Disclaimer: Duncan MacLeod, Joe Dawson and Richie Ryan belong to

Davis/Panzer.  Belle Sawyer, Bernardo Curtiz, Betsy, Tengu, Kenda, Abner

Daly, and Maney (I think that's everybody) are mine.



Beta readers: In no order whatever, Janine Shahinian, Melanie Riley, Gina

Goff, Dawn Cunningham, and my husband, Kerry.  Sue Factor and Sandra

McDonald both read the first half before they had to swear off beta reading

for a while.  Thanks, all!



Background and introduction: Belle Sawyer, an almost-200-year-old Immortal

who died the first death in her mid-fifties, is more interested in cooking

than fighting.  Duncan and Richie met and befriended Belle (in my story

"Belle") just prior to Thanksgiving, 1993; she became to new Immortal

Richie something in the nature of an honorary grandmother.  "Great

Exaggerations" begins Monday, January 2, 1995, ten days after Joe notified

Duncan that Belle was dead (in my story "It's a Wonderful Highlander").

That's all you really need to know coming in.



Links: I've joined the 1990's none too soon and put together my own

webpage. The most current revisions of my "Highlander" stories, in

HTML--including a couple never posted to HLFIC--can be found at:

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~fke2d



Fair warning: There are a couple of objectionable words used in one

conversation, but they're used carefully, and to make a point I don't think

anyone would find objectionable.



Comments and critiques are, of course, most welcome.





Great Exaggerations

by Kat Parsons

fke2d@virginia.edu



"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

        -- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemons), 1897 cablegram



Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them

myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply

with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies

and statistics.'"

        -- Mark Twain (Samuel Clemons), "Autobiography of Mark Twain"







The first customer of the new year was Joe Dawson.  Duncan found him, a

waif on the doorstep, when he went to unlock the doors while Richie

finished cleaning up from their morning workout.  "Why are you standing out

here shivering?  You've got a key."



"Wrong key ring this morning," the Watcher explained through chattering

teeth, limping in with all the speed he could muster.  He didn't stop till

he reached the nearest radiator, on which he promptly sat.  "I knocked, but

you didn't hear."



"I've been upstairs for half an hour; Richie's in the locker room.  You

could have called on your cell phone."



"Out of juice.  Left home in a hu-hu-hurry," he explained sheepishly.



And, of course, Joe couldn't come up all the stairs to the third floor.

"Not one of your better mornings, is it?  You going to be okay?"  It wasn't

like Joe to be such a scatterbrain, but for the moment Duncan was more

concerned that his mortal friend would take a chill.



But Joe nodded.  "Just give me a few minutes."  Duncan went to see if

Richie had put coffee on in the office.  There was a fresh pot, and he

returned with a mug.  "This should help."



Joe took it with a nod of gratitude, and sipped.  He choked, then laughed.

"Richie batch?"





Duncan smiled sympathetically.  Richie wasn't particularly talented in the

kitchen, and he could be somewhat cavalier about his measurements: his

coffee-making efforts ranged from eau de java to espresso syrup.



After a few minutes' huddle over the steam, Joe's face returned to

something close to its normal coloring and he put the mug aside.  "I come

bearing glad tidings of great joy, for a change.  You might want to get

Richie down here."



*****



"Alive?!  But, you said . . . Mac told me you said Belle was dead!"



"The rumors of her death were greatly exaggerated," Joe paraphrased with a

Groucho-like quirking of his brows.



Duncan chuckled, feeling a weight lift from his heart.  It was also good to

see Richie smile--he hadn't in days.  "What happened?"



"Don't know the details.  She went into Nashville to do some Christmas

shopping.  Ran into an Immortal there, Bernardo Curtiz, know him?"



Duncan shook his head.  "Never heard of him."



"I have," Richie volunteered unexpectedly.  "New Orleans, last year.  Ugly

mug."



"I'm surprised you have your head if you tangled with him," Joe remarked.



"Jumped out a window," Richie shrugged.  "Hey, why quarrel with a winning

strategy?" he demanded when Duncan raised a brow at him and Joe laughed.

"The guy had me bleeding from every major organ.  It was that or say

goodbye, Richie Ryan."



"He didn't come after you?" the Highlander enquired.



"I'm small-fry, I guess," he mumbled.  Then, "*Belle* had to face *him*?

And lived?"



"We don't know how," Joe admitted.  "Curtiz dragged her off through a mall

crowd.  She could have started hollering for help, of course, but according

to her chronicle she isn't the sort of person to do anything to endanger

the people around her.  Anyhow, they lost both their Watchers. He

reappeared and she didn't, and, well, we assumed he must have taken her

head.  After all, she doesn't carry a weapon and she's not built for speed

or unarmed combat."



