by Fran Stewart
I glanced quickly at Dirk, but he shrugged his shoulders. Apparently Brother Marcus, the one who had taught Dirk some Latin and a little Greek almost six hundred years ago, had neglected teaching him about either Nero’s fiddle or Caligula’s senatorial horse.
I reached for Drusilla’s broad back. She was almost as silky as Tessa, my twin brother’s service dog. “Welcome back to Hamelin, Big Willie. I don’t recall having seen you for the past few years.”
He ducked his head in a surprisingly shy gesture. “I’ve been . . . gone. It’s good to be back, though.”
“I assume you’re here to take part in the Games again?”
“Caber toss and stone put,” he said without fanfare. “Weight toss and hammer throw.”
I wondered if he was too old to compete in such strenuous sports where the average age of the competitors hovered somewhere around the mid- to late twenties. Fine lines were etched across his face, and his gray hair had wisps of pure white streaking his temples, but the legs showing beneath his kilt were still as massive as tree trunks, and his shoulders were even wider than Dirk’s. He’d been the consistent winner, year after year, as long as I could remember until he abruptly stopped coming to the Games. Come to think of it, the guy who usually came in second place to Big Willie looked almost as old as this man.
Ropes of muscle running along his forearms rippled as he lifted the tartan material at his left shoulder in a move reminiscent of what Dirk had done a few minutes before. A glint of something bright red twinkled on his hand. A ring. “I do a bit of solo piping as well, but I’ve never won a thing there.” He grinned down at his dog. “Silla—that’s what I call her—enjoys it when I practice, even though I’m no good at it.”
“But a dog’s ears are awfully sensitive. I should think she wouldn’t like the pipes.”
“Ah, but she’s a Scottie. They’re a breed apart, as I’ve said before. Often she sings along with me.”
I must have looked skeptical.
“Truly,” he said. “Scotties have a special song we describe as an aroo.” He grinned. “There’s nothing quite like it, and the sound of the pipes seems to call it out of them.” He glanced from the sign above the door to the kilted mannequins in the display windows. “ScotShop,” he mused. “Is this your store?”
“Aye, ’tis so,” Dirk said.
The man looked at me expectantly, and it took me a moment to remember he couldn’t have heard Dirk’s answer. The only other one who could see and hear my ghost, besides me—and every animal in town—was my good friend Karaline Logg. “Yes,” I said.
The temps I’d hired on for the duration of the Games—all four of them—came running down Main Street, and I directed them to talk with Gilda. She’d give them their assignments.
Big Willie strolled toward the window that overlooked the little courtyard, and the retractable leash reeled out longer and longer. It almost looked as if the Scottie was walking the man. “I see you have Clan Graham kilts.” There was a twinkle of delight in his rich voice.
“You’re not a Graham, though, are you?” I couldn’t recall his last name.
“No. That would be my wife, bless her softly departed soul, the only woman I ever truly loved. I’m William Bowman, of Clan Farquharson.”
Dirk’s kilt swirled as he strode up before the man and studied his face. “Aye. He looks as though he could be a Farquharson.” Dirk should know, since it was his own clan.
“Everybody calls me Big Willie, as you may have heard.” He winked at me, and I had the distinct impression that Big Willie must have been quite a charmer in his younger days.
I studied his face. People show—or hide—grief in myriad ways, but Big Willie looked like a man who may have grieved, but he’d kept on living. “Would you like to see inside the store?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to leave Silla outside.” He touched his hand to his chest, right over his heart, and the deep red stone on his big ring twinkled in the early-morning sunlight. “I’m all she’s ever had.”
“She’s welcome in the ScotShop,” I said. “After all, Scamp there is our mascot.” I glanced around toward Scamp. His leash trailed on the ground. Sam and Shoe had abandoned Scamp and disappeared into the store along with Gilda and the four temps. Good thing, too. I looked at my watch again. We weren’t too late. Two of the temps and one of my cousins needed to leave right away, though, to staff the Tartan Tie booth down in the meadow. I sold a lot there each year.
