High on a Mountain

by Tommie Lyn

  “Even if you weren’t shot, you would be dead within days,” Ruairidh continued. “James tells me there are animals in those swamps that can kill a man. Poison snakes. And something he called gators that can eat a man alive.”

  Tòmas stopped again and glared at Ruairidh. “I could make it through. I know I could.”

  “And if you made it through, and if you found a ship, and if you could make it back to Scotland, you’d be hanged when you got there.”

  Tòmas pulled at a long root he’d dug loose and glanced at the woods again. “Don’t you want to go back home, MacLachlainn, back to your family?”

  “I have no family to go back to,” Ailean said. “They’re all dead.”

  Tòmas said nothing more.

  Someone shouted, and everyone stopped what they were doing to see what the trouble was. Four men ran from the edge of the field where they’d been working, looking back over their shoulders at the woods.

  “What? What is it?” Ruairidh called to them.

  “Something…a gator…a snake…I don’t know,” one of them yelled.

  James hurried from the wagon to Ruairidh’s side and asked him about the commotion. Ruairidh translated what the men said, and James started for the area where they’d been working. The four men followed him at a respectful distance. He stopped, put his hands on his hips and glanced back at them. He leaned down and picked up something large and dark with both hands.

  “This what you think is a gator or a snake?” he asked.

  They all backed away as he came near, and he threw back his head and laughed.

  “This ain’t nothing but a old gopher turtle. It make some good eating,” he said as he carried the turtle to the wagon. “We have us some gopher gumbo. I’ll cook him up and show you some real good eating. Mmm. Taste good.”

  All the Highlanders gathered around the wagon to look at the turtle. They’d never seen such an animal before and were intrigued. The guard shouted for them to disperse and get back to their work.

  The next evening, they enjoyed the delicious soup James made from the gopher turtle.

  ____________

  On the fifth day of work clearing the field, one of the Highlanders sickened in the heat and became unconscious. Ailean and another man carried him to the edge of the field and laid him in the shade. Ruairidh and James bathed him with cool water and tried to revive him. The other Highlanders gathered around him as he lay dying.

  While attention was focused on the dying man, Tòmas Camshron eased farther and farther from the wagon where the armed guard stood. No one but Ailean saw that when he neared the thicker growth, Tòmas squatted and his head could not be seen above the brush. But Ailean could see the movement of the bushes and watched Tòmas’ passage as he eased into the swamp.

  It was more than an hour before he was missed.

  ____________

  The Highlanders did not harvest the rice crop. After Tòmas’ escape, Mr. Hollingsworth decided they were not to be trusted and, more particularly, they were not to be trusted with sharp implements like scythes. The black slaves cut the rice and the white slaves gathered the harvested rice into sheaves and loaded them onto the wagons.

  “This is woman’s work,” Ruairidh muttered.

  In their Highland homeland, the people always sang as they worked. Every kind of labor had a song with a rhythm that fitted the movements of the work at hand and made it flow easier. As they gathered the rice, one of the men began singing a song Highland women always sang as they stooked the oats. One by one, the others joined in, and soon they were working in rhythm.

  Ailean tried to sing with them, but his throat froze and he could make no sound at all. A longing for his home beset him, and he struggled to push it down, to bury it. He knew if he didn’t, it would overwhelm him, would bring back his memories, and he would not be able to endure it. His eyelids prickled hot with the tears he had not shed, would not shed. He tried to ignore the painful constriction in his throat, bowed his head to the task at hand and let the singing sweep over him, past him.

  That night, he dreamed he was in church on a Sunday morning, leading the congregation in singing. He smiled at Mùirne as he sang the first line of the psalm and it was echoed by the congregation. His eyes swept happily over each of his loved ones as he continued singing each presenting line.

  He closed his eyes as he sang, lifting his face to heaven and his voice and heart to God in praise. But the congregation’s response grew weaker, until he realized he was singing by himself. He opened his eyes and looked around to find the building was empty. He was alone. He panicked and searched in every direction for the congregation which had disappeared. He had been abandoned, deserted, not only by his loved ones but also by God Himself.

  A voice came echoing as if from a faraway place. “Don’t look for us. We’ve gone on. We can’t come to you, but you can come to us.”

  “Wait for me!” he screamed. He ran to the door but found it had become a solid wall, with no opening. He clawed at the stones to no avail, then turned to another wall. He could find no way out. He was sealed in.

  He awoke and sat up, sweating and panting.

  ____________

  All the slaves at The Oaks attended worship in the family’s chapel. There were two services each Sunday morning, because the chapel was too small to accommodate the entire population of the plantation at one time. The preacher was a slave named Paul, who delivered powerful, stirring sermons. Mr. Hollingsworth was adamant that all who lived on his land should receive religious instruction and be given the opportunity to worship God.

  The Highlanders, some Catholic, some Presbyterian, were grateful to have worship services available, even if those services were Anglican, and all of them attended.

  Except Ailean MacLachlainn.

