by Jane Yolen
To run from danger is one thing, even natural. But it’s a terrible thing to have to flee from your own home, the place that’s always meant warmth and safety. For the first time I understood the minister’s stories of the prodigal son and the lost sheep. It’s awful to have no home to go to.
So where could we go? The question hung over us like a black cloud heavy with the threat of thunder.
“Just a wee bit farther,” Da said to encourage us each time we hesitated.
To anyone watching, we must have looked like a pack of beggars, stooped and weary, with nothing to our name but what we carried on our backs. Ishbel had only managed to pack up some clothes, a jar of porridge oats, some water skins, bread and cheese, and a bit of bedding. The only thing we had to be thankful for was that there was no wind or rain to add to our misery.
After many hours—going slowly down the sloping path because of Da’s injured leg—we took shelter among some rocks at the foot of a craggy hill. Da was still shaken from the blow Rood had given him, and his ribs ached whenever he was breathing hard. Ishbel supported him part of the way, when he lowered his pride enough to lean on her shoulder.
I was puffing and huffing like a lad unused to walking, though only days earlier I could have run down this path without stopping. And Lachlan, who was always up for a lark, was unusually somber and grey as the day.
Were we off Kindarry land yet? We hardly knew. So tired and defeated, we scarcely cared. My feet felt as if we’d walked the breadth of Scotland already just putting ourselves past danger.
Now Da slumped against a mossy rock. It had an overhang, which was just as well, as a wind had started wuthering through the trees. It was way past midday, the birds were quiet, but it was too soon for hares and deer to be out in force. It was as if the whole countryside had stopped still.
Da winced at the pain in his side while reaching gratefully for some food. Ishbel took out some of the bread and cheese from her bundle and tore it into pieces with her bare hands—for none of us had a knife—and then she shared it around. There was not a lot to eat. For drink, we got water with our cupped hands at a nearby burn.
“This bread and cheese won’t last beyond tomorrow,” Ishbel said apologetically as we swallowed the last of our meager meal.
“There’ll be places where we can work for food,” said Da, his voice recovered a bit now that we were stopped and fed. “And maybe we can snare a rabbit or two along the way.” By we, he must have meant Lachlan and me, for he was surely not in any shape to make a snare or capture a rabbit.
“Along the way to where?” Lachlan asked, his face a dark scowl.
Da and Ishbel looked at each other, as if wondering who should answer, if either of them actually had an answer.
“To our new home,” Ishbel replied at last. She forced a smile, but there was no happiness in it.
I knew that was no answer at all. We had no new home anywhere, nor the money for one. We had no food, no clothes but those on our backs, no …
We started on the path again, avoiding the worst of the stones. Lachlan and I went a bit ahead because Da was so slow. We were barely talking at this point, just intent on getting as far from our old home as possible. But after a while, when we looked back, we realized that Da and Ishbel were no longer in sight.
Turning as one, we raced back to find them around the second bend, sheltering under an overhanging tree.
Da was slumped against a rocky cliff face and drinking from a water skin. Ishbel was pressed close to him for warmth.
We sat down with them and tried to pretend that nothing was different, though everything was different. We’d lost our house, Da was weak, and Lachlan and I had to be men now.
“Are we going to a city, then?” Lachlan asked, as if we’d been discussing this all along.
Ishbel nodded.
“To Glasgow?” I tried to say the name softly, but still it felt harsh in my mouth.
“Aye,” said Ishbel, putting enthusiasm in her voice. “Glasgow will be fine for us. Work in the factories with regular pay, nae scraping a living off a thankless patch of land.”
Da turned and glared at her. “Was that life so bad there?” he challenged. “I never heard you complain of it before!”
“What would have been the point?” Her voice was soft. “There was naught else but make do. But now that we have nothing, we must think again, find a way to make a new life, a better one.”
“There’s nothing better about being locked up in a factory all day working for another man’s profit,” said Lachlan, his lips thinned down with anger.
