High on a Mountain (30 page)

He lowered himself to his knees and swung his
legs over the edge of precipice, sitting on the narrow path,
leaning back on the bank behind him. He looked out over the land
stretched before him and saw ridges of blue mountains, one behind
the other, reaching far into the distance, so far that the
succeeding ridges grew paler and almost faded into the white edge
of the sky at the horizon. Ailean had found the mountains.

He sat for a long while with his feet
dangling, drinking in the beautiful scenery. He wished he could
find a way to survive here in these mountains, wished he could put
the past with its pain behind him. He wondered what it would be
like to live here among these tree-covered peaks, so different from
the grass-covered mountains of home, but so welcoming and
soul-fulfilling.

But first, he had to do the honorable thing.
He had to face Latharn, had to avenge Mùirne’s death.

THIRTY-SEVEN

Tenahwosi and Itahcah found the tracks of a
barefoot man on this little-used trail. When they were hunting,
they usually went another way, but on this trip, they were
patrolling the hunting grounds, looking for incursions from enemy
tribes onto
Tsalagi
land. They had begun the last arc of the
long circle back to the village when they found the tracks.

“Two days,” said Itahcah.

Tenahwosi grunted in agreement.

The tracks were a puzzlement to the two men.
Ani-Tsalagi
wore moccasins, and white men wore hard-soled
boots. No one went barefoot like this man. They were sure it was a
man. The imprints of the feet were large, and the stride was long.
This was a man. A big man.

They moved, swift and silent, their sharp
eyes noting variations in the man’s tracks which showed when he had
tired, when he had stopped to rest. They reached the place where he
had slept, and within an hour, they were within sight of the man.
They crept along behind him, watching. He was a white man, a
stranger. And he carried no pack of goods to trade.

They followed him until evening and watched
when he left the trail to bed down for the night.

____________

When Ailean awoke the next morning, he saw
two men squatting nearby, watching. Each of them held a musket.

Ailean sat up and reached for his lance which
he’d laid on the ground within reach when he lay down for the
night, but both the lance and the hoe were gone. He looked about
desperately for something, anything he could use as a weapon for
self-defense but found nothing.

The men made no threatening moves and didn’t
point their muskets at him. They merely watched him. He regarded
them warily, intrigued by their strange clothing. It looked like
nothing he’d ever seen.

“Hello,” he said to them in English.

“Hel-lo
. Osiyo
,” one of them
answered.

The two men stood. One of them picked up
Ailean’s hoe.

The other said, “
Ehena
,” beckoning for
Ailean to come with him.

Ailean got to his feet and followed, with the
second man close behind. They set a rapid pace, their eyes moving
constantly, alert and watching.

The sun was high overhead, and Ailean was
beginning to tire when they stopped at a small stream to drink. The
water was crystal clear, cold and refreshing. Ailean drank and
bathed his face. He looked at his captors and wondered where they
were taking him.

Late in the afternoon, they reached a place
where the trail descended a hillside and emerged from the trees
into a long valley through which meandered a small river. Steep
hills bordered three sides of the valley. At the open end, he could
see the successive ridges of mountains reaching into the distance,
and there was a field at that end where women were working.

Bordering the river above the field was a
scattering of thatch-roofed buildings of different sizes. Each of
them had smooth, flat walls which looked as if they were
constructed of mud. Ailean assumed they were dwellings. Every
dwelling had an adjacent mound to one side and a smaller building,
raised above the ground on poles, behind it. Around the dwellings
were fruit trees and small gardens.

Past the houses, alongside the river, at the
end of a large, flat piece of ground, rose a huge rounded mound of
earth. Ailean saw some men emerging from an opening at the base of
it, and a thin wisp of smoke ascended from an aperture at its
apex.

____________

“I told you. His trail’s cold. We’ll have to
find somebody who saw him. Then we’ll know which direction he’s
headed, and we can move faster,” Jim Satterfield told Latharn.

“But what if no one saw him?”

“He ain’t got no food. He ain’t got no gun to
kill game. He’ll have to beg or steal food. Somebody’ll know he’s
been there.”

