For one inexperienced on horseback, the best way to reach Braenock was on foot. At least that was Fergie’s opinion.
“What do ye want t’ be goin’ oot there fer, lad?” asked the factor. “Nothin’ there but rocks an’ shrubs an’ bogs fer yer horse t’ break his leg on.”
“Just curious,” replied Logan vaguely. “Sounds like an interesting place.”
“The ruin’s all growed o’er.”
“Ruin?”
“Aye. ’Tis what all the foreigner’s be wantin’ t’ see oot there. A thousand years ago, maybe more, there was some Pict village there, oot by the boulders.”
“Really?” said Logan, trying to appear interested in what looked to be the prelude of a boring history lecture. All he wanted to know was how to get there.
“Aye. But the village was wiped oot by maraudin’ Vikings. In a single bloody massacre, so ’tis said, every man, woman, an’ bairn was killed. Jist because the Vikings thought the Picts had gold . . .”
At the word Logan’s interest suddenly came alive.
“Personally, I think the gold was jist added t’ the story t’ liven it up a bit. If ye ask me, ’twas all done fer a crust o’ bread. That’s what they did in them days.”
“How would I get there?” asked Logan. “Is there a road?”
“Weel, there’s a road o’ sorts fer a ways. After that ye got no more’n an auld shepherd’s trail, an’ that’s mostly growed o’er too. There be little traffic oot there these days. No one lives oot there anymore.”
“You mean someone used to?”
“Jesse Cameron’s daddy lived oot there when he were a lad, an’ the Grants, an’ the MacColls, but they moved clean oot o’ the valley noo. That were years ago. No one’s lived there in my time. Jist canna support life on a bog that’s either too arid or too wet.”
After further effort, Logan at length was able to extract sufficiently specific directions from the factor, continually interspersed with odd bits of local memorabilia. But it was late afternoon before Logan could get away from his duties to make his solitary trek to the moor.
A gray sky loomed overhead and a chilly south wind blew down from the mountains. A gust threatened his checkered cap and he reached quickly for it, planting it more firmly down upon his head. With the motion came a thought of Skittles. The pain of his death had seemed to grow distant, as had thoughts of Molly and old Billy. He wondered what they were doing. And for the first time in a long while a fleeting picture of Chase Morgan’s face came into his mind. He shivered and gave a violent kick to a pebble at his feet. His revenge over the gangster had availed him absolutely nothing, after all. Even his anger had not been appeased. He knew that if he ever saw Morgan, he’d give him no better treatment than that pebble. So what good had it all done? Molly had some money to get her through a tough time. But as Billy had warned, it had not brought Skittles back. Instead, it had only separated Logan from those he cared for.
Funny, thought Logan as he walked along, how such an insignificant act as touching a hat could produce so many memories. He had been here less than two weeks. But his memories of London seemed as far removed as Lady Margaret’s memories of Digory. Would he never see his friends again, as Lady Margaret had never seen Digory again after she left Scotland nearly sixty years ago? It seemed inconceivable that he would never return to London. But then, perhaps she had felt the same way.
Lady Margaret . . .
His thoughts always seemed to come back to her. Why had she left Scotland so suddenly, as she told him? What did it have to do with the treasure? Or was it completely unrelated? He remembered that Digory had stated in his letter that the treasure had wrought so much evil. Yes, Digory would have thought it evil indeed that his dear little Maggie would have been forced to leave Stonewycke. But people such as Digory—poor, and filled with religious fancies—always saw things in black and white, always considered money evil, and blamed the ills of the world on “filthy lucre” and “mammon,” as they called it. But it did not have to be that way. If Logan found the treasure, he was certain it would be different. He would make it different.
