Mythology Abroad (12 page)

“I’d rather carouse,” Martin muttered defiantly under his breath. “Have you ever seen such desolation?”

The wild ruggedness of the island did take some getting used to. After driving through Illinois wheat fields, Keith was accustomed to long stretches of nothingness, but the dramatically sharp rise and fall of the dark land was new to him. As they drove west, the wind whipped up more fiercely, soughing among the fences and shrubs, and causing the hanging fleece on the sheeps’ backs to sway like wash on a line.

“This is Callanish,” Miss Anderson announced, as the coach suddenly came upon a double row of small houses and farms. “To save a long, long drive every morning from Stornoway, everyone has been assigned to bed-and-breakfast establishments right here.” The coach slowed down sharply as they rounded a high curve. Suddenly, on their left was a low building with a peaked roof, looking as if it had weathered millennia. Ahead of them was a tiger-trap of pointed, weather-worn monoliths.

“And there,” Miss Anderson continued, pointing unnecessarily, “are the standing stones. The arms of the cross point toward the compass directions, though all but one of them are out of true. In the center of the inner ring is a round chambered tomb. The monument dates to approximately 2000 B.C.”

As they drew closer, the undifferentiated cluster spread into two thin arms of stones. Another double axis of tall stones pointed from the curve in the road toward a hill topped with more blocks. Several stones were missing from the pattern, but the effect was still impressive. Keith snapped away happily at the monument with his camera.

Two at a time, the group was dropped at the doors of farm houses that boasted small “B&B” signs in their front windows or nailed to the fences facing the road. For their housing among the spare population on the island, Keith and Holl were instructed to get out at the door of a small, trim house with a large, hedged garden that looked down over the western sea. Miss Anderson pushed between them, and knocked briskly on the door.

A slender, black-haired woman answered. “Mrs. Mackenzie,” Miss Anderson said. “These are your two young guests, Keith and Holl Doyle. When you’ve settled, meet us at the tea shop at the top of the hill,” the teacher instructed them.

“Yes, Miss Anderson,” they said in unison. She smiled. The boys watched her climb back aboard the bus, and shouldered their bags.

“Ah, come in, come in,” Mrs. Mackenzie urged, shooing them like chickens. “Close the door. The wind is strong today. There’s a fierce cold bite to it.”

“Yeah,” Keith said, pushing the door to with some effort. “And I thought this was July.”

“Well, come in and warm up,” Mrs. Mackenzie invited them. “Do you want some tea?”

“Uh, no, thanks,” Keith smiled, feeling his cheeks thawing already, once they were out of the wind. “This is a nice place.”

“Thank you. We like it here,” the slim woman said, ushering them through a doorway. “Make yourselves at home.”

An electric fire was glowing in the hearth of her sitting room. As they entered, four plump, tan cushions on the very edge of the woven oval hearth rug moved, arose into tall, smooth silhouettes, shoulderless like wine bottles and crowned with triangular sable ears.

“Hi, kitties,” Keith said, dropping to his knees beside them. The Siamese cats regarded him with cool, summing, blue eyes. All of them blinked once. “They’re beautiful.” He reached out to stroke one on the end, and the cat in the middle of the rug emitted an inviting, throaty groan.

“You may as well fuss Her Majesty first,” Mrs. Mackenzie warned him indulgently. “She’s in charge here.”

“Sure,” Keith said, scratching the cat behind her ears. She was slightly smaller than the other three, and her mask and paws were darker. Keith moved a finger around to scratch under the angle of the cat’s jaw. She purred, lowering her head to give his hand a wet, fishy-smelling kiss with her upper lip.

Holl approached the cats more cautiously. “They’re like Lladro statues,” he said, touching one with gingerly care. It leaned into his hand and slitted its eyes. Encouraged, he rubbed his knuckle softly around the pointed cup of its ear. His caress was answered by a huge rumble, surprising in such a slim beast. “Friendly.”

“Aye, well, he knows what you are,” the landlady said. “So do I.”

Aghast, Holl stopped playing with the cat and looked up at her. “He does?” The cat bumped impatiently at his hand, demanding more petting.

“Aye,” Mrs. Mackenzie repeated with satisfaction. “You’re cat people. They always know. Cats are wise. Will you come this way now, and we’ll see you settled?”

While Holl mentally counted his pulse and commanded it to slow down again, Keith grinned and picked up all their bags. Their hostess led them into a long hallway and pushed open the levered handle on one of the doors.

