Angus looked at the rushing water and thought about how to get himself out. He knew of a place to cross the river, but it was nearly a mile upstream. He needed to get back to the nearest bank and try to find his horse.

He moved from rock to rock, using his arms and legs to hold himself against the current. When he again thought he heard bagpipes, he was sure that when he went under he must have hit his head. When he got to the bank he was weak from the exertion, but he didn’t stop. He still had to climb up the embankment.

He grabbed a tree root and hauled himself up, using the roots as a rope. When he got to the top, a hand appeared before his face. Angus was so startled that he almost fell backward, but the hand stayed where it was and a familiar voice said, “Give me your hand, lad, and I’ll help you up.”

Angus looked up to see his uncle Malcolm lying on his belly, his hand extended. He wore a set of bagpipes on his back.

All Angus could do was stand there, his feet on the side of the steep, muddy bank, his hands holding on to a tree root, and stare, his mouth open in astonishment. “Am I dead?” he at last said.

In a sweet tone, Malcolm said, “Aye, you are, lad, and I’m here to welcome you into Heaven. Take my hand so we can go meet the Lord.”

Angus’s eyes were wide but then he heard a guffaw that he’d heard since he was a child. Turning, he saw Shamus standing there, laughing at him in a derogatory way.

Angus looked back at Malcolm. “Now I know you’re lying. Shamus will never be allowed into Heaven.” Taking Malcolm’s hand, he hauled himself upward. When he was again standing, dripping wet, he still could do nothing but stare at Malcolm and Shamus. “What…?” he began. “How…?”

“We came to visit you,” Malcolm said.

“And we ended up saving your life!” Shamus said, smirking. “If it hadn’t been for us, you’d be dead now. Why couldn’t you get away from them? There were only six of them.”

“And it took the both of you to get rid of them?” Angus asked, still in shock at seeing them.

“Naw,” Malcolm said. “I went after you, and Tam went up to the cave where you hid those others. Shamus dealt with the Frenchmen. A Scot’s worth more than a dozen Frenchmen.”

Shamus was looking at Angus with a half grin that said it was clear to see who the superior man was.

“Tam is here?” Angus asked.

“Aye. Seeing to the others,” Malcolm said. “Do you give us no greeting?”

“Malcolm, I…” Angus began, but then stopped. “I don’t know how…”

“Ah, lad,” Malcolm said, embarrassed. “I didna mean to make you weep. A drink of good whiskey will do to thank me.”

“I’ll buy you a bottle,” Angus said as he put his arm around Malcolm’s broad shoulders and held on. All that had happened since he’d last seen the man went through his head in a series of visions. It seemed so long ago, and he’d been such an innocent back then. He remembered trying to save Edilean from a forced marriage and how he’d ended up on a ship with her and heading to another country. And he’d fallen in love with her so hard that every day without her was an ache inside him. He saw her face every hour of every day, longed for her, wondered where she was and what she was doing.

“Lad!” Malcolm said. “We thought you’d be glad to see us.”

“I am,” Angus said, but his voice caught in his throat, and he could say no more.

“Where’s the girl?” Shamus asked.

“What girl?”

“The one you ran off with. The one you stole the gold from.”

“I did not-” Angus began but Malcolm cut him off.

“Could you boys wait a while before fighting? I think we need to get to the others, and Tam wants to see you.”

“Aye, Tam,” Angus said, grinning, his arm still so tight around Malcolm’s strong shoulders that he was causing the man pain, but Malcolm didn’t complain. “You got them all?” Angus asked, looking at Shamus as though he doubted that he really could take down six men.

“Hmph!” Shamus snorted. “Didn’t take me but a minute. They were standing in plain sight. Anyone could have seen them.”

Angus couldn’t help grinning at Shamus’s arrogance. He looked at Malcolm. “So what do you think of this new country?”

“Too hot,” Malcolm said. “Give me the coolness of Scotland. And their whiskey is bad.”

“And they think we’re English,” Shamus said, as though that was the final insult.

“With your accent?” Angus said happily. “Can they understand you?”

“Not many can,” Shamus said, and for a moment his eyes told Angus that he was glad to see him.

“Up there,” Angus said, nodding toward the path to the cave. Shamus went up, but Angus stood where he was, with his arm firmly around Malcolm’s shoulders.

“You must let me go, lad,” Malcolm said gently. “I’m not a ghost and I’m here to stay.”

“Ghost,” Angus said, smiling. “You didn’t come here in a coffin full of sawdust, did you?”

“No,” Malcolm said slowly, “but why would you ask that? Is that how you sneaked into this country?”

“No,” Angus said, his smile widening. “I came here as an English gentleman.”

“I want to hear every word of this story,” Malcolm said.

“I’ll be glad to tell it to you.”

21

NO, NO, NO, no!” Angus said, his words echoing off the cave walls. “I will not do it. I refuse. And that’s the last time I’m saying it.”

Last night, a fire had made the cave almost homelike. Mac had taken Angus’s horse and was on his way back to the fort to get help, while T.C., Matt, and Naps had stayed with Angus. Thanks to Matt’s surgery and the plants that T.C. had found, Naps was resting comfortably, passing drowsily in and out of consciousness from the brew that T.C. had given him.

Tam, Shamus, Malcolm, and Angus sat around the fire and talked in the Scottish burr that the other men couldn’t quite make out.

They’d spent hours exchanging stories. Angus made them all laugh uproariously with his account of how he got rooked into helping Edilean escape her uncle’s treacherous plan. The first time he said her name, his breath caught and he didn’t know if he could go on, but the second time was easier. By the time he was well into his story, he was smiling and remembering it all fondly.

He started telling the men about James Harcourt’s wife’s ugliness and how she’d tried to get him to stay in bed with her, but Malcolm cut him off by sending a burning branch flying. When they got it cleaned up, Malcolm asked about James, so Angus told of hitting James on the head with a candlestick. “And Edilean shaved me,” he said in an almost dreamy voice.

“She shaved your beard off?” Shamus said. “I knew there was something different about you.”

Throughout the story, Shamus kept shaking his head and muttering, “A wagonload of gold. The trunks were full of gold.” He sounded as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing-and what he’d lost.

Angus told of dressing in James’s clothes and boarding the ship. For a few moments he was silent as he let himself remember the time with Edilean on the ship. He thought of tying her corset, of teasing her, of making her laugh. He could see it all so clearly that it was almost as though he could touch her.

“Angus!” Tam said, bringing him back to where he was.

Angus smiled, even though he hardly recognized him. Tam had grown until he was as tall as Angus. He was no longer the boy who trailed after his bigger, older cousin. In the four years that they’d been separated, Tam had become a man, and Angus regretted that he’d not been there to see him grow and change. But then, Angus wondered if his going was the reason that Tam had grown up so quickly. With Angus gone, Tam was now the one to inherit… What? Angus thought. There was nothing left of the McTern clan to inherit but the responsibility.

“I’ve entertained you enough,” Angus said at last. “You didn’t come all the way across the ocean just to hear my stories. What have you come for?”