Ghosts of Culloden Moor 07 - Rabby

by L. L. Muir

  Culloden’s battlefield hadn’t been called Drumossie in some time. Neither had it been host to so many men.

  Not since the battle!

  Rabby turned back to ask Wickham if Scotland was ready to fight again for the reformation, but he found himself standing alone, his arms raised. But instead of holding two arms, he held the handle of a round wooden targe in one hand and a broadsword in the other.

  Wickham was gone!

  “You, there,” a captain called out. “Take this to Lieutenant-Colonel Lochgarry. Left Front.” He held out a folded bit of paper while he turned his attention back to his ledger.

  When Rabby only stared, the man grunted in frustration. “MacDonalds of Glengarry?” He gestured to Rabby’s knees which were, indeed, still covered in MacDonald plaid.

  Though his father had fought with other MacDonalds, he and Rabby had come from Dalcross, very near Drumossie moor. It was why his father had been able to go home for supplies while the armies were still gathering. But when he’d left home the second time, Rabby couldn’t bear being abandoned yet again. They’d had only a few hours together. It hadn’t been fair.

  So Rabby had found an excuse to follow…

  “If ye doona ken the man’s face, listen for a German accent,” said the captain and slapped a letter against Rabby’s chest.

  “Aye,” Rabby said. He slid his sword into the scabbard he found around his waist, then took the missive and hurried away. Toward the left. Toward the bog. And if the Battle of Culloden Moor was about to commence again… Toward the doomed.

  ‘Twas no re-creation, no reenactment Rabby was witnessing. The odors were far too familiar to him—the last things he’d smelled in his mortal life. They were from long ago, of course, but there hadn’t been many memories to replace them, no matter how much time had passed.

  The lingering taste of morning dew was fading quickly in the midday sun. The trampled moss and crushed heather left a pungent bite on the air. And the fragrance of gunpowder and oil pushed its way up his nose, trying to displace all else. Soon, the taste of blood, char, and smoke would join in.

  There was no question. He was back.

  We’ve arrived, Wickham had said. Now Rabby understood.

  And he wasn’t to change history—not that he wasn’t allowed to do it, but that it wasn’t possible.

  Well, he wouldn’t fash over history. But if he was standing on the moor, if the battle hadn’t yet begun, and if others could see him and hear him as they would any mortal man, then there was definitely something he could change. And if he died to make that happen, so be it. He was due to leave this world soon in any case.

  Rabby knew he could make everything right again! He only needed to find his father…just as he had the first time he’d arrived on the battlefield, April 16th, 1745. He only had to keep on his current course…

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Do what ye must, Wickham had told him. Don’t try to change history.

  But standing on the moor as thousands of Highlanders lined up to face their sure deaths, how could he not at least give it a go?

  Surveying the lines on the field, his own desires suddenly paled in comparison. Who was he to worry about one man when so many needed to know what he knew?

  Someone shouted McGillivray’s name and told him to return to the right flank. An older man shouted in answer. So that was the great leader who had led and inspired so many—or rather, would inspire so many men in a wee while. But if McGillivray knew the truth of what was about to happen, perhaps he could inspire them all to flee for their lives and live to fight another day. That wouldn’t be meddling with history so much a postponing it, surely.

  Rabby stepped in front of the famous man as he was about to pass. “Colonel McGillivray, sir?” The voice from his mouth sounded strange, as if he were plagued with a horrible illness that had set up camp in his throat.

  The important man glanced at the letter in Rabby’s hand. “You have something for me?”

  Rabby shook his head. “’Tis for Lochgarry.”

  Another man spun on his heel. “Here.” He took the letter, nodded to the colonel, and turned away again.

  McGillivray raised an impatient brow.

  “Sir,” Rabby began again. “The bog—”

  The man’s sharp look cut him off. “I ken it, son. We will have to compensate. It’s too late now. Just do yer best for Scotland, and trust that God knows what he’s about, aye?” He slapped Rabby on the shoulder, then stepped around him and was gone.