The room had been decorated in yellow and white, with sheer drapes over a wide window which faced the sea. The beds were deep twins covered with thick yellow and white flowered quilts. “This will be your room. Lav’s up the way. Breakfast is served between 7:30 and 9:00 in the morning. Will that suit you?”

“Sure,” said Keith, exchanging approving glances with Holl. They dropped their bags in the corner, and took turns in the bathroom washing off the grime of travel. Then, gathering their strength, they pushed out once more into the frigid wind.

At the top of the hill, Michaels waited in his rented car. At last, his two quarries emerged from the farmhouse at the bottom of the hill and started toward him. His thermos of coffee was chilling down quickly in the unseasonable cold. He wished he could go into the Tea Shop, only a few feet from the car, to warm up, but there was a fifty-fifty chance that his subjects were going in there, too. It wouldn’t do to get close enough for them to identify him later.

***

C
HAPTER THIRTEEN

If anything, the wind had become worse while they were inside the house. There was no movement amidst the clouds to tell from which direction the wind was coming, or any glimpse of the blue sky they had seen on the sail toward the island. They hiked up the hill against a downward gale.

“There’s ice in this wind, Keith Doyle,” Holl gritted, pulling his collar up around his face to just under his eyes. “The tide must be turning, or it would be blowing inland, following us.”

“I feel like Nanook of the North—no, I wish I
was
Nanook,” Keith grumbled, pulling the hem of his light jacket as close to his thin frame as he could to keep out the gusts. “
He
had a warm fur coat.”

The low, dark silhouette of the Tea Shop was in plain sight on the right side of the road they were climbing. Keith focused on its curious peaked roof like a rock formation to mark the end of a long hike. About twenty feet further up the steep path, the road leveled out somewhat, and Keith stood erect for the first time.

Before him, the stones of Callanish marched across the fenced-in field of grass. He was so fascinated by the formation that for a few moments, he forgot how cold he was. There was a clear and deliberate purpose in the way the stones had been laid out. He was curious who was so important in the ancient days that they buried him in the round cairn Keith knew to be in the middle of all that stone. It had to be the product of maybe thousands of hours of work, and hundreds of workers’ sweat. There was a feeling of power in the air, perhaps emanating from the stones themselves. Maybe the deceased was the priest of whatever this temple signified, or the chieftain responsible for its construction. Well, it wasn’t the Great Pyramid, but Keith was impressed. The Egyptians didn’t have to deal with ice storms in July when they built the Valley of Kings.

A few figures in colorful clothing were wandering among the dentine monoliths, stopping to touch the stones as they passed. Another small knot of people were sitting in a circle on the grass between the stones, talking earnestly and ignoring the wind blowing around them. Keith shivered, and wondered how they managed that. He had only been out a few minutes, but his ears and nose were already whipped into red icicles.

Huddled along the side of the Tea Shop was a cluster of grimy tents. More men and women, wearing odd combinations of garments, such as long skirts and surplus army jackets with shawls flung over, or loose cotton trousers with leather coats and wool hats, sat or lay full length near a fire set on stones in the midst of the grassy common. They glanced up disinterestedly at Keith and Holl as they passed.

The door was on the far side of the croft. Keith and Holl fled another gust of cold wind and all but tumbled inside through the narrow doorway.

The room within was low and modestly lit, but it seemed bright after the lowering sky outside. The thick walls held enough heat to thaw their faces and hands almost immediately. Keith let the surroundings register to his returning senses. On the left, the long chamber was lined with tables and benches of golden wood. His friends were seated at one of these, cradling teacups between their hands. They waved to Keith and Holl to join them. Immediately before them was a glass-topped counter, over which a girl was squinting at them.

“Close the door, then,” she ordered. She had dark hair and lashes, sharply contrasting with her pale skin, and eyes which tilted up slightly at the corners.

“Is it usually like this in summer?” Keith asked over his shoulder, as he pushed the door shut.

“Sometimes,” she admitted.

Keith rubbed his cheeks and felt his nose. It was still there, though numb. “Wow, what’s it like in winter?”

“More of the same, but livelier,” the girl said, smiling. Keith glanced to the right, and discovered that the rest of the Tea Shop was a small dry goods and souvenir store. A tall shelf unit filled with bolts of fabric stood next to the door, and beyond that was a rack of sweaters and coats.

“Coats! Great. Maybe I’d better buy a warm jacket,” he said impulsively. “That is, if you’re sure it won’t get nice tomorrow.”

“It might, and it might not. I can’t promise.”

“Hmm, I thought so.” Keith grinned. “Well, I’ll never make it home alive in this thing. How about you, Holl?”