"But she's all right?" Richie prompted impatiently.



"Her Watcher was working on his termination report last night--he rents a

room across the street from her--when he saw movement at her place.  He

thought it was a burglar, at first, but it was Belle."



"So she's home safe, adventure over," Duncan concluded.  "She probably

fattened this Curtiz character up with holiday dinners all week."



Joe's face twisted slightly, and he cast a reluctant glance at Richie.

"Well, no, but she's alive, and I knew you guys would want to know."



"What do you mean, 'Well, no'?" Richie demanded, narrowing his eyes at Joe.



"She returned to her house in the dead of night, packed up her cat and a

suitcase, and left on a Greyhound for Birmingham.  She's on the lam."



Duncan saw Richie pale.  He wasn't surprised, but gave an inward sigh, when

the young man leapt to his feet and started pacing.



"Mac, can I, uh, can I borrow plane fare?" Richie asked abruptly.  "I just

paid my rent, and I don't have--"



"Rich, you can't interfere, remember?"



"I can't interfere in a fight, I know.  But if Belle's not armed, there's

no fight," he reasoned.





"Belle specifically told you, she explained to you, why she wouldn't come

live near us, remember?" Duncan prodded.  "She didn't want either of us,

especially you, fighting or killing or dying for her.  She's a woman of

integrity, she's made an informed decision on how she will live, and she

doesn't want anyone else violating her principles for her.  Rich, you

expect *me* to respect *your* choices, even though I'm older and wiser,

even when I *know* you're making a mistake."



He said this with a smile, hoping to provoke a smile in answer, but Richie

just stood glaring at him.



Duncan persisted.  "We have to show Belle the same respect you want.  She's

old enough to understand the choice she's made."



Richie turned to Joe.  "Will you lend me plane fare?  You know I'm good for

it."



Clearly uncomfortable, Joe glanced past Richie to Duncan as if asking for

guidance.  "Rich, sure, I know you're good for it.  But . . . I didn't . .

. I shouldn't even have told you about this, you know.  I have a

no-interference rule, too."



"Too late, you told me.  Now, do you trust me or not?"



"Richie, this isn't fair to Joe," Duncan chided him.



"Belle needs a friend, Mac!  She'd come to me, if I needed her."



Duncan looked down into the earnest blue eyes pleading with him and

softened.  "Of course she would," he agreed.



"And how many times have you come after me when I was in danger?  Just four

days ago, you took the head of a guy that was after me."



"That's different," Duncan protested.  Richie had gone to a midwestern

cycle rally and encountered an old Immortal who had quickly defeated him.

After a narrow escape because they were interrupted, the young man had then

set out on a desperate zigzag run across the country for home and his

teacher with the other Immortal hot on his trail.  Duncan had met the

headhunter the day after Christmas in a secluded spot in a city park, and

removed the threat.  "You're my student, and you're very young, very new.

Belle is neither young nor new.  She knows what she's doing, and she hasn't

asked for help.  I'm willing to help her, you must know that, but in

matters that concern her life and her life only, we have to respect her

wishes.  You can understand that, can't you?"



Richie set his face with determination.  "It's not just her life.  She's my

friend, and she can't die without . . . without hurting me," he concluded

quietly.  "For the past week, I've thought she was dead, and it . . . "  He

visibly struggled with himself, fighting to be honest against a lifetime's

lessons to never show that he cared.  "She matters to me, a lot.  And she

can't defend herself.  I'm going to go take care of her, and if you won't

help me I'll get the money some other way.  Or I'll hitchhike.  Dammit, I

can pick up wheels in any parking lot, if I have to.  You know I can -- and I

will."



Duncan surrendered.  "I'll call my travel agent."



*****



The flight was to leave in less than two hours.  Richie rushed home and

threw a couple changes of clothes, a shaving kit, a package of batteries,

his portable CD, and a few favorite discs into a backpack, hauled out the

case in which his sword traveled with a selection of bokken and other

martial arts paraphernalia, and took off for the airport at top speed.  Mac

had promised an open-ended round-trip ticket would be waiting for him at

the counter, but he wouldn't feel safe till he was on his way to Alabama.

If Belle was frightened enough to leave her home in the dead of night, she

must have reason to believe Curtiz would come after her.  And if Curtiz

*was* chasing her, there was no telling how long she'd be able to elude him

before he or his minions caught up to her.





The tickets were, indeed, awaiting him--first class, no less!  'Thanks,

Mac, I really wanted to have to pay you back for first class tickets.'  His

backpack went through the detection equipment without difficulty, but he

drew a real hard-nose clerk and had to do a lot of fast talking about

staying in shape for martial arts tournaments to get his sword case checked

through.  'Every airport, there's always one busybody.'  He made a mad dash

for his departure gate, arriving at the last minute, and in his anxiety

that he would miss the flight he was almost on board before he noticed the

electric presence of another Immortal.



