Rabby Read online

His heart dared not hope for much of it.

  “Hurry, da,” he said without thinking. But he realized the man had stopped moving altogether. A quick look at his face proved his father hadn’t been wounded, like he’d feared, but his left boot was well and goodly fixed in the mud.

  “Leave me,” the man whispered.

  “Never,” Rabby replied and moved around behind his da to pull his shoulders back, hoping a new angle would help free the foot. But the boot wouldn’t budge.

  He glanced at the Redcoats. Still engaged, but the clansmen were falling. He remembered Cameron’s account of the Butcher teaching his soldiers a way to beat the Highland Charge with nothing more than their bayonets. And it seemed as if Cameron hadn’t been exaggerating.

  Rabby couldn’t free his father and fight at the same time. He needed help.

  He ceased pulling on the man and turned to the west. It wouldn’t be long now. The boy still stood on the rise with the dog at his side, but in a moment, he would be dead and the black beast with him.

  It had already happened—long ago, or in a few moments, it would make no difference. But his father might be saved! The boy hadn’t suffered, wouldn’t suffer, and on the morrow, when he rose to haunt the battlefield, he would not be alone.

  I was never alone.

  He threw his head back and pled to the heavens. “Miss Soncerae! Mister Wickham! Hear me, I beg ye! Send Dauphin!” He ignored the enemy long enough to summon the dog. “To me, Dauphin. To me!”

  Instantly, the black blur left the boy’s side and shot straight down to the field and across the bog. And while he came, Rabby exchanged a look with his smaller self.

  Again, that sad smile.

  Rabby raised his hand and gestured for his younger self to go, to flee. “Go!” he cried, even though he knew the lad wouldn’t truly be able to hear him, not like the dog had. “Go!” He waved again.

  But the boy shook his head, shrugged a shoulder as if to say, “We both know how this has to end.”

  Oh, aye. He did. But standing by while a child was cut down? What man, or boy in man’s clothing, could do that?

  Wickham had warned him. One cannot change history. Had he been referring to his father’s history? Or his own? His attempt to warn the colonel that the battle could not be won had made no impact. One or two voices, obviously, could not change the minds of so many leaders. But surely he could change one outcome. Else, why had he been brought back to that battle?

  Could he save Robert MacDonald? Or was he supposed to save himself? Would Dauphin be enough to save the man while Rabby went back to save the lad? Could he take that chance?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Time was running out. The Redcoats were now entering the bog. Apparently, the twenty-four shots they’d been allotted had been spent and they intended to use their bayonets to good measure. With his da stuck as he was, all they could do was wait for the butchers to get close.

  He couldn’t think of the lad on the rise anymore. There would be no leaving his father. Wee Rabby had died soon after the Government’s left flank had advanced, and with them, their large guns. Any moment now, a cannon ball would sail far over the heads of the Jacobites struggling in the bog and catch the younger him in the shoulder, killing him and the dog while they still listened to the whistle of it coming their way.

  He could spare not even a glance behind him now. He would not risk the temptation of turning and running back to whisk the boy out of the way and send him running for home. He would not leave his father even if the man were doomed.

  If only Soni had given him more guidance. If only Wickham could have said more than simply, Do what ye must.

  Dauphin reached him then but continued past him until he stood before Rabby’s father, facing the enemy, forcing the first Redcoat to back beyond the point where his sword could reach the man still struggling to free his foot from the muck.

  All growl and snappy jaws, Dauphin defended Robert as if the dog, too, had waited 269 years to redeem himself. He might have held off the whole of Cumberland’s army alone, he was that vicious.

  Rabby took advantage of the distraction and hurried to help his father try again. He pulled his father’s skean dhu from his sock and bent to cut the laces, to pull the foot free at least, but the mud gave up the boot with a wet kiss and the man tumbled backward onto his arse.

  A redcoat advanced with his weapon gripped tight, his bayonet aimed at Robert’s heart. Had Rabby not been there to protect him, his father would have been cut down.