  Rabby opened his mouth but no argument came out. How could he debate with the man? Who could question God?

  But still, he had to try, so he started after the colonel who was high-stepping over the terrain in his hurry to return to the Clan Chattan at the other end of the line.

  “Sir! I beg ye,” Rabby called out, unconcerned with how weak he might appear.

  A shout rose up and all eyes turned to a man mounted on a white horse. Guarded on both sides, the bonnie prince moved forward, smiling down at Jacobites as he came, as if he believed the day would hand him another victory over the Hanoverians. But Rabby knew better.

  Someone grabbed Rabby’s arm and pulled him out of the way and the prince’s horse stopped where he’d been standing.

  Hope jumped in his breast. The prince could stop the battle! And if he could, Robert MacDonald and thousands of others would live! He could spare them all!

  He summoned his courage and stepped forward, but the hand on his arm pulled him back again.

  “Easy, mon. Ye’ll not be allowed to bend the prince’s ear now, will ye?”

  Rabby turned to argue but found himself staring into face of his beloved father, Robert James MacDonald, distiller of Dalcross. His father stared back with a twinkle in his eye and a laugh waiting to burst forth.

  Da! He wanted to fall on the man’s neck and tell him all of what he’d endured on the moor since that horrible day. He wanted to warn the man what would soon happen here and leave the burden of changing history to someone older and wiser than he.

  But most of all, he wanted to assure his father that, even though he appeared to be a man grown, he was still young Rabby MacDonald, his own son—a son so hindered by his own guilt he would still be afraid, three hundred years hence, to see what God would do with him.

  “Come, son,” his father said cheerfully. “Let’s find a bite of something to quiet that belly of yers, and we’ll find a good view for the wee stramash, aye?”

  “Aye,” Rabby whispered, his heart so full he could barely find a voice at all. Though Robert couldn’t know who Rabby truly was, he’d called him son, and the sound of it nearly brought him to his knees. But falling to the ground wouldn’t be as simple as it had been before he’d been given a tall, hulking body.

  He followed his da through the rows of Highlanders toward the front lines. They stopped next to a man who sat resting on the ground nearly hidden from view by the others towering over him.

  He looked up at Robert expectantly. “Did you speak to him, Rabby?”

  Rabby jumped at his own name. It had been so long he’d forgotten that many called his father the same.

  “I spoke to the captain,” his da answered. “The captain was moved enough to speak to Lochgarry. He’ll not hear it. Too late, says he. This lad tried to plead our case to McGillivray himself!” He pointed a thumb at Rabby. “But they are resigned. I’m afraid our fate is sealed, my friend.”

  Rabby peered closely at the second man climbing to his feet. Murdo. A swarthy man who had lived five cottages down the road in Dalcross. He’d had two wee boys and a very young wife that day last summer when he’d left with Rabby’s father to join the fighting.

  When Robert returned home a few days before the battle, he’d been alone, and Rabby had assumed Murdo had been killed in one skirmish or another. There had never been time to ask—never been time for much at all. Rabby had awakened to find his father had come in the night and was already preparing to leave again.

  That
was the moment it had all gone wrong. They’d argued. In silence, he’d helped his father pack what rations he could carry. The man had dawdled a bit to appease him, but soon he was bidding Rabby look after his mother and walking down the lane once more.

  His mother…

  His mother had been left to look after herself. Under the pretense of chasing down Dauphin, Rabby had run off to follow his father, his obedient hound running at his side.

  In his dreams, some nights, he’d been awakened by the sound of his mother calling him. “Rabby! To me, my lad. To me!”

  Even at that moment, he could hear her, and he turned and looked about just to be certain she wasn’t calling from the edge of the field.

  “What’s yer name?” Murdo poked his fat finger into Rabby’s targe.

