God's Highlander (5 page)

Mairi Ross appeared at Wyatt's side. Handing him a battered pewter mug, she commenced to half-fill it with whisky poured from a large earthenware jar. Then she went around the circle of her brothers pouring drinks for them into wooden cups. Wyatt realised that, as a guest, he had been given the family's best drinking-vessel.

‘Your health, Preacher.' Eneas Ross raised his cup in a simple toast.

‘God's blessing on you and yours.'

The strength of the whisky reached Wyatt's nose long before it touched his lips, and when he swallowed it drove the breath from his throat. Twice he tried to speak, but not until the third attempt did a voice that was not recognisable as his own say: ‘I haven't tasted whisky like this since I left the Isles. Where's it made?'

Knowing grins about the fire gave Wyatt his answer, but Eneas Ross said: ‘It was a gift, given in return for a young pig. It isn't done to question another man's generosity.'

Wyatt took Eneas Ross's point and made no further mention of the source of the illicitly distilled whisky during his chat with the men of the Ross family.

Declining a second drink, Wyatt explained that he wanted to speak to Lachlan Munro before returning home.

‘You know where the Munros are?' It was the first time Mairi Ross had spoken to Wyatt since his arrival.

‘They've built a lean-to on the other side of the mountain. Lachlan isn't at all well. I want to tell him I've persuaded John Garrett to give the family a cot.'

‘You've persuaded Lord Kilmalie's factor to give a cot to a Highlander?' Eneas Ross's question broke the incredulous silence that fell upon the men about the fire at Wyatt's words.

‘A cot
and
a piece of land. Garrett's also agreed to give Lachlan two young sows by way of compensation for what he's lost. All he needs now is a cow to provide milk for that young family of his.'

Eneas Ross's glance moved around the fire and it was answered with a nod from each son.

‘We'll loan him a milk-cow until he's raised a crop or two and has money to spend.'

Wyatt beamed about him. ‘Eneas, I believe the Lord has guided my footsteps this way today – ay, and sent a storm to drive me to your home. God bless you all.'

‘If I made a gift of a cow to every Highlander who's been given a cot by Factor Garrett, I'd be no poorer than I am today – and you're the first preacher to give a blessing inside this house. I thank you for that.'

‘Minister Gunn never came here?' Wyatt was surprised. He had been given to understand that his predecessor had been welcomed into every house in the parish of Eskaig.

‘Preacher Gunn was well thought of in the communities along the loch-side, but I doubt whether he ever toiled up the side of a mountain in his life. We have no Sunday suits to wear to church, so we were never his kind of people.'

‘There'll always be a place for the Rosses in my church, however you're dressed. If you don't find your way there soon, I'll need to come here again. Thanks for your “water of life”. It's put the strength back in my legs.'

‘One of my lads will come with you. The rain's stopped, but the cloud has lowered….'

‘
I'll
show him the way.' The unexpected offer came from Mairi Ross.

Her words brought Eneas Ross's bushy eyebrows together in a frown, and Mairi's chin came up defiantly.

‘Tibbie and I have made clothes for Elsa's two youngest from a couple of our old dresses. If they're to be living among folk, she'll want them to look respectable.'

Eneas Ross had seen the nakedness of the youngest Munro children. He nodded. ‘You know the mountains as well as anyone, girl – better than most – and the rest of us have work to do now the rain's stopped for a while. Tell Lachlan he or the boy can come for the cow whenever he's a mind.'

T
HE MIST OUTSIDE the thatched cottage was so thick it was impossible to see for a distance of more than ten paces, but Mairi Ross was unconcerned. Clutching a bundle of home-made clothing, she strode barefoot across the coarse Highland grass with the assurance of someone who knew exactly where she was heading. Wyatt had already gained the impression she went through life with the same confidence in herself. She moved with the long easy stride of someone used to walking long distances across the wide empty country.

‘You have a freedom that's rare for a girl, Mairi Ross.' Wyatt broke a silence that had held for ten minutes after leaving the small crowded cottage.

Mairi shrugged. ‘Have I? I wouldn't know. Father was so used to sons when I came along he didn't think to treat me any different. Does it bother you?'

‘It's not my concern. It's your life.'

There was just a trace of amusement in Mairi's eyes when she said: ‘I thought preachers weren't happy unless they were changing people. Making them all dress alike and sitting them in neat little rows in a kirk. Isn't that what being a preacher is all about?'

‘Not to me, it isn't. I believe for much of the time it's possible to feel closer to God up here in the mountains than in a kirk. The important thing is to teach people to recognise God
wherever
they find Him.'

Mairi thought about this for a few minutes before saying seriously: ‘That's the way I've always felt, but I could never have said so to Preacher Gunn. He certainly wouldn't have said such a thing to me – or to anyone else.' She gave him a sidelong glance. ‘You're a rare kind of minister, Mr Jamieson. I'm not forgetting that you probably saved Father's life down in Eskaig the day you arrived – and my brothers',
too. They'll remember. It's rare for anyone to take the part of a Highland crofter in these times. That reminds me…. How did you come to take Lachlan and Elsa Munro's part against the factor?'

