THE forest clearing had that strained sound of great activity striving for silence: the scrape of boot leather against brush; the faint click of metal; and through it all the rhythmic current of breathing. Gray-clad bodies, blending like shadows into the broom-sedge, edged up the hill with their Enfield rifles, slowly and silently creeping toward the boulder at the summit. A pebble dislodged by a boot heel made scarcely as much noise as a sweatbee hovering overhead.
Behind the troops, a hawk-faced man with silver sideburns and officer’s braid sat astride a bay mare, his hand upraised to signal the charge.
Everything was as still as a Matthew Brady photograph of Shiloh: Confederate troops prepare to advance! The soldiers looked back for the go-ahead, but it was forestalled by a spell-breaking sound from the colonel’s belt. Brrrh! Brrrh!
Alexander “Lightfoot” MacDonald’s voice shattered the stillness. “Stop the goddamn war! I got to answer the phone!”
Margaret McLeod had had the presence of mind not to scream. A nurse for several years before she married Peter, she knew how to handle death scenes. Quickly veritying her first impression that Colin was indeed dead, she hurried back to the grandstand where Andy Carson was continuing to delay the ceremony by prolonging his opening remarks. The wool-clad troops, many of whom had been toasting each other’s health all morning, were growing restive.
Margaret caught Andy’s eye, and motioned for him to let someone else take the podium for a while.
“What is it?” he hissed. “I was just coming to the punch line!”
Seeing his face drain of color when she told him, Margaret concluded that her punch line had been better than his. “What should we do?” he whispered, casting an anxious glance at the field full of suspects.
Margaret had already thought this out. “You go up and announce the coming events for the rest of the day, and read the names of the competition winners if you have to. I’ll go to the rescue-squad truck and get them to radio the sheriff.”
Andy Carson looked down at his sheaf of notes, and back at the sweaty crowd on the field. “How long will it take him to get here?” he whined.
The sheriff was on the scene in less than ten minutes, but this was ninety per cent luck and only ten per cent departmental efficiency. When the squad radioed in about a possible homicide at the Scottish festival, dispatcher Charlotte Revis weighed the two relevant facts in the matter: that it was Sheriff MacDonald’s day off, and that he was actually in Glencoe Park, within a mile or so of the death scene. Ranking business before pleasure, Charlotte put through a call on the sheriff’s mobile telephone to relay the message.
“Damnit, Charlotte, what is it?” rasped the sheriff’s voice in her ear. Beep!
“Where are you, sir?”
“Fighting the Battle of Wicker’s Ford Hollow! Over!”
Lightfoot MacDonald was the colonel of the local Civil War reenactment militia, and as Charlotte knew, the troops were having a dress rehearsal for next Saturday’s mock battle in Glencoe Park. If she knew her park geography, the battle site should put the sheriff within a mile of the Scottish festival.
“We have a ten thirty-three out where you are. Can you ten twenty-one, please?”
Another beep. “I rode the horse over behind some trees, so I can talk now. What is the nature of the ten thirty-three?” He listened, dodging tree branches while Sorrel switched and stamped at botflies. “Right,” he said at last. “I’ll go over there now. Put in a ten seventy-nine to meet me there, please. Out.”
Lightfoot MacDonald stopped long enough to turn over his command of the rehearsal to Wilburn Blevins, saying only that he had “police business,” and then he cantered Sorrel up the nature trail toward the Glencoe meadow.
Andy Carson mopped his forehead and ventured a smile at the glowering crowd in front of him. “I apologize for the delay,” he said again. “But it shouldn’t be much…” His voice trailed away into an open-mouthed stare.
Coming toward him from a break in the pines was a Confederate army officer on a large brown horse. The apparition, complete with sword and canteen, trotted across the field, skirting clumps of clansmen, and stopped beside the speakers’ platform.
“I’m Sheriff Lightfoot MacDonald,” said the soldier. “I’m here in response to a call you people put in for assistance.”
“Yes. Mrs. McLeod can show you where he-the-it is. Can I go on with the ceremony?” The natives looked not only restive but, in some cases, a few over the limit, as well.
Lightfoot shrugged. “Sure. As long as nobody gets in my way. You might ask anyone with information to come forward.” He leaned back on his horse to wait for the announcement.
Dr. Carson wandered back to the podium. “Fellow Scots,” he began. He wondered who had snickered when he said that. “It is my sad duty to announce to you that the presentation of the clans has been delayed because of the untimely passing of the chief of Clan Campbell, and we have reason to suspect foul play.”
Lightfoot MacDonald looked up sharply at this; but before he could interrupt, a wobbly fellow in a blue kilt shouted, “This is Glencoe! It’s the MacDonalds who got murdered, isn’t it?”
“We’re paying them back!” shouted a wag from the MacDonald ranks, waving his hip flash.
“Up the Stewarts! Up the Stewarts!” chanted a red-kilted bunch in center field.
Someone eise countered with, “Down with Campbells?”
Andy Carson looked helplessly at the grim-faced sheriff.
“What’s going on here?” hissed the sheriff.
Carson sighed. “They think it’s a joke, I’m afraid. Because he’s a Campbell.”
Lightfoot shook his head. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said, turning his horse. “I’d like to see the body now.”
“Of
Lightfoot grunted. “We’ll go over the place when my deputy gets here. Did you notice the cause of death at the time?”
Margaret nodded. “I could see the blade sticking out of his chest, and of course I recognized it.” Seeing his look of surprise, she hastened to add, “I don’t mean that I know who it belongs to. I mean that I knew what it was.”
“A dagger.”
“No. A
The sheriff thought back to the crowd assembled in front of the speakers’ platform. “You mean all those jokers were armed?”
“Most of them,” Margaret admitted, though she wouldn’t have thought of it that way herself. She looked pointedly at Lightfoot’s cavalry sword.
“Now, just what had this man done to make all those people hate him so much?”
Margaret McLeod hesitated. “You mean personally or… otherwise?”
The sheriff blinked. “There’s an otherwise?”
“Oh, yes. He was a Campbell, you see.”
“So who would want to kill a Campbell?”
“Why, everybody.”
Half an hour later, the site examination was well in hand, and the sheriff was able to turn things over to the deputy and the coroner, and to proceed with the questioning of witnesses. He had taken over the hospitality tent as a makeshift headquarters-with Sorrel tied to one of the support posts.
“Now, let me get this straight,” he said to the still-fidgeting Andy Carson. “You people are all mad at this fellow over something that happened in 1746?”
Andy searched for common ground. “Well, Sheriff,” he said brightly, “it was
“Uh-huh,” said Lightfoot. “But
“We’re not, either, that I know of,” said Dr. Carson mildly. “But I did announce your request for information,
