High on a Mountain (29 page)

Before first light, the women brought their
morning meal. Ailean ate all of his breakfast except the piece of
cornbread. He tucked the tail of his shirt into his
triubhas
, formed a small pouch of it and dropped the
cornbread inside. As they left the barracks, Ruairidh slipped his
piece of cornbread into Ailean’s hands as he walked past. Ailean
gave him a look of gratitude and stuck the bread inside his shirt
with the other piece.

An orange sliver of sun showed over the trees
to the east when the slaves reached the field they were plowing.
James looked pointedly at Ailean for a moment, his eyes full of
unspoken feelings, then directed Ailean and Ruairidh to dig the
rows at the edge of the swamp. Ailean started digging the last row
alongside the berm that bordered the field.

He worked steadily until mid-morning when he
caught sight of the water girl with her bucket and gourd dipper.
James directed her to start on the side of the field where Ailean
worked.

Ailean’s hand trembled as he took the filled
dipper. He drank the water and handed the dipper back to the girl,
hoping his shaking hands wouldn’t reveal his nervousness to her. He
wiped his mouth and resumed digging the shallow furrow.

Ailean followed her progress from the corner
of his eye, and when she reached the workers farthest from him, he
glanced at the guard to be sure the man was engrossed in watching
her. He moved the pieces of cornbread that rested in the bloused
tail of his shirt to one side, to keep them from being crushed,
eased over the berm into the thick vegetation beyond it, and
dropped to his stomach on the ground, out of sight. He dragged the
hoe with him. Ailean peered through the openings in the thicket to
get his bearings and crawled away.

The Highlanders were still singing, so he
knew the guard had not missed him yet. Ailean crawled faster as he
put more distance between himself and the field and thought it less
likely he could be seen. He reached an area of open marsh that
bordered the river when he heard shouts, and the singing stopped.
Ailean got to his feet and, crouched low, moved as fast as he could
through the tangle of vegetation at the margins of the
marshland.

He stopped for a few moments to catch his
breath and listen for sounds of pursuit but heard nothing. When
Ailean started moving again, he chose his route with more
deliberation, still hurrying, but more aware of his surroundings,
more attuned to possible dangers.

____________

“What did you say?”

“I said, the Highlander escaped from the
field this morning,” Hadley repeated.

“How can that be? You said armed guards
watched them whenever they were in the fields.” Latharn’s jaws
tightened, clamping his teeth together.

“Mr. Campbell, I fail to understand why you
are so upset. It is I who’s losing money with this escape, not
you.”

Latharn began pacing, thinking. He stopped
abruptly. “Where could he run? Where could he hide?”

Hadley chuckled. “Look around you. Have you
looked at the heavily wooded lands that surround our plantations
here in South Carolina? Where
couldn’t
he hide is a more apt
question.”

“The overseer, he should be punished. And the
guards.”

“Mr. Campbell. You misspeak yourself. You
take liberties that are not yours. Whether or not my people are to
be punished is at my discretion, not at your whim.”

“Please, forgive me. I…I am not myself.”

It was too late. Hadley’s distant but polite
demeanor had evaporated and left a cold and appraising manner in
its place. He didn’t reply.

“Where do you think he could have gone?”
Latharn asked.

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Is there anyone who might?”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you. Now, if you
will please excuse me, there are matters I must attend to.” Hadley
opened the front door, walked inside and shut it.

Latharn had no choice but to leave. He
reluctantly turned and descended the porch steps to the lawn. He
had been close. So close. His misery and self-torture could have
ended this day with MacLachlainn’s death. Instead, it was prolonged
indefinitely.

When he reached George Town, he returned to
the inn where he was staying and went directly to a table in the
public room. He ordered a glass of whisky and waited impatiently
for the boy to bring it, drumming his fingers on the table. At
last, the glass of liquid relief was set before him. He lifted it,
took a sip and welcomed the fire that burned his throat and would
burn away the memories and the suffering if he drank enough of
it.