Wyatt gave Mairi a sketchy explanation of his meeting with young Ewan Munro and told her what he had found when he reached the spot where Lachlan Munro had built a shelter for his family.

He was still talking when Mairi suddenly reached out and gripped his arm, bringing him to a halt.

‘What is it?'

‘Can't you hear?'

Wyatt listened. Above the wind he heard a distant sound that might have been surf pounding on a long sandy beach – but they were many miles from the sea up here in the mountains.

‘It's a squall. A bad one.' Mairi looked about her, seemingly seeing beyond the enveloping mist. ‘This way. Run!' She set an example, and Wyatt followed, hard put to keep up with her.

A couple of minutes later she scrambled into a crevice between tumbledown boulders and pulled him in after her. There was a shelter here, of sorts. A framework of branches had been driven in the ground; other branches were woven through them, and turfs and grass laid on top, weighted down with stones.

‘I built it,' Mairi explained. ‘I bring the cattle up here sometimes.' She needed to shout above the wind which was rising in a frightening crescendo.

Wyatt shifted his position beside her. The shelter had been built for only one person. It was very cramped with the two of them inside.

The wind increased in ferocity until it seemed it must carry all before it. The framework of the small shelter creaked and complained, and tufts of grass were peeled away. And then the rain arrived. It struck with a force that caused part of the tiny structure to cave in, and before he could raise a hand to save it Wyatt's hat was snatched away by the wind. The battered shelter groaned and distorted as its two occupants inched as far back as they could into the crevice between the rocks. Suddenly a section of the crude roof was carried away and rain poured in upon Mairi.

Removing his coat with great difficulty inside the tiny beleaguered shelter, Wyatt pulled it over both their heads as they huddled closer together. They did not talk. The sheer ferocity of the storm rendered
conversation impossible, but each gained comfort in the other's presence as it raged through the mountains.

The storm passed on as abruptly as it had arrived. One moment the wind was screaming furiously about the shelter – and then it had moved on. Deserted by its powerful ally, the rain faltered and died away, leaving only the dark angry clouds to menace them.

Not until now did Wyatt realise he was holding Mairi very close to take advantage of what shelter was provided by his coat. Mairi, too, was aware of their closeness. She avoided his eyes as he released his hold on her and disentangled the sodden mass of his coat.

‘I can't remember ever experiencing such a tempest.' Wyatt's voice sounded tremulous to his own ears. The sheer violence of the storm had made him acutely aware of man's insignificance in the world God had created.

‘It's not over yet.' Mairi shook back her long dark hair, soaked by the rain despite all Wyatt's efforts to protect her. ‘This is only a lull. Listen.'

Wyatt could hear nothing for a moment, then he caught the sound of the wind approaching once more, howling across the mountain-tops towards them. As he hurriedly wrung out his coat and placed it about them once more, Mairi said: ‘I hope Lachlan and Elsa have chosen a well-sheltered spot. Where did you say they were?'

‘I didn't, but they're camped well up the slope in the glen that breaks the mountains to the east of Eskaig. They're beside the stream, well down in a gully. They should be out of much of the wind, at least.'

Mairi threw off the water-heavy coat. ‘Tell me where.
Exactly
where. Not beside the stream that flows through Ranald's Glen … the one that comes down from the mountains in a series of waterfalls?'

‘It sounds like the place, but I went no farther than Lachlan's camp…. Where are you going?'

Mairi was squirming her way out of the narrow shelter. Reaching the entrance, she turned to look back at him. ‘The stream is known as “Ranald's Lament”. Many years ago, in a storm similar to the one we've just had, all the women of a small clan were swept away and drowned while summer-feeding cattle there. Water from most of the peaks on either side of the glen flows down to Loch Eil through that one glen.'

Wyatt was alarmed. ‘Then, we might already be too late?'

‘Yes.' Mairi was on her feet now, and Wyatt quickly followed her out into the mist and rain.

 

By the time Wyatt and Mairi reached the glen of Ranald's Lament the storm had whipped itself to a fury once more. They made slow progress, doubled almost in half, each with an arm crooked before their face to protect eyes from the bruising rain and battling to make progress against the wind.

The noise all about them was alarming, the wind screaming unintelligible obscenities at the intruders who dared defy its power.

During brief lulls, when it seemed the wind was gathering its breath for a further onslaught, another sound could be heard: the noise of rushing water.

Soaked and battered, Wyatt and Mairi eventually reached the shelter of the glen and began a cautious descent from the mountains. The sound of fast-running water was ominously loud here. The booming of tens of thousands of gallons of water cascading from the surrounding peaks and slopes and thundering into the glen below.

Water poured from every rocky ledge on the steep slopes about Wyatt and Mairi, and somewhere far below it joined to form a river. A great, powerful, surging, foaming, awesome river that carried before it trees, bushes, earth and rocks. Gouging a new wide path on its headlong journey to Loch Eil.

The rain had driven the mist from the mountains, and Wyatt and Mairi looked in horror at the scene below them.

‘Where was their shelter?' Mairi asked the question and dreaded the answer she might receive.