“By the time ye find a roof and a bed, ye’ll be glad of whatever ye have to do to earn it,” Ishbel told him sharply.
“Is that all ye want for these laddies?” Da objected. “That they should slave and toil inside a factory all their days, too tired even to lift their eyes to what’s left of the sun as they crawl home to sleep? I’d rather we died right here under the open sky.”
Ishbel folded her arms crossly. “Have you something better in mind, then?”
For a moment, Da was silent, grinding his teeth, though whether against the pain or Ishbel’s words, I couldn’t say. All this talk was like a knife severing us, one from the other.
Suddenly there was a sound from up the path a ways, and Lachlan and I stood up, to take positions in front of Da, in case Rood and his men were tracking us. But seconds later, a little rabbit hopped down the path. We broke into laughter, and the startled rabbit raced over the far side of the cliff.
I let out a breath and looked around. This was as good a place for our night’s sleep as any. The road wound down the glen, but under the overhang we could keep out of the worst of the wind. And if it should rain, the tree and its heavy roots would shelter us from that as well.
I was about to suggest this when Da ran a hand over his beard. He often did this when thinking. At last he said, “We’ll take a ship to America.”
“To America? For what?” Ishbel’s face was grey as the rock behind Da’s back.
“To find land again, land that’s all our own this time, not rented from some grasping laird.” Da smiled grimly.
Ishbel laughed and tossed her head like a young girl. “They’re no giving land away for free, no even in America. Nor do they give away passage there for the asking.”
I looked at Lachlan, and he stared at the ground.
“Lachlan,” I whispered, “what do you want to do?”
He shrugged. That was so unlike him, I felt defeat for the first time, like a weight upon my back.
Da pulled out a small leather purse and shook it, jingling the coins inside. “I’ve been saving what money I could,” he said, “and I’ve kept it by me always.” It didn’t sound like much was there.
“Will it be enough?” Ishbel asked. Her voice was skeptical, but she’d softened. I think the hope in Da’s eyes carried her along.
“Martin Murty’s cousin Neil left for America four years past,” said Da, trying his best to sound confident. “He’s written Martin to say there’s land aplenty, and none of it dear.”
“Nae, Murdo, but we’ll need food and furnishings, animals and seed,” Ishbel said. “Even without paying for the land, there’ll be a drain on that poor purse.”
“We’ll need tickets for the boat trip too,” Lachlan added, his voice low.
“We’ll make do,” Da insisted, “somehow.”
Ishbel’s shoulders slumped. “I suppose we’ll have to trust in God to provide.”
“He’s no been generous so far,” said Lachlan, a bit of spark back in his voice.
Da clipped him lightly across the ear with the back of his hand. “Blasphemy’s no way to win His favor, boy.”
“There’s something yer all forgetting!” I burst out, unable to keep silent any longer. Since I was standing, I had no shelter, and the wind had started up again. I pulled my shirt closer around me, and Ishbel held out one of the blankets she’d managed to bring out of the burning house. I wrapped it ab
out me, and it smelled of fire and ash.
They all turned to face me. Ishbel crossed her arms and frowned. “And what notion do ye have that’s beyond our poor wits?”
“There’s the Blessing!” They stared over at me in the fading light. “The Blessing,” I said again into their doubt. “It would give us all the help we’d need.”
From the looks Da and Ishbel gave me, you’d have thought I’d just let out a curse in church.
“Ye coof!” Lachlan gave a high laugh.
Da stood tall, ignoring any pain, and shook his head at me. “I’ve told ye before to leave off that nonsense, lad!”
Taking a deep breath, Ishbel uncrossed her arms and tried to speak more kindly. “Look, I know it was a pretty story yer ma told the two of ye, Roddy, and it was just the thing to cheer ye as ye were lying abed at the end of a cold day. But that was when ye were wee bairns, and that’s all done now. It’s haverings, nonsense.” She put a hand out to touch my arm. I drew back. “We need to take a hard look at the road ahead, like grown-up folk, and not flinch from it.”
