The pipes stopped abruptly, and the first of the men strode into the clearing and stopped before the stands. He raised his torch above his head and shouted, “The Camerons are here!”
Loud whoops of delight rang out from the stands, and he threw the torch into the kerosene-soaked wood, which went up with a roar, in a pillar of fire ten feet high.
Against the blinding sheet of flame, another man stepped out, and called, “The MacDonalds are here!”
Screams and yelps from those in the crowd that claimed kinship with clan MacDonald, and then—
“The MacLachlans are here!”
“The MacGillivrays are here!”
She was so entranced by the spectacle that she was only dimly aware of Roger. Then another man stepped out and cried, “The MacKenzies are here!”
“Tulach Ard!” bellowed Roger, making her jump.
“What was that?” she asked.
“That,” he said, grinning, “is the war cry of clan MacKenzie.”
“Sounded like it.”
“The Campbells are here!” There must have been a lot of Campbells; the response shook the bleachers. As though that was the signal he had been waiting for, Roger stood up and flung his plaid over his shoulder.
“I’ll meet you afterward by the dressing rooms, all right?” She nodded, and he bent suddenly and kissed her.
“Just in case,” he said. “The Frasers’ cry is Caisteal Dhuni!”
She watched him go, climbing down the bleachers like a mountain goat. The smell of woodsmoke filled the night air, mixing with the smaller fragrance of tobacco from cigarettes in the crowd.
“The MacKays are here!”
“The MacLeods are here!”
“The Farquarsons are here!”
Her chest felt tight, from the smoke and from emotion. The clans had died at Culloden—or had they? Yes, they had; this was no more than memory, than the calling up of ghosts; none of the people shouting so enthusiastically owed kinship to each other, none of them lived any longer by the claims of laird and land, but…
“The Frasers are here!”
Sheer panic gripped her, and her hand closed tight on the clasp of her bag.
No, she thought. Oh, no. I’m not.
Then the moment passed, and she could breathe again, but jolts of adrenaline still thrilled through her blood.
“The Grahams are here!”
“The Inneses are here!”
The Ogilvys, the Lindsays, the Gordons…and then finally, the echoes of the last shout died. Brianna held the bag on her lap, gripped tight, as though to keep its contents from escaping like the jinn from a lamp.
How could she? she thought, and then, seeing Roger come into the light, fire on his head and his bodhran in his hand, thought again, How could she help it?
5
TWO HUNDRED YEARS FROM YESTERDAY
You didn’t wear your kilt!” Gayle’s mouth turned down in disappointment.
“Wrong century,” Roger said, smiling down at her. “Drafty for a moonwalk.”
“You have to teach me to do that.” She bounced on her toes, leaning toward him.
“Do what?”
“Roll your r’s like that.” She puckered her brows and made an earnest attempt, sounding like a motorboat in low gear.
“Verra nice,” he said, trying not to laugh. “Keep it up. Prractice makes perfect.”
“Well, did you bring your guitar, at least?” She stood on tiptoes, trying to look behind him. “Or that groovy drum?”
“It’s in the car,” Brianna said, putting away her keys as she came up beside Roger. “We’re going to the airport from here.”
“Oh, too bad; I thought we could hang around and have a hootenanny afterward, to celebrate. Do you know ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ Roger? Or are you more into protest songs? But I guess you wouldn’t be, since you’re English—oops, I mean Scotch. You guys don’t have anything to protest about, do you?”
Brianna gave her friend a look of mild exasperation. “Where’s Uncle Joe?”
“In the living room, kicking the TV,” Gayle said. “Shall I entertain Roger while you find him?” She linked one arm cosily through Roger’s, batting her eyelashes.
“We got half the doggone MIT College of Engineering here, and nobody who can fix a doggone television?” Dr. Joseph Abernathy glared accusingly at the clusters of young people scattered around his living room.
“That’s electrical engineering, Pop,” his son told him loftily. “We’re all mechanical engineers. Ask a mechanical engineer to fix your color TV, that’s like asking an Ob-Gyn to look at the sore on your di—ow!”
“Oh, sorry,” said his father, peering blandly over gold-rimmed glasses. “That your foot, Lenny?”
Lenny hopped storklike around the room to general laughter, clutching one large sneaker-clad foot in exaggerated agony.
“Bree, honey!” The doctor spotted her and abandoned the television, beaming. He hugged her enthusiastically, disregarding the fact that she topped him by four inches or so, then let go and looked at Roger, his features rearranged in a look of wary cordiality.
“This the boyfriend?”
“This is Roger Wakefield,” Brianna said, narrowing her eyes slightly at the doctor. “Roger, Joe Abernathy.”
“Dr. Abernathy.”
“Call me Joe.”
They shook hands in mutual assessment. The doctor looked him over with quick brown eyes, no less shrewd for their warmth.
“Bree, honey, you want to go lay hands on that piece of junk, see can you bring it back to life?” He jerked a thumb at the twenty-four-inch RCA sitting in mute defiance on its wire stand. “It was working fine last night, then today…pffft!”
Brianna looked dubiously at the big color TV, and groped in the pocket of her jeans, coming out with a Swiss Army knife.
“Well, I can check the connections, I guess.” She flicked out the screwdriver blade. “How much time do we have?”
“Half hour, maybe,” called a crew-cut student from the kitchen doorway. He glanced at the crowd clustered around the small black-and-white set on the table. “We’re still with Mission Control in Houston—ETA thirty-four minutes.” The muted excitement of the TV commentator came in bursts through the more vivid excitement of the spectators.
“Good, good,” said Dr. Abernathy. He laid a hand on Roger’s shoulder. “Plenty of time for a drink, then. You a Scotch man, Mr. Wakefield?”
“Call me Roger.”
Abernathy poured a generous measure of amber nectar and handed it over.
“Don’t imagine you take water, do you, Roger?”
“No.” It was Lagavulin; astonishing to find it in Boston. He sipped appreciatively, and the doctor smiled.
“Claire gave it to me—Bree’s mama. Now, there was a woman with a taste for fine whisky.” He shook his head nostalgically, and raised his glass in tribute.
“Slàinte,” Roger said quietly, and tipped his own glass before drinking.
Abernathy closed his eyes in silent appreciation—whether of the whisky or the woman, Roger couldn’t tell.
“Water of life, huh? I do believe that particular stuff could raise the dead.” He set the bottle back in the liquor cabinet with reverent hands.