Highland Games Through Time

by Nancy Lee Badger

  “Let me handle this,” Iona whispered. She padded silently to the fireplace. She smudged soot over her pale skin, then shoved her flaming hair beneath her shawl. With her eyes averted, her pale hands hidden up the cloak’s long sleeves, she bent at the waist.

  When she opened the door, she halted when the brawny chest of a tall black man filled her vision.

  “What have we here?”

  Iona stepped back, but kept her face hidden. Three others shadowed the man who held a torch and carried tools that looked like a rustic crowbar, hammer, and something long and sharp. She felt no fear. Cameron had her back if anything happened, and she didn’t plan to let the men inside.

  An idea, not fear, popped into her head. She disguised her voice, whispered a spell evoked from memory from Haven’s ancient book, and let the power wash over her.

  Pretty pale skin, darken quick.

  Slim hips widen, hair go black.

  Show me as their kind, so mote it be.

  If she was correct, she had aged before their eyes. She lifted her face and met their gazes. Without waiting for them to speak further, she said, “Kind sirs, you have arrived upon the wings of angels with just the tools necessary to help those of us in need.”

  “How so?” The tall man, possibly their leader, paused and crooked his neck.

  She fought the urge to check to make sure she had managed to hide all of her bright red hair in case the spell proved faulty. When she was sure she had their attention, she went forward with her plan to move them along.

  “There be slaves at the house at the corner.” She pointed to a stately brick structure, three stories high with black shutters and thorny roses growing up and along a black iron fence.

  “What be that to us?”

  “He chains them there noon to night, in the barn to the back. He beats them, sirs. I’ve heard their screams. The master has gone with all the white folk. If the roving gangs start burning homes on this street, I fear they will burn as well.”

  “Old woman, we will not allow another slave to face death in this here town.”

  His concern etched his face, and she felt sorry for their lot, but she had to get them away from here. Iona had no idea how long the spell would last, since spells were not something she conjured with any frequency.

  She certainly couldn’t take the chance they might come inside the home and discover John and Cameron. With her best acting skills, born from volunteering at the historical village at the Highland Games, she pleaded with the leader.

  “My man is inside gathering our meager belongings, sir. Our owners took everything of value with them, and left us to fend for ourselves.” A small tear rolled down her cheek. The poignancy of the moment wasn’t lost on her. These were troubled times and she would never forget what she had witnessed.

  “Many of us as well. We have nothing but the clothes on our backs. Will you two be safe?”

  “I thank you for your concern, but we shall leave this place at once. I hope to go north, away from the men who stole us from our homeland and held us prisoner. And you?”

  “We head north as well. May we meet again.” Before he turned away, he asked, “Have you any food to spare?”

  “Not in here, but there are a half a dozen chickens near that barn I told you about. Save those men, then cook your dinner.”

  “My thanks. We will take care of them.” He led his men toward the house on the corner. When he gave a quick look back, she waved and watched a smile form on his handsomely dark face.

  Iona exhaled slowly, then squeaked in surprise when a large arm slid around her waist. Cameron pulled her into a chest of honed steel. His closeness calmed her jittery nerves as the tingle of the spell dissipated.

  “Whew. Good timing.”

  “Ye were verra brave, my wee lass. Ye be a powerful witch.”

  “As I keep reminding you, Cameron Robeson, I am not ‘wee’. Next to you, maybe, but I am considered a tall woman. I simply used information from a book Haven left in my care.”

  “The thick tome ye carry in yer satchel?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked down at her with mischief in his sparkling amber eyes. “To me ye are a precious imp with the guts of a warrior.”

  When he let her go, she missed his warmth. Released from his embrace, a heavy sense of aloneness consumed her. With the danger gone for the moment, she missed his touch. Stoically, Iona straightened her spine. She needed to return to her tasks.

  “Wash yer face, lass,” Cameron said when she finished gathering the jewels and a few food items. Iona washed the soot from her face.

  No sense looking black amid two obviously white men.