After a moment's frozen panic at being caught unarmed, he reminded himself

that the other Immortal would be, too.  Besides, what kind of a maniac

would it take to unleash a Quickening at 50,000 feet while sitting on tanks

full of jet fuel?  He went on in, and the big door was closed right behind

him: he was committed, now, in any case.



The first thing he saw, as he entered the first class seating, was Mac in

the front row, reading a book.  He checked the seat number on his ticket

and, sure enough, he had the window seat next to Mac.  He was relieved,

certainly, not to be facing a stranger; aside from that, he wasn't sure if

he should be glad Mac had a heart after all, or irritated that Mac

obviously thought he needed the help.  In the end, he just got out his CD

player and a fistful of discs, shoved the backpack into the overhead

compartment, and took his seat.  "Who's minding the store?"



"I got Jack Manning again.  Lucky thing for me he works night shift and

always needs the money, or I'd lose what few customers I have.  These

fronts can be a real pain sometimes."



Richie nodded.  "I guess."  He didn't really have a front, yet--he still

have a life, more or less.  The engines started and the plane taxied from

the terminal.  The engines started and the plane taxied from the terminal.

A flight attendant with a fixed smile appeared before them and started the

usual spiel.  The seatbelt lights came on, and the two Immortals obediently

strapped themselves in.  Within minutes, they were in the air and the

attendant had left them alone.  Richie checked to be sure the people behind

them were amusing themselves, and turned to the Highlander.  "I didn't know

you were coming."



Mac smiled faintly.  "Belle's my friend, too, Rich.  Besides, your pockets

are none too deep, and you don't have any credit cards.  We don't know yet

how long it's going to take to catch up with Belle and, if this turns into

a real chase, you don't have the resources for it."  The smile broadened

into one of real mischief.  "And I certainly wasn't going to send you off

with my American Express card."



"No, God forbid, I might buy a hand-sequined strapless ball gown with a

taffeta train," Richie retorted.  "$50,000, wasn't it?"



"I didn't send Amanda off with it, either, she lifted it out of my pocket

while she had me distracted," Mac pointed out.  "Besides, I was envisioning

something more along the lines of an emergency Harley.  Another $50,000."





Richie chuckled, but the thought of having to chase down Belle with

Bernardo Curtiz and his people already two steps ahead of them sobered him

quickly.  He hunched down to peer out the window awhile.  They were out

over the bay as they rose to cruising altitude, and there was no dry land

within view.  Soon they were amidst the clouds.  "Why'd you change your

mind?" he asked abruptly, not looking at his friend.



"I never said I wasn't coming, did I?"



"I just . . . I wish you could believe in me," Richie mumbled.



"I do.  You argued eloquently in favor of going to her, and I was convinced."



"Really?"



"Really."



"Not because the snot-nosed kid would never be able to handle the

situation, not in a million years?"



"Of course not."



"Oh.  Well . . . it's great to have you on board, then," he decided.  "You,

and the AmEx card."



"I'm touched."  He thumped his breast pocket, where his wallet resided--as

Richie well knew.  "Right here."



*****



Duncan closed his book and glanced over at his companion.  Richie had

fallen asleep with heavy metal leaking out the corners of his ears.  The

Scotsman very carefully reached over and pressed stop on the CD player,

hoping the sudden silence wouldn't wake the kid.  He chided himself for

that mental slip: Richie didn't like being called a kid, and sometimes got

rather worked up about it.  "I'm *practically* twenty-one, Mac!"  Of

course, "practically twenty-one" was otherwise known as twenty years and

three months old, but Duncan didn't trouble himself to argue.  Twenty or

twenty-one, what was the difference?



Richie couldn't understand how very ludicrously young he seemed to other

Immortals--and would for many decades to come--nor did he understand that a

teacher's protectiveness for a student was neither distrust nor disrespect.

 On the contrary, Duncan held the boy in esteem.



Agile and fast, Richie showed definite promise as a swordsman, and was of

an independent turn of mind.  He was quickly becoming as much a friend as a

surrogate child; someday very soon, Richie would be, like Connor, a comrade

standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him against their enemies, rather than a

youth to be protected.



That time hadn't yet arrived.  It had been only a week before that he had

thought Richie lost; only a week since he had learned a searing lesson not

just in how important the young man was to him, but in how important his

help and guidance were to Richie.  Duncan wasn't about to send Richie off

alone to protect Belle against someone who had had the kid--ahem, the young

man--"bleeding from every major organ" just last year.



Still, it was odd to see Richie so calm and determined, actually resting on

the way to an adventure which might take all his strength and energy.

