World of Maccy Tamryn

 

Maccy’s Kingdom

 

 

 

Chapter One

 

 

 

Spittin’ Image

 

 

 

 

The old Indian geezer, that’s ‘Native American’ to you and I, had lent me the ‘fishing pole’ and everything I needed to shut myself away into Maccy’s World. I am determined to lose myself for a few hours, maybe days.

   I am no longer King of Camelann. Jennifer who had been my one and only queen is gone. I’ll never see her again but in my dreams and my worst nightmares. Without her; I have no need of a kingdom. My reign is over. ‘The queen is dead. Long live the queen’.

   I have returned to Kansas and as far as I know; I am about to fish my very own stream. Some years ago; Dusty, my little brother, and I had visited Southern Kansas to search for and discover a ghost town, McCarthy City. McCarthy City had been the home of our great, great grandfather. Henry had arrived here in eighteen seventy-something.  He and Tafflyn Edwards had met along the way.  Taffy and Henry quickly forged a friendship that would last until their final parting.

   Henry and Tafflyn had apparently won a tent saloon in a card-game and the two men had stayed and settled, eventually replacing the temporary canvas walls for solid wood. The two had been instrumental in the town’s growth and civilising. Taffy, Ma had told us before we left Camelann, had been chief of police; Town Marshal. Henry had been, amongst other things, mayor for many years. Nobody ever wanted to vote him out of office; it seemed.

   Dusty and I had come here as youngsters and had discovered McCarthy City for ourselves. We also discovered it still had one remaining resident. We kids discovered an ancient pocket-sized aunt no-one in the family knew still existed. To be honest; Renee gave us the early impression she would like to make sure we didn’t. After some erratically close shooting and some heavy whining and begging from me and the kid; Renee had relented. She had put her heavy Winchester rifle down and eventually gave us a less warm welcome on that day of our arrival. A day neither of us boys would ever forget.

   We stayed with old Aunt Renee in the Plainsman Hotel, the hotel Taffy and Henry had built virtually by their own hands. Renee told us everything there was to know about our long gone relatives and the little prairie town. She missed little out. Lastly she showed us the tiny cemetery where almost every member of McCarthy City’s population now resides. That was all except Renee, though she is there now. None of them had had to go far on their last journeys.

   Dusty and I had left Renee at the end of our holiday, with all sorts of promises of a return visit ringing in everyone’s ears. And now for my own selfish reasons I had kept a part of that ten year-old bargain. Dusty had been far too busy to be with me this time and in fact I was glad that he had. I didn’t want his, anyone’s company. Companions have rather a bad habit of dying!

    Jennifer, my own Cornish queen had done just that. We two had been together for seven or eight years. We have a son. I have a son, Macdonald Junior. There would have been another but mother and child were not allowed to flourish and grow. Though it feels like it was just yesterday, I lost them both almost a year ago. Now I am back in Kansas to spend some solitary time remembering how my life had once been and will never be again.

    I had arrived in my rental pick-up, taken a look around the old empty town and rented a ramshackle room at the nearest gas station a mile or two away from the crumbling buildings. The old Indian geezer had lent me his ancient fishing tackle and directed me to my very own stretch of river.

   Renee, in her last will and testament, had left Dusty and I the deeds to the Plainsman, in fact she had left us everything. McCarthy City, though it is more a village and probably even smaller than Little Petrock, quieter anyway, belongs to me and the ‘kid’. I had taken some time to explain all of this to my benefactor. The old bloke had nodded and smiled knowingly while I spoke. Without question he had accepted everything. I got the impression I was wasting my words and time. I believe he already knew who I was.

   And now as I am prepared to catch one of my very own fish, I would be ambushed!

   I bait my line and the stubby little float is already settled on the water’s surface. I prepare to settle back and catch supper or nothing at all. Nothing at all will suit me fine. My eyes are just half open. The Kansan sun is already hot on me. I pull the battered Stetson down over one eye. The old git at the gas station had told me not to come out here without some headgear and had lent me what was surely not his Sunday best. He had also sent me off with a short-barrelled pistol. Apparently I am to shoot snakes with it. I might too; if I knew which end to point at ‘Rattlers’. If I knew which end to point at anything?

   I begin to meditate lightly under a gloriously blue sky. Surely that’s what all anglers do when they aren’t catching anything, which is most of the time? Of course the skies are a different colour back home, grey mostly. The thick fishing line is twisted lightly about my finger tips to warn of a bite. I don’t expect it to tighten.

   I am in absolute silence and believe myself to be completely alone. This is the very reason for my second visit to the United States. There are a lot of Yanks here apparently, but they are well spread out.

