Loch, The Page 10

  The Harley spewed blue exhaust as I roared past the overloaded vehicle and headed for the outskirts of Lochend, the northernmost beginning of Loch Ness.

  Looming ahead, stretched out before me like a dark serpent, was the infamous waterway. I had to slow, the dark beauty of the Loch and its rising mountain walls too mesmerizing not to admire.

  Beep! Be—eep ... beep!

  The dump truck was right behind me, its grille threatening to bounce my motorcycle off the side of the road.

  Shifting gears, I distanced myself from the threat, then swerved off the A82 into a roadside parking area, known in the Highlands as a lay-by.

  I shut off the engine and listened to the Great Glen breathe in between passing cars. I inhaled the moisture of a freshly rained-upon spruce forest and smelled the presence of Loch Ness’s acidic waters in the valley below.

  The ghosts of my childhood whispered in my head, beckoning me to the ancient shoreline.

  Leaving the bike, I made my way down a rock-strewn path until I reached a pebbled beach.

  The Loch was calm, its black surface reflecting an overcast sky. Across a half-mile stretch of water, through rolling wisps of fog I could see Aldourie Castle perched along the opposite bank—the exact spot where Angus had lectured me so long ago.

  Calm yourself; Zack. There’s no dragons or monsters in Loch Ness, there’s only Angus, still screwing with your head.

  I stared at the three hundred year old chateau. Situated on four hundred acres of forest and grassy knolls, Aldourie Castle was like a vision out of Camelot. Long abandoned, rumored to be for sale, the baronial mansion was known for its many Nessie sightings and had once hosted the premiere party for Loch Ness, a movie starring Ted Danson and Joely Richardson. I had enjoyed the flick, up until its fairy-tale ending, which featured Nessie as a pair of friendly plesio­saurs—exactly the kind of rubbish that kept most reputable scientists away from the Loch.

  Tea-colored waters, stained brown by an overabundance of decom­posing vegetable matter, lapped at the gravel beneath my hiking boots. Overhead, a slit of sun peeked through the ceiling of clouds. The view was breathtaking, the mountains rolling away to the southwest—

  —as subliminal dark, underwater images flashed in my head, replaced by a sickening rush of fear that sent my stomach gurgling.

  They were the same mind-flashes I had experienced in South Beach, and, unnerved, I backed away, then hurried up the path to the lay-by. It was all I could do to keep myself from retching.

  Easy, Zack. It’s just a lake. It can’t hurt you if you don’t go in.

  My hydrophobia said otherwise.

  I took several deep breaths, then staggered to the Harley. Climbing back on, I started the motor and gunned the engine, continuing south along the busy two-lane highway toward Drumnadrochit.

  The cold mountain breeze whipped through my clothing, doing little to soothe my frayed nerves. Seventeen years may have passed, but the drowning incident of my childhood still haunted me.

  I rode on for another three miles, then forced myself to steal a quick glance at the Loch as I passed Tor Point. It was here that the eastern shoreline receded, doubling the Ness’s width to a full mile. It would remain that wide until the waterway reached Fort Augustus, another twenty miles to the south.

  It was almost eight o’clock, yet the evening summer sky was still bright as I passed the hamlet of Abriachan.

  Fifteen minutes later, the A82 curved away to the west as the Loch’s shoreline opened to Urquhart Bay. Another mile and the waterway was gone, replaced by a small cemetery and the river Enrick.

  Crossing the Telford bridge, I followed the road into the village green of Drumnadrochit.

  I was home.

  Chapter 9 Quotes

  « ^ »

  My wife and I were driving on the southeast side of the Loch, between Dores and Foyers. It was an overcast day, maybe four in the afternoon, when we spotted this huge animal, slithering across the road about 200 meters ahead of us. The body was 1.5 meters (5 feet) in height, and I estimated its length at 7-9 meters (25-30 feet). Its color could be called a dark elephant grey. We saw no tail, but later concluded that the tail must have been curled around alongside. It did not move in the usual reptilian fashion, instead, its body shot across the road in jerks. Although I accelerated towards it, it had vanished by the time we reached the spot.

  —MR. F.T.G. SPICER, LONDON, 22 JULY 1933

  Chapter 9

  « ^ »

  Drumnadrochit, Scottish Highlands

  Scotland

  SEVENTEEN YEARS... and the village hadn’t aged a day.