“But this is taking too long.”

“You want to track him down by yourself?”
Satterfield asked and spat a stream of tobacco juice into the
fire.

“No. I need your help.”

“Then we do it my way,” Satterfield said,
poured tea into his tin cup and leaned back against the tree
trunk.

Latharn stood and began to pace, edging into
the darkness.

“Wouldn’t do that if I was you.”

“Why not?” Latharn asked. He was growing
increasingly irritated by this woodsman with his patronizing
attitude and barely concealed mockery.

“Snakes. Can’t see them in the dark.”

Latharn retreated from the darkness and sat
near the small campfire. He didn’t like this place, and he didn’t
like Jim Satterfield. He added his discomfort to the huge debt he
felt Ailean MacLachlainn owed him, a debt he hoped to collect soon.
The thought of settling the account was the only thing that kept
him going, kept him moving through this wild and treacherous
land.

____________

Tenahwosi and Itahcah led Ailean to a house
on the edge of the village. Tenahwosi went inside while Itahcah
waited outside guarding Ailean. Tenahwosi came out of the house,
and a white man emerged from it behind him. The white man looked
Ailean over before he spoke.

“My name is Gòrdan MacAntoisch,” the man said
to Ailean in English. “Who are you?”

“Ailean MacLachlainn.”

“You are Scottish?” MacAntoisch asked in
Gaelic.

“Aye. And you are from Scotland, too?”

“Aye. What are you doing here in
Tsalagi
territory, MacLachlainn? Have you come to trade with
them?”

“No. I didn’t mean to come here. I just…I—”
Ailean began.

“You’re not a trader?”

“No.”

“I don’t understand. White men who venture
this far are either traders or fur trappers. It’s obvious you
aren’t a trapper, and you have no good for trade.” Gòrdan waited
for a reply.

“I was…on a plantation. I left and just
walked and ended up in the mountains. Then these two men brought me
here.”

Gòrdan noticed the scars on Ailean’s wrists.
“You’ve been in irons. You were a prisoner.”

“Aye.”

Gòrdan looked at the ground before raising
his eyes to look intently into Ailean’s eyes. “Why were you a
prisoner? What did you do?”

“I did battle for Prionnsa—” Ailean’s voice
quavered and broke. He cleared his throat. “Prionnsa Teàrlach.”

“You were in The Rising?”

Ailean swallowed hard. “Aye.”

Gòrdan had a lengthy conversation with
Itahcah and Tenahwosi, and the two men walked away.

“They were thinking of keeping you as their
slave. But I made a deal with them.” Gòrdan smiled. “It didn’t take
much to convince them that they didn’t really want to have someone
as big and strong as you on their hands. I think they were already
having doubts, which is why they brought you to me. Come with me,”
he said, and went back inside his house.

Ailean followed him into the dark interior,
pausing for a moment just inside the door while his eyes adjusted
to the semi-darkness. There were no windows, and the only light
came from a small fire in the middle of the room and the sunlight
which was admitted through the doorway and the smoke hole in the
roof. The floor was of packed earth. It reminded him a little of
his cottage at home, although this dwelling was larger and there
was no byre for keeping animals.

Gòrdan sat cross-legged on a woven cane mat
spread on the dirt floor by the fire.

“Sit,” Gòrdan said, gesturing to a mat
adjacent to his own.

Ailean sat on the mat, awkwardly folding his
long legs in an approximation of Gòrdan’s posture.

“Tell me about it. I haven’t had much news
from Scotland.”

Ailean stared into the fire for a few
minutes, then looked up at Gòrdan. “Have you heard what happened?
About what happened to Prionnsa Teàrlach’s army?”

“A little.”

“I was in his army. I was on Drummossie Moor,
near Culloden House. I fought there beside my clansmen and the
Mac’Ill’Eathainns. And beside MacAntoisches. And there my father
and brothers died—” Ailean’s voice broke and he couldn’t
continue.

Gòrdan said nothing for several minutes. “You
look hungry. Here.” He handed Ailean some dried venison. “Eat this.
My wife will cook for us when she comes in from the field, but this
will do for now.”

