MacFarlane's Ridge (11 page)

He nudged her off the back of the mare, and then hopped down beside her. "I want to show you something."

Leaving the horse where it was, he led her through a tangle of thick brush. It was about mid-day now, and the day was as cool and beautiful as the one before. As Cam stumbled along behind him, she could see her breath in the air. She had no idea where he was taking her, and was starting to get nervous.

"Where are we going?" she pleaded.

"There," he said, and pushed her past him. She stumbled into an open area, and when she looked up, she gasped in awe. She was standing at the top of a sheer cliff, looking out over a large valley. It was breathtaking.

"Oh," she breathed. "It's incredible."

"Aye. I found it on my way here. It reminds me of home."

Cam sighed. "It reminds me of home, too." With a sudden pang, she realized that she had seen this valley before. She had been in her little Civic, scooting along at seventy miles an hour, talking to Seth on a cellular phone and munching a Big Mac. It had been five years ago, or was it two hundred years in the future? Whenever it was, the view was marred by graffiti along the mountainside and the roar of semi trucks. She gulped, and wiped her eyes surreptitiously, hoping he wouldn't notice. He did.

"Ye'll be missing your home, then?"

She nodded. "I'll go back after I find Wanda, though. Maybe I should just consider this a vacation."

Rob stared at her. "There's something I've been meaning to say to you, if ye plan to stay here, then."

She glanced up. "What's that?"

He watched her carefully. "I haven't been at Ian's long, you understand, for I am usually at sea, so I don't know the folk in the area well. But there's one thing I do ken about them. People tend to mistrust what they dinna know."

She narrowed her eyes. "And you're saying?"

"They'll look at ye strange. You walk about in men's trousers, and your hair uncovered and short like a lad's. Ye use words I have never heard of, or you use them in a way that strikes me as queer. The folk here are simple. They may well be afraid of you, and that can put ye in danger. Not only that, it could put my family in danger."

"But you're not afraid of me, are you?" she asked, hoping he was not.

He shook his head. "Nae. But then, I have sailed around a good portion of this world and seen many different kinds of folk. I have been to countries where their women walk about in little more than a sash around their waists, and I've seen places where the ladies are not allowed out in the street without a veil over their face, and all you can be seeing of them is the eyes. But these people, these people here... most have never seen anything but this place and whichever one they left to get here. If ye tell them how you came to be here, they'll think you a witch for sure."

She laughed. "A witch! That's ridiculous."

"It's nae laughing matter! If ye are to stay here ye shall have to make some concessions!"

She noticed he was rolling his r's. "Your accent is getting thicker as you get more worked up."

He threw his hands up in the air, exasperated. "D'ye hear what I'm saying?"

"Yes," she sighed. "You want me to try to blend and look like I'm from here."

"I know you're a bit far from home," he added apologetically.
If you only knew
, she thought. "But," he continued, "I think ye should maybe try putting on a dress or something decent. I dinna know what those awful things on your feet are, and those breeks are scandalous."

"The things on my feet are hiking boots, from L.L. Bean, and these breeks are called jeans. I'll change them if I have to. Besides," she said, "by the time we get where we're going, I'm sure they won't be fit to wear anymore anyway. As far as people being suspicious, I’ll just tell everyone I came here straight from Charleston and we don’t even have to mention my little detour through the Faeries’ Gate, okay?"

He snorted, grumbling something about her boots under his breath, and they made their way back to the mare, waiting patiently where they had left her. Cam's legs were sore from riding through the morning, and she was still a little achy from her excursion in the whirlpool. That, topped with residual bruises from the car accident --
when was that, three nights ago? Two hundred twenty five years from now? --
made her groan as he pulled her up behind him.

"You haven't spent over much time on a horse, then, lass?"

She shook her head. "Not really, no. I worked in a bookstore up until a few months ago, then opened up my own shop."

Rob nodded. "Aye, you're a merchant's wife then? He'll be looking for you, won't he?"

"No, I'm not married."

"At thirty two, you're not married?" He was appalled. "What's wrong with ye? Did you have no dowry? Or are ye a widow?”

She laughed. She liked the way he talked. His openness and honesty were refreshing, and she felt completely at ease in his presence. "I just didn't want to get married. I guess I didn't find anyone I loved enough. Or maybe he just didn't love me enough," she added, thinking of Seth and his so-called soul mate.

"Ah! So there was someone, then!" he exclaimed. "Ye say he didn't love you enough... but you were betrothed?"

"No," she muttered. "We never were. We just talked about getting married. But we never did. He found someone else."

"I would think your father would have asked the cad his intentions," Rob said sternly. "If ye were my daughter, you can be sure I would ask. I am thinking more and more that I wouldn't like living in Charleston."

She smiled, and seeing where this was going, decided to change the subject. "What about you? You've got to be older than me, and you said you're not married. Is there something wrong with
you
?"

She felt him tense, but didn't know if it was because of her question or because the mare had begun a descent down a particularly treacherous spot in the trail. "Well," he reflected. "It's different for a gentleman, aye? A young lassie shouldna' be marrying a foolish boy that has no means to support her. Tis much better for a man to be unmarried at thirty-six than a woman at thirty-two."

Cam blew a raspberry noise at him. "That's dumb. What about marrying someone just because you love them, instead of because they can financially support you?"

He shook his head. "Some of us marry for love," he reflected. "And those who do are the ones that get bit in the arse afterwards.”

She noticed he had said
some of us
. So he had been married once, and gotten burned, she thought. That was a shame.
Wait a minute,
she thought,
Mollie’s journal said something about a wife who ran off and left him.
Cam wished she could remember more details, but she had only skimmed over that part, busy as she was searching for entries on the Faeries’ Gate. She couldn't imagine any woman wanting to treat this man badly. That thought, in itself, made her nervous.