   I nudge the battered Stetson a little further forward and continue to doze. My mind travels back to Little Petrock Creek, the stream I fished when I was a tacker. I never caught much there either. I fished from the granite quayside in Camelann plenty of times and with a tad more to show for it, Crabs mostly. Camelann, my birthplace, is a tiny fishing port on the North Cornish Coast.

   I shake off Camelann, the creek and the misty, muddled visions of Jennifer and half concentrate on my present task. I know my Ma, Dusty and Padraig are looking after my little boy.  Macdonald junior will come to no harm in my absence. Macdonald Tamryn junior will come to no harm as long as I have breath. The little youngster and I share the name. I am certain that like me; he will one day become Maccy, possibly an improved version, which would not be difficult.

   I am drifting into the past until suddenly a tiny gentle sound brings me back to now. I look down at my cork float, it is perfectly still but the water around it is moving. Minute ripples are travelling away from the piece of cork. I stare, waiting for the float to bob again but nothing happens. It just sits silently in the water, unmoving. The ripples have perished now and I stretch back and once again delve into my memory of sadness. My melancholy would not last long.

   Once more I hear a faint noise. This time it is a tad louder. My eyes open immediately and I look to the cork. It is once again still and new ripples are travelling away from it. I don’t understand this. What kind of fish do they have in Kansas? Fish that tease, fish that are here just to annoy limey idiots like me? ‘Cat-fish’ the old geezer had told me. If I was lucky; I would get me a cat-fish. To be honest; I didn’t want any bloody fish at all. I was just here on the stream-bank to be somewhere. The bloody cat-fish can stay where they are. I don’t need fish-slime all over my hands.

   For a third time; I pull the battered hat down and rest on my elbows, determined to reach and search my disturbing past and pull some of it back to my disturbed present. It is not to be.

   Something hits against my Stetson, something small but hard has collided with my head-gear. I take the hat off and search for the missile. I can find nothing until I have turned it completely around in my hand and then I see it. Stuck to the wide brim is a tiny, sticky seed of some kind. I have no idea what it is. Stuff doesn’t happen this way in Camelann. Plenty happens, some of it even bloody weird but nothing of this sort. I’m certain I have never been attacked by a seed before.

   Now I have my hat in my hand, I am able to scratch my head in puzzlement. As I do so; my hand is stung! My first thought is a Rattlesnake has just announced to me I am about to die in severe pain. I think about the pistol I had been given for my safety and wonder why I had shoved it under the driver’s seat in the pick-up. My second thought is: what’s the point of shooting the snake now anyway? It’s already given me a lethal dosage of something very nasty. The ‘rattler’ is also invisible. Lastly, I think about the seed on my hat and now realise there is another stuck to my hand.

   So now there is a bad-tempered, invisible Rattlesnake somewhere close-by which instead of biting and poisoning people, actually projects sticky little seeds at humans generally and Cornish fishermen in particular. I think about the pistol again.

   Okay, so I am in America and I’ve heard strange things happen in these parts; this sort of thing may be an everyday occurrence, who knows?

   “You fish man!”

   I am stunned once more. A talking Rattle-snake? I turn towards the source of the words and I realise there is no snake as another seed hits the brim of my hat. She is almost fifteen yards away from my position and sitting cross-legged on a grassy ridge above me. She has a large companion. Either that or she is unusually small. A hand grasps the reins of the slate-grey horse. I have time to wonder if they have just arrived or had I unknowingly walked past them when I approached the stream? I might have.

   I want to say something but I can’t. I don’t have a clue what to say to this seed-spitting Yank girl.

   “Are y’all fishing for your supper, stranger?”

   “Nope.” One pathetic bloody word, it’s all I can manage in my reply. At least I think I sound as if I belong around here. She has the nerve to suggest I’m strange. I haven’t attacked anyone with seeds today.

   “You’re an English guy, ain’t ya?”

   So much for my thinking, I convince myself to do less of it. “Nope, I’m Cornish, darlin’ and that is something entirely different. Have you finished spitting?” I’m certain there is something in her small but lively mouth. She hasn’t stopped smiling all through our short exchanges. Maybe she is working out how to get me between the eyes?

   “Cornish, eh, I got Cornish blood in me, Brit, Irish too. How do you like that?”

   I have no idea if I like it or not and my short silence is evidence of it. I don’t have a clue how to reply to this young woman. I would guess she is twenty-five, maybe more, maybe less. The voice reminds me of someone but I have no idea who, and so I suppose it in fact doesn’t. But it does.

   “Catfish got your tongue, Brit?”

   I become defensive. “Come closer and try fishing, Yank. Same thing might happen to yours.” Now I am suddenly annoyed with myself. I have been unnecessarily rude to her and with just a small amount of provocation on her part. She did start it.