He started on his second glass when two
rough-looking men, one of whom had a prominent scar running the
length of his face, came in and sat at a nearby table. Latharn
enjoyed the illusion of privacy when he was the only customer, and
he frowned at the unwelcome intrusion. He tried to ignore them at
first, but the conversation between the two men caught his
attention.

“I’m getting tired of chasing slaves. I been
thinking about maybe moving on up close to the mountains, finding
me a piece of land somewhere, find me a wife and settle down,” said
one of them.

“Not me. That would be too much work,” said
the man with the scar. “And I like the tracking, seeing can I find
them, seeing can I outsmart them.”

“You’re welcome to it. I’m tired of always
sleeping on the ground, eating my own cooking. Now, if I had me my
own place, I could sleep on a soft bed every night, have me a wife
to cook me something good to eat. Now that would be living.”

“Who you got in mind who would even have an
old goat like you?” Jim Satterfield asked.

“Now, Jim,” Davey Wilkerson complained. “You
ain’t got no call to insult me. Besides, there’s a Indian girl up
in the mountains, a pretty thing. I think she likes me. She smiled
real nice at me once. And them Indian women, they’re hard
workers.”

Latharn arose from his chair and approached
the table where the two men sat.

“Please excuse me, gentlemen. I overheard
your conversation unintentionally. Did you say that you pursue
runaway slaves?”

THIRTY-SIX

Before sunset, Ailean reached a small hummock
in the swamp. It was a bit higher and drier than the expanse of mud
and water he’d slogged through since he left the plantation. He
checked the area to be sure there were no snakes concealed in the
tangle of weeds before he selected a spot and sat. He ate the two
pieces of cornbread and lay on the damp ground but found he
couldn’t fall asleep, even though he was physically tired.

Ailean’s thoughts circled endlessly around
the problem of arming himself for the coming confrontation with
Latharn. He didn’t know where he could buy a firearm. Even if he
found a place to buy one, he had no money. And if he could get a
firearm, he didn’t know how to use one.

The only weapon he knew how to use was a
sword. But the problem of obtaining a sword was the same as with
the firearm. He had no money to buy one and didn’t know where he
could get one if he did have money.

At last Ailean fell into a restless
sleep.

The cannons roared and thundered, belching
smoke and pieces of metal that tore through men on both sides of
him. He saw the chief fall from his horse, saw Da’s leg spout a red
stream as he fell. The freezing sleet blowing into his face turned
into a flooding, soaking rain that smothered and choked him…

The sky flashed with a brilliance that turned
his eyelids red, pulling him into wakefulness and away from his
nightmare of Drummossie Moor, while thunder roared and echoed
through the swamp. Ailean turned onto his side to escape the
torrents of rain that poured into his face. He still trembled from
the remnants of horror and heartbreak that snaked like tendrils of
an evil miasma into his wakefulness from the reliving of the battle
in his dream.

Ailean crawled under an overhanging branch in
a vain attempt to escape the deluge, wishing for the warmth of his
féileadh-mòr
as he huddled there, sopping wet, shivering
from the aftermath of the dream as much as from the cold rain. His
body jerked each time a deafening, reverbrating crash of thunder
followed the intermittent flashes of lightning that illuminated the
night sky. Finally, the storm passed, and Ailean fell into an
exhausted sleep, tired, wet, cold and miserable.

He awoke when a finger of sunlight penetrated
the leafy canopy overhead and touched his closed eyes. Ailean
stretched his stiff muscles, then lay still, listening to the
sounds of birds and the whispers of the breeze as it passed through
the treetops. There were no sounds of pursuit, no sounds of men
making their way through the swamp toward him. He decided there was
no immediate threat of capture and rose to continue his
journey.

Ailean had no idea where he was headed nor
which way he should go, so he followed the river. Each time he
reached the bounds of a plantation, he veered around it, keeping to
the swamps and woods, returning to the river when he was past the
cultivated acreage.

He was famished by midday and knew he had to
find food soon to keep up his strength. He scanned the area as he
plodded along, looking for something he could eat. Toward evening,
he found a gopher turtle. He pried open the shell using the hoe
blade and killed the turtle.