By nightfall, Cam was exhausted. Her entire body ached, and she knew that a night on the cold ground would make her feel even worse. When they stopped in a clearing, she had slid off the mare, Betsy, into a limp pile. Rob laughed and began building a fire. Charlie bounded off into the bushes.

"It takes a wee bit of getting used to," he smiled. "I'm more accustomed to being on the bow of a ship, ye ken, and when I came to Virginia for the first time last year my brother Ian met me in Richmond. He said,
Robbie, I've come to fetch ye back to the ridge wi' me
. And d'ye know that when I saw he meant me to ride this beast I near got back on my ship and pulled up the anchors. The first morning, I thought I should just ball up and die from the pain of it all."

Cam just groaned and rolled closer to the fire. "Mmmmph."

"Aye. Well, I shall be back. I think one of us should try to find some food, and I’ll wager it's not likely to be you, lass." With that, he disappeared into the woods.

When Cam opened her eyes again, the sun was out, and she looked around, disoriented. Rob was sitting on the other side of the fire, watching her. She blinked in the bright morning sun and sat up.

"Did I sleep all night?"

"It would appear that way. I went out and caught a fine fat rabbit, and when I got here you were snoring like a wild bear. I had thought you might wish to clean the rabbit for us, since I did the fetching," he said. "But no fear, I shall let ye clean the next one."

"Clean it? As in wash it?" she asked.

He stared at her, appalled. “Wash it? Imagine wanting to wash a rabbit!” He grinned, and she noticed a slight gap between his front teeth. "Nae, lass, ye don’t need to wash our rabbit. Ye have to clean it, as in skin it and pick out its innards so it's suitable for cooking and eating."

He must have noticed the look on her face. "What? How do folks in Charleston eat, if no one knows how to prepare a meal?"

Cam thought about Alice's tuna sandwiches, and the French bread pepperoni pizzas she liked so much, the ones that came in a bright red box out of the frozen food section. “Well, it’s a bit hard to explain...”

“Aye, everything about it seems to be,” he huffed. “I shall have to teach you. Mollie will have no use for ye about the house if you canna do anything productive. Can ye sew?”

“Actually, yes,” she said proudly. Granny Emily had made her learn how to sew and mend clothes fairly early on. Of course, that had mostly been with a sewing machine, but she could do some stitching by hand as well. No need to mention the old Singer to Rob MacFarlane.

“Thank the saints for that,” he grumbled. He tossed her what looked like a greasy drumstick. “It’s cold now, but it tasted fine last night when I roasted it.”

Cam was so hungry she didn’t complain about eating the rabbit.

A day later, at sundown, they reached the Wagner farmstead. So far, Cam's conversations with Rob had been fairly limited. Most of them consisted of his lecturing Cam on her inability to do some simple task, like start a fire or saddle the horse. She made up her mind to learn how to do things as quickly as possible, partly because it was inherent to her own survival, and partly because she was tired of being hounded by him. Other than that, he had been relatively silent. As they approached the small white house, Rob stopped the horse, and leaned over his shoulder to look at her.

"This is the house of a German family that I stayed with on my way. They are good folk, but a bit superstitious. I think it would be best if ye said as little as possible."

She opened her mouth to protest, but he shushed her with a glare. "I mean it, Cameron Clark. And further, I think we had best allow these fine people to believe ye are a cousin or some such relative of mine."

"Why?"

He sighed. "Ye are a bit thick, lass. D'ye think a man and a woman should be traveling about like this, especially with you dressed in such a manner? I mean, a proper lady would never wear breeks. Anyway, they'd think ye an indecent and scandalous woman, and wouldn't allow you in their house. And what kind of man would they think I was?"

"I suppose you're right," she answered doubtfully, looking down at her muddy jeans.. She kept trying to tell herself that she needed to follow his leads. This was his world, not hers, and she would have to play along if she was going to get through this. "I promise, I will be on my best behavior."

When they knocked at the door, Frau Wagner herself opened it.

"Aaaccchhh! Herr MacFarlane!" she shouted, and flung her arms around him, squeezing him tightly. She was a robust woman, with a pink face and a thick blonde braid. Suddenly she spotted Cam. "Ah! You have brought us another visitor! Who is this… person?"

Cam lowered her head and nodded to the woman. "Cameron Clark, ma'am," she said politely. “I’m his sister.”

Frau Wagner released Rob and embraced Cam so tightly she couldn't breathe. "
Wilkommen
!" she boomed in Cam's ear. "You come inside and have some stew,
ja
?"

She led them inside, and Cam gazed around in surprise. She was expecting this to be a primitive hovel with a dirt floor. It was anything but. The floor was made of rough planks, and the walls had been whitewashed. As far as she could tell, the house was divided into two rooms, with a fireplace between them, and a ladder led to a loft above. She noticed several plump, giggling children peeking down at her. On the hearth were pots and pans of cast iron, and a heavenly smell emanated from a large kettle in the middle. The room she was in was the common room, with a large table and several benches. In the middle of the table was a wooden bowl with fat loaves of bread in it. The room was kept toasty by the great roaring fire, which added to the light provided by several candles.

"Sit, sit," ordered Frau Wagner, pointing them to the benches. "You let me fix you some stew,
ja
? You have some
kuchen
, some bread in that bowl there. It is fine bread; my Gerthe baked it herself today."

As if on cue, the stout Gerthe herself appeared. She was about eighteen, and the spitting image of her mother. She made a beeline for Rob, then paused, noticing Cam.

"Hello," she said, her pink face broadening in a smile. "Herr MacFarlane has brought a guest to us! Welcome!"