But the young elf was already inspecting the rack of garments with interest. Keith shot a smile to the girl, and started pushing the hangers along one at a time. All the coats and jackets were made of the same kind of woven fabric. It felt coarse and smooth at the same time under his hand. A label fluttered from the neck of one hanger. Keith straightened it out to read it. “Harris Tweed,” it said.

The fabrics were surprisingly complex. The rough wool, which looked solid-colored from a distance, had dozens of colors blended into each piece. In a fabric which seemed made up only of shades of red, tiny hints of gold and blue like hidden jewels winked out at him between single black threads, invisible unless he stared at it closely. One bolt rolled up on the rack near the door had as part of its pattern vertical stripes of grey which were made up of twisted fibers of pink, black, and green.

There was a little pamphlet about the history of Harris Tweed on the wall. He read it, and then picked up a few of the coats to try on for size. Holl was silent in fascination, letting out only an admiring hiss as he browsed. “The coats are made by hand by a few local people,” the girl’s voice came from behind them. “The weavers are all locals, too.”

“You mean there are people weaving this stuff at home?” Keith asked, surprised, turning to face the young lady.

“Um-hm, and selling it, too. Stop anywhere you see a sign that says ‘Harris Tweed’. The genuine fabrics are stamped with the orb-and-cross Association insignia by an inspector. But I’ll warn you,” she shook a finger in Keith’s face, “you’d better like what you buy, because it will wear forever.”

“Wow.” Discarding garments of red and black, or peat brown, Keith chose a jacket of a blue and green tweed that sparkled with red, black, and gold, and paid the young woman over the counter. “I feel warmer already,” he assured her.

“Hey, Doyle, come on!” Charles called. “You’re the last ones.”

“Thanks again,” Keith said, and headed toward his friends.

“I’ll bring you some tea,” the young woman told him.

“What’s that for?” Edwin asked, as Keith sat down with his new purchase across his lap.

“Staving off death by hypothermia.”

“What for? It’ll be nice again in a few days, and you’ll have spent all your beer money.”

“I’m not betting my chances of getting pneumonia against two weeks of drinking. I only brought a windbreaker with me.” There was a gasp of laughter, and Miss Anderson corrected him, without a hair out of place.

“I think we call the same thing a windcheater, Keith. Your term has an indelicate meaning over here.” Her voice was stern, but her eyes twinkled. Keith tilted his head apologetically.

“I’m going to write a book comparing the logic of British slang with American,” he insisted with a sheepish grin. “We’re only pushing the wind aside. You’re cheating it. Hey, Holl, come and sit down! You can shop later.”

Reluctantly, Holl pulled himself away from the shelves of tweed fabric. “They’d love that at home,” he told Keith meaningfully. “Especially if it lasts forever.”

Keith waved a generous hand. “Bring some back. Bring lots. We’re going to have plenty of time to look around at the other weavers’ shops over the next two weeks. I’m going to wear this one on the dig. The lady said that it’s windproof”

“You’re going to look a prize Charley in a tweed jacket and a coolie hat,” Martin assured Keith.

“Yeah, but at least I’ll be unique. You’re going to look like everyone else on this island,” Keith jeered playfully.

Over tea and cake, Miss Anderson outlined their activities for the next two weeks. “The team works down in the valley, but none of us will be going down there today. They left word with the tea shop’s proprietress for me.” Over the groans of the group, Miss Anderson raised her voice and coaxed them back into silence. “Now, now, I promise this won’t be like Inverness. You’ll like Professor Parker. He’s a friendly man.”

The boys remained unconvinced. Matthew and Martin exchanged sour glances and ate cake with grim ferocity. Keith thought of Dr. Stroud and wondered how he would tolerate two more weeks of unappreciated slavery.

The door opened to admit a small, round-faced man with a scarf holding his tweed hat onto his head. “Miss Anderson,” he crowed from the threshold, unwinding the lengths of wool with his large hands. “Penelope Anderson! How lovely to see you. You look most attractive in blue, did I ever tell you?”

Clearly pleased, Miss Anderson’s face compressed into a warm smile. “Professor Parker. Now here’s a nice surprise. This is your new workforce.” She fluttered a delicate hand toward the group, who stopped what they were doing and sat up at attention.

The man’s long face glowed with good humor, and he came toward them with his arms outstretched. “I apologize for being late. I rather underestimated the time it would take to drive here in the rain. I am so pleased to see all of you, you have no idea.” He descended the two steps down into the croft, and the level of his eyes fell nearly below that of the party seated at the table. Keith realized with amazement that Professor Parker was a dwarf. He looked at Holl, who was staring wide-eyed. “It’s a completely ordinary variation in the gene pool,” Keith hissed. “Don’t stare.”

