It was barely light when Calum led their horses out of the barn the next morning, stopped and watched John covering his eyes.
“Have you something in your eye?” he asked.
“No. It’s the bright sunshine, I’m nay used to it.”
“You d’na think it might be all that whisky you swallowed last night?”
John thought about it for a moment. “No, it canna be that. We only had a wee drop.”
“You drank a whole bottle,” Calum corrected.
“It would’ve been rude not to. Fergus is a fine old gentleman.”
“Aye,” Calum said, “I recall you telling him. When you had your arm around his shoulder telling him you loved him like he was your brother.”
“A fine man.”
Calum walked around John’s horse, bent and buckled up the girth he’d had left hanging loose; then he checked the bridle and patted the saddle. “Up you get.”
John looked at it. Thought about it, then shook his head. “You’re asking too much of a sick man.”
Calum walked back into the barn and returned with a stool and placed it by the horse, then waved him up. John looked at the stool, then the horse, and finally at Calum. He had no choice. He stepped up onto the stool, took a moment to let the world settle down, then climbed onto his horse, belly first.
Calum stepped onto the stool and up onto his horse, then led the way out back onto the road and headed towards Glasgow.
As the late dawn lit the grey sky, they reached a crossroads, and Calum turned east.
“You’re going the wrong way!” John was already across the junction and heading south. “That’s where all the damned English are.”
Calum waved him back and waited while he persuaded his rebellious horse to turn around.
“Aye, that’s where the English are, because that’s the main road south to London.” He waited, but just got a frown. “The English are looting Scotland.” He got a grunt in response. “And shipping it down that road back to London.”
John smiled. “And we’re going to ask them for some of the loot?”
“We are that.”
“Then what are you waiting for?” John squeezed his knees gently and the horse moved off at a fast walk. Success at last. He looked back and grinned.
Calum shook his head in mock pity and rode after his friend. “You’re in a big hurry to get into another fight.”
John pointed at the fields. “The English are everywhere. I’m in a hurry to be away from here before they stretch my neck.”
Calum looked around pointedly at the empty fields rolling away on either side of the road. “D’ya have a plan?”
John looked at him quizzically for a moment, then smiled. “No, of course not. But you do.”
“Aye, I do.”
“And that is?”
“We hide in the bushes until a wagon loaded with plunder comes by; then we jump out and take it.”
John waited, but there was no more. “That’s it? That’s your plan? Hide in the bushes and jump out?” He shook his head, but it didn’t help. “Are you out of your mind?” He nodded emphatically. “It’s the drink, is it not? I told you all that whisky would pickle your brain.”
“It’s a good plan,” Calum said.
“It is not a good plan! It’s a very—” John was lost for words, for once.
“Bad plan?” Calum suggested.
“Yes, a bad plan,” John said, and thought about it. “But m’be it’s daft enough to work.” He looked at his friend. “Jump out, you said?”
“Aye,” Calum said, smiling. “Jump out.”
“From the bushes?”
“If we can find bushes, aye.” He shrugged. “If we canna, then we’ll hide behind the hedgerow.”
“This plan just gets better the more you work at it, does it not?”
“Same plan. It’s just the vegetation that’s changed.” Calum was still smiling and realised that it was the first time he’d genuinely smiled since Drummossie Moor, ten days ago.
“There’s the main road,” John said, interrupting Calum’s thoughts of Culloden and the end of a way of life.
“Aye,” Calum said, and pointed south. “And there’s a nice clump of bushes.”
John glanced at him, but could see he was serious about the plan. If a plan it was, and he wasn’t convinced. He turned right at the junction anyway. It was the only plan they had.
They didn’t have to wait long, which meant they were either lucky, or the English were shipping everything of value south. Calum knew it was the latter, but felt better at the thought of diverting some of it to a more worthy cause. Theirs.
A covered wagon with two drivers and an outrider clattered past the junction and the field leading up to the bushes, from which they planned to jump out. John stood up stiffly from the log he’d been using as a bench, and started to draw his sword, but saw Calum watching the wagon with a look of suspicion on his face.
“Something wrong with yon little wagon?” John asked. “M’be it’s the guard that has you frightened.” He chuckled.
“No,” Calum said, still staring at it. “It’s the canvas moving.”
