat he insisted on repeating the entire conversation to the rest of the party, who smiled faintly and went back to their own conversations.

  "So you'll be by every week to bring us supplies and to see your young lady. Very kind of you."

  "Not at all," said Cameron, blushing. "Of course, if you need anything urgently, you can always contact me at the station on your radio set. You won't have any range to speak of out here, but your signal ought to reach as far as my research station." His lips twitched. "Or you could try hailing a Russian submarine."

  "Perhaps we could catch a passing seal!" Denny said.

  "I doubt if you'll see any on Banrigh," Cameron said. "Of course, you might. They've never been tracked before. And nobody lives there to report their presence."

  "We'll let you know if we see any," Gitte promised.

  Midway through the trip Owen discovered that most of the expedition had not heard about the Witchery adventure and the murder investigation that followed it, and although none of them seemed interested in obtaining such information, Owen insisted on providing it anyway, with heavy emphasis on his cachet as the last person to speak to the deceased.

  "And you didn't even find out who he was," Denny reminded him.

  Owen shrugged. "Who knew he was going to get himself killed?"

  "Some detective you are!" said Elizabeth.

  "I don't do well under stress," Owen informed her, "but I'm better prepared now, and I’ve been thinking a lot about Mr. Keenan's murder.''

  "I'll let you know if I hear on the news that the Edinburgh police have solved it," Cameron offered.

  "And if I solve it first," Owen said, "I'll radio the information to you."

  Elizabeth sighed. "Owen, how can you solve the murder of someone you hardly spoke to, in a country where you don't know a soul, when you are stranded on a barren island miles from civilization?"

  "I have my methods!" Owen smirked. He seemed to be willing to explain them, but at that moment Cameron announced that they were coming in sight of Banrigh, and Elizabeth turned her attention back to the heaving sea and the rocky island still small in the distance.

  CHAPTER

  8

  Banrigh, appearing from a distance like a black seal floating on the surface of the ocean, was one of several thousand uninhabited islands off the northern coast of Scotland. It lay dead and silent in the dark sea, its rocky cliffs shining like bones washed up on the barren beach. In winter the island would be a gray shell shrouded in mist, cold and wet and empty. Even now in the bright summer sunshine some trace of this starkness remained in the sharp outlines of the rocks. The stone circle was not visible from the sea, but its presence seemed to make itself felt, reminding the visitor of prehistoric rituals and sacrifice before the old gods. It made one think, too, of the shipwrecks that must have brought death time and again to the rocky shores.

  The passengers in the launch shivered as they looked at the dark island ahead, each thinking that he alone must have imagined such romantic nonsense. But the feeling was there.

  Unlike most of Scotland's islands, Banrigh was fertile

  enough and just large enough to have supported a struggling population of farmer-fishermen, but by the early twentieth century, the last of the islanders had given up their precarious existence in the back of beyond and had moved to larger islands like Skye. One or two daring ones had even gone as far afield as Inverness on the mainland, leaving the island to the gales and to the ghosts of its ancient inhabitants: those who had built the stone circle, for reasons no one remembered.

  Mountains of coarse-grained black gabbro formed the spine of the island, ice-eroded over the centuries into steep-walled conies and long scree runs of broken rock. Over this ancient, sterile skeleton a more recent outcrop of limestone softened the island with stone-studded green fields and a scattering of elder bush and rowan trees. Except for a small plateau on the west side, leading to a rocky channel, three sides of the island were barricaded from the sea by steep bare cliffs that looked axe-carved from a distance, but on the eastern shore the fringe of limestone stretched out to form a rough beach of pebbles and old shells. It was there that the odd private boat would put to shore, mostly Celtophiles or National Trust photographers wanting a look at the Banrigh standing stones. Even that was a rare occurrence. Callanish, the stone circle on Lewis, was both more impressive and more accessible. Banrigh, much off the beaten track, was left alone.

  The ruins of the village were visible from the beach; a scattering of "black houses," dirt-floored dwellings built of stacked boulders, with holes in the thatched roofs for the smoke from the peat fire that was kept burning within. The cottages, long unroofed and empty, wouldn't even provide shelter from a mild summer night. Luckily, the Banrigh expedition would not be needing them. The object of their study lay on the other side of the island, as did the island's other ruined dwelling where they were destined to make their camp.

  Elizabeth looked about her at the flash of white breakers across the cold blue depths, and at the clouds of lapwing overhead. "This doesn't look anything like Appalachia," she murmured, and Cameron smiled.

  Owen Gilchrist hoisted his duffel bag onto a sagging, pudgy shoulder. "How far is it to where we're staying?" he asked plaintively.

  "There's a path through the hills there," Tom Leath told him. "What have you got in that thing anyhow?"