  His anger at God over the loss of his loved ones, and over the suffering he had endured, deepened and hardened within him. He did not want to hear any mention of God, and he refused to worship a Being he’d been taught to turn to in times of trouble. A Being Who had betrayed him. Who had allowed all he loved to be destroyed and taken from him.

  Each Sunday morning, Ailean stayed locked in the barracks while the others went to worship.

  ____________

  Every summer when the rice fields were flooded, members of the Hollingsworth family moved away from the plantation. They transported their house servants and household goods on the periagua to Pawley’s Island, as did many planters on the outlying plantations near George Town.

  Fever was an ever-present danger during the summer months, and most families left their swampy estates for healthier environs. In November, after the rice was harvested, threshed, processed and shipped from the plantation, the family came home.

  Upon his return, Mr. Hollingsworth announced there would be a feast for the slaves, a time of rest, a reward for their hard work. And each person would be given a new set of clothing as well as a small gift.

  “Master, he do this every year,” James told Ruairidh, with a broad smile. “It’s fine, mighty fine.”

  Mr. Hollingsworth told James the Highlanders were to be excluded from the festivities. James tried to persuade Mr. Hollingsworth to allow the men to attend the feast. He respected the men under his charge and thought they deserved to be rewarded for their hard work as much as the other slaves. At last, James prevailed. He and Mr. Hollingsworth compromised: the Highlanders would be allowed to attend, but under armed guard.

  ____________

  On the day of the party, food in plenty was laid out on long tables set up behind the slave quarters in the shade of spreading oak trees with their gray, mossy beards. There was an abundance of pork which had been cooked over a smoking hickory fire, but the Highlanders didn’t eat pork. There were other foods they enjoyed, though, chicken and beef, as well as a variety of vegetables. Ailean had never seen such a copious amount nor variety of food.

  When they finished eating, James lined them up.

  “Now, make sure you on yo
ur best behavior. Don’t make no trouble,” James admonished. “Master bringing the family down for the music now, like he always do. You stand here and look pleasant. Else you be back in the barracks and miss the fun.”

  Before James finished speaking, a fiddle struck up the first lively notes of a song. A memory flashed into Ailean’s mind. A fiddle. Niall. Playing at his wedding. A lively tune for dancing, like this one. He gritted his teeth and tried to shove the remembrance, and the hurt that came with it, away.

  Mr. Hollingsworth walked by, nodding and smiling at everyone, on his way to the small dais where the musicians were performing.

  At that moment, Ailean heard a high-pitched childish voice call, “Daddy, Daddy! Wait for me!”

  A sharp pain stabbed through Ailean’s chest when he saw a little blond-haired boy run past, followed by a young woman.

  “Oh, sir, I’m so sorry,” said the woman when she reached Mr. Hollingsworth. “He dashed away before I could stop him.”

  “That’s all right, Miss Webster,” Mr. Hollingsworth said with a smile as he swung the boy up into his arms. “He can go with me. He’s getting to be a big boy now.”

  “As you wish, sir,” Miss Webster said, dipped in a perfunctory curtsy to her employer and turned to go.

  But Ailean didn’t notice her departure. His gaze was fixed on the blond head of the small boy Mr. Hollingsworth had taken into his arms and lifted onto his shoulder. Ailean could hardly breathe as he watched the smiling father and son, aching and smothered by the memories that flooded into his mind from the place deep within himself where he had locked them away. And his fingers went unbidden to caress the tattered piece of his tunic he kept tucked behind the waist of his triubhas.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Latharn’s head fell, senseless, onto the table and knocked over the bottle. The little whisky left in it dribbled onto the table top and meandered across it to trickle over the edge and drip onto the stone floor. Catriona grumbled when she saw the additional work his drunkenness had created for her.

  “And me with so far to walk when I leave here, and he adds more steps for these old bones,” she muttered as she went to get a rag. “All he does is tipple nowadays.”

  Latharn’s drinking interfered with his daily life. He spent more and more time in a drunken stupor, and his affairs suffered. His crofters, unsupervised, spent more time on their own concerns than they did fulfilling their obligations to him on his portion of the farm he leased from the Duke of Argyll.

  During harvest time, his fields of oats and barley went unmown for weeks, and they went unthreshed when he remained sober long enough to have the crofters reap them. But Latharn didn’t spare a moment’s concern for his crops or his other duties.

  His sober periods brought memories of Mùirne, and he couldn’t bear the flood of guilt that surged through him at the thought of her. And always, when Latharn remembered Mùirne’s death, he sought to relieve himself of self-blame by placing responsibility at the feet of Ailean MacLachlainn.

  If it hadn’t been for MacLachlainn, Mùirne would have been safely married to Latharn, here at his side, happy, smiling, instead of being buried in the cold ground. And if MacLachlainn hadn’t exercised some sort of unnatural hold over her, she wouldn’t have placed herself in the way of the piece of lead that killed her.

  Latharn’s thoughts brought fresh waves of remorse, and he gritted his teeth and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in an attempt to block the pain. His sporadic attempts at sobriety ended when, each time, he reached for another bottle of whisky to drink himself into blessed oblivion.