  Drumnadrochit is the first in a series of Highland communities that push west from Loch Ness’s Urquhart Bay up the River Enrick and into Urquhart Glen, Glen Affric, and Glen Cannich.

  To the two hundred thousand tourists who visit Drumnadrochit each year, the town is the epitome of Highland commercialism, bus­tling with hotels and guesthouses, European bed-and-breakfasts, tubs of colorful flowers, friendly people, restaurants and bars, quaint shops, and private mountain lodges that overlook the Loch. More important, Drumnadrochit lies near Castle Urquhart and its mysterious deep- water bay, making it the Loch Ness monster capital of the world. The village is home to two competing Loch Ness Monster exhibits, and now John Cialino’s soon-to-be-open resort.

  To the 813 residents who depend upon tourism to earn their wages, Drumnadrochit is six months feast and six months famine, a pattern that follows the extremes of tourism and the length of its days. Because the Highlands are located so far to the north, summer days at Loch Ness can run from three in the morning until as late as eleven at night. Conversely, midwinter days are reduced to six-hour slots, from nine-thirty in the morning to only three in the afternoon. Living in Drumnadrochit was like living in Alaska, only with more moderate temperatures and less snow, old world charm and nosey neighbors, everyone seeking a livelihood among some of Mother Nature’s greatest works.

  To a young Zachary Wallace, growing up in a Highland village so far from civilization meant antiquated textbooks, third-run movies, wrath-of-God sermons, and closed-minded teachers. It meant excessive schooling in farming and the ways of crofting, and hanging out at the petrol station with friends. It was stealing the gnomes from old lady Dougall’s garden and living in a place few outsiders could spell, let alone pronounce, and its isolation from the rest of the world seemed to impose a ceiling on my ability to garner knowledge about the rest of the world ... at least until I was old enough to sneak bus rides into Inverness.

  Of course, Drumnadrochit would always be Angus Wallace and his mind games, and pretending not to hear Mom’s tears. As a child, I couldn’t wait to leave, if only to be at peace with myself.

  Seventeen years later, the nightmares of my childhood had returned ... and so had I.

  I drove through the village green and past the petrol station where I used to hang out. I idled by Blarmor’s Bar until I could smell the chicken and fish, then passed the Sniddles Club, my father’s favorite watering hole.

  I parked and stretched my legs, my groin feeling numb. The post office was nearby, and I entered, just as it was about to close.

  There was one clerk on duty, an old man in his eighties who had taught me history back in grammar school. “May I help ye?”

  “I’m looking for an old friend, his name is MacDonald, F. True MacDonald.”

  “Dae ye mean Alban MacDonald’s laddie?”

  “That’s him. Know where I can find him?”

  “Usually in the North Sea. Dives off one o’ them oil rigs, but this month an’ next he’s back in toon. Stays wi’ his faither, who works up at the lodge, I’d check there first.”

  “Thanks.”

  The old man squinted at me through a pair of copper-rimmed spectacles. “Ye look a wee bit familiar. Dae I ken ye?”

  “You did. Thanks, Mr. Stewart, I gotta run.”

  I made it halfway out the door before he shouted, “Ye’re Angus Wallace’s laddie, the
big-shot scientist. Had tae come hame tae look for yer monster, didn’t ye?”

  “The only monster I know of, Mr. Stewart, is locked up in Inverness Castle.”

  I hopped on the Harley and drove south, accelerating up a steep gravel path that led into the hills.

  The lodges at Drumnadrochit were a series of private cottages and chalets set high above the village on a mountainside overlooking Loch Ness. I parked, then entered the main office, hoping to find True before I ran into his father.

  Too late.

  Alban Malcolm MacDonald, known to the bairns (children) of Drumnadrochit as “Crabbit MacDonald,” looked as gruesome and bad-tempered as I ever remembered. His moon-shaped Norseman’s face remained half-concealed behind a thick, graying auburn goatee and sideburns, neither doing much to hide the scars left behind from a childhood ridden with smallpox. Fog-gray eyes stared at me as I entered his dwelling, his thickly callused fingers and yellowed nails tapping the wooden check-in desk in rhythm.