  She slung her cloak and shawl over a kitchen chair then washed her face in the sink. As she towel-dried her skin, Cameron snuck up behind her, his scent announcing his movements in a wave of leather and pine. She spun around, and he smiled.

  She couldn’t help returning his smile.

  “When John spoke the date, your expression made me think we be in grave danger,” he whispered, “I understand war, but tell me what else troubles ye.”

  His warm breath ruffled the stray curls beside her cheek. She swept them behind her ear, removed the shawl from around her head, and allowed him to help her on with the cloak laden with jewels and supplies.

  When she returned her attention to his face to answer, she swallowed. His heated gaze promised intimacy she wasn’t sure she wanted. Not with him, at least. The man was an enigma, a time traveler, and already admitted he was involved with someone else.

  Had any man, in recent memory, looked at her with such hunger? Why now?

  “Indeed, Cammie. We are in trouble. If my recollection of history holds, the Battle of New Hope Church will be fought right here within days. The fall of Atlanta is nearly here. Union troops are getting closer.”

  “Aye. The cannons ye mentioned. A battle is a’brewing.” He clenched his fist around the hilt of his sheathed dirk. “We must leave now.”

  As if on cue, cannons boomed and sounded even nearer than earlier.

  “That was too close for comfort. Our soldiers are either retreating, or the northerners are attacking the city,” John cried as he grabbed his small sack of jewels and shoved it down the back of his pants. He tucked his pipe in a pocket and collected a brass-headed cane from beside the door.

  “Let us make haste, lass.”

  They hurried out the backdoor, down the steps, and headed west along a fence. Cameron tugged her elbow and whispered in her ear so, she assumed, John could not share in their conversation. “What did this army do? The ones from the north, once they reached New Hope Church.”

  “They burned everything.” Iona sniffed and a scent much more acrid than John’s smoking tobacco filled the air. “They burned their way through Atlanta. So much beauty, destroyed. So many lives lost.”

  The crack of sporadic gunfire joined the booms of the cannons. Time was running out. Cameron appeared calm, more so than John. Poor John Moffat was sweaty and pale, but they followed at his heels since he knew where they headed.

  When a bullet sheared a rose from the vine entwined in the fence beside her, Iona screamed. Cameron grabbed Iona’s free hand then hoisted her like a potato sack over his left shoulder.

  “Faster.”

  John clamped a hand on his hat and broke into a run. They threaded through a tight alley where the air smelled less like smoke and more like urine. A voice raised in anger, hopefully not directed at them, faded. As they covered more ground, Iona worried about John. Even though she couldn’t see him from her present position, his breathing grew raspy and much too rapid.

  Iona smacked Cameron on his rear to get his attention. “Put me down. I can run, but John cannot.”

  Cameron stopped behind a woodshed and gently lowered her to the ground. As she slid down his leather-covered chest, his scent filled her. When she rubbed against the swollen ridge beneath his leather pants, she jumped away as if burned.

  “We need to proceed
at a slower pace.”

  He grunted, the only sign that he noticed John’s lack of energy or lung capacity. They rounded a corner and nearly ran into two men.

  “What dis? Three lost souls out fer a stroll.” The tall black man laughed, menace blazing from his hunched state and his fists wrapped around a fireplace poker and a torch. The other man, smaller and wider, had muscles enough for both. Cameron lashed out, his speed blindingly fast. By the time Iona realized they had walked into danger, the second man lay in a crumpled pile.

  “Look out!” Iona’s scream echoed off the buildings as time stood still.

  * * *

  The fireplace poker swished through the air toward the back of Cameron’s head. Before it finished its arc, he kneeled. It missed by a hair.

  My hair.

  A grunt in the vicinity of his attacker was followed by a low moan and a thud. The taller of the two men had suddenly joined his companion in the dirt. The poker tumbled out of the man’s reach without striking Cameron’s head. Cam turned and found John standing behind him, swinging the pieces of his broken cane.