I picked up the end of Scamp’s leash and unhooked it from his collar. He knew it was time for him to supervise, so he led me into the store, followed closely by Silla. Big Willie stopped to look at the neatly lettered sign on the glass pane of the window, and Silla’s retractable leash kept reeling out.
Well-behaved Scotties and poodles are welcome.
Thank you for keeping any other dogs outside.
“Scotties and poodles?”
I nodded. “They’re the only breeds I know of who don’t shed. Dog hair would ruin . . .” I gestured to the low-hanging racks of sweaters, tartans, and poet shirts —they were a big seller, since they made any man look fabulous. I glanced at Dirk. In his homespun shirt, crafted four hundred years before the Industrial Revolution, his already broad shoulders were poetry in motion.
I could have gone on thinking such thoughts for a long time, but the little female whined. I couldn’t spot her, and Scamp had disappeared as well.
“I’d best retrieve her before she gets into trouble.” Big Willie issued a low whistle, and sure enough, I heard doggie toenails on the hardwood floorboards from the other side of the shop, as I followed the retracting leash. Toenails turned to silence when she hit the carpet, and within moments a sturdy black head rounded one of the kilt racks. Her pert ears swiveled, as if to say, I came because I wanted to—not because you called. Just like my cat, I thought. Shorty was willing to be with me; in fact, he tended to follow me around the house, but only on his own terms.
Silla ducked beneath a rack of Fair Isle sweaters and turned so her head peeked out. I laughed. “That’s one of Scamp’s favorite places, too.”
Big Willie leaned over and unhooked the leash. “So she doesn’t get tangled up,” he said.
People had begun drifting into the store, and I excused myself. Even with all three of my employees—and four temps—working, the days before and during the games tended to be extra busy. Overwhelming at times, in fact, but I wasn’t about to complain. This was my main source of income. Main source of headaches, too, sometimes, but that came with owning my own business. And the Hamelin Highland Games weekend was one of the most important sales times every year.
A woman who’d been coming in regularly, although she hadn’t bought anything yet, caught my eye as she and a wide-shouldered man I assumed to be her husband—he had his hand on the small of her back—walked into the shop. They headed straight to the glass case where we kept jewelry. Gilda approached her, and I heard the undercurrent of a brief conversation. As I knew would happen, Gilda unlocked the case and brought out a necklace. Why was I not surprised? The woman had been trying it on at least once a day for the past week. This was the third day in a row she’d asked to try on this one particular necklace, and I seemed to recall having seen Gilda showing it to her last week as well. I sure wished she’d make up her mind to buy it. For the past two days, she’d been bringing this man with her; Gilda thought that meant she was getting more serious about paying the rather substantial price. Oh well, if anyone could sell it to her, Gilda could. Gilda had actually suggested that I charge more for it—a lot more—but I’d never taken her seriously.
I smiled at a man carrying a violin case; he was probably a fiddler hired to lead the dancing tonight. Or one of the strolling minstrels who’d be walking through the throngs, playing such crowd-pleasers as “Scotland the Brave,” “Isle of Skye,” and “Killiecrankie.” Before I could ask, a grou
p of white-haired women walked in, full of oohs and aahs. Love that sound. Especially when the music of cash or credit cards follows shortly thereafter.
Almost everyone I saw wore some sort of tartan. Many of the men were in kilts—military kilts, they were called, with the pleats sewn into place, unlike the hand-pleated kilt Dirk wore—and quite a few of the women wore plaid skirts. It was too warm a day for tartan shawls, but we did a brisk business in lightweight tartan scarves. I knew from past experience I’d see many a plaid headband or belt tonight made from ScotShop items, and once people discovered how cool the evenings could be in Vermont this time of year, we’d sell plenty of the shawls on Friday and Saturday.
“Excuse me,” said a voice on my left. I expected to see an ordinary customer with an ordinary question. Instead, I saw the governor of Vermont.