In spite of their doubt, I was certain it was me that was talking sense. Couldn’t they see that? “But the Blessing …,” I began.
The wind chose that moment to whuffle around the rock again, making a ghostly sound, almost as if taunting me.
“Enough!” Da barked at me. Then he fell back against the embankment with a single moan, clutching his ribs.
“Ye see how it is with yer da,” Ishbel said. “And ye want him to go back up the glen after a bit of nonsense? And what do ye think Willie Rood might do to us if we dared return?”
I fell silent, racked with sudden guilt. The wind, however, kept howling. I gave Da the blanket, wrapping it tenderly around him, and he said nothing to thank me for it, but he didn’t take it off either.
Lachlan chewed on his lip. Then he gave me a sidelong glance. There was that old glint in his eye again, and I thought: Ye like my idea, brother. I nodded at him, and he nodded back.
“We’ll get a good night’s sleep now,” Da said, his voice strained. He gestured around the rocks. “These will serve us for the night. We’ll need to be well rested for the journey ahead.”
“It’s no night yet,” I protested. Indeed, with the sky cleared of the smoke, it hardly looked to be time for supper.
But the evening chill drew in, and Ishbel passed out another blanket she’d salvaged from the cottage. One for her and Da, one for Lachlan and me. It was amazing what she’d managed to jam into that bundle before leaving the house. If only she’d been able to bring the Blessing along too. But of course she had never seen it, not believed in it, so wouldn’t have gone looking for it. But me, I always knew it was there. I’d always known.
“Never mind there are but two blankets,” she said. “Ye boys will be warmer if you huddle together under the one blanket.”
Lachlan and I needed no second telling. Many a hard winter we’d done as much back in the cottage on our shared bed.
“Ye and I had best do likewise,” Ishbel told Da.
“That would hardly be seemly,” Da said uneasily.
“Seemly to who, ye daft man?” said Ishbel. “There’s nobody here to gossip. Or do ye not care if I freeze in the night?”
“I care right enough,” Da admitted. He let Ishbel squeeze up close to him and wrapped the blanket around them both. “But that’s all we’re doing, mind. Keeping off the chill.”
“Aye, I’ll mind that,” said Ishbel. But there was a strange softness in her eyes as she looked away from him.
I curled up under my blanket, my body clenching like an angry fist. Twitching about on the rough earth, I did my best to fall asleep.
However, I couldn’t sleep at all. I kept having thoughts of Ma looking down on us from heaven, willing me to go back and fetch her treasure. I could almost hear her voice, gentle where Ishbel’s was brash. “It’s my gift to ye, to all of ye, to see ye happy in the New World.”
Why couldn’t Da or Ishbel see that if we had the Blessing, it would buy us all we would need to start a new life in America? It was as clear to me as the sun on a summer’s morning.
I could feel Lachlan’s back pressed against mine, and I knew by his steady breathing that he was asleep. Not far off, Da’s low snoring drowned out any sound Ishbel might be making, but I was sure that after this long day’s trek, she would be as deeply asleep as he.
Slowly and carefully I wriggled away from Lachlan and slipped out from under the blanket. As I did so, he rolled over in my direction and grunted, somehow aware that something was amiss. His eyes flickered open, searching the darkness. He was about to speak when I clapped my hand over his mouth.
“Shhh!” I hissed in his ear. “Ye’ll wake Da and he’ll no be pleased.”
“What are ye planning, Roddy?” he asked in a groggy whisper.
There was nothing I could do but tell him the truth. It was that or give up.
Before I could speak, an owl on silent wings, a shadow’s shadow, flew across the path. Seeking, hunting. I took it for a sign.
“I’m away back to Dunraw,” I said. “I’m going to find the Blessing.”
I had to press my hand to his lips again to keep him from crying out. He pried my fingers away but kept his voice low.
“We’ve been through that, Roddy. Ye heard what Da and Ishbel said. It’s a story for wee bairns.”
