by L. L. Muir
But of course, there had been no quarter given…
“Seventy-nine!” The lad hurried over to the brute. “There are seventy-nine of us now,” the boy explained. “Yer name, sir?”
The man stood silent, noted the Red Coats and the Highlanders, then looked down at the carnage from whence he’d risen. After a long moment, he noticed the lad again. “Captain Simon McLaren.”
The boy introduced himself and his dog, just as he had before. And after he laughed about being invisible to the Red Dogs, he fell silent again. And together, they all waited for the next man to rise.
But none did.
No matter how long they waited, not another spirit rose to join them. And eventually, Morey hoped it was his time to be acknowledged, so he lifted his arm and waved at the lad.
Only the lad didn’t notice. None of them noticed. Morey waved with both arms, and still, none of them turned his way. And an emotion he hadn’t felt for years rolled through him like a rogue sea wave. He had been left out. There would be no number for the ghost of an enemy, no matter how repentant.
If he could have shed a tear, he would have then and there. And in shame, he turned away to find his grandsire still awaiting his decision. The urge to flee, the urge to pretend none of it had ever happened, almost got the better of him.
Almost.
His grandsire lowered his brow. “Ye’re stayin’, then?”
Morey realized he’d already decided. He’d taken a step or two away from the welcoming arms of his kin.
“I will stay,” he said, hoping a cheery smile might help soften any insult his grandsire might feel. “I will stay until the last Highlander has found peace.” And I have earned the right to be numbered among them. “Come back for me then, aye?”
Grandsire nodded, winked, and was gone—along with the bright light.
Morey only hoped he hadn’t made a serious miscalculation…
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nothing can unnerve a man like flocks of carrion birds haunting a battleground while he stands beside his own lifeless body. And as Morey Fraser watched, a pair of red kites broke off from their brothers and winged his way. The flailing of his arms affected them not at all. They landed a yard from his pillowed head and cocked theirs.
The only weapon to hand was his bugle. It was the instinct to protect his open, staring eyes that brought the instrument to his lips. And he blew.
The notes were full and clear, though they didn’t seem to carry far, as if a great wall had been constructed around the battlefield to throw his call back to him. But no matter how unearthly his lips and breath and the blast of his horn, the birds startled and flew away.
Where are those soldiers? They must hasten back! No matter if it means I will be buried with Cumberland’s men, at least the birds shall not get me if I am safely below ground!
He turned, still searching for the Grave Detail, and found the 79 Highlanders staring directly at him. They’d heard his horn! Though the living went on marching around them, the spirits had heard Grandsire’s bugle!
Like another rogue wave, he was nearly knocked off his feet by a groundswell of emotion, only this time, it wasn’t his own. The spirits spoke not a word but nevertheless, all seemed to call out to him with one simple entreaty, 79 fold.
Help me make sense of this madness!
His duty in life had been to help soldiers and leaders communicate. He supposed it was natural for them to look for some signal from him, to know what they were expected to do. But how could he know? How could he assume to guess what God had in store for these brave, ill-fated men?
He suddenly recalled the wish he ought to have made, to have helped the Highlanders in some way. So perhaps it was the reason he’d been allowed to stay. If he hadn’t helped the living, maybe he could help the dead.
Madness. Chaos. Horror. Confusion. He could at least bring them some sense of order.
He played Assembly. Though they might have been more attuned to the call of the pipes, there seemed to be no piper among them, so a bugle call would have to do. And it did.
The ghosts from the farthest reaches of the moor hurried to gather with the others. Allowing them time to work out their order required repeating the call four times, but eventually, they all settled into a tidy arrangement with the wee laddie and his dog on the front row. The last man, the imposing blond, stepped out of line and shouted.
“Count yer heids, and haud yer water!” He stepped smartly back to his position in the ranks.
“Ane!”
“Twa!”
“Three!” They went down the line.
“Fower!”
“Five!”
