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dragging my boat onto the beach. In the background women are tending a fire;
the
glowing coals remind me of my boyhood. The largest of the men lifts me from
the
boat. He ties my hands; he anoints my face; he drags me forward ...
And heats a pot that's large enough to be my coffin. Wearily I whisper a
final
prayer. ... Till at that moment, borne before a huge unnatural gust of wind,
a
sailing ship appears on the horizon. The cartoon natives run away, and I am
saved. The ship meets a steamer which returns me to Scotland; I set foot once
more on my native soil. Still dazed and emaciated, a grey stick figure in
cast-off Navy clothes, I sink to my knees and praise God for his goodness; I
consider myself blessed. Later, as my weary legs carry me toward the house
where
I was born, I believe I finally see the pattern He's imposed on my life: a
madman's full circle, clear around the globe.
193
The heath now stirs around me in the autumn wind. I have returned, like a
piece
of ancient driftwood, to the spot where I began--though not, in fact, to my
parents' doorstep. Their cottage now stands empty like the others, roof
rotten
and fallen in, a picturesque ruin. Instead, I'm now living in a tiny bungalow
just down the hill from it, on a small plot of what was once my parents'
farm.
The land is subdivided now, along with the land of our neighbors, and a
company
down in London is busy populating it with vacation homes. Tourists, hikers,
and
holiday makers now roam the hills where once I tended my father's flocks. The
old "puffers" have been replaced by diesel-powered vessels that take
Americans
to Jura and Islay, and the deserted forts, those still in decent repair, have
now become museums. In one of them, devoted to local history and antiquities,
I
recently had the novel experience, novel but eerily disorienting--of finding
a
shelf of my own childhood books on display in a room labeled "Typical
Crofter's
Cottage, Early 20th Century." I felt a queer burst of homesickness, seeing
them
there in that reconstructed room; they looked as clean and well cared for as
if
my mother were still alive to dust them. Among them were the bound Youth's
Companions that circumstance had robbed me of the chance to read. I removed
one
and sadly flipped through it. It fell open, as if by design, to a page
entitled
"Rainy Day Puzzles and Pastimes," below which my eye was caught by a familiar
question: "How do you change a Dog into a Cat?" Heart pounding, I read on:
"By
changing one letter at a time. This age-old game is called a Word Ladder,
'for
each change must make a new word. You can turn Dog into Cog, and Cog into
Cot,
and Cot into Cat--just three steps. Or you can do it in four, from Dog to
Hog,
to Hag, to Hat, to Cat. Or in five, from Dog to Bog, to Bag, to Bar, to Car,
to
Cat. In fact, the ladder may stretch as long as you like. The possibilities
are
endless!" And, by God, they are--though at first I didn't understand; it's
taken
me this long to work it through. And now, at last, it's all laid out here in
this memoir, the secret itinerary of my own career from "Birth" to "Firth,"
to
"Forth," and on to "Forts" ... and all for His amusement. All those deaths!
The
men of the Jane Guy, my father and mother, my friend Mr. Nath, the girl in
Fort
Augustus .
194
... Was it really for this that she had to die? To move me one rung down,
from
"Forts" to "Ports"? Couldn't He have spared her? Couldn't He have set me on a
different course? I might have gone instead from "Forts" to "Forks," "Folks,"
"Folds," "Golds," "Gelds," "Melds," "Meads," "Meats," "Heats," and "Heath"
...
Or in an even more roundabout journey, from the "Posts" I once held, to
"Poses,"
"Roses," "Ropes," "Rapes," "Races," "Faces," "Facts," "Fasts," "Fests,"
"Tests,"
"Tents," "Dents," "Depts.," and "Depth" (assuming the old cheat would allow
Himself the use of an abbreviation near the end). But in my case He seems
simply
to have plumped for the easiest and most direct route--except, I now realize,
for a single false step. The holy man must have noticed it at once. "Pests!"
he'd cried. Not "Bugs!" but "Pests!"--a chapter that, in someone else's life,
might well have followed "Posts." Those creatures, had they been permitted to
remain, would likely have led me on an alternate route to "Tests," "Bests,"
"Beats," and "Heats," arriving precisely where I am today. Instead, God must
have changed His mind--and erased that swarm of pests from the game so
hurriedly
that my friend saw what it meant. Perhaps, in the end, He simply found it
easier
to move from "Posts" to "Costs," and to drag in that dreadful crate of coats.
... Well, I always knew I was destined for something; I just never thought it
would be this. Saint John had it right, I see that now: In the Beginning Was
the
Word. Unfortunately for me, the word was "Birth," and it was all downhill
from
there. Below me now lies one more rung--the bottom rung, the one that follows
"Heath." I'd rather cling to this one for a while, but I know that, like any
true gamesman, God's going to have the last word.
195
Muscae Volitantes
Chet Williamson
Writers, like actors, can get typecast. They can become known for doing
something well, and usually to the exclusion of all the other things they do
well. Chet Williamson is one of those writers who's been quietly, but with
great
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