Jack

by L. L. Muir

  “Fine, then. I’ll go.”

  “God bless ye.”

  But it was April 16th, the sun was high in the sky, and still the battle hadn’t begun. Jack ran to the milk wagon and lied, said his major demanded a skin of milk. Though they were in the process of moving away from the coming battle, the men stopped the cart long enough to fill a bag, then handed it over. Just then, his fellow guard found him.

  “We’ve been ordered to join the line, Jack. Come away, and quickly.”

  “I’ll be right on yer heels. I need only deliver this.”

  His comrade gave him a pitying look, then hurried away. Jack headed for the edge of the battlefield and the copse of trees. As his ears strained for the cry of a mewling babe, he ignored other sounds—such as the Government forces’ call to attack. Midstride, he was shot in both the shoulder and the ear, though he was hardly aware of either.

  He woke to a nudge beneath his shoulders. And though he lay still, he watched as his body was dragged toward the battlefield, away from him. At least it looked like his body. It was hard to tell with all the blood on his face. Then his attention was drawn away from that disturbing tableau…by the crying of a wee bairn.

  He picked himself up, patted the full skin of milk that still hung at his side, and hurried into the field. The mist was back again, but he found his way by following the sound. Poor mite. He’d waited so long.

  The trees were just as he’d left them. The woman, however, was gone. He stood still and listened for the bairn again. It sounded as if it were within reach, but he could see it not at all.

  “Have ye brought the milk?” The woman’s voice came from so close, she might have been sitting on the tips of his boots, but still he could not see her! “I have this. Pour it here.” He stood there, shaking his head, unable to see what she was talking about, helpless. “Can ye not see me,” she said. “Pour it here.”

  With no options at hand, he did as he was bid, pulled the cork, and began pouring the milk, ever so slowly. It never hit the ground.

  He listened closely, but for a long moment, he heard nothing at all, neither babe nor mother. Then the air was rent by a woman’s terrified scream.

  He dropped the skin and backed away, holding his head. He needed to rejoin his regiment. The battle was sure to start soon. However, just as he was about to step from the field and onto the moor, he heard her again.

  “Help me, sir. I beg ye. I’ve dried up and my bairn needs milk. Have ye any milk?”

  “Milk?” He shook his head. “I can find some. Follow me.”

  A laddie and his dog blocked the way. “Good day, sir.”

  “Good day. I need to find this woman some milk,” he explained.

  “Nay, sir. Ye needn’t. Ye died in the battle, as did the rest of us.”

  “The rest of us?”

  “Aye. Ye’re number 27, the twenty-seventh spirit to rise. My name is Rabby. This is Dauphin. Dinna fash about the milk.”

  But he would fash about it--for two hundred and sixty-nine years, and then some.

  Jack woke once again to someone nudging his shoulder, but he wouldn’t let the bastards take his body again, so he rolled over and swung his arm out, to push them away. For once, however, his hand made contact with a very substantial bit of flesh and bone.

  He opened his eyes to find John Macpherson standing beside the bed, testing his jaw. “A good thing I didn’t let the lass wake ye.”

  Callie stood at the foot of the bed, worried, and not the least amused by what he’d done.

  “Forgive me,” Jack said to them both. “I had a hellish dream.” They needn’t know how many times he’d suffered the same.

  “Ye were fit to be tied,” John said. “So it was either shake ye or sit on ye. I chose poorly, is all.”

  “I think the other would have wakened me as well.”

  Finally, Callie smiled and the worry eased from her brow. “You’re not going to believe what they eat for breakfast here.” Her eyes widened. “Or maybe you will.”

  John laughed. “Was it the beans that surprised ye most?”

  She shook her head and wrinkled her nose. “Roasted tomatoes. For breakfast. Like, every morning.”

  Jack hoped he’d have at least two morning’s worth, but on the off chance that he wouldn’t, he hurried to the breakfast table and ate while Callie and her new-found step-father chatted. Their attitudes toward each other had changed overnight and he suspected they’d had a good long talk while he’d been slogging through his nightmare, for they were already making plans to scatter the former Lady Macpherson’s ashes off the isle of Shetland.

  “Miriam and I went to Up Helly Aa two Januarys past and made some fine memories there.” John looked off into the cold fireplace while he ruminated, and Jack explained the Viking custom to Callie.

  “It all ends in a grand wooden galley going up in flames.”

  “I’d like to see that,” she said. “Someday.”

  John’s attention came back. “And ye will. Ye will.” He looked at Jack. “Callie says ye’re only here for another day. I’m happy to lend ye a car…”

  “Truth be told, I do not drive. Though I would dearly wish to visit Culloden before I…ship off.”

  John turned to Callie. “And what would ye like most to do today?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what my choices are. I hadn’t considered…anything beyond…” She shrugged again. “I do have to make some phone calls first, but I’m happy to drive you to whatever you said.”

  “Culloden.”

  She nodded. “Culloden. You’ll just have to keep reminding me to drive on the wrong side of the road.”