“Sax!”
“Seeven!”
“Eght,” the lad said proudly. Then his dog barked as if he, too, had a number to call. And they all chuckled.
“Nine!”
“Ten!
And so it went until the big man shouted, “Seeventy-nine!”
For a long while, they simply stood in formation, looking back and forth at the men to either side of them. Some grinned, some nodded. A new emotion, a fragile contentment, emanated from the lot of them until, at last, Captain McLaren stepped out again.
He nodded once to Morey as if to thank him, then shouted, “Dismissed!”
Curious to see where they might go, Morey watched as the ghosts disbursed. Some wandered over to the line of massive graves being dug. A few tried to get the attention of a group of Red Coats playing a game on the ground. Dice, perhaps. Many moved about looking at the faces of the dead. But most disturbing were those who returned to the locations on the moor where they might have fallen for the last time. And regardless of whether or not their cold bodies remained in those positions, or if they’d been carried away for burial, their spirits slipped back into place.
Face down in the mud, lying on their backs with their limbs twisted beneath them—none of it seemed to matter. Those who hadn’t been distracted by the living, or the dead, returned to their death masks like weary workers returning to their comfortable beds.
Morey couldn’t fathom it…until he felt the call himself.
He turned back to his body only to find that it was gone. Whether or not the red kites had collected his eyes, he would never know, nor did it matter. He was simply called back to the spot where the last drops of his blood had spilled. He knelt, sat, then relaxed back into the arms of Drumossie Moor, welcomed home after discharging his duty.
Content to rest until he was needed again…
~
Each time following, when Morey Fraser was called from his bed, it was the plea of a single spirit that awakened him. Culloden’s 79, they styled themselves. And to a man, each of them called for the bugler at one time or another, feeling a need to know that they were not alone on that moor. They found solace in shouting out their numbers and discovering that through the years, none of the others had abandoned them.
Brothers in battle. Brothers in death. Brothers after death.
And though Morey witnessed the world changing, along with the rest of them, he did not move among them. Always, he deemed himself unworthy and hoped that someday he might feel otherwise, that someday the 79 might come to believe he had earned his place among them.
He was always quick to answer the silent call of a troubled Highlander. And like them, he listened closely as each number was called out. But among the 79, nothing ever changed.
Until one spring…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After serving as their bugler for two hundred sixty-nine years, someone was missing. And not just one someone!
It had begun as any other plea for reassurance. After sensing the need, Morey roused immediately and called Assembly. He sensed a change in the tone of the Highlanders’ numbers as they were shouted. There was anticipation, a nervousness he didn’t understand until Rabby, the lad, failed to give his number. Neither did Dauphin give a bark.
Morey searched the front row, but they were gone.
Afte
r a pause, the counting resumed. “Nine!”
“Ten!”
Number 13 was skipped over. Number 14 was there, but more solemn than usual. Number 17 was followed by 19 with hardly a heartbeat between. By the time it was done, Morey believed three more numbers had been omitted—26, 33, and 64.
Six missing, then.
Though Captain McLaren had dismissed them, the Highlanders lingered. Morey was grateful, for he had no intention of resting until he found out where the others had gone. For if one could leave, they all could leave. And he might be left standing on Culloden Moor with no one left to grant him absolution!
“Captain!” He’d never presumed to speak to any of them directly, let alone their leader.
But McLaren ignored him and moved back to his preferred station, keeping watch from atop the Cameron monument. He had been on the field one second, and the next, he was off to the south, striking his usual broody pose.
Morey turned to the Highlander about to pass him by. “Sir? Number 25, isn’t it?”
The fellow paused. “Aye. Finlay Smith, an it please ye.”
“Praise be,” Morey replied. “I worried that none of ye can hear me.”
The man shrugged.
“Tell me, I beg ye. Where have they gone, Rabby and the others?”