Duncan couldn't help but contrast this with the story of Richie's first

flight, with which a laughing Tessa had regaled him when he joined them in

France a few days later.  Even on their return to the States, Richie had

bounced enthusiastically from window to window, chatting with his

seatmates, flirting with a flight attendant older than Tessa and wheedling

the woman--unsuccessfully--to bring him beer on the grounds that he was

"legal" in France.  His third flight, when the two of them returned home

again after a summer's wanderings over Europe, had been more decorous.



This trip, the young man was being positively mature, and Duncan, to his

surprise, felt rather wistful.  Immortality and his months alone had

sobered Richie; the enthusiasm of youth was being tempered far too early.



With a sigh, Duncan returned to his book.



Despite his efforts to store up some sleep, the length of the journey

eventually wore on Richie's nerves.  It was three hours before they

deplaned at O'Hare, and two hours more before they embarked on the second

leg.  It wasn't till four hours after they left Chicago that they boarded a

DC10 in Atlanta, but the hop to Birmingham was mercifully quick.  The

entire journey had taken almost ten hours, hours the young man feared might

make the difference between life or death to Belle.





In vain did Duncan attempt to interest Richie in food, or one of the

airline magazines.  He even offered to order a drink and pass it over, but

Richie simply shook his head and turned back to stare out the window.  He

drummed his fingers and played the same CDs over and over till Duncan

wondered he could hear anything anymore.  The last leg of the journey, he

even put the CD player aside and just stared out the window.  Duncan

silently wished he could find some means of breaking Richie of his

dangerous habit of trying to rescue people.  He feared Richie would ride

off on a quest once too often someday and lose his head.



*****



Richie was still struggling to pull his backpack out of the overhead

compartment when he became aware that one of the debarking passengers had

stepped out of line and was standing behind him.  "Something I can do for

you?"



"Just thought we could share a car from here," a smoky voice rumbled.



"Joe?"  Richie spun around.  "Where'd you come from?"



"Illinois, originally, but more recently--"



"You were on this flight?"



"Not in first class."



With a suddenness that knocked Richie off balance, the bag came.  "Yeah,

well, Mac's gone on ahead," the young man grumbled, checking his backpack

for damage.  "I'm supposed to pick up our luggage and join him at the

rental counter."



"Well, we can walk together, then," the Watcher proposed genially.  "You

may as well take me along, you know," he pointed out as they joined the

last stragglers leaving the plane.  "I'll just follow if you don't."



Richie conscientiously squelched irritation at having to walk slowly so Joe

could keep up.  He actually chuckled.  "That line never works when I use it

on Mac."



"Your voice didn't carry enough conviction," Joe suggested.  "Take it down

a fifth.  Grey hair would help, too."



Richie didn't laugh, though Joe's teasing generally tickled him.  Instead,

he sighed.  "Neither of those is gonna happen."



"I'm s--"



"Don't apologize, Joe," Richie urged him as they headed down the ramp to

the boarding gate.  "I should count my blessings, right?"  They walked in

silence for several minutes, till they were out amid the concourse crowd.

Then he pensively studied the Watcher's profile while Joe looked for the

sign directing them to baggage pick-up.  "Am I any good?" he asked suddenly.



"What?"



"Am I any good?  Do I have any chance at all of making it to the year 2000?"



Joe stopped and studied him for nearly a full minute before he resumed

walking.  "What's this about?"



"Me.  Mac.  No, me, I guess.  I dunno.  I'm twenty, Joe--twenty!  You were

fighting a war at my age, right?  But to Mac, I'm a kid that has to be

babysat.  Am I that bad?"



Joe chuckled.  "Do you know the dust my parents would have raised if I'd

wanted to race *motorcycles*?"



"Well--"



"When I went home to be with my mother the last few days of her life--and I

already had grey in my beard--she introduced me to everyone in the hospital

as her baby."



Richie had to laugh.  "But Mac's not my mother."



Joe nodded.  "Fair enough.  Do you remember the night Slan Quince lost his

head?"





"How could I forget?"



"Know why Connor fought Quince first?"



He shrugged.



"Because he knocked Mac unconscious and went to fight in his place.  You're

wondering why he'd do that, because Mac's one of the best swordsmen alive,

right?"



Richie nodded.



"Because Mac was his student.  That's a long time ago, and Mac can

definitely take care of himself, but that old instinct is still there, that

old wish that he could protect this youngster from harm.  Now, if Connor

still feels that way after 350 years, you may just have to be patient with

Mac after two.  He knows you're not a child, but he also knows most of your

potential opponents have a *lot* more experience.  He holds himself

responsible for you."



"I can be responsible for myself," the young man argued.



Joe just smiled.  "Rich, my mom used to make me crazy, fussing over me.