  “My thanks,” Cameron said, then sprung to his feet. He brushed dirt from his knees, grabbed his pack and swung it over his shoulder. He would rather carry Iona. Her warm body beneath too many clothes could not hide her lush curves and sweet fragrance.

  When the bullet had missed her by a breath, he’d lost his ability to breathe. Racing down the alley had been the better plan in order to flee their pursuers. Unfortunately, thinking about her had numbed him to the dangers lurking ahead of them.

  Muttering under his breath, he grabbed Iona’s hand. She came alongside him, willingly. She mumbled her thanks to both men for protecting her, and tiptoed behind Cameron. Her whispered prayers threw a blanket of calm over him.

  Who am I to argue over religion?

  They could use all the help they could get as John led them into the next alley. After several intense moments, and without further incident, they reached the outskirts of town. He allowed them to take a short break.

  “Cammie?” she whispered.

  He leaned close.

  “I dropped the paper with the spell. It caught fire when that man dropped his torch.”

  When they resumed their trek, a large flock of geese crossed their path. The birds’ offensive honks and disagreeable manner forced them to stand still and wait.

  “A prudent decision, John. Cameron looks ready to strangle them, which would only make more noise.”

  Cameron could detect Iona’s smile in her words. She made fun of his warrior ways. He would allow the animals to live. For now.

  “Iona,” Cameron whispered, too low for John to hear, “are we headed in the best direction?”

  “After the battle at Resaca, they headed toward their main goal, Atlanta. We are going in the opposite direction.”

  “What was so special about Atlanta?”

  She sighed and rubbed her hand up and down his naked forearm as if the movement calmed her thoughts. Her touch was doing anything but calming him.

  “The Atlanta campaign was important because Atlanta was the heart and soul of the Southern army. Though not the largest of the cities in the south, it was an important rail and commercial center. It quickly morphed into a concentration point for logistics experts and the Confederate quartermasters. A number of newspapers flourished in Atlanta. Haven worked at a newspaper.”

  Cameron read the sorrow in her voice, and he stepped back. He had forgotten about Lady Haven, the witch who had bespelled him into giving her his heart.

  That was the only explanation for how he felt for a woman who barely noticed him, unless with angry words. A woman who caused a desire in him so fierce, that he had betrayed his clan.

  “The Union army will head southeast, toward Savannah, on the seacoast. If we head due west toward Alabama, in the direction John’s wife headed, we ought to be fine.”

  “As long as we keep out of sight.” He had finished her thought. “I shall keep us safe, lass. I trust ye to discover what went wrong, and fix the problem.”

  Tonight, after they had rested, he might get a better sense of what had occurred to pull them off their course. If this was the year 1864, then they had indeed traveled back in time. But, not the time they had planned to visit, and they had not landed in Scotland.

  While he and John kept watch ahead along a wide trail, he sensed her working over the spell. Iona needed to use memory alone since the fragile piece of parchment he had given her outside Dorcas’ tent had gone up in flame when the two men had attacked them in the alley.

  Something else tugged at his memory, recalling an attack before they had traveled to this place; an attack that had occurred when they were last with Dorcas. A robed figure stood amid smoke, a figure of mist. Not solid, but suspended as if he dwelled in another time.

  “The man who attacked us was the sorcerer Dorcas said she sent back to Wick. He is truly powerful if he can attack us from the past. We best get home to Keldurunach. Fast.”

  “Who are ye talking about, sir?” John stood with his back against an oak tree. He pulled his pipe from his pocket, but returned it when Cameron scowled.

  “Right. Pipe smoke is a visible clue. I can hold off.”

  Cameron nodded then swept his gaze toward Iona. She had collapsed beside a small gravestone weighted down by a profusion of pink flowers. Roses, she called them.

  “I need to rest.”

  Though his fingers itched to battle the world to get back to his homeland, the time to protect Iona was now. “Aye, lass.”