  “Rabby MacDonald,” he said, still so distracted by his mother’s voice that he’d almost forgotten his father was standing next to him.

  “I’m blessed with the same name,” said his da. The smile in his eyes held a strange glint that made Rabby wonder if the man might recognize something in him. “That makes at least three of us on the field this day.” He pointed toward a rise behind them, to the west.

  Rabby’s heart nearly stopped as he realized what the man meant. Though he dreaded what he would see, he turned…and spied his smaller self standing where his father had bid him stay, his hand wrapped in Dauphin’s thick black fur.

  His father dug in his satchel, pulled out a small bit of a bannock, and handed it to Rabby. “Eat this, laddie. I’m sorry there is not more, but I gave the rest to my wee boy who stands there with his dog.” He waved to the boy. The boy waved back with a sad smile.

  “Dinna mind the lad. He’s a bit sore in the backside. Had to give him what for, ye see. He ran away from home to follow me here. Disobeyed. I had no choice, ye ken.”

  Rabby looked into his father’s eyes and struggled to keep his own dry. “I’m certain young Rabby kens it as well, sir.”

  His father fished a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at his nose. “Aye. I believe he might at that. He’s a right clever lad, my Rabby.”

  Again, that twinkle in his eye led Rabby to believe the man knew, somehow, that his son was standing in both places—beside the dog and before him at that moment, choking down the last bit of bannock—a bannock his own mother might have made.

  How lucky he’d been. Had the others among Culloden’s 79 been so blessed to see their families again? To taste again their own mother’s cooking?

  Surely not.

  There was a sudden scrambling in the ranks behind them and Rabby realized that he would not have much time with his father. The clouds over the sun had tricked him. It was not so close to midday after all.

  The Battle of Culloden Moor was about to begin in earnest! Again!

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Damn Cameron anyway!

  After all those stories, the details of the real battle had been lost to Rabby long ago. Oh, the folks inside the Great Visitor’s Center probably had it aright, but since few of the ghosts ventured through those doors, Rabby had avoided them as well, and whatever truths lay beyond were lost to him.

  Too many mortals emerged from the building with tears on their cheeks. Rabby would have been foolish to go poking about. Or at least, he thought it would have been foolish to borrow trouble. But at that moment, standing close to the front lines waiting for the battle to commence, he wished he would have been a bit braver in his spirit form. If he’d paid strict attention, he might know of some way to save his father!

  Hadn’t that been the one thing, in all the world, he’d wished for? A chance to send his father home alive—the one thing that would make amends to his mother for running away and never returning?

  It had been his fault, all of it. If Dauphin hadn’t been told to stay at Rabby’s side on the rise, the animal might have been free to protect the elder Rabby. But now he realized, thanks to the magic of Wickham, he was able to stand at his father’s side and defend the man himself!

  Seventy-eight warriors had taught him their best moves. He could manage this!

  The first belch of bagpipes, with their discordant cries, caught him by surprise and curdled the blood in his newly enlarged body. He took his sword from the scabbard and stepped back between his father’s line and the one behind, to wield the thing about and test the muscles that held up his manly form.

  His new body seemed to know its purpose well, for the sword sang through the air and sliced where he willed the blade to slice. He ducked and sprang forward. Dodged to the left, then the right. He spun about in different directions and never lost his footing.

  Aye. The body would serve him well. The grown version of Rabby MacDonald, the younger, was a fit and agile man.

  But could one man make a difference?

  Murdo laughed. “A dandy fighter, to be sure. But would ye mind saving some of that fight for an actual enemy? Or do ye just dance?”

  “To me, Rabby,” his father said, just as if he were calling to him from across the yard or a field of barley.

  To me. Rabby, my lad. To me!

  The scurl of pipes came from across the way—a reminder that Scots fought on the other side as well. A mean reminder that soured his belly and made his chest groan with hatred for all those who would fight against an English-free Scotland.