Wyatt shook his head. Nothing looked the same. It would never
be
the same again. Shaking off his thoughts, he made a determined effort to locate the place where he had last seen the luckless Munro family.

‘It was lower than this, I'm sure. Probably as much as five or six hundred feet farther down the glen.'

‘Then, I don't fancy their chances of survival. The glen's a dangerous place after any rain, but I've never seen it as bad as this before.'

In her anguish Mairi screwed up the clothes she and her sister-in-law had made for the youngest Munro children. When she realised what she was doing it seemed for a moment she would throw them away. Instead, she set off down the slope, and Wyatt followed.

The rain had eased considerably by the time Wyatt called Mairi to a halt.

‘This is where Lachlan had his shelter.'

The spot was two feet under rushing water, the debris strewn all around and caught between rocks providing clear evidence that the water had been even deeper after the earlier deluge.

‘Are you sure?'

Mairi wanted to believe Wyatt was wrong – after all, he had visited the spot only once – yet she knew instinctively that Wyatt would not have declared this to be the place unless he was quite certain.

Mairi stood in the rain, dark hair hanging in long wet tresses about her shoulders and the cheap dress clinging to her body. She looked a picture of despair, and Wyatt's heart went out to her. Grasping her arm, he said: ‘I'm sorry, Mairi. I wouldn't have brought you here had I realised what had happened.'

Wyatt's genuine sympathy almost broke down the flimsy barrier of self-control Main was trying hard to maintain. She dared not reply.

Suddenly Wyatt's grip on her arm tightened. ‘Listen!'

He had heard a faint sound, almost inaudible above the background thunder of water. It might have been the cry of an eagle, returning to the mountains after being driven away by the storm…. Then Wyatt heard the sound again and knew it had been made by no bird. It was a child's cry for help!

Mairi had heard it, too, and already she was scrambling and sliding down the steep wet hillside towards the swollen stream.

Wyatt shouted a warning, but if she heard she chose to ignore it. He did not catch up with her until she had reached the water's edge, close to an awesome waterfall. Hundreds of tons of water thundered down from about forty feet above them, throwing up a curtain of spray that made it almost impossible to see anything. It was equally unlikely they would have heard any cries for help emanating from this spot.

Wyatt tried to explain all this to Mairi. Before he could make himself heard he needed to take her arm and lead her fifty yards away, to a spot where the rocky uneven ground split the fast-running water into a hundred interlinked channels.

Even as he was speaking they both heard the sound again – and this time Wyatt was certain. It
was
a child. Then Mairi gripped Wyatt's arm and pointed ahead.

‘There … look!'

He saw a movement on one of the tiny islands that had been formed by the floodwater. Suddenly a small girl rose to a standing position from among the debris strewn about her. In her arms she held a baby.

‘It's Kirstie … with Barbie!'

The child saw Wyatt and Mairie at the same time and became so excited it seemed she was about to plunge into the river and make for them.

Waving his arms frantically, Wyatt shouted: ‘Stay there. Stay where you are. We'll come to you. Don't move!'

‘How are you going to reach her?'

There was a wide and fast-flowing expanse of water separating them from the children, and Wyatt had no answer to Mairi's question.

‘There must be a way. There
has
to be.'

Wyatt's words were more hopeful than accurate. The island was situated more than three-quarters of the way to the far side of the swollen torrent.

‘We might reach them from the other side, but I can see no way of crossing….'

Fed by a whole network of swollen brooks pouring from the surrounding peaks, the river gained in strength as it poured down the mountainside.

‘I know a way across. Come,' said Mairi.

She shouted for Kirstie Munro to remain where she was with her young charge, then began to make her way up the slope, heading back towards the great waterfall she and Wyatt had passed a short time before. By the time Wyatt caught up with her the thunder of the water made it impossible for him to ask what she thought she was doing. Then she took his hand and headed straight for the waterfall, taking a seemingly suicidal course.

Seeing the anxiety on his face, Mairi shouted an explanation that was lost in the noise of the water. She tugged at his hand determinedly and he followed, but with increasing anxiety.

Mairi never faltered. Keeping close to the cliff-face, she walked
behind
the wall of water crashing down only feet away from them.

The noise here was deafening, and spray leaped all about them, preventing them from seeing what lay ahead. Soon they began wading through knee-deep water. Then it was waist-high, swirling back from
the falls. It was cold, too, cold enough to have Wyatt gasping for breath. Suddenly the water became shallower. Moments later they were clear of the waterfall, wading through the floodwater that swirled all about them.

Stumbling clear of the water, Wyatt found he was shivering, as much with realisation of what they had just accomplished as with cold, while his head felt as though it had been resting against an anvil in a busy blacksmith's shop.

Mairi was shivering, too, but she did not release his hand. Instead she began awkwardly running over the sodden slippery ground, dragging him after her.

They located the island on which the two children were stranded, but reaching it would not be as easy as Wyatt had hoped. There were a number of deep channels between the bank and the island, and one carried a fierce current of water that reached as high as Wyatt's armpits. When he attempted to cross this channel he was swept off his feet by the current and was lucky to be deposited in shallower water some distance down the hillside.