Red Skye at Night (2 page)

Angus stopped, turned to face Ritchie, his face a reddening mask of pure fury. He rarely raised his voice, rarely had to. His word was law here, his authority absolute. No one would gainsay him on his own land, his own croft. Not his wife, nor his son. And definitely not some meddling upstart bitch who’d somehow managed to inveigle her way into the soft-headed Ritchie’s affections.

“That English bitch is not welcome here, and she ne’er will be. Now you listen to me, lad, and listen well. Ye’ll tell her to go, and bid good riddance to ‘er. There’s plenty o’ nice lasses hereabouts, lasses what’d suit ye well and who know when to keep their legs together too. Pregnant… Christ Almighty. She must ha’ seen ye comin’.”

There the matter might have rested. Certainly it was where Angus expected it to rest. He’d said his piece—the discussion was over, the matter closed. He half turned, his countenance again set on his home and his dinner. His sanguine opinion on the issue was sorely tested when Ritchie’s fist connected with his jaw.

Angus spun in a half circle, the force of the blow ringing in his ears as he dropped the sledgehammer and sprawled on his back, flattening the heather beneath him. His son towered over Angus’ prone length, chest heaving, eyes shining with an emerald glitter Angus could not recall observing previously. Anger churned in the man’s gut as he sprang to his feet, fists raised.

“Raise yer hand to me, would ye? Ye’ve a lesson tae learn, lad, an’ I’ll be teachin’ it now, I think.”

“No you won’t, old man. Ye have the wrong in this. Ye’ll need to admit it eventually so why not now? I’m sorry I hit ye, but ye had it comin’. Let’s set this behind us and look ahead to bein’ a family. Now, before it’s too late.” Ritchie backed away from his enraged father, though his fists remained up.

Angus noted that one of his son’s knuckles was bleeding, a fact from which he derived some measure of satisfaction. There was little else in the way of comfort in this mess, though. Still gripped with near blinding rage, Angus nevertheless knew this was a turning point. He must win this confrontation. He simply had to. His entire way of life, his ancestors’ way of life, was at stake. Ritchie would conform. There was no alternative. If the only way to make his point was to pummel some sense into the lad, he would.

The two men circled each other, their feet trampling a round trail in the springy heather on the hillside. Angus was intent on watching his son’s movements, impervious to the voice approaching, calling out to them, the pounding of running feet.

“What are ye doin’? Stop this. Stop now. Angus, what’re ye about?” Ann-Marie McLeod came charging up the hillside, her thick tweed jacket flapping in the stiff summer breeze. Mud-spattered black wellington boots and a knee-length woolen skirt the same shade of purple as the heather surrounding them completed her practical ensemble. Neither man answered her.

“Ye’ll not bring that flighty little bitch into my house an’ there’s an end. If I have to convince ye of that wi’ me fist I will, make no mistake…” Angus lowered his head, glaring at Ritchie under his brows.

“No, Da’. That’s not how this is going to go. You know it. I know it. Mam knows it too.”

“Yer mam knows what I tell her to know. And ye’ll no’ be marryin’ Sarah Harrison.” Angus lunged at Ritchie, but the younger man sidestepped his advance with ease.

With an entire hillside at his disposal, the chances of Angus managing to corner him and land a blow were remote. Angus snarled in frustration as Ritchie continued to elude his father’s flailing fists long enough for his mother to reach them. The small woman flung herself between the two men.

“Angus McLeod, are ye mad? Ritchie, what is this? What on earth’s happened?”

“This doesna concern ye, lass. Go inside.” Angus issued his instructions, expecting his wishes to meet with the instant obedience he was accustomed to.

Ann-Marie stood her ground, chest heaving as she shifted with them while Angus and Ritchie continued to circle each other. On this occasion his normally compliant wife had other ideas, using her own body to keep them apart.

“And leave ye to kill each other out here on the heather? People can see ye. Ye’ll be the talk o’ the kirk. An’ ye’re scarin’ the sheep. Come on. Come in the house and talk it over.”

“I told ye to go in. Now do as ye’re told,” Angus growled at Ann-Marie, though his glare never wavered from Ritchie.

“We’ll all go in. I’ve a nice mutton stew on, an’ some fresh bread.” She reached for her husband’s upraised arm, intending to lead him away. By some instinct, she seemed to have surmised Angus to be the more dangerous of the two. Ritchie looked riled, but somewhat less than murderous. Though his wife’s presence had a slightly calming effect on Ritchie, Angus was ready to admit that the same could not be said of himself.