Ailean built a small fire. He placed the end
of a dry stick on a piece of deadwood and twirled it between his
palms, as he had watched Da do once when he kindled a need-fire. It
took a long time, but finally he had a tiny, flickering flame which
he fed with pieces of dead grass, leaves and sticks.

He coaxed it into a fire big enough to cook
the turtle. He had no means of cooking it into a soup, as James had
done, so he speared the meat onto a stick, suspended over the fire
and roasted it. It wasn’t tasty like the soup James made, but it
assuaged his hunger.

After he ate, he put out the fire and tried
to conceal any sign of it to erase evidence of his passage. He
moved on until the sun was low in the sky and the encroaching
darkness made it hard to see any lurking dangers.

The following day, he didn’t find a turtle,
but he noticed an abundance of fish in the streams he crossed. As
he walked through a heavily wooded tract, Ailean searched for a
long, stout stick he could make into a lance to spear fish.

It wouldn’t be as good as Da’s leisters, but
he was sure he could get enough fish for a meal. He found a
suitable stick, and that night when he stopped to sleep, he scraped
one end of it with the hoe blade to shape it into a crude
point.

Ailean awakened the next morning while the
sky was gray, before the sun lifted itself over the eastern
horizon. There was not yet enough light to make travel through the
swamp safe. While he waited for full daylight, he worked on honing
the point of his stick. By the time the sun had fully risen, it was
sharp enough to use.

He picked up the hoe and lance and continued
his trek, still following the river. At midday, he encountered a
stream and squatted beside it, looking for fish. He speared two
small fish and a larger one, broke a forked branch from a sapling
and strung the fish on it. He slung them over his shoulder, crossed
the stream and continued on his way, his supper assured.

During the eighth day of travel, Ailean
noticed a subtle change in the land. The flat swampland fell behind
him as he entered a region of gently rolling hills interspersed
with swamps. The hills gradually grew steeper day by day, and his
spirits rose with the rise in elevation of the land. He welcomed
the wooded hills and glens like a long-absent friend, and he began
to feel at home.

Or would have felt at home if another person
accompanied him. Ailean had hardly ever been alone in his life
except for the short periods when he had ascended the mountaintop
for time apart, time to contemplate questions or problems that
plagued him.

Now, he’d not seen another human being in…how
many days had it been? Ailean missed Ruairidh and the other men
from his homeland. He missed James. He missed companionship and the
sound of voices. His loneliness became an almost physical pain.

His pace slowed as the terrain became steeper
and rougher. Tall trees towered over him and made him feel small
and inconsequential as he walked beneath their leafy branches. As
Ailean traveled farther through this land of steep hills and clear,
tumbling streams, the ache in his heart grew sharper.

One afternoon, he pushed his way through a
tangle of vines and briars and came upon a trail which wound around
the side of a hill and dropped into a small glen between the hills.
He followed it cautiously, alert for every sound, every sign that
might announce danger. When night descended upon the land, he moved
away from the trail to sleep in a thicket, but retraced his steps
back to it the next morning.

Ailean continued following the path each
day.

One morning, he followed as it climbed to the
top of a hill. On the right side of the path, the hill rose so
steeply that he could reach out and touch the bank at shoulder
level, and to the left, the earth dropped away, leaving the path
clinging precariously to the side of the hill. The trees which grew
along the sharp descent raised their tops, thick with new leaves,
so close some of them brushed against him. Ailean felt as though he
was walking on a lane that passed through the treetops
themselves.

At one place, small stones had rolled down
from an outcrop of rocks above, and they made the passage
treacherous. Ailean picked his way along slowly, looking for firm
footing. One misstep on a loose rock and he could find himself
falling down the steep incline.

Ailean paused and glanced up to see where the
path led. He stood staring for a moment. There was an open space
between the branches of the trees ahead where the trail curved
abruptly to the right, and through that openness, he caught a
glimpse of a panorama of wooded peaks and valleys spread below. He
was near the top of a mountain. There were mountains in this land,
as James had said, and he’d found them. Ailean eased along the path
until he reached the spot where he could see between the trees.