  “Mr. MacDonald, good to see you, sir,” I lied. “Do you remember me?”

  He removed a toothpick hanging from his liver lips, his crooked, yellowed teeth revealing themselves as he spat, “Zachary Wallace.”

  “Yes, sir. I can’t believe you remembered.”

  “Didn’t. Saw yer photo in the papers five months back.”

  “Oh, right. Is, uh, is True here?”

  “Nah.”

  “No? How about Brandy? Gosh, last time I saw your daughter, she must’ve been five, maybe six years—”

  “Go back tae the States, Zachary Wallace, there’s nowt here for ye.”

  “My father’s here. I came to lend my support.”

  “Since when does he ask for it? Men like yer faither cannae be trusted. They’re ruinin’ the Great Glen, dae ye ken whit I mean? Him, an’ a’ thae bastards like them that selt their namesake’s land. Let them spend their money in hell, says I.”

  “Grrraaah!” Air wheezed from my chest as I was hoisted clear off the floor by two burly, auburn-furred arms that wrapped around me from behind.

  Old man MacDonald shook his great head and went back to work.

  “Zachary Wallace, returned to us from the dead!” He put me down, spun me around, and embraced me again.

  The last time I had seen Finlay True MacDonald, he was a skinny runt, with freckles and wild burnt-orange hair. No one ever called True by his real first name, his middle name, passed down from his late mother’s side, being far more interesting. We’d kept in touch for a while after I’d moved to the States, and always called each other on birthdays, but it had been a good ten years since I’d seen a current photo.

  The imposing giant with the auburn ponytail who stood before me now was six-foot-five and heavily muscled, weighing close to 260 pounds. “Jesus, True, you’re as big as a friggin’ horse.”

  “Aye. An’ listen tae you, wi’ yer snooty American accent, ye sound like ye’re talking’ oot o’ yer nose. Ye’re no runt any mair, I see, an’ by God, it’s guid tae see ye.”

  “I hear you’ve been working out on the oil rigs. What happened to the career in the Royal Navy?”

  “Had my fill. Her Majesty’s Navy wis guid enough tae train me tae work in atmospheric dive suits, an’ the pay in the private sector’s a whole lot better.”

  “I didn’t know they made dive suits large enough to fit the likes of you.”

  “Aye, well, it can be a squeeze, right enough! Have ye ever been doon in one?”

  “I climbed inside one once. Every step was like carrying a ton of bricks.”

  “Probably one o’ thae auld JIM suits. We use nothin’ but WASPs an’ the new Newt Suits on the rigs nowadays. Both have thrusters that propel ye along. Much easier on the legs. Now I spend four hours a day, nine months a year skimmin’ the bottom o’ the North Sea, checkin’ the lines an’ doin’ repairs. High stress, but the pay’s guid, so I cannae com­plain. Lots o’ folk in the Highlands are barely makin’ it these days.”

  “How long are you off for?”

  “Another three an’ a half weeks. Then I’m back for four months, or until the winter seas get ower rough.”

  “Guess you heard about my father.”

  “Aye, an’ every pub frae Lochend tae Fort Augustus’s toastin’ his name. Tourism’s been doon ye ken, thanks tae the whole terrorist thing. Maybe the trial’ll drive some business this way. That, or the new resort.”

  “You think Angus meant to kill Johnny C.?”

  True mulled it over. “No, but I think he meant tae teach him a les­son. You an’ me both ken yer faither carries a fierce temper, especially when it comes tae money. This Johnny C. wis English, an’ a big-shot developer, no less, and I’ll wager he didnae get that way toein’ the line for the likes of us Highlanders. Angus most likely caught him tryin’ tae pull a fast one an’ decked him guid. I’d have done the same, ‘cept no’ on the cliffs off Urquhart Bay, an’ sure no’ in front o’ witnesses.”

  “They’re talking about the death penalty”

  ‘Aye, but I widnae fret much aboot that. Angus is still as slippery as an Anguilla eel, an’ this is still the Highlands. We tend no’ tae hang one o’ oor own. Anyway, enough aboot the trial. Am I right in that ye’re freed for the weekend?”

  “Yes. But I have to be back in Inverness Monday morning.”

  “Which gi’es us plenty o’ time tae poison oor livers. First things first, ye’ll need a bed.” He reached behind his father’s desk and grabbed a room key.