  Was this how the man had died so long ago? Probably.

  “But not today!” He pressed forward and knocked the man back with his targe. Then took a precious second to change hands, his targe into his right hand, and his broadsword into his left. The next Redcoat, trained to stab to his right, to take advantage of the usual vulnerability, found the targe blocking his way. The tip of his bayonet struck and embedded itself into the wood.

  While Rabby swung his blade to cut down the first man, still intent on killing his father, he kept the second one busy trying to dislodge his weapon. Before the first Englishman sank into the mud for an eternal rest, Rabby swung his left arm out behind, rose it above his head, then came down over the top of his targe to smite the second man in the heart.

  While he stood at the ready for the next wave of Redcoats, his father scrambled out of the black mud, got to his feet, and poised his weapons. But no new threat came from the smoky fog beyond.

  A cannonball whistled high overhead and they both turned with horror to see it explode on the rise, just where the boy had been standing.

  After a heart-wrenching denial, Rabby the elder struck out for the rise, but Rabby grabbed his arm and held him back.

  “Trust me,” he told his da. “The boy is already dead and gone. But ye must flee. Now. Rabby cannot go home to his mother now, but ye still can. This cause is lost. It was lost before it began. Now go!”

  Anguish, mixed with something softer, twisted the man’s tear-stained face. “But my boy…”

  Rabby shook his head. “I will tend to him. Ye must trust me. God will comfort him in yer stead. Now go, so I may be comforted as well.”

  The man stepped forward and clapped Rabby on the sides of his arms. “Ye made me proud, Rabby. Ye’re a mighty warrior, son.”

  Rabby swallowed the lump in his throat and pushed the man away. With tears flooding his face, his da turned and ran to the far right, and while he ran, his head turned, over and over, toward that spot all too familiar to Rabby.

  The spot where he’d fallen so long ago.

  Yet again, his father was walking away and leaving him behind. But it was different then. Rabby wasn’t watching him storm onto a battlefield never to return, he was headed for safety and home, a chance to defend himself instead of being cut down while trapped in the bloody mud.

  And somewhere near Rabby’s middle, his world righted itself.

  MacDonalds continued to be cut down, unable to charge, unable to retreat easily. A skirl of pipes lent false hope and false courage to those trying to make their way through the bog, hoping for a chance to fight the enemy hidden behind the smoke.

  The familiar feel of coarse black hair slipped between his hand and the targe and he absently stroked the dog before looking down. “You should go home, Dauphin. Go with da. Protect him. Live as you should have, aye?”

  The dog blinked at him.

  He stretched an arm to point where his father had disappeared in the distance. “Go with him, Dauphin. Go.”

  The dog blinked, licked his fingers, then stepped away. But he didn’t go where he’d been told. He took a few steps to the east, toward the enemy, then looked back.

  Rabby smiled. “Ye want yer own revenge, do ye?”

  The dog barked.

  “Away with ye, then. And good luck.”

  The dog blinked at him once more, then took off like he’d been shot from a gun himself. The black blur disappeared into a thinning wall of smoke.

  A musket ball whi
zzed past Rabby’s ear, a reminder that he, too, was still in mortal form. So he picked his way carefully around spots where moss was softening from the flood of blood.

  The dullness that clung to the moor long after winter ended had been replaced by a colorful carpet of various plaids still wrapped around the bodies of the slain. The bright red splashes of blood would turn to brown soon enough, then disappear under the pink of summer heather and the thick green growth of new grass.

  English shouts at his back made him spin to face the fight, but the bog that had been the curse of the clansmen now cursed the enemy. Both parties forgot each other for the moment in the struggle to free themselves. None of them seemed to notice Rabby’s retreat, so he turned away again, intent on reaching the wee version of himself.

  He flung his mind back through his memories and tried to recollect if he’d suffered. Had the feel of Dauphin at his side given him comfort? He couldn’t recall much before he’d risen the next morning, but it worried him to think he’d taken away that bit of comfort by calling the dog forward.