And my dad . . . man, what an embarrassment he was, always so full of

advice, always so ready to tell me that, whatever it was I decided to do, I

was wrong.  But they're gone, now, and I'd even be willing to be

embarrassed and crazy if I could only talk to them long enough to tell them

. . . that I understand, now, and how grateful I am for all they did, and

how I love them and miss them."



"Tessa used to nag me," Richie whispered.  "But I'd give anything to have

her back."



"Well, appreciate Mac while he's with you.  Even if you both survive--and

there's no guarantee, you know that--Immortals are solitary beasts.  Once

you're 'weaned', you're likely to go decades or even centuries at a time

without seeing him.  And you'll never again have the same kind of

relationship with anyone, no matter how many other teachers you may have."



"You're saying I should just enjoy being treated like a child?"



"I'm saying you should appreciate being cared about.  I'm suggesting you

should appreciate Mac while you have him, because not even Immortals live

forever, and there's no saying what's gonna happen tomorrow.  I'm also

suggesting you should at least consider the possibility that you still may

need some help and guidance."



They had reached the luggage carousel and discreetly fell silent about any

topic other than luggage tags.  Richie paced, unable to contain his

impatience at the continual delays, while Joe, with the pragmatism of age

and experience, found a spot to sit.



Becoming irritable with the Watcher's calm demeanour, Richie stalked over

to Joe.  "How can you just sit there?"



"If you think my standing would speed things, I'll do it."



Richie growled and stalked off again.  Obviously, there was nothing to be

gained trying to talk sense to old people.  They had an answer for everything.



Almost twenty agonizing minutes later, Richie collected Mac's duffel bag.

He now had gathered about his feet two sword cases, his backpack, a duffel

bag and a suitcase.  Since Joe had a very limited ability to carry things

while he walked, Richie was faced with the challenge of finding a way to

bear the entire burden alone.  'Great, just great.  Belle's on the run from

a sword-wielding gangster, and I'm playing native bearer on safari.'  He

turned to glare at Joe and his exasperation only spiked higher when he

caught the Watcher chatting on a cell phone.  'I suppose it would be too

much to expect all these old people who came along to help to actually

*help*.'





After Richie's second attempt at picking up everything all at once failed,

Joe put away his phone and pushed himself to his feet.  He thumped over.

"Need help?"



"No.  Whatever gave you that idea?" Richie asked with a glare.



"Can't imagine.  *You* never need help."  He thumped away again.



"Joe!" Richie called.



He turned around.  "Would it help if you slung the pieces with long straps

over my shoulders?"



"You think you could?"



"With a friend beside me in case I lose balance."



Richie blushed and nodded.  He slung the sword cases over Joe's free arm,

making sure the straps wouldn't slip, and stepped away cautiously until he

was sure the Watcher would remain upright.  This left him only the two

duffel bags and his backpack, which was just a little awkward.  "Thanks,

Joe," he said as he slung the second duffel over his shoulder.



"That's what friends are for," the Watcher said with a smile as they set

off for the rental counter.  "That's why we're here, right?  To help a

friend."



"Yeah."  They walked awhile in silence.  "You're saying I should understand

when Mac wants to help me."



"Just a thought."



*****



Standing near the rental desk, jiggling the car keys in his hand and

straining to see through the milling travelers, Duncan wondered what, in

the name of God, was keeping Richie so long?  When at last he saw the

familiar curls among the crowd, almost immediately after he felt the charge

of an Immortal presence, he saw also a familiar salt-and-pepper head well

above them.  "Joe," he murmured.  It was exasperating, being followed

wherever he went, but he was also quite fond of the Watcher, and it was a

fond exasperation he felt at the sight of the mortal carrying his and

Richie's sword cases while Richie struggled to maneuver two fat duffels

through a weary crowd.  "I might have known," he met them with.



"I didn't get to meet Belle when she came to town; I thought this might be

my chance."



"He says if we don't take him along he'll just follow us," Richie reported

with a faint grin.



"Well, if he's going to make himself useful as a swordbearer, I suppose he

may as well come with us."  Despite these words, he relieved Joe of the two

cases and Richie of a duffel.  "The car's waiting."



Duncan's preferences tended toward sports cars but, mindful of the fact

that they might, with luck, end up with Belle, he had opted for a sturdy

four-door Mercedes, whose trunk accepted the luggage with ease.  Richie

ceded the front passenger seat to Joe, who needed the leg room, and they

were heading out of the airport within minutes.  "I was going to give you a

call to see if you'd gotten any more details.  So, any more details?"



"She took a train out of here six hours ago, heading northwest.  The

ticket's for Memphis--"



"Memphis?" Richie echoed indignantly.  "She's heading *back* to Tennessee?"



