“I loved him once,” Lizzie said.
“I know.”
“I want to bury him.”
Mack got a spade from their kit. While the Indians watched Lennox bleed to death, Mack dug a shallow grave. He and Lizzie lifted Jay’s body and placed it in the hole. Lizzie bent down and gingerly withdrew the arrows from the corpse. Mack shoveled soil over the body and Lizzie began to cover the grave with stones.
Suddenly Mack wanted to get away from this place of blood.
He rounded up the horses. There were now ten: the six from the plantation, plus the four Jay and his gang had brought. Mack was struck by the peculiar thought that he was rich. He owned ten horses. He began to load the supplies.
The Indians stirred. Lennox seemed to be dead. They left the tree and came over to where Mack was loading the horses. The oldest man spoke to Mack. Mack did not understand a word, but the tone was formal. He guessed the man was saying that justice had been done.
They were ready to go.
Fish Boy and Peg came up from the waterside together. Mack looked at the boy’s hand: Peg had made a nice job of the bandage.
Fish Boy said something, and there followed an exchange in the Indian language that sounded quite angry. At last all the Indians but Fish Boy walked away.
“Is he staying?” Mack asked Peg.
She shrugged.
The other Indians went eastward, along the river valley toward the setting sun, and soon disappeared into the woods.
Mack got on his horse. Fish Boy unroped a spare horse from the line and mounted it. He went ahead. Peg rode beside him. Mack and Lizzie followed.
“Do you think Fish Boy is going to guide us?” Mack said to Lizzie.
“It looks like it.”
“But he hasn’t asked a price of any kind.”
“No.”
“I wonder what he wants.”
Lizzie looked at the two young people riding side by side. “Can’t you guess?” she said.
“Oh!” said Mack. “You think he’s in love with her?”
“I think he wants to spend a little more time with her.”
“Well, well.” Mack became thoughtful.
As they headed west, along the river valley, the sun came up behind them, throwing their shadows on the land ahead.
* * *
It was a broad valley, beyond the highest range but still in the mountains. There was a fast-moving stream of pure cold water bubbling along the valley floor, teeming with fish. The hillsides were densely forested and alive with game. On the highest ridge, a pair of golden eagles came and went, bringing food to the nest for their young.
“It reminds me of home,” said Lizzie.
“Then we’ll call it High Glen,” Mack replied.
They unloaded the horses in the flattest part of the valley bottom, where they would build a house and clear a field. They camped on a patch of dry turf beneath a wide-spreading tree.
Peg and Fish Boy were rummaging through a sack, looking for a saw, when Peg found the broken iron collar. She pulled it out and stared quizzically at it. She looked uncomprehendingly at the letters: she had never learned to read. “Why did you bring this?” she said.
Mack exchanged glances with Lizzie. They were both recalling the scene by the river in the old High Glen, back in Scotland, when Lizzie had asked Mack the same question.
Now he gave Peg the same answer, but this time there was no bitterness in his voice, only hope. “Never to forget,” he said with a smile. “Never.”
Acknowledgments
For invaluable help with this book I thank the following:
My editors, Suzanne Baboneau and Ann Patty;
Researchers Nicholas Courtney and Daniel Starer;
Historians Anne Goldgar and Thad Tate;
Ramsey Dow and John Brown-Wright of
Longannet Colliery;
Lawrence Lambert of the Scottish Mining Museum;
Gordon and Dorothy Grant of Glen Lyon;
Scottish MPs Gordon Brown, Martin O’Neill, and the late John Smith;
Ann Duncombe;
Colin Tett;
Barbara Follett, Emanuele Follett, Katya Follett and
Kim Turner;
And, as always, Al Zuckerman.
Available now at a bookstore near you …
THE THIRD TWIN
by Ken Follett
Published by The Random House Publishing Group.
The Third Twin is an electrifying contemporary thriller, energized by the chilling possibilities of genetic manipulation and as fully riveting as Ken Follett’s classic World War II thriller Eye of the Needle.
In her research on the genetic components of aggression for the Jones Falls University psychology department, Jeannie Farrari makes a startling discovery. Using a restricted FBI database, she has located a pair of identical twins who were born, impossibly, to different mothers. When she delves into their backgrounds, forces as powerful as The New York Times and the FBI take notice, and she suddenly finds that her career—and possibly much more—is in danger.
Who can she trust? Berisford Jones, the powerful mentor who encouraged her research? Or Steve Logan, one of the unnatural twins, a man she is coming to love despite the possibility that he carries within him a genetic predisposition to rape and murder?
What Jeannie cannot know is that she has stumbled upon evidence of a conspiracy involving a top biotech company, right-wing politicians, and her own university. Their aim is as shocking as it is scientifically and technically possible in the era of genetic manipulation: the reshaping of American society according to their own reactionary, racist, and sexist principles.
Turn the page for a glimpse of this gripping new novel …
JEANNIE LEFT THE TENNIS COURT AND HEADED FOR the locker room. As she was passing the hockey pitch, she ran into Lisa Hoxton. Lisa was the first real friend she had made since arriving at Jones Falls a month ago. Like Jeannie, she came from a poor background, and was a little intimidated by the Ivy League hauteur of Jones Falls. They had taken to one another instantly.
“A kid just tried to pick me up,” Jeannie said with a smile.
“What was he like?”
“He looked like Brad Pitt, but taller.”
“Did you tell him you had a friend more his age?” Lisa said. She was twenty-four.
“No.” Jeannie glanced over her shoulder, but the man was nowhere in sight. “Keep walking, in case he follows me.”
“How could that be bad?”
“Come on.”
“Jeannie, it’s the creepy ones you run away from.”
“Knock it off!”
“You might have given him my phone number.”
“I should have handed him a slip of paper with your bra size on it, that would have done the trick.” Lisa had a big bust.
Lisa stopped walking and looked shocked. For a moment Jeannie thought she had gone too far and offended Lisa. She began to frame an apology. Then Lisa said: “What a great idea! I’m a 36D, for more information call this number. It’s so subtle, too.”
“I’m just envious; I always wanted hooters,” Jeannie said, and they both giggled. “It’s true, though, I prayed for tits. I was practically the last girl in my class to get my period; it was so embarrassing.”
“You actually said: ‘Dear God, please make my tits grow,’ kneeling beside your bed?”