“Weel, none of us kens, do we?” Finlay rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I suppose ye weren’t called up with the rest of us, that night…” He frowned for a moment. “Ye see, our wee witch came on Summer Solstice and said we’d be moving on to God’s judgment, ready or not. She’s been sending us away, one at a time, to perform a noble deed of some sort, to earn our revenge on Charles Edward Stuart before we move on to face God.” His eyes lit with excitement. “I hope to kill me a dragon, aye? Or one of those dinosaur beasts they’ve brought back from extinction…” He grinned. “Won’t the bonnie prince shite himself if I came at him with a monster’s head over my own?” Finlay barked with laughter and turned away. No entreaty could bring him back.
Morey stopped another. “Beg pardon. Please, 73, can ye tell me more of this witch who has taken the laddie and his dog?”
“Lumsden,” the man said, then frowned. “Tulloch Lumsden, if I remember a’ right.”
Morey inclined his head. “Morey Fraser, sir.”
The man’s frown pinched tighter. “Fraser?” He glanced north toward the position of the Royal Fusiliers, where Morey had fallen. “Siding with the Hanovers?” His brow lowered like the horns of a bull preparing to charge.
Even though Morey could have easily blamed Lord Lovat and spared himself some of Lumsden’s ire, he couldn’t do it. It was his own fault he’d remained with Campbell, and now that the time was at hand, he had to admit that he’d stayed to save himself. To turn coats would have put him on the side of those who’d been doomed from the start.
Finally, he nodded to the Highlander. “Aye, I fought on the wrong side.”
Lumsden shook his head. “Nay, Fraser. Ye fought on the side of the wrong.” Then he turned away.
Morey nodded again. The man was correct. And perhaps, instead of looking for forgiveness for nearly three centuries, he should have been looking inside himself for the truth of it. Once, he’d imagined the ghosts of the Glen Coe MacDonalds warning him to flee from the Campbell’s hearth. Now he knew, illusory or not, he should have listened.
“Yes. I fought on the side of the wrong,” he called to fading figure of the Highlander. “And it is my fervent wish ye can forgive me for it! All of ye.”
The last was little more than a whisper, but suddenly all the spirits turned to face him. McLaren strode forward from the Cameron monument, his strides eating up the moor in great gulps as he bore down on him. It might have been wise to flee back to the red flags that marked the Government line, but hadn’t he proved time and again he wasn’t prone to wisdom?
The large captain stopped a mere two feet from him and narrowed his gaze. “Yer name!”
“Morey Fraser, of the Boll of Meal Frasers.”
“And ye did knowingly fight alongside the Campbells.”
“Aye, sir. To my great shame and regret.”
“And ye wish for absolution?”
“I do. I wish…”
Had he ever used his wish from the witch? It was impossible to remember. Besides, he couldn’t be certain if she had been a figment of his imagination alone. However, even if he had the power to demand his own absolution, he wouldn’t use it. Long ago, among the Duke of Argyll’s Campbells, he’d learned from Couper how hollow life could be if he compelled others to bend to his will. He’d not be so foolish now.
He searched the faces that surrounded him. “I hope the lot of ye can forgive me.”
McLaren searched those faces as well. Then he lifted his arms. “All in favor of forgiving the bugler, say aye.”
“Aye!” The shout was like a cannon blast that fairly shook the ground. Though Morey received many a sober nod, there were plenty of smiles aimed his way as well.
“Will ye be leaving us, then?” McLaren wanted to know.
Though Morey looked forward to the day his grandsire would come for him again, he had no intention of recanting his pledge.
“Nay,” he said for all to hear. “I once vowed that I would not leave Culloden until all of the 79 have found their peace. I will keep my vow.”
McLaren gave him an approving nod followed by a disapproving one when Morey asked about Finlay Smith’s witch. With only a grunt for an answer, the big man stomped away. But Cameron, the storyteller, was eager to oblige…
It was with a happy heart that Morey learned the witch who had made miraculous promises to the 79—and had indeed managed to remove six spirits from the moor already—bore a striking resemblance to the witch that had promised him a wish!