"She's zig-zagging," Duncan guessed.  "Which may or may not mean she

doesn't have a real destination in view."  He pulled out onto the highway,

pointed in the general direction of Tennessee.  "There're maps in the glove

compartment, Joe--what're we looking for?





"There's no saying she'll stay on board clear to Memphis, either," Joe

pointed out wryly as he got out the maps and started unfolding.  "Her

Watcher's on her, but he can't stay close--she knows him.  And, to be

honest, something like this is a little hard on him."



"Why?" Richie asked.  "It's what you guys do, isn't it?"



Joe shrugged, looking a little hesitant.  "Well, the thing is, Belle's a

'last assignment'."



"'Last assignment'?"



"We aren't as long-lived as our subjects," Joe reminded him.  "Eventually,

we start slowing down, and we just can't keep up with somebody who's, say,

nineteen forever.  When a Watcher starts slowing down but doesn't want to

retire, yet, or take an office job, they get a 'last assignment'--an

Immortal who settles long-term and avoids challenges.  Belle stays in one

place for fifteen to twenty-five years at a time, and the most excitement

she normally gets involved in is pickle contests at the county fair.  Her

Watcher's 66 years old and he has arthritis.  He should have retired long

since, but up to now following Belle hasn't been very demanding."



"Couldn't your organization get somebody in there to back him up?" Duncan

enquired.



Joe turned the map sideways so he could orient himself.  "We're good on

this road for another fifty miles," he decided.  "To answer your question,

yes.  Meantime, we've got men on Curtiz.  He knows she's on that train, and

he's got people waiting for her in Memphis."



"'People'--?" Duncan started to ask, before Richie bounced forward from the

back seat.



"You got to get word to her Watcher to make her get off!" he interrupted.



Joe harrumphed and looked out the window.  "Rich, I can't do that," he

mumbled.



"But--"



"I don't think Belle will ride her ticket all the way through.  Her

chronicle makes it pretty clear, she's a slippery lady.  Amanda could take

lessons.  I don't believe she'll walk into a trap like that."



"If you're wrong, she's dead."



"Her Watcher doesn't think it, either.  He's positive she's checking out

each stop.  If I thought for a minute she was really heading for Memphis,

I'd have suggested we go back to the ticket counter and get back in the

air.  Her Watcher thinks she'll get off in northern Mississippi--she used

to live in that area, sixty years ago or thereabouts."



Duncan felt Richie's anxious eyes on the back of his neck.  "She's got a

lot of experience, Rich; she wouldn't be that predictable with someone on

her tail.  Joe's right, she won't stay on clear to Memphis."



Richie settled back on the seat with a disgruntled sigh.  "Well, at least

put some good tunes on."



*****



Duncan and Richie took turns driving over the next several hours.  Word

came that Belle had indeed detrained in Jackson, Mississippi, and for a

time they thought they might actually catch up to her in short order, until

another call arrived and Joe learned Belle had boarded another bus, this

one headed for St. Louis.



"Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out she was heading for Washington all

along?" Richie asked, peering over Joe's shoulder at the map.



"Hilarious," his elders agreed in wry tandem.



They overtook the bus just short of St. Joseph and beat it to the terminal,

where they met the arriving passengers.  But there was no feeling of nearby

Quickening and there was no Belle.  They returned to the car and headed

back south; Richie was so hyperactively anxious that Duncan threatened to

put him in the trunk if he didn't calm down.  It wasn't till half an hour

after their disappointment in St. Jo that another call arrived from Belle's

Watcher--"No, Richie, I *don't* know why he doesn't have a cell phone," Joe

snapped for the third time.  "Maybe he doesn't *like* cell phones"--telling

them she'd gotten off in Hannibal.  "Thanks, Daly," Joe said, turning back

to the handset.  "Uh . . . just trying to keep up with my Immie--he and a

friend are riding to the rescue," he explained.  "Yeah, I hope they get

there in time, too," he agreed after a pause for the other man to speak.

"Can you give me directions? . . . Okay, thanks.  Keep me posted, all right?"



"'Immie'?" Duncan asked, his brows raised as Joe slipped the phone back

into his coat pocket.



"An affectionate nickname.  No offense intended."



"Hm."



"I don't think I like it," Richie announced a few moments later.  "I don't

go around calling you a crip or a gimp, do I?"



Joe admitted the justice of that observation.  "But would you consider what

you are to be a handicap?"



"It's more of a racial slur," Duncan decided.



"I didn't mean it that way!" Joe protested.



"No, you've just fallen into a habit with everyone else, started calling us

a name that dehumanizes us.  Like calling people Japs or Gooks or Niggers.

Or Charlie," he added pointedly.