“Your wife?”

“Aye. I married a native woman. Of the Bird
Clan of
Ani-Tsalagi
. Good woman,” Gòrdan said.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Here in the mountains? About four years. But
I came to the Georgia colony with my parents about ten years
ago.”

“They live here, too?”

“No. They live near the coast, in New
Inverness.”

A shiver passed through Ailean’s body when he
heard the word “Inverness,” and he began to breathe rapidly. He sat
in silence for a few minutes until he recovered his composure.

“And you like it here? In the mountains?”

“Yes, I do.
Ani-Tsalagi
are good
people, a little different from us in some ways, but the same as us
in many other ways. I feel at home here,” Gòrdan answered.

“The mountains are beautiful. Not like the
ones at home, but beautiful in their own way. I felt at home when I
reached the mountains,” Ailean said. “So, what do you do? Do you
rent a croft?”

“No, I’m a trader.”

“Oh,” Ailean said. He thought for a moment
and asked, “What do
Ani-Tsalagi
men do?”

“Hunt. Fish. Fight wars. And play
anetsa
.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

Ailean slept in Gòrdan’s house that night.
The next morning, Gòrdan and his
Tsalagi
assistant busied
themselves preparing for their next trip to Charles Town, counting
the hides and other articles received in trade to determine if it
was worthwhile to make the trip now or if they should wait a while
longer and gather more goods. Gòrdan left Ailean to his own
devices.

He wandered through the village of these
strange people, the
Ani-Tsalagi
, absorbing the sights and
sounds and smells of the settlement. The scent of aromatic wood
smoke rising from smoke holes of houses was pleasant, and the
houses themselves appeared to be in harmony with the land
surrounding them. A feeling of peace settled on him like a
comfortable garment as he watched children at play and listened to
their laughter.

He stopped by the shallow river bordering the
village and sat on the bank, listening to the gurgle and murmur of
the water where it rippled over the rocks of a low shoal and
splashed into a shallow pool. Watching the rushing water lulled and
satisfied him, and he contemplated the beauty of the stream.

He became aware of a discomfiting sense of
being watched and turned around to look behind him. Two young women
giggled and hurried away. Ailean watched them go, watched as their
soft skirts brushed their legs, revealing shapely bare calves and
feet clad in soft, clinging leather. Their glossy hair, arranged in
elaborate braids and coils, shone blue-black in the sunlight. A
beautiful sight.

He was about to turn his attention to the
river again when another young woman caught his attention. She was
tall and slender. Her sleek, black hair cascaded down her back like
a silken shawl. She appeared to be focused on her destination,
unaware of his presence, her steps quick and purposeful. He watched
until she entered a house, and returned to his relaxing study of
the river, allowing the murmur of the water to calm and comfort
him.

When he tired of the inactivity, Ailean arose
from the river bank to continue his wandering. He walked to the
field where women were at work, planting seeds. A few of them had
babies in slings tied on their backs.

He regarded the steep hills to either side of
the valley. And he looked down the length of it where, in the
distance, rising row upon row, the blue mountain ridges were
arrayed in all their beauty, beckoning to him, calling to his
soul.

In that moment, Ailean realized he wanted to
live.

During the weeks of the voyage to George
Town, he constantly beseeched God for release from this life,
begged for an escape from his sorrow and suffering. But his prayers
were not answered. He continued to live while others around him
found deliverance from their ordeal, found mercy and relief.

He became embittered as he lived on and
merely endured his continued existence. But now, he no longer
wanted to die. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have run from Latharn to
prepare for a fight, he would have embraced death at Latharn’s
hand.

Ailean stopped walking and stood motionless
as this new realization struck him with a force that was almost
physical. He did not expect, did not want, any happiness from
living, but he no longer wanted to die.

No. He didn’t want any enjoyment. Mùirne and
Coinneach-òg. Niall. Ma. Da. Coinneach. They would never experience
joy or gladness again. How could he try to take pleasure in living
when they couldn’t? No, he didn’t want contentment or happiness.
But he did want to live.