And he suspected, by the slight burning sensation on his forehead, a bit right of center, he still had yet to spend it…
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The gloaming found Morey Fraser standing near the red flag that marked the Royal Fusiliers’ position at the beginning of the Battle of Culloden. The breeze off the North Sea had long since been replaced by the steady creep of a fog that marched onto the moor like a new army, the leader of which was a bold, thick cloud that stuck out to the fore like the front tire of a motorcycle. When it slowed and stopped near Morey, he half expected the devil himself to emerge. Still, he started when he saw the swirl of a black cape step from the dense mist.
He relaxed at the sight of a familiar face. “Hello again, witch.”
Her grin was bright and cheery. “Hello, Morey Fraser.”
“I don’t suppose ye’re the same witch that has been stealing away my Highlanders?”
She looked him up and down. “Yer Highlanders? Auch, aren’t ye a bold one. I say they’re as much mine as my own soul.”
He snorted. “But I’ve served them from the beginning.”
She nodded in agreement. “And glad they’ve been to have ye.”
He knew it, but it gave him great satisfaction to hear it from another. “So, have ye come to take another? Or are ye here to grant that wish?”
She feigned surprise, then grinned. “I was beginning to think ye’d forgotten the gift.”
Morey shrugged a shoulder. “I will admit that I have only lately come to believe in its power.”
“I see. And I will admit I expected ye to have collected it sooner. It has been a long while since I gifted it, aye?”
“Aye. I was thinking just the same. Nearly three hundred years it’s been. Which means that ye, my good witch, stood right here, on this very ground, that long ago. I don’t suppose ye’d care to explain that to me?”
She threw her head back and laughed, then gave him a shrewd wink. “Not unless ye wish to know…”
“Oh, nay.” He shook his head briskly. “I’ll not waste it. I only wondered.”
She pursed her lips for a moment, then nodded. “It will hurt nothing to tell ye, then, that I have a great uncle who…has a way wit
h Time. He can move across the years as if they were nothing more than planks on a path. And betimes he can take another along.”
“What were ye doing on the moor that night, eh? Sprinkling yer fairy dust on the dead, so they’d rise up later to be yer playthings?”
She winced. Her eyes were instantly moist, and Morey was instantly contrite.
“Forgive me, lass. I’ve seen too much cinema, I suppose, and one of those fairy tales came to mind.”
She turned her back to him. “Forgiven,” she said cheerfully, though he could hear the tears muffling her voice. When she faced him once more, her eyes were dry and her smile was back, though a bit dimmer than before. “So, what’s it to be? I must warn ye, however, that I cannot give ye life again, as I’ve done for the others.”
Had he been a living man, he would have blanched at the news. “Ye gave them life?”
“Aye, but only two days. ‘Twas a bargain I struck, but only for the 79. I’ve no extras, ye understand?”
He shook his head. “I never expected any such thing. In truth, I never believed ye had the power to grant a wish. But now… I’m certain I can think of something.”
They both stared out across the moor for a while, watching the rest of the mist wander where it would. And while they watched, Morey wondered what he most wanted.
To see his father once again? To ask the man why he walked away from his clan—and his son—without so much as a fare-thee-well? Had his new wife insisted? Had some accident befallen them before he could send word, or send for Morey to join them elsewhere?
He’d spent far too much time wondering, and had decided to let the past lie. Why waste a precious wish on it? What did they say? Dinna throw good money after bad?
Perhaps he should ask to know what became of Sween and the other Frasers whom Lord Lovat had sent along with his son to fight for Charlie. Did Morey want to know? Or would it only sadden him?
Did he want forgiveness from all the lassie’s he’d plied with sweet-talk? While he’d waited for his bugling to prove his value to the clan, he gathered trophies of kisses stolen and hearts won, measuring his success against Sween’s and others.