  “True, I really didn’t plan on staying, I wasn’t even sure I’d find you. I left all my clothes back in Inverness.”

  “So ye’ll borrow. Ye’re stayin’, an’ that’s a’ there is tae it. Ye seem a bit stressed. First things first, we’ll blow off some steam, jist like we used tae dae when we were laddies.”

  Before I could respond, True had me around the shoulders and was sweeping me out the door.

  * * *

  The ruins of Castle Urquhart stand on Strone Point, a rocky promontory set along the southern shores of Urquhart Bay, one of the deepest parts of the Loch. The castle’s origins can be traced back to a Pict fort built in the fifth century, and it was there that Saint Columba, Abbot of Iona, first visited the Pictish Kingdom in A.D. 565.

  Eight hundred years later, the English fortified the settlement, following Longshanks’s victory over the Scots at Dunbar. William Wallace and Andrew Moray eventually attacked the castle, secur­ing it for Scotland. Years later, another bloody siege ensued, with Longshank’s invading army starving the Scot occupants into submis­sion. The castle remained under England’s control until Robert the Bruce retook it in 1306.

  The Scots controlled the castle for the next four centuries, until the English used explosives to demolish most of the fortress in order to keep it out of the hands of the Jacobites.

  What remains today of Urquhart Castle are the upper bailey, sections of its fortifying wall, and part of its five-storey tower house. While there are certainly more impressive structures along the Loch, none are as popular as this haunting castle ruins, surrounded on three sides by deep water known for its frequent Nessie sightings.

  * * *

  It was after ten and summer’s dusk was nearly upon us, the mountains fading into rolling purple shadows, the bleeding scarlet horizon graying into night. True and I wandered along the perimeter of Urquhart Castle, each of us carrying a golf club and a small bucket of practice balls. Moving south along the grass-covered knoll, I paused to look down upon the steep twenty-foot drop on our left.

  Below, a foreboding black surf rolled against the rocky vertical embankment, cloaking the Ness’s extreme depths.

  “This is where it must’ve happened,” I said.

  “Aye. It’s a survivable fa’ though, dependin’ upon where he goes off. ‘Course, he could have hit his head on one o’ thae rocks, an’ that wid have been that. Come on then.”

  True lead me to a hill that overlooked the castle parking lot. To the south was the lighted con
struction site of what would soon be Cialino’s five-star resort. “Nice, huh? Fancy pools an’ restaurants, an’ a’ its rooms wi’ a Loch view. They’re even sellin’ time-shares, so I hear. Johnny C. would have made a killin’ on that place if only he’d have lived tae see it.”

  “There’s still the merry widow.”

  “Aye. From whit I hear, she gets everything. An’ she’s no’ exactly hard on the eyes, yeah?” True removed a golf tee from his pocket, grabbed a ball from his bucket, then addressed the shot. “Okay, the construction fence’s 220 yards, the patio’s 227, the pool 235, an’ if ye plunk it doon in the hot tub, ye automatically win. We’ll start the pot at ten pounds an’ raise it two pounds a shot.”

  I teed up to his left, giving those long arms of his plenty of space. “True, what did your father mean when he said those bastards are ruining the Great Glen?”

  True swung, his ball soaring high over the construction fence, ricocheting off a bulldozer. “Forget my faither, he’s strictly auld school. Alban MacDonald wid sooner bash a computer wi’ a cricket bat than learn how tae use it. In my mind, it’s plain hypocritical no tae encour­age development. The auld Clans have aye held ontae the best acreage around Loch Ness, yer faither bein’ among the first tae sell. More will follow, wait an’ see. Go on then, take a swing.”

  I gripped the driver, took a few practice swings, then wound up and struck the ball, watching it rise, then curve left into Loch Ness.

  “Jesus, Zack. My Auntie Griselda hits a better ball, an’ she’s doon tae one leg.”

  “Blow me.” I teed another ball.

  True hit his next shot, a line drive that disappeared over the bulldozer. “Ye heard they selt Aldourie Castle, aye? Word is some big firm’s comin’ in, convertin’ the whole place intae an exclusive country club, sort o’ like they did wi’ Skibo. Figure one day I’ll retire frae oil rig divin’ an’ get a job there as a golf pro.”