Holl forced himself to blink and look away. “My apologies on a breach of good manners,” he muttered. “For a minute there, I thought it was one of my folk.”

“No kidding,” Keith said. “It was like seeing the Master come into the room, wasn’t it?”

“He’s even smaller than we are,” Holl replied, astonished, as the man approached them. Keith poked an elbow into his friend’s ribs.

“Shh. Later. He’s talking.”

The professor clambered up and settled himself on the bench beside Miss Anderson, and addressed the group very seriously. “You must understand how important we feel this site is.”

“Here it comes,” said Matthew audibly. He was unimpressed by the archaeologist’s appearance, and was obviously wondering when Parker would lower the boom on them. Any good-natured trust he had had at the beginning of the tour had been evaporated by Dr. Stroud. It wasn’t fair to Parker, but Keith couldn’t really blame Matthew.

Parker enveloped all of them in his wide-flung arms. “We’re counting on you to give us your best. I always feel that some of the greatest enthusiasts join these Educatours outings. You’re all welcome. I hope we can get to know one another better.”

That was so far from what Matthew expected the professor to say that he gaped openly at Parker. Miss Anderson looked pointedly at Matthew. She put a forefinger under her chin and pushed her own jaw upward. Matthew understood the pantomime and closed his mouth. “I did promise a different experience from the one in Inverness,” the teacher said.

“Hurray,” cheered Edwin. Max twisted his lips into a satisfied grin and leaned back, arms folded behind his head, against the wall of the croft.

“Would there be some cake left for me, I hope?” Parker asked, as the dark-haired girl appeared to clear away the plates. She smiled down at him and nodded toward the covered plates near the till. “Thank you,” he said, as a dish and cup were swiftly placed before him. “As the area is somewhat isolated, we have arranged with the kind and indispensable ladies of the tea shop to provide lunch for my team every day.” Parker aimed the point of his fork toward them. “Of course, now that includes all of you. As the weather is so inclement, the rest of my people are spending today in Stornoway. The site is down at the bottom of the hill, across the road, and there’s no protection from the wind. You’ll have noticed that there are almost no trees on the Isle of Lewis, no windbreaks. It isn’t sensible to allow the wind to damage the very pieces we’re trying to unearth whole, is it? The others are doing a little shopping. You’ll meet them tomorrow. Allow me to describe just what it is we’re doing here.”

With the help of a small chart he unfolded from his coat pocket, Professor Parker outlined the project, and detailed how much had already been done. With jabs of his fork, he indicated what he hoped to have accomplished every few days. “But you have to understand that the peat makes it very hard work. Between the time the Leodhas Cairns were built and the present day, the Isle of Lewis has undergone several climactic and topographical changes. There was thick forest here once, and when that died, the heather began to cover everything. I’m counting on all of you to have patience. You’ve had a month’s experience already at hard labor, so you know what is needed here.” The others chuckled. They had already forgotten the professor’s stature, and were genuinely listening to what he had to say.

Holl watched him closely. This Big Person’s size made Holl feel a sudden kinship for him. He felt guiltily that he shouldn’t be permitting such a superficial similarity to make a difference, but it did. He smiled whenever Parker met his eyes, which the professor did frequently with all the members of the group, drawing them in and making them feel accepted.

This one’s a born leader, Holl thought. I wonder if I will make the same good showing when my turn comes to lead.

The next morning when they came out of the Mackenzie house, the sun was already high in a bright blue sky.

Keith stretched, and listened to the vertebrae in his back click into place. “I’m stiff. The cats got into the room last night and sat on me in a different place every time I turned over.”

Holl grunted, stumping down the hill beside him. “You’re a magnet for lower life forms, Keith Doyle. They feel a kinship with you.”

“Ha, ha,” Keith said, refusing to acknowledge a putdown. It was a bright morning, and there were songbirds trilling in the distance. It was unbelievably pastoral. He felt relaxed and energetic at the same time. He couldn’t wait to get down to the site and start work.

The day was not as warm as one in Inverness, but it felt like spring. The sun was trying to burn its way through the thick layer of cumulus clouds that interrupted its beams from time to time, but it was there. Everything looked and felt so sharp it crackled. At the bottom of the hill, the sea had been hewn out of silver-grey flint, and polished into waves. The noise of waves crashing seemed detached from it. In the field next door, the sheep sang them a morning chorus in baritone and alto voices, drowning out the birds.