"Or Sassenach?" Joe retorted.  "You make me sound like a Hunter."



"No, but thinking like that could make it easier for someone to turn

Hunter.  We're not people, we're 'Immies'."



Joe considered this a few moments, then shrugged.  "Well, I've never

thought of you as anything but people, and I'm not sure why Immie is a

worse word than Immortal, but, you guys are my friends and if you don't

like it, I won't use it."  He grinned.  "Would it make you feel better to

know we call evil Immortals 'K'Immies'?"



"K'Immies?" Richie repeated, and Duncan saw a grin in the rearview mirror.

"What's that for?"



"You ever noticed the incidence of 'K' and 'G' sounds in the names of evil

Immortals?  We've got centuries of chronicles to draw our statistics from

and, according to some guy in the stats department who had nothing better

to do one day, it's something like 93%.  He minored in linguistics,

apparently, and he also pointed out that K and G are interchangeable in the

Grimm consonantal shift theory."





"Cons . . . shift theory," Richie echoed faintly.



"Grimm's consonantal shift theory," Joe repeated for him.



Richie laughed.  "Hey, Mac, you've got *two* 'K' sounds--should I be

watching my head?"



Duncan attempted to frown him down.



"Well, you notice *I've* got no K's," Richie pointed out.



Duncan decided to ignore the bumptious youth.  "You know, Tessa noticed all

the K's, too," he admitted to the Watcher.  "I told her she was imagining it."



"Nope, it's a fact."



"It's a statistic," Duncan retorted.  "And you know what Mark Twain said

about statistics--or was it Disraeli?"



"No, what?" Richie demanded.



"Do we have to have comments from the Peanut Gallery?" his weary teacher

wondered.



"The what?"



"He's too young for Howdy Doody," Joe reminded him.  "I was a fan, but I'll

admit I'm a little surprised *you* watched it."



Duncan sighed.  "Somewhere during the Eisenhower administration, I

*briefly* dated a divorcee with a toddler, all right?"  He caught Richie's

eye in the mirror.  "'There are three kinds of lies--lies, damn lies, and

statistics,'" he intoned.  "Now, take a nap or something--it's past

midnight and time for all good little Immies to be tucked in."



"How much farther till we catch Belle?" Richie asked, yawning on cue.



"Almost there," his elders sing-songed.



*****



Mercifully, Richie did fall asleep shortly after that, and didn't wake till

they pulled up at a run-down little roadside motel just outside Hannibal.

Duncan enquired of a cranky manager and, after slipping the man a fifty

dollar bill, learned that a stout lady with bifocals was in bungalow 13.

They left the office and set off up the gravel sidewalk, Richie quickly

ranging ahead.  Duncan could tell, from the halt mid-step and the stiffened

back, the moment when Richie felt the electrical flush up his spinal cord

that meant another Immortal was near.  After a moment's pause, Richie

plunged ahead at a trot; Duncan noted with approval that at least the young

man also pulled out his rapier before he disappeared into the darkness.

Just because they were expecting Belle didn't guarantee it was Belle he

sensed.  At the very moment Duncan himself stepped into the Immortal's

range, they heard a cry of delight and eager knocking.



"You know, it wouldn't be so hard living with plastic legs if I could just

have his energy and enthusiasm."



Duncan chuckled.  "Wouldn't suit your lifestyle."



"No?"



"No.  Can you imagine Richie on a stakeout?  He'd make a lousy Watcher.

How about inventorying the liquor supply?  He might enjoy your musical

career, I suppose," the Highlander allowed.  "The groupies, and all that."



Joe cocked a brow at him.  "Groupies?"



Richie was still knocking when they joined him.



"Rich, Rich," Joe admonished him, "give the lady a chance to get decent

before she opens the door."



"Oh."  The only light came from the neon sign down by the road, but his

embarrassment was still visible.



A moment later, there was a faint sound of bumping and a couple tiny bangs.



"There, she'll probably be here in a moment," Duncan smiled.



Richie stood straining to hear, and a moment later nipped off around the

side of the bungalow.





"What--?" Joe started to ask, but Duncan was already following.  Joe

shrugged and took off after his Immortal friends, moving rather more slowly.



Duncan rounded the corner to see a somewhat rotund form in a bathrobe

backing out a window.  On the ground by the escapee's dangling foot was a

cat carrier and a suitcase, and sneaking up behind the poor woman was

Richie on tiptoes.  The Scot almost protested, but at least Belle couldn't

die--permanently--of a heart attack; he left Richie to his fun.  Just as

Joe came around the corner to join him, Belle lowered herself to the grass

and Richie grabbed her in a bearhug.



Pausing only for the briefest shriek, Belle tried to make a break for it,

slightly hampered by bedroom slippers and cat carrier, but Richie held her

firmly.  "It's only us," he assured her, turning her around.  "It's me,

Belle."