  Brave, obedient Dauphin. He’d come to him as he always had. No matter if he’d been confused by the two different incarnations of himself. He’d been told to stay with Rabby, so, strictly speaking, he hadn’t disobeyed by leaving one to be at the side of the other. Clever, clever beast.

  And clever Soni…

  A black line began where the hot cannonball had scorched the earth, but now that he was upon the spot, Rabby could see no sign of his fallen self. No bit of blood. No shred of plaid.

  He spun round and round, making certain he was standing in the right place. And yes, there was the stone that was almost square. There was the bit of softness, an indentation in the ground that nearly matched the shape of his body and made a comfortable enough bed for him for nearly three hundred years. Next to it, a half-moon of thick grasses that Dauphin had preferred when they found their rest.

  This is the place. But where am I?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  He turned to face the battlefield once more, expecting the Redcoats to push through at any moment and find him, to kill him again. But still, none looked his way, and a familiar feeling came over him—a feeling of being…unseen.

  A strong hand gripped his shoulder and he started, then relaxed when he recognized Wickham still dressed in jeans and a gray t-shirt. Rabby pointed to the empty spot that seemed to raise up to meet him. “Where is…the lad?” He knew no better way to ask.

  The man shrugged. “You are the lad.”

  Rabby picked up one boot and then the other. Smaller now. As were his arms. The sword and targe lay on the ground beside him. They both appeared to be so much heavier than they’d felt a moment before. Hadn’t he swung that broadsword over his head like an able-bodied man only moments ago?

  Fraser would have been proud of him.

  “We’re all of us proud of ye, Rabby. As is yer father, if ye’ll remember.”

  Rabby couldn’t help grinning. “Aye. He was that.”

  “And there are others, of course.” Wickham pointed at the melee, and just then, a soldier in bright green plaid turned to give him a wide grin and a tip of a cap.

  Kennedy.

  “Yes. Always been watching out for you, it seems.”

  Rabby nodded, but kept his lips closed for fear of loosing secrets. Kennedy sank back into another familiar resting place.

  “Seems as though ye’ve proven yerself well and good, son,” Wickham said, drawing his attention again. “Soni will be waiting to award yer boon.”

  “My boon?” He was distracted by the sight of Culloden changing before him. Gone were the billows of smoke and with them, the bodies of the fallen. The skirl of the pipes was just a memory ringing in his ears. And to his left… To his left, there was no sign of his father or anyone else fleeing to safety.

  “Aye, yer boon, lad. No doubt ye’re anxious to go give Bonnie Prince Charlie what for. After all, it wasn’t an hour ago he failed to give the order to charge.”

  Rabby considered. Aye, he understood the frustration with the prince like he’d never understood before. But he was back to feeling like a lad of ten years, still wishing for the things lads his age wished for.

  “Would Miss Soni mind much, do ye think, if I didn’t care to see the prince?”

  Wickham smiled and shook his head. “Then what would ye like, for yer boon?”

  “I did have something else in mind, before I was made into a man grown. Now it seems a childish thing to ask for—especially since I’ve been given the best gift of all.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “The chance to…” Tears had begun mobbing together in his throat and he had to swallow them down in order to go on. “I saved m’ da. In battle. I doona suppose ye saw it.”

  “I did indeed.” The man slapped him on the back and nearly sent him tumbling, but it made his chest expand to think Wickham considered him hearty enough to handle such a blow. “And Dauphin was exceptionally brave as well, don’t you think?”

  His hand reached for the dog out of habit, but when he felt nothing but air, he tucked his thumb in his belt. While they’d been talking, it seemed the pair of them had moved from the far west point of the battlefield back to the path that ran before the memorial cairn. Soni waited for them.

  Rabby ran forward and wrapped his arms around her, happy he was still substantial enough to do so. “I saved m’ da,” he told her, even though he suspected she already knew. Perhaps, somewhere, there had been a camera of sorts. After all, if Wickham could take him back in time, there was no reason he couldn’t have taken a camera along.