  "Oh, clothes. A few books. My bagpipes."

  Denny snickered. "You've just forfeited any offers of assistance."

  "Come along!" said Marchand, slapping Owen's other shoulder. "It's a bracing walk! Lovely weather for it, too!"

  "Why didn't you land on the other side of the island?" Owen asked, still tryin
g to think of a way to keep from carrying the heavy duffel bag over a mountain.

  "There's just a narrow beach there," Cameron explained, "And the inlet is full of rocks. I didn't trust myself to navigate it, especially with such a crowd on board."

  "Are you coming with us?" asked Elizabeth, seeing that Cameron was glancing uncertainly back at his boat. "And don't say that you have to get back to the research station before dark, because God knows when that it is in the summertime. Midnight?"

  Cameron grinned. "Very nearly. I should be getting back and getting things set up for my own project, but I suppose I could give you a hand with some of this gear."

  Alasdair had picked up his own canvas bag and sleeping bag, leaving Gitte's things on the ground at his feet. "Why couldn't the bloody Navy have built their station on this side of the island?" he demanded, scowling at the green wall of mountain in front of them.

  "Because they were wanting to watch the U-boats on the other side!" said Denny.

  Callum Farthing cleared his throat. "Actually, I think it was a weather station."

  Tom Leath cast a critical eye at his reluctant troops. "We'd better get going. It's nearly five now, and we may need all of the available daylight to make the place habitable."

  "The view from the mountain should be very pretty,'' said Elizabeth, looping the camera strap around her neck.

  The party began to straggle past the crumbling black houses of the old village, with Denny, the joker as usual, whistling "The Colonel Bogey March."

  Owen stopped to look at an odd circular thicket near one of the abandoned cottages. "What a funny hedge! It has a wooden gate attached to the shrubbery, but there's nothing inside. It was too small to fit a house in anyway."

  "It was a garden," Gitte told him. "They planted the hedge to protect it from the winds out here—and from the sheep, of course."

  Owen looked disappointed. "I thought it might have been a sacred well."

  Gitte stole a glance at Alasdair. He seemed pleased that she. had been able to give the American even that small piece of information. She jinked at him, as if to say, "Of course, you knew that, too," although perhaps he had not.

  "What a nice path this is!" Elizabeth said when they had gone a quarter of a mile up the gentle slope to the first hill. "Even after all these years the heather hasn't grown onto the path." She stooped to pick a sprig of the tiny purple bloom from the brush. Heather had not been at all the way she had imagined it. Rosebay willow herb, the graceful purple weed that grew as tall as Cameron, was much closer to her expectations, though now that she considered it logically, a short scrubby bush was the logical plant to survive in such a Spartan environment.

  Callum Farthing, the young man from Inverness, was walking beside her. "They used this path a lot over the years," he told her, as if to explain why the way was still clear.

  "And what are these little piles of stones along the road?" she wanted to know.

  "Resting cairns," said Callum. "This was the way to the burying ground, and whenever they rested the coffin along the way, they left a small stone to mark the spot."

  Elizabeth stared at the small mound of gray stones. "But not many people lived here."

  He shrugged. "Over the years, it adds up."

  The path wound its way around the mountain until the village and Cameron's boat were no longer in sight. Elizabeth had been right about the view: from the narrow path she could see gray and green folds of mountains across a narrow valley and the dark blue water shining in the sun beyond that.

  Elizabeth, thinking of the ritual signal fires and the stone-circle-as-observatory theory, had expected to find the Banrigh circle at the highest point on the path, but when they had crossed over the summit, she could see the outline of a ring in a field of heather far below. "Why did they put it in the valley?" she wondered aloud.

  Cameron smiled. "Would you want to drag stones that large up this mountain?"

  "Perhaps not," Elizabeth said after some consideration. "But if I were going to put that much work into a project, I'd sure want everybody to see it."

  Derek Marchand spotted the stone circle a few moments later, and he halted the procession on the path and pointed it out to everyone. "There it is! The object of our quest."

  "Should be a good spot for overhead shots of the site," Tom Leath muttered to Callum Farthing.

  "We will visit the circle tomorrow," Marchand was saying. "I'm greatly tempted to march you all there tonight, but I feel sure that we will need every moment of daylight to work on our own living quarters.

  "Thank God he's got some sense of priorities!" Alasdair muttered.

  "Also from here you can see the very small island just a few hundred yards from Banrigh, with one large stone on it. We shall be sending someone there to do more measurements as well."

  "I can't swim!" Denny quipped.

  "There's supposed to be an old rowboat near the military hut," Leath informed him.

  Elizabeth focused her camera on the stone circle glinting in the sunlight far below, trying to get the smaller island in

  the background of the shot. "I hope this turns out," she murmured.

