by Leigh Barker
Calum led the way south, with John driving the covered wagon they’d borrowed in Inverness. Following the livestock wasn’t difficult, they’d left their mark everywhere on the road.
John shaded his eyes and looked up at the sun. “Nearly noon,” he said, and saw Calum nod. “M’be two more hours and we’ll be seeing them.” The nod again. “You had any thoughts on what we’ll do when we catch up with the English army? The two of us.”
Calum eased the reins back and let the wagon come up beside him. “What do we usually do?”
“Something stupid.”
“Aye, that’s true.”
“Then we’ll be doing that?”
“Aye, most likely.”
John opened his mouth to speak, then pulled the reins and halted the two-horse team. He stood up on the driver’s seat and looked out across the heather. “Fire.”
Calum stood up in the stirrups and saw the single column of smoke rising into the quiet summer air. “Stay here.” He rode up off the road and across the heather towards the smoke. He already knew what was on fire.
The farmhouse was burning fiercely and the roof had fallen in by the time he rode into the yard and stepped down. He looked around slowly, his hand on the butt of his pistol, though he knew he wouldn’t be needing it. Whoever had done this was gone.
A movement near the burnt-out barn caught his eye and he walked quickly over to the woman lying next to the water trough. He helped her to sit up, picked up her headscarf and soaked it in the trough before putting it gently on her brow.
“Who did this?” He knew who’d done it, but it was something to say. Injured men were easy enough to deal with, but he’d seen few injured women in his chosen profession. He had to hold his rage in check if he was to function.
“Men pretending to be English soldiers,” she said.
That threw him completely. “Not soldiers?”
“Aye. They wore redcoats, but I heard some of them talking. They thought me dead.” She licked her cracked lips. “And I might have been.” She looked around. “Stuart?”
Calum stood up and scoured the yard for any sign. He wasn’t in the yard. His body was hanging from a tree behind the house. “Stuart is your man?”
“Aye. D’ya see him?”
“No,” Calum lied. “M’be he got away.”
She shook her head. “He’d not leave me here with those…” She tried to get up, but sat back against the trough.
“Rest. I’ll look for him.”
Calum soaked the scarf again and handed it to her, checked that she was staying seated, and made a show of looking for her husband before working his way behind the burning house. He cut the man down, took the rope from his neck and closed his bulging eyes. There was nothing more he could do. She was alone now.
He returned to her and sat on the edge of the trough. “What did they say, these men pretending to be soldiers?”
She looked up at him. “You found Stuart.” It wasn’t a question.
He nodded once and looked away. He expected her to cry out, to sob, but she just slumped, sinking into herself.
“I am looking for these men. I’ll say hello from Stuart.”
She looked up at him to see if he was sincere. “They talked of their good fortune coming here to take whatever they wanted, even if they had to wear a uniform and pretend to salute.”
“The men Jamie spoke of. Mercenaries,” Calum said almost to himself.
“There was one,” she said, and looked down.
Calum moved off the trough, sat in the dust next to her and put his hand on her arm.
“The one who hit me.” She took a slow breath. “His hair was white and his eyes red.” She pointed across the yard at nothing. “One of his men set fire to the house before they’d had time to steal our things. This man, the demon, slit his throat. He didn’t speak, he just killed him as you would a chicken.”
She started to get up and Calum stood and helped her. “Where is Stuart?”
Calum pointed at the house.
“Will you help me bury him?”
She didn’t speak or cry while they laid her man to rest. Calum waited, but she busied herself making a cross out of burnt wood.
“Will you stay here?” Calum said when she’d pushed the marker into the soft earth.
She shrugged. “I’ll go to my sister in Edinburgh. There’s nothing here for me now.”
Calum brushed the dirt from his hands and stepped up onto his horse. “I’ll wait with you if you need.”
She shook her head. “Stuart is with our baby daughter in God’s house now. I’ll be with them soon enough.”
He picked up the reins.
“The men who were talking.” She glanced back at the barn. “They said a name, the man who paid them.” She looked back at Calum. “York. D’ya know him?”
“Aye, I know him,” Calum said, and rode out of the yard.
He didn’t speak for the hour it took them to catch up with the English rustlers, and now John knew who they were facing, he was silent too. Richmond and York. God playing with them again.
They stopped at the top of a long slope and watched the cattle moving along the narrow road, with the sheep following. Hundreds of cows, the lifeblood of the Mackintosh clan, filled the road ahead.
Calum pointed to his left. “Those woods will be a fine place to wait for them.”
They circled left through the fields and came out on the road a mile ahead of the livestock. There was a woodsman’s trail leading up into the trees and John took the wagon up and out of sight.
Fifteen minutes later the English drew level with the trail. And Calum stepped onto the road.
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About the Author
Leigh Barker is the author of:
Bitesize Reads:
Action Adventure Series:
Clan – Season 1, 2, and 3
Soldiers
The Hellfire Legacy
First Responder
The Orpheus Directive
Men at Work
Fantasy Adventure Series:
Requiem for Eden
Novels:
Action & Adventure (prequel to The Hellfire Legacy series):
A Whisper of Armageddon.
Fantasy Novels (prequels to Requiem for Eden series):
Eden’s Last Hero
Winterwood.
The series are published in Bitesize Read Episodes, where each episode is a one-hour read, with a beginning, a middle and a cliff-hanger ending.
Each series is available in a complete Box Set at a big discount.
‘Clan’ Season 3
Return to Scotland!
Calum’s Country (Episode 1)
Calum’s Army (Episode 2)
Calum’s Watcher (Episode 3 – Next)
…
Books by Leigh Barker
The hugely successful Bitesize Read Series (1-hour episodes)
‘Clan’ Season 1
Rip-roaring Adventures during the Jacobite Rebellion.
Season 1 Box Set (All 13 Episodes at a big discount)
‘Clan’ Season 2
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br /> The Adventure Continues
Season 2 Box Set (All 12 Episodes at a big discount)
‘Clan’ Season 3 — In production
Return to Scotland
‘The Hellfire Legacy’ Season 1
2nd Action-packed Ethan Gill Adventure (1st is A Whisper of Armageddon)
Season 1 Box Set (All 10 Episodes at a big discount)
‘The Orpheus Directive’ Season 1 — In production
3rd Ethan Gill Adventure
‘First Responder’ Season 1— In production
Explosive adventures with the FDNY Fire Marshals
‘Soldiers’ Season 1
Explosive Great War Adventures
Season 1 Box Set (All 11 Episodes at a big discount)
‘Requiem for Eden’ - Season 1 — In production
The Eden Adventure Continues
‘Men at Work’ Series
Occasional, mostly ‘True’ stories of anarchy in the workplace…
Novels:
A Whisper of Armageddon (1st Ethan Gill Adventure)
Off-the-wall characters, furious action and suspense
‘Eden’ Fantasy Series (Requiem for Eden Prequel)
Great adventures with our reluctant hero
Eden’s Last Hero
Winterwood