He shook off her restraining hand, his contemptuous glare withering. Ann-Marie frowned at him. She appeared confused, and Angus couldn’t blame her for that. Angus could be stern, usually was. He and Ritchie could always find something to argue about. But he could not recall the lad ever having driven him to such raw fury and he knew she was seeing that in his face now. She looked stunned.

She had a point. To be brawling out on the moors with his son, in full view of the neighbors they’d known all their lives? He must have lost his mind.

“Come now, we’ll talk indoors. All of us.” Always the peacemaker in their home, Ann-Marie directed her glance at her son, who simply shook his head sadly.

“Has he told ye? Has he told ye about that lass?” Angus bellowed the question at Ann-Marie.

She turned to him, frowning. “Lass? Ye mean Sarah?”

“Sarah!” Angus spat the word at his wife, glowering at Ritchie as he did so. “Yes, I mean Sarah Harrison. Has he told ye that the conniving little bitch is expectin’?”

“Sarah? Sarah’s pregnant?” Ann-Marie looked to Ritchie for confirmation.

“Aye, Mam. Ye’re going to be a grandma.” Ritchie’s gaze was steady, unapologetic.

Ann-Marie merely nodded. “Aye, well, I canna say I’m surprised. Still, we’ll manage. It’s nay what I would ha’ planned but no cause to be throwing punches at each other. What’s got into ye both?”

“Manage? There’ll be no managing, at least not by my hearth. The bairn’s none of ours. I’ll lay a year’s peat store on that. There’ll be no bastards foisted on me or mine, not while I’m head of this house.” Angus reached for the sledgehammer, and Ann-Marie stepped forward again, as though she believed he intended to attack their son with it.

Ritchie seemed not to share that concern. “Now ye see why I had to land him one, Mam?”

Ann-Marie’s gaze swung from one to the other, her bafflement plainly etched across her face. “Angus, what’re ye sayin’? Of course the bairn’s ours.” She spared an admonishing look for her son. “Bloody careless, I thought we’d taught the lad better, but we’ll cope. Sarah’s a grand lass, a clever girl…”

“She’s a sassenach and a bloody whore…” Angus was ready to expand further on his view but Ritchie’s fist once more connected with his jaw to put a stop to his tirade. He was laid out among the purple heather again, and it was left to his wife to help him to his feet. Ritchie turned and strode for the long, low cottage nestled in the bottom of the valley, the McLeod family home for three generations.

* * * *

What was behind all this? Why did his father hate Sarah so? Her English heritage was part of the explanation, perhaps, but Angus’ hatred, his sheer rage back there on the hillside, went beyond the rational. Angus McLeod was stubborn, that was true, but Ritchie had never seen his father so beyond reason, so impervious to any level of compromise. Perhaps his mother might succeed in reasoning with his father where he had failed, though he doubted that. And what if she did? Given the vile things Angus had said about Sarah and their baby, there was no prospect of the new family making their lives here, not now. He couldn’t ask that of Sarah, wouldn’t expose her to it even if she were willing.

Crofting was a hard life, but it was the life his father loved. Or perhaps it was the only existence Angus saw for himself and his family, a timeless bond between the McLeods and their few acres of Skye, a mutual dependency forged over the generations and seemingly unbreakable. Until now. At some level Ritchie understood that Angus saw Sarah as a threat, her education something alien to him. Reading and writing were necessary skills, but beyond some basic level, Angus had no use for them. He saw no need for books on an isolated croft perched on the edge of the Sound of Shiant, unless it was to provide extra weight to hold the roof on in a storm. Sarah represented change, and Angus would resist change to his dying breath. Sarah had new ideas—Angus often accused her of filling Ritchie’s head with dangerous talk of progress, mechanization, commercial reality. None of those had anything to do with him, with his croft, with his traditional way of life. So in Angus’ thinking, Sarah Harrison had no place here.