  "So do I," said Cameron. "In more ways than one."

  "Good view from up here," Alasdair said approvingly. "I'll bet the old boys could see the Viking raiding parties from miles away. Not much they could do about it, though, I guess, except stash the valuables under a rock."

  Gitte Dankert did not smile. She was not amused by jokes about her bloodthirsty Norse ancestors; in fact, she found it most embarrassing that she should somehow be allied to the destruction blamed on her ancestors. She hoped she wouldn't have to endure teasing on the subject from her fellow diggers; after all, many of the island dwellers of Scotland were closely related to the Scandinavians both by blood and by culture, and she knew that she would be most helpful in pointing out similarities.

  Alasdair was still examining the island from this bird's-eye view. His eyes flickered from the glint of the stone circle in the sunlight to the bright green grass of the peat fields dotted with white-flecked boulders. A narrow burn sparkled amid the heather. "I don't see any obvious burial sites," he grunted.

  "I do," said Callum Farthing. "Several. But I'm afraid they're not of the period we're investigating."

  "Burial sites? Where?" Owen's gothic soul was stirred out of fatigue and into something like animation. "How can you tell?"

  Callum smiled. "Later. We have work to do."

  * * *

  The Nissen hut, erected by the Royal Navy during World War II, looked like an overturned tin can half buried in the dirt. It was a windowless cylinder, thirty feet long, and just high enough to stand up in. Despite forty years of salt air and neglect, it was still in good shape, with only a few rust spots in its metal exterior and no sign of roof leaks on the dirt floor within. The interior had been partitioned off, probably to separate sleeping quarters from work areas, but now the shell was empty, except for a long wooden table and a few scraps of yellowed paper still posted here and there. The bare light sockets dangled from the ceiling; both bulbs and electricity had vanished long ago.

  "This is rather primitive," said Alasdair, looking around. "We might be better off in tents.''

  Derek Marchand smiled. "Yes, I had decided that myself. I spent enough time in these during the war, so I brought my one-man tent. A bit of damp is a small price to pay for a bed under the stars."

  "We can set the radio up on that half of the table," Tom Leath said. "There ought to be room enough for us to eat on whats left. I'm sleeping outside, too," he added.

  ' T thought the ladies might like to have one of the partitioned spaces," said Marchand.

  Elizabeth smiled weakly at Gitte Dankert. She supposed she would have to think of something to make conversation about9 but the prospect was not inviting. What, she wondered, do you discuss with a Danish geisha?

  "Would anyone like some tea?" she asked brightly.

  In order to prepare tea, Callum Farthing had to
assemble the Camping Gaz, the two-burner butane stove that would

  serve them for cooking and heating. By the time he had the stove working and Gitte had brought a pail of water from the burn, it was nearly seven o'clock, but the blue had not begun to fade from the sky.

  "One cup of tea," said Cameron, "and then I really have to be getting back."

  Elizabeth nodded. "I wish ..." What? she thought. That he didn't have to go, or that I could go and help him? That the islands were closer together than they are? "I wish I were a seal."

  "I'll be back on Saturday. Let me go and say goodbye to Marchand."

  "Shall I walk you back to the boat?" Elizabeth asked.

  Cameron shook his head. "You have enough to do here. This place could do with a good scrubbing."

  Elizabeth spent the remaining daylight hours helping Gitte scour the Nissen hut, not because she wanted to, and not because she thought it needed to be as clean as Gitte was determined to get it. In the middle of the room Callum Farthing was setting up the radio, seemingly oblivious to both their conversation and their labors.

  "It has a dirt floor!" Elizabeth said once in exasperation. "How clean can you get it? Besides, we're not going to do brain surgery here!"

  Gitte didn't answer directly. She very seldom did. She went on scrubbing the side of the partition. After a few minutes she said, "I'm sure I can manage by myself."

  Elizabeth sighed and picked up the bucket. If there was anything she hated more than boredom, it was guilt. "I'm going for some more water from the bur-rrn," she announced.

  Gitte kept scrubbing. "You don't sound Scottish."

  Elizabeth consoled herself with the thought that she didn't have to hurry back with the pail of water. Fetching it at all was a splendid gesture of cooperation; there was no need to be fanatic. Besides, she could explore the island tomorrow. It had better not rain tomorrow! she thought.

  Across the fields she could see Leath and Marchand at the stone circle. She wondered where the others were. Probably making landmark discoveries in Scottish archaeology, she thought. Probably finding solid gold Viking ships and a Celtic Rosetta Stone, describing in clearly carved runes just exactly how to use a stone circle. "And I will have helped to clean a Nissen hut," she said aloud.