I’d met him once before a couple of years ago and had invited him to visit our Highland Games. Naturally, he’d said yes. Naturally, I hadn’t believed he would actually show up here.
“It’s good to see you, Ms. Winn,” he said. “As you can see, I’ve taken you up on your offer, even though it’s taken me several years to follow up on my promise.” I nodded, wondering what sort of Farley File he had to be able to remember my name. “Now, I’d like to see what I look like in a kilt.”
“Your name doesn’t sound like you have any Scot heritage,” I said doubtfully. “Maybe through your mother’s line?”
He wiggled his hand back and forth in that universal sign of maybe, maybe not.
“Still,” I said, “a lot of non-Scots wear kilts, just because they like them. There’s nothing to stop you from wearing any plaid you like. Just say you’re honoring that particular clan.”
“Ayuh,” he said. That particular word was favored by old-time Vermonters. It cropped up at odd times here and there and was almost impossible to reproduce in print. I’d tried writing it in texts and e-mails, and somehow it lost the flavor. It was surprisingly close to the way Dirk said the word aye. “I could always try on the Royal Stewart,” he went on. His eyes twinkled, so I was pretty sure he was joking. Actually, he would have looked quite presentable in that bright red, and I soon found out he had very nice knees. He ended up buying a generic plaid in muted shades of brown, teal, and beige.
“I’ll just keep this on.” He transferred the contents of his pockets to his new sporran as I clipped off the various tags. “As long as I’m speaking tonight, I might as well look like I belong, wouldn’t you say?”
I smiled at him and took his credit card. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that, but it will be nice to see a ScotShop kilt on the platform.”
“Two kilts. As soon as Leonzini shows up, I’m going to send him here. He needs all the help he can get.”
The governor’s aide didn’t even crack a smile. The governor was obviously being true to his party, but I did wonder if the aide felt the same way I did about our congressman.
The Games wouldn’t open officially until tonight. Events were scheduled for all day beginning Friday, ending with a big farewell bonfire Sunday night. Our congressman was scheduled to speak briefly at the opening ceremonies. He had a respectable Scot heritage through his mother’s side of the family, but with an Italian last name like Leonzini, he had to explain himself when he showed up in Hamelin to campaign every election year.
Politicians were standard fare at the Games. I wondered why the governor had never come to them before this. Had my question shown on my face? He spoke almost as if he were answering me. “I’ve been here before, but never as governor. This was one of my family’s favorite outings each year. I’m sorry I missed it the past few years.”
Old-timers still talked about the time Eleanor Roosevelt came to the Games in 1958, while she was promoting her most recent book. There was no Fala, FDR’s Scottish terrier, left at that time, but I guess Mrs. Roosevelt had a soft spot for Scotties, because word was she’d stopped to talk to every person in town who’d had a Scottie on a leash.
This year, Vermont senator Josie Calais was on the schedule for the closing ceremonies. It was good to know the senator had recovered completely from the knifing she’d received last winter. She’d speak early in the evening and be available to hand out awards to the winners, just before the bonfire was lit.
I had to admit, the bonfire was one of my favorite parts of the Games. To start with, there’d be a pile of dry wood at least ten feet high stacked in the middle of the meadow, and the leader of the clan with the largest number of members in attendance would have the honor of lighting the fire.
Tonight and Friday night, each clan would have a campfire, or two or three depending on how many people attended. I loved the way people always wandered from fire to fire the first two nights, sharing stories and trading clan pins, and trying to figure out who’d win the Traveled the Farthest to Get Here prize, which was always awarded shortly after the lighting of the bonfire. On Sunday, the campfires paled in comparison with the big bonfire. People sat around on blankets, chairs, campstools, sometimes tailgates, but everyone faced the fire. Even small children seemed entranced—for a little while, until they fell asleep in their parents’ arms.