Logan was relieved of his thoughts for a time as the road steepened and he had to focus his complete attention on his steps. He left the road as Fergie had described and struck off on the shepherd’s trail. The rock-strewn path crept like a beaten cur through a gray blanket of dormant heather, most of it overtaken completely by the spindly shrubbery. It was hard to imagine that in summer this whole hillside would break out into a vivid purple, like a royal robe spread out over the neglected patch of isolated ground. Now it lay grim and dank, more like a shroud than a king’s mantle, and the wind whistled a lonely tune over the silent earth. Logan had to agree with Lord Duncan—it was, indeed, a dreary and inhospitable place. Beyond the abundance of heather, he could see large patches of bracken, the inevitable result of hundreds of years of overgrazing. No wonder this place was now deserted of human life, for even the poor sustenance sheepherding had provided was removed—perhaps forever.
As Logan’s gaze swept the horizon, it finally rested on a misshapen heap of granite boulders jutting up from the moor about a half mile off. He veered off the path and struck a line through the heather directly toward the rocks. The spot where a band of cut-throat Vikings had murdered an entire village was an ominous place to begin his own modern-day treasure hunt, but it was the most logical one, and Logan would not be cowed by some ancient legend.
In ten minutes he had come to the foot of the granite mounds that loomed a good twenty feet above him. He looked them up and down like a mountain climber studying a new challenge. But Logan was no mountain man, and he dearly hoped he’d not be called upon to climb these, for their sides had been worn smooth by the weather. Smooth, that is, on their exposed surfaces. But they were still jagged and treacherous at the points where the huge rocks leaned upon one another in apparently random fashion. Five or six major stones stood out from the rest, none looking more inviting than any of the others.
It took him twenty minutes to circle the entire area, exploring, poking, and prodding around the overgrown heather and bracken at the bases of the silent towers. He had no idea what he might be looking for, guided only by Lady Margaret’s painful memory of a day she and her groom had come out to this very place. She had said she “made” him go. What could have been the mission that had drawn her out to this desolate corner of the estate?
At length Logan sat down on a small stone. Once more he glanced all about him. On both sides of him stood the granite pillars. In front of him was a sunken little hollow, seemingly which once might have been large enough to walk into but was now all overgrown with brush. He’d looked everywhere obvious, and now had no idea what to do next. Perhaps this seeming lead out to Braenock meant nothing, was no more than a red herring in his search. Yet somehow inside he sensed that this place had something to do with the treasure, or at least had at one time. Had the Picts truly buried their gold somewhere here, only to have it discovered centuries later? And where was it now? What were you trying to tell Maggie, Uncle Digory? thought Logan. She said you loved horses. And in your letter you even mentioned riding. And a cliff . . . and some path. If you moved it, then it must not be here. It must have something to do with the horses, thought Logan; somewhere Maggie rode, or you and she rode together. But if not here, then where?
Finally Logan rose with a sigh.
There was nothing more he could do here. He just didn’t know enough yet.
Striking out in a different direction than the way he had come, Logan walked south from the pillars several hundred yards farther, then began to descend the ridge westward, hoping to pick up the road by which he had come at a more southerly point than where he had left it. As he tramped along with no path now to guide him, he spied in the distance what looked like a broken-down house. He continued on toward it, and coming closer saw that at one time indeed it must have been one of the crofters’ cottages Fergie had told him about. Fences had at one time enclosed a small garden and no doubt a modest stockade of household animals. A couple of dry stone dikes ran away from the house, standing, despite their antiquity, nearly to their original height. The house itself, like all those abandoned hovels throughout the highlands and lowlands of Scotland, was roofless but still displayed four stout, stone walls, impervious to wind, weather, and time. It was a sad and melancholy reminder of a time gone by when the land, however poor, had been able to sustain the life of those poor tenant crofters who worked it with the sweat of their brow and the love of their hands.
Could this place be where Jesse Cameron’s father was born and raised? wondered Logan. She said it was out here. And if it was, Lady Margaret had been here, too. “She must have been well acquainted with the whole valley and the hills that surrounded it,” murmured Logan. “No wonder she is so fond of horses; she must have ridden here, and all about, by the hours.” Raven and Maukin, he remembered, the horses she mentioned. And Digory spoke of a horse named Cinder. If the treasure has something to do with where she rode, it could be anywhere!
Arriving no closer to a conclusion than when he had begun his afternoon’s outing, Logan left the abandoned cottage, made for the valley road, and thence back toward Port Strathy.