  “Yes. I heard. And I couldn’t be more proud of ye, young Rabby.” She patted the sides of his shoulders. “So? What is it to be?”

  “No boon for me, Miss Soni. And I thank ye.”

  She was taken aback. “No?”

  “No.” He was simply too embarrassed to ask.

  She nodded, frowned, then searched the pockets of her great black robes. She grinned when she found something. “Well, then, you might at least take these off my hands. I’m afraid they’ll melt if someone doesn’t eat them straight away.”

  She produced two great handfuls of sweets and chocolate bars, just like the ones he’d seen on advertisements for decades! A trip to the sweets shop was the very thing he’d been wishing for!

  He pulled his hands away and tucked them behind him, embarrassed. “Ye kenned it all along, did ye not? Ye’ve been teasing me all the while?”

  Her smile never wavered. “Aye. I’ve kenned all along, and I could hardly wait to give them to ye. A lucky thing ye’re still able to taste.” She held them out and waited until he took the treats. He tucked all but one into his satchel, then opened his first ever piece of chocolate.

  It was strangely smooth with crispy bits of sweetness hidden within.

  Heaven, just as he’d imagined it would be.

  Soni pointed to the wrapper. “That’s my favorite.”

  “And mine,” he said before tucking in on another piece.

  Soni laughed and exchanged a look with Wickham. “Take yer time, Rabby. We’ll wait until ye’ve enjoyed them all.”

  The next bar was not so easy to swallow, remembering what would come next. He’d performed his brave deed, so now he would be moving on to God’s judgment. And if God would judge him more strictly than his own mother would, he feared he would not fare well.

  Soni gave him a sideways glance. “What troubles ye, Rabby? What nonsense have you been worrying over? Did Fraser not tell ye there is nothing to fear?”

  He forced himself to open the third package, knowing his time might be coming to an end and not wishing anything to go to waste. He popped a few of the small, bright candies into his mouth before answering. The sweetness nearly made him forget the question.

  “My mum will not have forgiven me for running away and following my da to the battlefield.” He ate a few more. “And if she can’t have forgiven me, I doubt God the Father will be much plea
sed with me either.”

  Soni chuckled, then laughed. “I knew it had to be something like that. And though I can’t pretend to know the mind of God, I can tell you that yer mother has indeed forgiven ye, Rabby. And if she can, surely God can too.” She gestured behind him and he turned to see what appeared to be a large mirror with the sun reflecting in it. But that seemed unlikely, what with the clouds gathering to prepare for the afternoon’s showers.

  Out of the bright light stepped a dark figure. None other than Dauphin himself looking brushed and well-fed. A dapper dog to be sure. He took a few steps in Rabby’s direction, his tail wagging with such might that it shook his whole body from side to side. But then he stopped, barked once, then stepped back to the light. There he stopped and waited.

  A hand reached down to pet the animal. It belonged to his father. Though the man stayed inside the bright doorway, his image was clear, as was the image of Rabby’s mother standing beside him.

  Those tears were back in his throat, but he had no hope of being rid of them, so he simply forced his voice through.

  “Dauphin wants me to come, I reckon.” He glanced up at Soni.

  She mussed his hair, then pulled him close and gave him a kiss on the forehead. “I reckon they all do.”

  He smiled tentatively at his mother. She grinned back and opened her arms.

  He nodded her way. “Bodes well for my forgiveness, aye?”

  Soni nodded and smiled sadly.

  “And if God needs a little persuading…” He patted his half-full satchel and gave Soni a wink.

  The young witch gasped, then laughed herself silly while Rabby stepped toward the lighted doorway. His smile faltered when he finally looked into his mother’s eyes. Seeing her sweet and unconditional forgiveness was his undoing. If only he’d known! If only he’d trusted…

  He fairly howled as he greeted against his mother’s breast, and when he paused for breath, he heard the unmistakable sniffle of a certain witch not too far behind. But he was far too busy to console Miss Soncerae, enfolded as he was in the welcoming embrace of his parents…