  ____________

  The time between harvest and planting was free time for the slaves who worked in the fields at The Oaks. They were allowed to tend their own private vegetable gardens, to work on their own projects and given permission to work on other plantations to earn money for themselves. They performed their tasks efficiently to harvest the rice as soon as possible so they would have more free time to enjoy.

  But Mr. Hollingsworth did not believe it would be wise to extend those privileges to the Highland men. Idleness was not good for anyone, and particularly not for men like these. And Mr. Hollingsworth did not trust them to employ their time in productive enterprises unsupervised, as the other slaves did. So they continued the work of clearing the additional acreage.

  James grumbled about the decision to deny free time to the Highlanders. Since he was in charge of them, when they worked, he had to be with them. He had looked forward to the free time, but now it was denied him.

  ____________

  One afternoon in late January when the weather turned cold and drizzly, James brought the men in from the field early. The weather was his excuse, but the real reason was that a trader was expected to make a visit to the plantation store this day and James didn’t want to miss it.

  On the trader’s last trip, he showed James a folding knife with a pearlescent handle made of shell, and James wanted the knife. He managed to save some money, and he made a few things to offer in trade as well. He was certain he had enough value in money and goods to trade for the knife.

  “Move along a little faster,” he urged. “Need to get out of this rain.”

  “Why are you in such a hurry to get back?” Ruairidh asked.

  “Just no need to drag along in the rain,” James said.

  Ruairidh looked at James with a doubtful expression but said nothing more.

  “Besides, the trader supposed to be at the store today,” James admitted.

  “Trader?”

  “Yeah, they’s traders goes up to the mountains and trades with the Indians. They gives the Indians guns and cloth and needles and such, and the Indians gives them deer skins and baskets and things like that. And they trade them for things off the ships when they comes. Nice things.”

  “Mountains? There’s no mountains here.”

  “Not here. Up north of here. The Indian lands. They’s high mountains up there.”

  “You’ve seen these mountains?” Ruairidh asked.

  “No, just heard the trader talk about them.”

  ____________

  Ailean noticed that Ruairidh’s expression had changed, that he appeared puzzled. “What is it?”

  “He said there are mountains to the north of us.”

  “Mountains? I’ve looked in every direction and I’ve never seen mountains,” Ailean said. “Has he been to the mountains, seen them himself?”

  “He says no. He says a trader told him about—”

  “Now there you go talking jibberish again,” James interrupted. “You know I don’t like that. Unless it’s something I told you to tell them.”

  “He was just asking what you said, and I told him you said there were mountains,” Ruairidh said.

  Mountains.

  ____________

  When spring came, James set the Highlanders to work planting and cultivating the rice along with the other slaves. But after the rice was half-grown and the trunks were opened to flood the fields, he returned them to clearing new acreage.

  They became accustomed to the rhythm of life on the plantation, but most still yearned to return to their homeland. Those who, like Ailean, had lost their families, were more accepting of their circumstances than those who had families left behind in Scotland. But they did their work, steadily and thoroughly, even though there were few rewards.

  The strenuous labor toughened Ailean as nothing ever had. The muscles of his body grew large and hard. His clothing became too small for him as his muscles thickened, and he had to have a new shirt and pair of triubhas because his old clothes were too tight. He could lift and carry more weight than any other man on the plantation. He had become a strong, powerful man.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The Western Highlands of Scotland, December, 1748

  Latharn sloshed more whisky into his glass. He was halfway into the beckoning land of forgetfulness when he heard someone call a greeting. He frowned, wondering vaguely who it could b
e. Catriona shuffled to the door, muttering under her breath.

  “I need to speak to Latharn,” a familiar voice said.

  He stood, swaying, and ineffectively tried to adjust his soiled clothing before lurching toward the open door.

  “Who wants to speak to me?” he demanded, slurring his words.

  “I do.” Brandubh, Ualraig Cambeul’s assistant, stood in the doorway.

  “Eh?” Latharn squinted and blinked, trying to marshal what remained of his senses.

  “Ualraig told me to deliver a message to you. You are to come to his home tomorrow morning. He wants to see you.” Brandubh’s voice exuded an unmistakable tone of condescension.

  “He wants to see me?” Latharn repeated, as though the words were unfamiliar and he was trying to understand their meaning.

  “Aye. Come tomorrow morning. While you’re sober. If that’s possible.” Brandubh took a long look at Latharn’s saggy face, bleary, bloodshot eyes, reddened nose, and shook his head. He turned to Catriona. “Please be sure he comes to Inveraray tomorrow. It’s important.” He turned and sauntered out the open door.

  ____________

  Catriona enlisted the help of her grandson to get Latharn up and ready for the ride to Inveraray the next morning. He was sober and his clothes were clean, but his shaking hands and bloodshot eyes belied his prolonged bout of drinking.

  When he arrived at Ualraig’s home, a servant ushered him into the room where the Duke’s estate manager usually met with his tenants. Latharn looked restlessly at the elegant surroundings as he waited, fidgeting and ill-at-ease.

  “Latharn,” said Ualraig as he entered the room. “Thank you for coming.”