   “I don’t think so, Brit. I reckon I best get along now and let you get back to your fishing pole.”

   It served me right for being so touchy. I watched her step up from the ground. She is tiny but climbs into the saddle with ease. For some reason I feel a tad of guilt. I try unsuccessfully to retrieve the situation “Wait up; I am sorry for being a pain in the arse.”

   “No please don’t apologise, you do it rather well, Brit.”

   She clucks gently to get the horse into forward movement and I am a little disappointed. Just before she disappears from sight; I notice she turns in the saddle momentarily and smiles a smile that lights up her face. I believe it may have done the same to mine. I am suddenly burning but I don’t think it is the Kansan sun.

   For me the fishing is over. I just can’t be bothered now. I had hoped a few hours in silence and solitude would have helped me re-arrange the insides of my head into something resembling neatness. To be honest it hadn’t been working before the appearance of the spitting girl. The chances of it happening after her departure are small to say the least, which basically is the same thing.

   What was it I said about ‘Yanks being spread out’?

   I am ready for the old-timer’s questions as I hand back the fishing equipment.

   “Where’d you put your catch son?”

   “Left it in the stream, seems to me fish can’t swim out of water.”

   The old man eyes me carefully. I’m sure I can read his mind. He’s thinking I should be in the stream! Maybe he’s right but for now all I need is a shower, that’s as far as it goes. The old man is waylaying me.

   “So, why’d you say you was here, son?”

   I hadn’t said anything at all as to why I was here and the old fart knows it. The old geezer is fishing now. “I’m taking a holiday, a vacation.”

   “Here, in McCarthy?”

What kind of questioning is this? “Here, it’s where I am!”

   “A feller would have to have him a good reason to vacation here, son?”

   I begin to wonder if this old Indian might be related to ‘Spittin’ woman. He is chewing something and I just know whatever it is; is about to exit his mouth. Thankfully it is just tobacco juice and it isn’t aimed at me. I look down at the concrete floor and see the evidence this is not something he has just taken up. There are black stains everywhere.

   I have two choices: I can stay yakking and become a target or I can go to my room and train Cockroaches to race. I can’t quite make my mind up. The old bloke does it for me.

   “So?”

   “The truth is old feller; I came here to learn how to spit. We don’t have a lot of spitters in England, there isn’t much call for it, only at football matches and they don’t really count.”

   “You came to the right place, son.”

   “I think I did.” I refuse the packet and tell the old feller I’d give it a try after I’d eaten.

   “Where’re you thinking of eating, youngster?”

   “Somewhere they have food would be best.”

   “There’s a diner along the road aways.”

   “Is it far?”

   “Depends on how hungry you are I reckon.”

   “My stomach thinks my throat is cut.”

   “Twenty miles or so.” The old man's face seems to crackle as he laughs.

   “Oh joy!” It seems as if the old guy is intent on winding me up, it is time to go. If I find the diner fine, if I don’t, tough.

   “Word of advice, kid.”

   “What’s that?”

   “Don’t cause trouble in there and don’t talk to strangers, okay?”

   Bloody hell, it doesn’t leave me much to do, except eat. “I’ll remember.” The old bloke didn’t say I can’t spit and it does seem to be the most popular thing to do around here. Maybe I’ll spit my food out if I get bored. For just a moment, I think about inviting the old sod to accompany me. That was it; a split second. A vision of him spitting thick black juice all around the diner changed my mind. If I want sauce, I’ll ask for it. As for strangers, what else is there in Southern Kansas?

   I steer the pick-up away from the old man and take to the open and dead straight road that seems to part a sea of waving green. It doesn’t occur to me I am about to find out what other jewels there are in this great emerald place. One of which is appearing spasmodically above me even as I pull away from the gas station. A storm must be approaching. I stop the truck again and step outside to watch fingers of lightning crawl, almost impossibly slowly, across a darkening ocean of purple clouds. It is a mesmerising scene.

   Lightning has forever attracted me and that narrow, craggy piece of England we call Cornwall does seem to get more than its fair share. It doesn’t take long before I realise this lightning, Kansas lightning is very different. Here it comes with other less attractive side-effects. As my eyes follow another heavenly hand of light across the exploding heavens; I notice something in the distance which would be a complete rarity in the Duchy. Behind me and not very far away I guess; is something that looks remarkably like a Tornado. I believe it is what I suspect.

   Now, as I am not in a particularly safe place; I decide it is not before time to get back in the pick-up and leave. I have no idea how fast the average tornado can travel and another rather important point is that I have no idea if this is an ‘average’ tornado, who does? They might all be the same for all I know. I’m sure I read somewhere; they kill people and to be honest I don’t fancy the idea of dying on an empty stomach.