“It’s windy. Canvas moves in the wind.”
“Not in lumps it doesn’t.”
John stepped behind a tree that did nothing to hide his bulk. “A trap?”
“Aye, but who for?”
“Us,” John said and peered around the tree trunk.
“They don’t know we’re waiting to rob them.”
“True.” John looked over at him and shook his head. “Because who in his right mind would jump out of the bushes?”
“They’d not expect that.”
“Not in a million years. You’re a true strategic genius, y’know that, Calum Maclean?”
“Aye, I do.”
“What would you have us do now?”
Calum sat down on the log John had vacated. “We’ll wait for the next one, and let these go on about their business, and ensnare somebody else.”
“It’s cold and I’ve no had m’ breakfast.” John looked around for another log, but the only one was now taken. He sat on a small boulder covered with wet moss and flinched.
“Won’t have to wait long,” Calum said, and stretched out his legs comfortably.
“You know that because?” John was feeling tetchy now that he was wet where he met the rock. And he’d not had his breakfast.
“That one…” Calum pointed at the road south. “Is the bait. Any highwaymen, or m’be some Scotsmen wanting to reclaim their goods, will pounce on that. Then the soldiers in the back will shoot them.” He pointed north. “The real treasure wagon will following in a little while. Far enough away to be out of sight, but not so far the bait wagon can’t get back if they get into trouble.”
“We’re trouble, are we not?”
“We are,” Calum said, and stood up. “But with luck, we’ll be quiet trouble.” He walked to the edge of the copse.
“Were are you going?” John got off the wet rock and followed, keeping his legs a little apart to let the cold wind dry what needed to be dried.
“The wagon’s coming.”
“You’re part deerhound, y’know that?”
Another covered wagon rolled past the junction, but this one had canvas that flapped in the wind with no lumps.
“Stay out of sight for a wee minute,” Calum said and drew his sword.
John gave him a double-take when he leaned it against a tree and stepped out into the road, just in front of the wagon. He stumbled, clutched his chest as dramatically as an overacting thespian, fell to his knees and put his hand on his head, then swooned away. Blocking the wagon’s path.
“What’s the matter wiv ’im?” the driver holding the reins said.
“I think he’s snuffed it?” the second driver said. “Run ’im over, and let’s get going.”
“Nah,” the driver said. “It’ll shake us all to buggery.” He waved at his friend. “Get down and shift him out of the way.”
&nb
sp; “You bloody get down. When was I your slave?”
The driver hooked the reins around the handbrake and climbed down, swearing quietly. He leaned over to grab Calum’s tunic, intending to pull him aside.
“Help me ’n I’ll give you all m’ gold,” Calum croaked.
The man looked back quickly at his friend, then bent closer. “Where’s this ’ere gold at, then?”
Calum drifted in and out of unconsciousness. Dramatically. “On m’ three pack horses in yon bushes. I hid them there when I was set upon by twenty brigands.” He wondered if that might be taking it a bit too far, but decided it was just far enough.
The driver looked at the bushes. “In there?”
“Aye,” Calum croaked. “It’ll take two of you to bring them out. Is there two of you? I canna see. It’s all black.”
The driver stood up, put his hands on his hips and looked from the bushes to his friend. Then he waved his friend over. Decision made.
His friend climbed down slowly, stretched his back, and came over to where the Scotsman was dying on the wet road. And blocking it.
“This ’ere chap has three pack horses full of gold in them trees,” the driver said, pointing at the bushes. “Says we can ’ave them iffin we help him.”
His friend looked at the bushes then at Calum. “All right, ’elp me roll ’im off the road. That’ll be helpin’ him ’n doin’ our Christian duty.” He laughed.
They rolled Calum off the road and against the hedgerow. Then walked quickly up to the bushes and pulled them aside.
John’s fists hit them in the forehead and dropped them before they could be disappointed at the lack of gold. He stepped out of the bushes and saw Calum brushing the mud off his kilt. “No jumping out of the bushes, then?”
“It was a bad plan.” He walked to the wagon. “Y’see, I do listen to you.”
John frowned. “When?”
“When you tell me it’s a bad plan.” He pointed at the bushes. “Get the horses. And tie those two up.”
“Why don’t we just take the wagon? The English aren’t using it.”
