The goats looked up at him, too, but recognized him and went on munching their grass with nothing more than the twitch of an ear. They seemed to be enjoying the song; they weren’t agitated by the rain—or the thunder, in the distance but growing steadily louder. His mother stripped off the udder with a wee flourish and concluded with “A’ Ghaol!” Ian applauded, which startled all the goats into a belated chorus of mehhhs.
“Hark at ye, ye wee gomerel,” his mother said, but in a tolerant tone. She rose, loosed the goat from the stanchion, and picked up the brimming pail. “Here, carry this into the house, but tell Rachel not to churn it ’til the storm passes—I dinna ken if she knows ye mustn’t churn during thunder; the butter won’t come.”
“I think she kens well enough that ye dinna want to stand on the front stoop doin’ it while the rain’s pissing down, even if ye weren’t like to be struck by lightning.”
“Piff,” she said, and pulled her shawl up over her head. No sooner had she done so, though, than the rain changed abruptly to hail. “A Mhoire Mhàthair!” she said, making the horns. “Dinna go out there now, ye’ll be brained.”
She might have added something about the quality of his brain, but it was impossible to hear a word. Hailstones the size of pig’s knuckles were thundering on the tin roof, bouncing and rolling on the green grass outside the open shed. He set the pail down by the wall, where it wouldn’t be kicked over, and, raising a brow at his mother, crossed his arms and leaned against one of the timbers, prepared to wait. He’d worked himself up for this and he wasn’t doing it over again. Do it and have done; there wasn’t time to haver.
The goats, goatlike, wandered over to him and began to nose him familiarly for anything loose, but aside from his shirttail, which he’d already gathered up in his hand, there was nothing to attract them. Despite the open front of the shed and the cold breath of the passing storm, it was pleasantly warm amongst the inquisitive, hairy bodies, and he felt his anxiety over the coming conversation subsiding a bit.
His mother came over to stand by the goat nosing his buttocks and stood gazing contentedly out at the storm, scratching the goat between the ears. It was a fine view, to be sure; she’d chosen the site for her goat shed and he’d built it so she could look out through a wide gap in the trees and see Roan Mountain in the distance, very dramatic at the moment, its top disappearing into lowering black clouds that sparked and spat lightning. As they watched, a huge thunderbolt split both sky and air and he and the goats all jerked back at the dazzling crash.
As though the lightning had been a signal, though, the hail abruptly stopped, and the rain resumed, more quietly than before.
“It looks like the MacKenzies’ badge, no?” his mother remarked, nodding at the distant mountain. “Fires all over it.” There were in fact three small plumes of smoke rising from the lower slopes, where the lightning had struck something flammable. Nay bother; with this much rain, they wouldn’t burn long enough to matter.
“I’ve never seen a MacKenzie badge,” he said. “A mountain, is it? With fires?”
She glanced up at him, momentarily surprised, but then nodded. “Aye, I was forgetting. All that was gone before ye could walk.” Her mouth tightened, but only for a moment. “Did your da ever tell ye the Murrays’ motto?”
“Aye, but I dinna remember much … something about fetters, was it?”
“Furth, Fortune, and Fill the Fetters,” she said succinctly. “Go ye out, and make sure to come back wi’ gold and captives.”
That made him laugh.
“A warlike lot, were they? The auld Murrays?”
She shrugged. “Not as I ever noticed, but ken, your da did go for a mercenary when he was a young man. And your uncle Jamie, too.” Her mouth twitched. “I’m sure Jamie’s telt ye the Fraser motto, more than once. Je suis prest?”
“He has.” Ian smiled, a little ruefully. “I am ready.”
His mother smiled at that, glancing up at him. The shawl had slipped back to her shoulders, and her bound hair glowed like polished steel in the rain-light.
“Aye. Well, there’s a second Murray motto—the first was made by the Duke of Atholl, bloodthirsty auld creature—but the second one’s better: Tout prest.”
“Quite ready? Or ready for anything?”
“Both. I thought o’ that, now and then, whilst they were gone away to France. Je suis prest … Tout prest. And every night, I’d pray to the Virgin that they were. Ready, I mean.” She fell silent, her hand resting on the goat’s brown-and-white head.
He’d not find a better moment. He coughed.
“As for bein’ ready, Mam …” She caught the note in his voice and looked at him sharply.
“Aye?”
“I’ve spoken to Barney Chisholm. Ye’ll be welcome to stay wi’ him and Christina, while—whilst we’re gone. Rachel and me,” he added, swallowing. “We’re going up into the North, to see about—about—”
“Your Indian wife?” she asked dryly. “Dinna trouble yourself; I’ve already asked the MacDonald lassies to care for the goats.”
“You … what?” He felt as though she’d stuck out a foot and hooked his legs out from under him. She gave him a look of mild exasperation.
“Ye dinna think I’d let Rachel follow ye alone through a war, and her wi’ that lolloping great bairn of yours?”
“But …” The words died in his throat. He kent his mother well enough to see that she meant it. And no matter what the Frasers said their motto was, he kent fine that it might as well have been Stubborn as a Rock. He’d seen that look on Uncle Jamie’s face often enough to recognize it now.
“Besides,” she added, pushing the goat’s nose away from the fringe of her shawl, “I dinna suppose ye’ll find much gold wi’ the Mohawk, but I’d just as soon ye didna end up in fetters yourself in a redcoat prison.”
There wasn’t much to do but laugh. He had one last try, though, just so he could tell his da he had.
“D’ye think Da would let ye go do such a daft thing?”
“I dinna see that he’d have much room to talk,” she said, with a one-shouldered shrug. “Here, take this one.” She handed over the full pail and bent for the other one. “Besides, he wouldna try to stop me; wee Oggy’s his blood, as much as mine. Ian Mòr will be right there wi’ me, all the way.”
Ian swallowed a wee lump in his throat, but felt curiosity along with remembered grief.
“Ye feel Da by ye?” he asked. “I—do. Sometimes.”
His mother gave him the second pail and opened the gate across the front of the shed. The rain had let up and the air shimmered round them, silver in the grayness.
“Ye dinna stop loving someone just because they’re deid,” she said reprovingly. “I canna suppose they stop lovin’ you, either.”
“HOW OLD IS thy mother?” Rachel said to Ian. “I’d welcome her company, and to have help with the bairn would be a great relief, but thee knows better than I do what such a journey may be like.”