Free Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier Page B

man counted out in great detail the clans all arrayed on the field of Culloden and the colors they wore, noting the particular plaiding of the first line of Highlanders, the Camerons and Stuarts and Frasers. He squealed and wheezed to represent the bray of bagpipes, and he named the tunes they had played that day and described the brave men, greatly outnumbered but wild to fight, howling their battle cry. Then he told of how they scrugged their bonnets down low on their brows and made a headlong rush at the Angles and Saxons, saying it was exactly as Celts had done against the Romans at Telamon two thousand years before. And with like result. Heroes numberless killed down by cowardly and alien swords and, at the end of the day, their heads on pikes. And in the years following, the culture in disarray, the people forced into greater pilgrimages than even Moses and his Israelites made. The man spoke haltingly, almost bogging down at the end. As if the enemy language resisted him, like fording a river and trying to hold a line against the push of water.
    Bear sat looking off into the distance, a long view through a cut between layers of mountains unfolding down a narrow blue valley. He nodded as if approving of the tale of struggle and loss, but he didn’t say a word. The Scotsman rubbed his face with both his hands, and then he fell asleep again.
    I said, Just so nobody gets the wrong idea, that colt is mine. And that coat too.
    It was one of the few times I ever remember hearing Bear speak English, and he later claimed I must have been confused. But I remember clear as day him saying, Well, this dog’s mine.
    I said, Fine with me.
    I dug through my budget and found the key with the heart-shaped butt. I put the business end in the keyhole and turned it. There was a simple rasping mechanical click and the lock sprang open like something alive. I swung the hasp and opened the door.
    With the shutters closed, the place was lit only by the rectangular fall of light through the entryway. The room ahead was dim as the dens thieves are said to frequent in romance tales. The dusty floorboards gapped wide enough for snakes to rise through without impediment. I stood blinking a minute. Then I shuffled ahead, a hand held palm forward at hip level to keep from tripping over something. The smells of wood ash, cured meat, clabbered milk, pickle vinegar, old cheese, hemp rope, moldy harness leather, badly cured hides beginning to rot. Altogether, I thought, it smelled like death. Even before my eyes had opened up to the dark, I was appalled at where I found myself. This was not a store, it was some confabulation of smokehouse and henhouse and springhouse. Shithouse too, going by the smell.
    Bear came in with an armload of firewood and got a yellow blaze going in the cold black fireplace.
    He disappeared into the darkness, and I could hear him rattling about in the stock. He came back into the light carrying a bottle of dark amber Tennessee whiskey and a shot glass. He dug into a pouch at his waist and turned up a palmful of gunspalls and various coinage, including a George II farthing and a copper elephant halfpenny from the days of the Carolina proprietors. He set a coin on the counter and held up his whole hand of spread fingers to signify the number five. Then he poured out an amber shot full to the brim and held it to the firelight to admire its color a moment before drinking it down. When he had done that four more times, he sat by the yellow fire and began looking into it as if a scene from an engrossing play were unfolding inside. And not a comedy, from the look on his face.
    So I’m bartender here too, I thought.
    Bear started talking, and it sounded like he was telling a story, but of course I could not understand a word. After he finished, he stood and made some vague gesture of farewell and went to the porch and roused the Scotsman and peeled the coat off him and handed it to me. He gathered his weaponry, and the pilgrim Scotsman