  He stood close enough to keep her safe from further danger, but danger followed them. He felt it in his bones. The smoke from the fires and the booms of the cannons had faded. The flower’s scent was sweet, almost sickly so, and more sugary than honey mead. The robust pink blossoms were not as perfect as wild heather blooming over the moor.

  That had bloomed.

  Will bloom.

  Thinking about past, present, and future can befuddle a man.

  As her soft snores drifted up, Cameron sat beside her and nestled her head against his shoulder so she would not rub her cheek against the thorn-covered vine. Nothing was as arousing as the scent of the woman resting beside him. Groaning at the sudden ache between his legs, he set aside any more thoughts of getting any closer to Iona.

  She is not for me.

  His heart lay in a distant land, and a long time ago. His head ached every time he thought of time travel. Dorcas explained it the day she rescued him from his fate. He had barely listened, such was his pain at his banishment.

  Cameron closed his eyes and pictured the faces of the townsfolk in 1598 Scotland. Their laughter echoed through the courtroom when Dorcas made her plea to take him off their hands.

  “I shall take him.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The memory of his trial and the harshness of the verdict were tempered only by the compassion shone by a crooked old woman.

  The laughter roared. Cameron had turned his head toward the voice. A prickle coursed down his spine, and an urge to run washed over him. He pulled against his bonds. Two guards grabbed him around his upper arms.

  “Come forward, dear lady,” Kirk said to the silver-haired crone, “and speak yer mind.”

  “I toil hard and travel far. I need a strong back to aide me in my journey. This boy seems the hardy type.” The crowd erupted in laughter.

  Cameron’s cheeks burned.

  “Lady, where do ye travel? Ye have heard my edict. He must be gone from—”

  “My journeys take me far, my laird.”

  She tapped her bony fingers on a yellowish stone hanging between her flaccid breasts. The elegant ornament looked out of place around the neck of a simply dressed woman.

  Her other hand held a crooked walking stick, ornately carved for so plain an owner. When she turned slightly and smiled at him, a chill raced up his spine.

  Cameron awoke with a start.

  A strange sound had freed him from hi
s dark memories of the life to which he would soon return. Sensing a warm body cuddled into his side, he inhaled. Her hair smelled of rain on a crisp Highland night, and the heat pulsing from the cheek pressed against his chest caused a painful stirring in his loins.

  He struggled with the reason for such a reaction when he loved another. When he wondered about what had awakened him, Cameron slipped from her embrace. He lowered her sleeping form to a pillow made from the blanket. He pulled her cloak around her shoulders, then smiled when she mumbled her thanks.

  The dream had left him drained.

  John had nestled into a small, snoring lump beneath the old oak. Cameron watched over his rag-tag group of refugees until night fell and the gunfire grew silent.

  The heat of the day disappeared as quickly as the sun. The night air’s chill left him edgy and worried about their next time jump. He was not dressed for a colder climate. If they appeared in the Upper Highlands mid winter, freezing to death was a possibility.

  At first light, he rationed out a meager breakfast from the potato sack he had filled with food gathered in John’s kitchen. He stuffed the remainder of their meager supplies and rolled-up blanket inside then hefted the sack onto one shoulder. With the sun low on the eastern horizon, John led them due west. The flat terrain did little to aid them in hiding, so he kept them to the unplanted edges of hayfields and clumps of pine groves.

  A few fences barred their way. He wrenched a section aside each time. Here and there were the signs of a missing civilization and of a thriving community of people who had uprooted their lives in a hasty retreat.

  The sun brought a strong, warm breeze. Open doors slammed on their hinges with each gust of hot wind. A stray goat chomped on a corner of a curtain that fluttered from a broken pane of glass. One starving chicken, lucky to escape the rushed exodus, pecked and scratched at the earth.

  “Cammie?”

  “Aye?” He grumbled a curse under his breath.

  “Did you say something?”

  “Aye, Iona. I donna like ye calling me that.”

  “What?”

  “Cammie. My employer calls me that. My name is Cameron.”