“Do ye really think Ma would lie to us?” I asked. “Is there not a sma’ piece of yer heart telling ye the story is true?”
He hesitated at that. It was mean of me to mention Ma, knowing how that always affected him, but it did the trick. “Aye, I suppose there is. But that disnae mean ye’re going to find it after all this time. We never found it, no once, and no for lack of trying.”
That was certainly true. After Ma had died, Da had looked for the Blessing everywhere in a fever of activity—amongst her meager belongings, all about the trees where she liked to walk, under the bedding, in the small byre where the cattle and Rob Roy stayed—and he found nothing.
“I’ll find it this time,” I insisted in a harsh whisper. “Now is the time she meant us to have it.”
“Are ye sure it’s the Blessing ye’re going back for and not something else?” Lachlan asked, sitting up with the blanket wrapped around him.
“What do ye mean?”
“Only that Bonnie Josie’s been on yer mind all these past days, like a moth flitting about the fire.”
I bristled. “I dinna think of her that way. She’s years older than me. And a laird’s daughter as well. I’d never think of her that way. Not like you and the Beauty of Glendoun. Only Josie helped us. She saved you and me from Willie Rood and got us our cows back. That’s all.”
Lachlan leaned close to me, keeping his voice low. “Aye, that’s as may be, but her troubles are still her own, and it’s no for the likes of us to poke our noses into her business.”
Something moved in the hill above us. Deer or rabbit or fox—we couldn’t tell. But Lachlan pulled the blanket tighter around himself.
“I’m going for the Blessing,” I said stubbornly, “and that’s all.”
“Promise me that, then,” said Lachlan, grasping my arm, “and I’ll no wake Da and Ishbel.”
“I promise ye, Lachlan, I’m doing this for the good of the family. Ye keep them going on to Glasgow and I’ll find ye there.”
Slowly he relaxed his grip on me. “And if ye dinna come?”
“Then the family will be better off for having one less mouth to feed.” I said it as if I meant it, but my stomach knew better. It had an ache in it that felt as if I’d been dealt a blow.
Lachlan’s brow furrowed, then he nodded his agreement. I reached out to give him a quick, clumsy embrace, feeling the warmth of the blanket. Then I started off.
I heard him whisper after me, “Good luck, Roddy.”
Looking back, I gave him a final wave. I knew I’d need all the luck he wished me—and more.
15 THE RETURN
At first I wound my way over the hills and through the gullies we had crossed to reach our makeshift campsite. There was a good half-moon, and it made a shining path for me, miles on either side. I spied rabbits leaping about on the hillsides. “Dancing for the moon,” Ma used to call it.
Without Da’s slowing the pace, I was able to go at a good clip, stopping only to catch my breath every hour or so. One stop, as I stood between two separate stands of trees, I listened to the call of a single owl and then a second owl answering him from the right, like two old friends singing a duet.
Renewed, I went on. Luckily I was on a single path. But then I came to a fork in the road, leading to other villages, other glens. I hadn’t been paying attention as we stumbled along. All we’d worried about was putting enough space between us and Rood’s men.
“Which turn should I take?” I wondered aloud, my voice strange in the night’s stillness.
I hadn’t thought before how easy it might be to get lost when the contours of the land are suddenly strange. Even if there were landmarks that could have guided me, how was I going to recognize them in the shadowy hills? Now the moon was straight overhead, so I couldn’t even tell east from west. And when I looked up at the stars, glittering coldly above me, I wished that I had a sailor’s skill to read them like a map.
Even as I made that wish, clouds began rolling in to cover the stars, turning the moon into a smear of grey light, plunging the landscape into deeper shadows. I felt utterly alone, with no hope of finding my way. I turned round and about trying to decide which way to go.
Ishbel had been right. I was following a wee bairn’s story, a tale I desperately wanted to believe in. And like the fairy piper in one of Ma’s old stories, it was going to lead me to my death.