  “Not the wrong side,” John said. “The left side.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Driving on the freeway, or rather, the motorway was a breeze. There was no one coming at us, so I didn’t feel like I was driving on the wrong side of the road. And the signs were clear. Jack complained that the GPS didn’t have a proper Scottish accent, but I pointed out that most of the people who needed it probably weren’t Scottish and probably wouldn’t understand the directions.

  “Ye’ll find that yer ear grows accustomed to it, over time,” he said.

  I could get accustomed to listening to his sexy brogue, but I kept that information to myself.

  When a serious storm descended, I slowed down a whole lot more than the rest of the folks headed north, but he didn’t seem to mind, and he was thoughtful enough not to try to talk to me while I concentrated on keeping us on the road. When the rain let up, so did the tension in the car, and we both laughed without saying a word.

  I pulled off at a rest stop, mostly so I could walk around and loosen my neck and shoulder muscles, and the two of us ended up sitting on a bench looking down onto Loch Ness.

  “I can see why my mother loved Scotland. John says they met here, then came back twice before she got too sick to travel. She wouldn’t let him tell us she was ill.”

  “Ye never had phone calls from Scotland, then?”

  “She rarely called us. Said she didn’t want to bother us, and that we were to call her when we could. But with cell phones, she could have answered the phone sitting on this bench and I would have assumed she was home, in Montana.”

  “Perhaps she was so private a person, she kept both her pain and her joy to herself.”

  “Private? Yeah. She was private. But I always thought I was part of that private circle, you know?” I tried to smile, but my cheeks ended up squeezing tears from my eyes. “We were complete strangers,” I finally admitted. “I was a horrible daughter.”

  He grunted and scooted closer. “There now. Dinna greet. By chance, did ye happen to keep yer joys and yer pain to yerself, as well?”

  I saw his point and was relieved. I’d never thought of that. “I suppose I did.”

  “Then she taught ye well.” He picked up my hand and linked his fingers in mind before resting them both on his thigh. “What about this sister of yers? Is she the same?”

/>   “Oh, no. She complains, but only to me. And I only complain to her. She liked Mother to believe she had her life under control. But no one with six kids can pull that off. Whenever I complained that I probably wouldn’t marry young enough to have children, she said I could have one of hers, but she got to pick.”

  “Well,” he said cheerfully, “I’m happy to hear I’m not holding the hand of a marrit woman. But what’s this about children? Ye’re quite young still.”

  I shook my head. “Thirty-six.”

  “Ye see?” He bobbed his dark eyebrows. “Quite young yet.”

  I rolled my eyes and looked away. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t make me sound like a teenager, or like the guy I’d accused him of being the night before, in front of the fire.

  Gosh, I’ll be leaving town soon. If we’re going to fall in love, we’d better hurry.

  “You know, I never asked you if you were married. Or if you have any children.”

  He shook his head, like he was a little sad about his marital state, too. “Nay and nay, more’s the pity. I was forty and two…at my last birthday, that is. Quite a lot of years I wasted, fretting over politics and the like.”

  “Politics?”

  “Aye. What soldier doesnae concern himself with the matters he fights for?”

  “Seems reasonable.”

  He stared at our hands for a minute. I held really still, not wanting to interrupt his thoughts. Judging by the look on his face, it was something serious.

  “Strange, is it not, that Fate saw fit to bring us together?”

  “I was just thinking something like that.”

  “The closer we get to Culloden, the more I worry that it might be a mistake.”

  “Why? Is it dangerous? I thought it was a city.”

  He laughed. “A city for the dead.”

  “What? What do you mean?” I pulled on my hand, but he held tight.

  “Only that it is a graveyard. A battlefield. In the eighteenth century, nearly two thousand men died there, most of us—nearly all of them, Highlanders.”

  “It sounds important to you. If you want to spend your last day off at Culloden, then we’ll go to Culloden.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Jack knew he was done for.

  With every last mile that passed beneath the wheels of the luxurious auto, he got closer to his deathbed. When he’d felt compelled to return to what had once been called Drumossie Moor, he hadn’t been thinking of his deathbed a’tall. Or rather, he’d been thinking of someone else’s. But now, he worried that his own might call to him.

  He imagined Callie standing near the memorial cairn, looking for him. And him, sinking into the ground nearby, though she would be blind to him.

  He was tempted to demand she turn the car about and take them back to Fort William, where they might walk along the water, holding hands, until Soni collected him. But he couldn’t wimp out, as it were, without explaining why, and he absolutely could not tell her the truth.

  “Hungry?” She glanced at him, then pointed to a sign. “We can stop in Inverness and have some lunch before we go to…the battlefield.”

  “Culloden.”

  “Culloden. What do you think?”

  “A grand idea indeed.”

  The lass chose an establishment called McGonagall’s for the name alone. A beloved character in the Harry Potter books shared the name, and Jack was pleased to discover beefsteaks on the menu. If it was to be his last meal, it would be a hearty one.

  The steak they served would have fed a small family for a week, but since he had no small family to feed, he gave it his best while he listened to Callie recall her memories of her mother. When she was young, at least, her mother had been no stranger. But being alone herself, she admitted she was happy her mother had found someone, even if it was near the end.