Calum stepped back and examined the wagon. “Aye, we could do that.” He pointed at the drivers. “Tie them up anyway. And leave the horses. They’ll think we killed their owners and nay look any further.”
“We did kill their owners,” John said as he stepped off the road, grabbed the drivers by the scruff of their necks and dragged them out of sight.
“D’na tell everybody!” Calum called after him, and stepped up onto the wagon and looked inside. And whistled. The wagon was stuffed with all sorts of valuables looted from the great houses, and from the less great. And at the back were three large barrels clearly labeled Glencomrie Malt Whisky. He smiled. John would be pleased.
He waited patiently while John did all the work of tying up the drivers.
So, they had a wagon full of paintings, gold and silver plate, bags of money, and chests of loot. He looked back up the road. What were they going to do with it all? He already knew. They couldn’t take it. They wouldn’t get far driving an English wagon full of plunder. They needed to leave it somewhere.
John came back, climbed up onto the wagon and looked inside. He didn’t see the gold and silver, the fine silks and the paintings. He did see the whisky. “We’re rich,” he said, and unhitched the horses. “Where to? The ship?”
“I thought we’d stop off at the church on the way.”
John unhitched the reins and looked back up the road. “That’s the wrong way.”
“Aye, it is a bit.”
John nodded. “Aye, but it’s a fine day for a wee drive in this fine wagon. Did I tell you I hadn’t had any breakfast?” He pointed over his shoulder at the barrels.
John was feeling a lot better now he’d made sure the whisky wasn’t tainted, and hummed quietly as he drove the wagon back the way they’d come. The old priest would be able to repair his church and redistribute the treasure to the people. Scots people.
A good day’s work. And they’d get their thoroughbreds back, instead of the cantankerous mount he’d been riding all day.
As the wagon bounced away from the main road, a rider cantered past on a magnificent white stallion. The mount of a rich and successful man. But this man’s powder-blue coat was creased and stained, and its big cuffs were polished like leather by ingrained grease. And his odd socks were held up by old twine.
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About the Author
Leigh Barker is the author of:
Bitesize Reads:
Action Adventure Series:
Clan – Season 1, 2, and 3
Soldiers
The Hellfire Legacy
First Responder
The Orpheus Directive
Men at Work
Fantasy Adventure Series:
Requiem for Eden
Novels:
Action & Adventure (prequel to The Hellfire Legacy series):
A Whisper of Armageddon.
Fantasy Novels (prequels to Requiem for Eden series):
Eden’s Last Hero
Winterwood.
The series are published in Bitesize Read Episodes, where each episode is a one-hour read, with a beginning, a middle and a cliff-hanger ending.
Each series is available in a complete Box Set at a big discount.
‘Clan’ Season 3
Return to Scotland!
Calum’s Country (Episode 1)
Calum’s Army (Episode 2)
Calum’s Watcher (Episode 3 – Next)
…
Books by Leigh Barker
The hugely successful Bitesize Read Series (1-hour episodes)
‘Clan’ Season 1
Rip-roaring Adventures during the Jacobite Rebellion.
Season 1 Box Set (All 13 Episodes at a big discount)
‘Clan’ Season 2
The Adventure Continues
Season 2 Box Set (All 12 Episodes at a big discount)
‘Clan’ Season 3 — In production
Return to Scotland
‘The Hellfire Legacy’ Season 1
2nd Action-packed Ethan Gill Adventure (1st is A Whisper of Armageddon)
Season 1 Box Set (All 10 Episodes at a big discount)
‘The Orpheus Directive’ Season 1 — In production
3rd Ethan Gill Adventure
‘First Responder’ Season 1— In production
Explosive adventures with the FDNY Fire Marshals
‘Soldiers’ Season 1
Explosive Great War Adventures
Season 1 Box Set (All 11 Episodes at a big discount)
‘Requiem for Eden’ - Season 1 — In production
The Eden Adventure Continues
‘Men at Work’ Series
Occasional, mostly ‘True’ stories of anarchy in the workplace…
Novels:
A Whisper of Armageddon (1st Ethan Gill Adventure)
Off-the-
wall characters, furious action and suspense
‘Eden’ Fantasy Series (Requiem for Eden Prequel)
Great adventures with our reluctant hero
Eden’s Last Hero
Winterwood
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