Shay Stone Burns and her committee had been working for the past year, ever since the last Games ended, to make this the smoothest-running Games ever. As far as I knew, they’d planned a spectacular fireworks display to end the Sunday night festivities. Each year Shay hoped for the best, but each year something tended to go wrong, almost as if there were a curse of some sort on the Hamelin Festival.
Four years ago, there had been a big ghost scare in the old Sutherland house on the edge of the meadow, but it turned out to be police chief Mac Campbell’s nephews, up to their usual antics. Shay missed it all. It was a good thing she was gone. If she’d been here, she probably would have killed those boys. That was the year her sister died. Shay had to leave Hamelin the first day of the Games, along with her brother Robert and her niece, Andrea Stone, my former best friend.
The year after that, several people came down with food poisoning from one of the new vendors. Luckily, nobody died, but that vendor hadn’t been back since, as far as I could tell.
Year before last, a boy from Rhode Island fell out of one of the big sugar maples on the edge of the meadow Sunday morning and broke one of his legs; that put a pall over the final day, and his clan leader dedicated the bonfire to the boy and his family. I’d been reminded at the time of when I was in high school and a bratty little boy—a fifth grader, I think he was—pushed a friend of his out of that same tree during the festival, and the kid ended up with a broken arm. I’m not sure why it had made such an impression on me, but I still remembered the brat’s name. Bobby Turner. He wasn’t much of a friend, at least not the way I defined friendship.
At least it wasn’t anything tragic last year. One of the competitors from New Jersey lost his kilt during the sword dance. A lot of people got a great big laugh when his belt broke, and it certainly answered the question of what a Highlander wore beneath his kilt. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen that particular contestant around so far this year. I hoped to high heaven nothing bad would happen this time around, especially with the senator in attendance. We’d run the risk of losing participants next year, and Shay would be devastated if anything bad happened while Senator Calais was here. Or tonight with the governor on the stage.
As if my thoughts had conjured her, Shay stormed into the ScotShop, her bright red tartan skirt swinging in the turbulence of her anger. “There you are! I heard you were in town!” She headed toward Big Willie—he was easy to spot with his head towering above the milling customers.
The aide stepped closer to the governor. “Sir? We should leave now.” His voice was unobtrusive but insistent.
The governor extended his hand. “Thank you, Ms. Winn. I appreciate your help.” With that, the two men moved to the door and out of my sight.
Every customer in the shop had turned at the sound of Shay’s voice, and I wished yet again that she’d learn to moderate her volume. Some people in town called her a powerhouse. Others claimed that She sure knows how to get things done. Karaline’s opinion was less complimentary: Pain in the tutu. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that Shay never shopped in my store. I’d never seen her brother, Mr. Stone, in here, either, come to think of it. I don’t think they had anything against it—or me—but they just never seemed to turn up here. Except today, when loudmouthed Shay showed up. Today, when I had a lot of customers who’d never been here before, and I wanted them to have a good first impression of the ScotShop. She wasn’t helping me.
I hadn’t completely made up my mind yet about her, although at the moment I was leaning toward a big negative. She was older than I, but something about her seemed—I hated to say juvenile, but she was just such a cheerleader kind of person. Her birth name was S-e-a-s-a-i-d-h, a good old Scottish name, pronounced Shay-see, regardless of the way it was spelled. It meant god is gracious, but Shay Burns was about as gracious as a chain saw. I did have to admit that usually she acted like she was all sweetness and light, but—occasionally—she could be absolutely virulent. She’d have to be sweet to get everyone in town to cooperate with the Games. I just wished she didn’t have to act so obnoxious all those other times.
Of course, the Games brought loads of tourists—and loads of money—to town, so most of the merchants around here were delighted to ignore Shay’s less desirable qualities and to help get the job done. But we all were tired well before the end of the first day and exhausted by the end of the fourth one. I didn’t need Shay in here braying like a donkey.
People parted as she plowed her way between hanging racks of clothing. Scamp and Silla converged in Shay’s wake, looking like stalkers in a horror movie. Cute stalkers.
2
I might not this believe