  The deep murmur of voices around him said he wasn’t alone in his sentiment. And that murmur grew into a rumble, and then a roar. The sense of being part of something great and powerful was much more impressive from inside the ranks than it had been when he’d stood upon the rise that day.

  His chest swelled further with the knowledge that he shared that experience with his father. And in that moment, he understood what had driven the man to leave his family for a time in order to be part of that great rebellion. It was no wonder he was in a hurry to join his comrades again, to not miss the fight. And how magnificent it might have been to have strode up the lane to his home and deliver that victory to his family.

  But there would be no victory.

  Rabby glanced about at the faces of those beside and behind him. Stoic, determined. Resolved, and yet…resigned. Wickham had been right. History would not be changed that day. There was no sense raising a hue and cry to stop the butchery before it began—these men saw it coming. They knew the bog lay ahead. They knew there would be no victory.

  And yet, they remained. His father remained. One look in the man’s eyes and Rabby knew there was no use urging the man to flee while he could. A mix of foolish and honorable were all the men of that company that day.

  When Rabby thought the tension could not stretch any further, the first shots were fired from the Jacobite artillery, such as it was. It was soon answered by the impressive guns of the Redcoats. One heartbeat, then another, and still the order to charge did not come.

  A dozen more. Still nothing.

  Rabby’s legs shook from the effort it took to restrain himself, poised as he was to run. But still, the order did not come.

  Boom after boom, after boom sounded from the far side, and a great cloud of smoke rose from the far right, almost obscuring the end of the red line. Screams and cries rose from farther down. But where Rabby stood, the enemy was farther off, out of range from all but the biggest guns.

  Those guns didn’t wait, of course. And still he and his father, along with the rest of Charles Stuart’s Army held their ground and waited for the order to charge.

  More screams to the right. More cannons boomed, and boomed again. Rifles fired. Men collapsed like birds picked off a tree by so many meanly thrown rocks.

  It wasn’t long before Rabby understood just why Culloden’s ghosts were so angry with their bonnie prince. Why didn’t he give the order? Had it been his plan to have them all line up to be shot? Had he never intended to do anything more than help the English Government murder the rebels?

  It was almost easier to let his thoughts run wild than to listen to the horror unfold before him. The whistle
of cannon balls, the cries of the wounded, and worse yet, the silence of the dead.

  Finally, there was movement at the right end. Just as Cameron often told it, the right line broke ranks, fed up with waiting and watching their brothers die for naught, they charged forward, screaming their war cries and making the blood of their ancestors boil with pride in the very ground beneath their feet. So many of them fell by musket fire, but still they charged, and the lines behind them.

  Surely the order to charge would come now!

  But it didn’t.

  The middle line broke ranks next. And finally, finally, the men around him surged forward. But the way was quite different for those at the left. The bog was saturated. Sure footing was not to be had, and the pace slowed to little better than a crawl. Seeing their difficulty, the Hanoverians advanced and opened fire. Men died and remained upright, stuck so surely in the deep mud that only grew wetter with the addition of so much blood.

  Murdo fell to his knees, then onto his face in the mud, but never struggled to rise for a breath. By the time Rabby reached him, the man was still as a rock. But he couldn’t waste worry for a dead man, he had a living father to protect.

  His own boots caught and dragged, but he pulled them free, refusing to allow his father to move forward without him. For long minutes they fought with the bog, and Rabby realized that even if they managed to find firm ground soon, all their energy would be spent. They’d be lucky if they could raise a sword, let alone find the momentum for a Highland Charge.

  He had to get his father out of there. Surely, at this point, his father would find no dishonor in turning back.

  No sooner had he thought the words than a wave of Redcoats charged toward the bog…

  CHAPTER SIX

  Time slowed even as he watched his certain death—his second death—loom closer. A few clansmen had gotten through the mud and were finally free to engage the Redcoats. At least those men had a chance, and they were buying the rest valuable time.