Knowing that, they’d talked—he and Sarah. They had tried to work something out, some way of preserving the McLeod way of life whilst moving with the times. Sarah could teach, after the baby was born. His mam could help with the littl’un— he knew she’d love a bairn to fuss over. Ritchie could continue to work with his father, and would run the place alone if, when, Angus returned to the sea where he eked out extra funds from fishing. Angus was often gone for a couple of weeks at a time, working the trawlers in the North Sea, and at those times, Ritchie was needed here. When he could be spared from Kilmuir and when an opportunity presented, he hired himself out doing odd jobs, laboring on farms or helping with construction. Ritchie was strong. He had no objection to hard work. Now he had someone to work for, a family of his own to make it all worthwhile. If only his da’ would have listened, understood, shifted just a little bit to make the space.

Ritchie peered out of the small window of the croft and could just make out the two figures of his parents far up on the hillside. They hadn’t moved since he’d stormed away from the fight with Angus. His mother’s smaller figure was positioned in front of the tall, wiry silhouette of his father, her hands on her hips as she jutted her determined chin at her husband. Ritchie smiled bitterly to himself, imagining what she would be saying. She’d be telling Angus what a fool he was—ignorant and prejudiced, intolerant and self-centered. She was correct on all scores, and Angus might even agree with most of her assessment himself, though he’d never say so. And on this matter, he would never shift.

Ann-Marie had hardly turned a hair at the mention of Sarah’s condition, which led Ritchie to suspect that she’d already worked it out for herself. She was sharp that way, and if he was right, his resourceful mother would already be planning how to ‘manage’, as she put it.

She’d have her hands full managing Angus, let alone their baby. Not that the latter was going to be her concern after all. Ritchie turned from the window, saddened, frustrated that he’d so spectacularly failed to gain even the smallest inch of ground with his father. He had to leave. He knew that.

He glanced around him at the small, spartan room that served as kitchen, dining room, living room and bedroom for his parents. The two fireside chairs, the small hearth glowing with a peat fire, surrounded by a gleaming cooking range. The mutton stew his mother had mentioned was no doubt bubbling merrily in the pot on the stove. Ritchie could smell it, mingling with the fresh, earthy aroma of today’s bread, still warm from the oven.

He looked around him, knowing he was seeing all this for the last time. The solid oak dresser against the far wall, the tiny table and three home-made chairs tucked under the window. The floor was partly covered by a multi-colored rag rug, originally crafted by his grandmother and lovingly repaired by Ann-Marie over the years. His parents’ bed was fitted into an alcove on the wall opposite the fireplace, an old-style box bed hand-carved by his great-grandfather. Ritchie had been born in that bed.

He told himself he wouldn’t miss crofting. It was a harsh, unforgiving life, and one that he knew was dying out, whatever his father might want. The future his father saw for him, for all of them, was an illusion, a dream. It was Angus’ dream, not his. But even so…

Ritchie straightened his shoulders and went to his room off the kitchen. He needed to pack.

* * * *

By the time Angus and Ann-Marie arrived at the cottage, Ritchie had managed to cram most of his possessions into a large sailor’s rucksack, an old one of his father’s. The bag was dumped in the middle of the main room. He was rummaging in the large dresser as the older couple entered the croft.

“Ritchie…” his mother began.

He turned to glance over his shoulder at her and shook his head. “Enough, Mam. I’m leaving. I have to, an’ I won’t be back.”

“Ye’ll fucking sit down and listen to me. Yer home is here. Ye’re needed here.” Angus was at least managing to keep his voice down now, though his words offered nothing in the way of reconciliation.

Ritchie didn’t even turn to face Angus as he replied, his tone now even. He was resigned to the inevitable. “I’m done listening. It’s ye who needs to listen, and adapt, though it’s too late now. I love Sarah. I love our baby. We’re going to be a family, with or without you.”

“No, no…”

Ritchie’s own words had had no effect, but he thought Ann-Marie’s wail of anguish might have been enough to give his father pause even now had the older man not been so blinded by his own rage and locked into his stubborn intransigence. Despite Angus’ taciturn demeanor, Ritchie knew that his father loved his mother and he was not in the habit of ignoring her wishes. But this… This was…

Ritchie found what he was searching for in the bureau—his birth certificate. He pocketed that then grabbed his holdall.

“Don’t go, oh please don’t go. Angus…” Ann-Marie was pleading, the tears already streaming down her cheeks

Ritchie hefted the bag over his shoulder. He stopped to hug his mother, wrapping his arms briefly around her slim shoulders. She was starting to weep in earnest, helpless to prevent this disaster unfolding in her living room. Angus turned his back on the scene, his shoulders stiff as he glared unseeing out of the window.