Cameron glanced up at the sky. So that was it! A bloody great cloud had settled over the meadow. He felt a drop of rain hit his cheek. Some outing this had turned out to be. He was trying to decide whether to seek shelter when he caught sight of something familiar. Cluny the bobcat was rubbing up against a tent pole, while beside him a crowd of people were huddled together, perilously close to treading on him. Cameron hurried over.
“Hello!” he called out. “Elizabeth! Are you here?”
The bobcat’s lead unwound from the throng of people, but the person at the other end of it was not the Maid of the Cat. A young man in yellow poplin slacks looked at him inquiringly.
“Sorry,” stammered Cameron. “I was looking for a dark-haired young lady who had charge of the lynx earlier.”
Geoffrey pointed an accusing finger at Cameron. “Pancake syrup!” he cried.
“Oh God!” thought Cameron. “Maybe it’s something in their water supply. Has anyone ever checked America’s water supply for mind-altering substances?”
Geoffrey smiled. “I’ve heard of you,” he explained. “The young lady you’re looking for is my cousin Elizabeth. She left this beast with me while she went to look at sheepdogs. Would you like to watch him for her?” This last hopeful query was nearly drowned out by a clap of thunder.
Cameron hesitated. “Do you know which way she went?”
“In that direction,” said Geoffrey, pointing. “Come on, I’ll see if we can find her.”
The rain was pelting down even harder now, punctuated by flashes of lightning, all of which made Cluny even less anxious than usual to walk on his leash-particularly when foolish people were trying to make him head for an open field in a thunderstorm.
“Damned cat!” yelled Geoffrey over the rain. “We’ll never get there at this rate!”
“How far is it?” Cameron called back.
They had left the circle of clan tents and were headed for the lower meadow where the herding practice took place. The wind, blowing from that direction, had pretty well drenched them after the first two minutes.
“She won’t be out in this downpour!” cried Geoffrey. “I think we ought to wait it out on the hill under the trees. But first I’m going to stash this cat somewhere!”
Beside a stack of boards and Some concrete drainpipes, Geoffrey noticed a long wooden box with a latched door. Reasoning that this was probably a cage meant for Cluny in the first place, Geoffrey flipped up the latch and shoved the bobcat in headfirst. A rumble of thunder covered any sounds of feline displeasure at such cavalier treatment, and Geoffrey, the rain dribbling down his neck, closed the door and sped up the hill toward Cameron.
A few moments later they were settled at the base of a relatively dry oak, watching the sports field turn into a mud puddle.
“Do you come to these things often?” asked Cameron politely.
“God, no! It’s a boot camp for lunatics.” Cameron laughed at that, and Geoffrey added, “That’s a line from Brigadoon. My community theatre group is doing the play, so I came to soak up atmosphere.”
“Is it about Scotland?”
“Don’t you know it? It’s a Lerner and Loewe musical. Brigadoon is an eighteenth-century Scottish village that doesn’t want to be corrupted by progress, so their minister prays for a miracle to keep them from having to change.”
“What happens?”
“The village only exists one day out of every century. See, they’d go to bed in 1753, and when they woke up in the morning it would be 1853, and so on. But the village always stays the same. Neat trick, huh?”
Cameron frowned. “Well, it has some drawbacks, you know. One day they will wake up to find themselves in the parking lot of the Aberdeen Hilton, I bet.”
“Great idea! I wonder if I could talk Sinclair into doing an epilogue?”
“Have the games given you any inspiration?”
“The costumes are quite good. I may make a few sketches tonight. But what has really been interesting is viewing everything from the context of Brigadoon. I mean, this farce practically is Brigadoon. The festival exists one day a year; and no matter what’s happening in Scotland, it’s still Bonnie Prince Charlie-time here on the mountain.”
“Spot on!” Cameron nodded. “It certainly isn’t the Scotland I come from. But at least they seem to be enjoying themselves. Your cousin, for instance.”
“I think the rain is beginning to slack off. Cloud must be moving,” said Geoffrey, peering up at the sky. “You’re right, of course, about-did she tell you the family’s pet name for her, by the way?”
“No.”
Geoffrey smiled. “I thought not. When Elizabeth was little, her older brother Bill claimed not to be able to pronounce the name, so he called her something else.”
“That’s not uncommon. Elizabeth is difficult to say, I should think.”
“Yes, but they will never convince me that three-year-old Bill, unable to say Elizabeth, should do such a first-rate job of pronouncing Lizard-Breath.” “That’s what he called her?” asked Cameron, laughing.
“That was it. You ought to try it sometime and see what she says.” Improvisational melodrama was Geoffrey’s specialty.
“Right. Well, I think that’s it for the storm. I suppose we should go down and let the cat out of the box,” said Cameron.
“Good idea. If we’re both standing there, he can’t zip out of the box and escape.”
Geoffrey opened the wooden door carefully, motioning for Cameron to be ready. Nothing happened. After a few seconds of silence, Geoffrey leaned down and peered into the box. “Kitty? Kitty? Oh my God!”
“What’s the matter with him?”
“Nothing. He’s happy as a clam at high tide. Oh my God. I’m doomed. I knew I shouldn’t have quoted Macbeth this afternoon.”
Cameron opened the door again and looked. There was Cluny in his tartan ribbon, surrounded by feathers, chewing contentedly on a sinewy bone.
“What is it?” whispered Geoffrey.
“Oh, fowls, absolutely,” Cameron informed him. “See this bone here? There’s been more than one of them, too. I’d say he’s eaten them all.”
Geoffrey put his hand to his brow. “All? What, all my pretty chickens and their dam at one fell swoop?” “There you go again,” said Cameron, recognizing the quote.
“The herding ducks! These things were going to be used in the sheepdog trials tomorrow. Elizabeth will kill me. How many were there?”
Cameron pulled on Cluny’s lead, drawing the reluctant bobcat out of the box in a cloud of feathers. After a brief examination, he turned to Geoffrey: “Five, I think. All white-domestic ducks.”
“Good,” muttered Geoffrey. “Those shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“Find?”
“Come on. I’ve got the car keys. But you have to promise not to tell anyone about this-especially not my cousin!”
Cameron trailed off after Geoffrey, the bobcat at his heels, wondering if duck-rustling was a hanging offense in the States these days. Coming to America seemed to be much akin to falling down a rabbit hole…
“I think it’s stopped raining,” said Elizabeth. She was sitting on a campstool in the doorway of Marge Hutcheson’s tent, with a mug of tea balanced in her lap.
“Finish your tea,” said Marge. “Somerled doesn’t need all that much practice.” The border collie pricked up his ears at the sound of his name, and then stretched back out on the floor of the tent. His mistress-a hardy, gray-haired woman in tweeds and jodhpurs-rumpled his fur affectionately, “Nosy brute!”
“I expect I’m a nosy brute, too,” said Elizabeth shyly. “But I was really shocked to hear about-you know-Dr. Hutcheson.”