  “My last lesson from Miriam Broadbank Macpherson—it’s never too late.”

  “Auch, aye. Always be ready for a second chance…at anything.”

  The dark brown door opened and a couple ushered their small son inside. The father carried another wee bairn on his hip. Jack glanced at Callie’s plate to judge how near she was to finishing, but it didn’t look promising. His own plate was nearly clean but for the round of Haggis that hadn’t appealed to him.

  The bairn started fussing when his parents tried to put his legs into a booster chair.

  “Um, Jack?” Callie looked decidedly uncomfortable. “I don’t mean to rush you, but—”

  He pointed to the haggis. “I’m more than finished with this—”

  “Do you mind if we go?”

  They settled their bill and were out the door in no time, before the wee’un had a chance to set up for a fit. Callie put her arm around his elbow and they laughed together as they hurried down the slope toward the water and their car.

  “A fine pair of cowards, are we not?”

  Holding hands with someone as handsome as Jack made me feel giddy. I grinned like an idiot but found myself not caring what I looked like to anyone watching.

  Had my mother felt the same when she’d met John?

  Jack walked into the street to open the driver’s side door for me, then he caught me around the waist before I could get in. “What is it ye find so amusing, lass?”

  “Lass,” I repeated. “I don’t qualify as a lass. I’m too old.”

  “Never.” He leaned forward and kissed me, briefly, then let go and waited for me to get in the car, so he could shut the door. I’m afraid my brain slowed to a crawl and it took me a second to realize that was what he was waiting for. By the time the door closed, I felt like an idiot.

  He climbed in the other side. “Ye didnae say what amused ye so.”

  I slipped the key in the ignition and tried to remember any thought I may have had before that kiss.

  My mother?

  John?

  Acting like a teenager?

  “Oh, yeah. I was just thinking of a slogan for Scotland. Land of the Mid-life Crises.”

  “Ye’re far too young for that as well.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I feel like my life will be completely different now. I can’t go back to the person I was, even when I return to Astoria, to my café.”

  “Different how?”

  “Well, first of all, I’m short one mother. But now there is a man in Fort William, Scotland, who may consider me family. Which means I won’t be confining my life to the Oregon Coast anymore. The world seems much bigger than it was a week ago, and yet, smaller.”

  “Nothing ye’ve said sounds like a crisis, as yet.”

  “Well, how about the fact that I don’t know what to do with my café?”

  “Ye said ye expect it to do well, once it appears on the telly.”

  “Oh, it will. It’s just… When I left Montana, I was only twenty. My mother wasn’t happy that I was content with an associate’s degree. And she was even less happy that I wanted to move to the coast. We had a big blow up that spring. She said I’d be in danger. She said it was a mistake, and I’d be back, wishing I’d listened to her.”

  “So ye proved her wrong.”

  “Exactly. I proved I was a success, and without that horrible blow up, without the need to prove her wrong, I might not have done as well as I did. I might have given up after our first kitchen fire.” I took a deep breath and exhaled completely, feeling like I’d just cleaned a gray cloud out of my lungs. “I guess, without my pride driving me, without her driving me…I don’t know where I go from here. I don’t even know what I want, now.”

  I put the car in gear and pulled onto the street. We rode in silence for a bit while he punched Culloden’s address into the GPS gadget.

  “If ye wouldnae mind, I’d like to stop at a petrol station before we go to the battlefield.”

  “Okay.”

  “I would verra much like to buy a carton of milk.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  A weak but steady breeze stirred the humid October air a
nd made it feel icy against my face and ears. John had given me a chocolate brown, woolen coat he still had from my mother, and though I folded the collar up to remember the smell of her, it didn’t do the work of gloves and a scarf.

  After Chatton House, the visitor’s center at Culloden looked modern and sterile on the outside, but at least it would block the wind. I cut between a couple of cars and headed straight for it, but noticed Jack wasn’t with me. So I turned and looked back. He, in turn, was looking at everything but the building.

  “We’ll freeze out here,” I said. “Don’t you want to go inside?”

  His eyes widened like he thought that was a horrible idea, but then he clamped his lips together and made his way toward me. “I have no interest in what lies inside the Center, love, but I believe ye will find it illuminating. I would like to walk the grounds, if it’s all the same.”

  “You don’t mind me ditching you?”

  He laughed. “Not a’tall.”

  “No problem, then. Take your time. It’s your party.”

  No matter how many times I looked over my shoulder, he stayed in the same place and watched me until I turned the corner and headed for the entrance. If I hadn’t had the car keys in my pocket, I would have worried he might intend to take off without me.

  Still curious, I turned around just before I reached the doors. My heart skipped a couple of beats when I saw that familiar, handsome man walk out onto the battlefield. Like a kid headed to the principal’s office, he dragged his feet with his head down, his shoulders slumped forward.

  If he dreaded the place so much, why did he want to spend his precious free time here?

  A man wearing half a dozen different plaids held the door open for me and I walked inside. The cold wind was forgotten. What I really hoped to find in that huge building was the reason Jack MacGilles was drawn to the place.