"Richard?"  She put a hand over her heart and took a few moments to quiet

her breathing.  "Lawdamercy, dear, you scared me out of a hundred years'

growth."  She looked past him, then, and her alarm was replaced with

puzzlement.  "Duncan?  And . . . ?"



"Joe Dawson, ma'am, at your service," Joe said, his face split with a broad

smile.



"Oh, how-de-do?" she said somewhat mechanically.  "But, what . . . ?  I

mean, oh, I don't know what I mean, but let's step inside--it's right

chilly out here."



"We've been driving all day," Richie confided, gently prying the cat

carrier from her hand.



"Is that so?" was her politely distracted reply as Duncan took up her

suitcase and they guided her around to the front door.



The cabin was tiny, just a small room with a bathroom.  The furniture

consisted of a double bed and a floor lamp, and the ceiling and carpet were

both stained.  The sign by the highway had advertised rooms at $20 per

night, and Duncan adjudged it a fair price, allowing for inflation.  Once

inside, Belle seemed at a loss how to play hostess without so much as a

single chair and no kitchen.



"I wish I could offer you something . . . I do have some crackers in my

purse . . . oh, dear," she murmured.



"Belle, we don't want anything," Richie assured her.  He took her hands in

his.  "We know you're running from a headhunter."



She cast a frown in Joe's direction.



"Oh, don't worry about me, ma'am," Joe told her with a genial nod, leaning

tiredly on his cane.  "I'd bet I know more about Curtiz than you do."



"Oh?" she wavered.  She looked to Richie, and then to Duncan.



"It's okay, Belle, Joe knows about us," the Highlander assured her.  He saw

Richie give her hands a confirming squeeze.



"Oh.  Well . . . all right, then," she said vaguely.  She covered her

confusion and nervousness by releasing her cat, a fluffy calico with eyes

that shone like gold coins.  "It's all right, Betsy, it's friends.

Remember Richie?" she asked, holding the cat up to look at him.  "He

visited us last year when you were a baby."



Richie smiled with delight.  "This is Betsy?  The little kitten that used

to climb my jeans?"



"She's all grown up, now," Belle pointed out, giving the cat a cuddle under

her chin.  She looked at them, one after another, and Duncan saw that her

chin was trembling.  "It's so nice to see friendly faces," she wailed

abruptly, and buried her face in Betsy's ruff.





*****



Belle excused herself to clean up and get dressed and, when she reappeared

ten minutes later, she looked more like herself.  She'd even put her hair

up, as if she could deal with her troubles better as long as she was

presentable.  She was also back to her usual brisk manner, and waved her

three visitors back when they would have politely stood up at her entrance.

 "No, no, stay comfortable.  You gentlemen look tired.  Whatever are y'all

doing here in the middle of nowhere?  And how do you know about . . . about

the . . . the person chasing me?"



"That's kind of a long story," Duncan told her.  "We heard you were in

trouble, and Richie wanted to come help.  Joe and I decided to come along."



Belle sat down on the top edge of her suitcase, her knees primly together

and her hands in her lap.  She regarded Richie with a troubled frown.

"Richard, you know you're not supposed to interfere, don't you?  Don't

think I don't appreciate the thought, it was terribly sweet of you, but you

can't fight battles for me and I don't want you to."



"But, Belle--"



"No, Richard, there are no buts.  It is one thing for me to decide not to

fight and take the consequences, it's quite another to run and hide behind

my friends.  I'm a peace-loving woman, but I am not a coward.  Senor

Curtiz's problem is with me, not you."



Duncan put a hand on Richie's shoulder, about to gently urge him to accept

this statement, but Richie ignored his unspoken message and retorted, "And

I suppose if I came to you and asked for help you'd turn me down."



Belle frowned.  "No, I wouldn't, if it was in my power to help you," she

admitted.  "But you wouldn't come to me asking that I fight for you.  It's

not the same.  And I didn't ask for help."



"You don't need to.  We came to you."  He looked back to Duncan.  "Just a

few days ago, Mac fought someone who was hunting me.  I didn't want him to,

but . . . I'd tried fighting the guy and . . . I wasn't in his league.  I

don't like saying this, but if Mac didn't fight him for me, I wouldn't be

sitting here now.  Do you think that was wrong?"



She sighed.  "No, of course I don't.  Duncan is your teacher.  It's

traditional for him to protect you the first few years, it's right and

proper.  But, you're missing my point.  You're in the process of learning

to fight, it is your intention to fight--and I'm sure you'll be good at

it!--and you're still very young.  It's appropriate for you to be

protected, just as I'm sure someday you'll be protecting students of your

own."



Duncan could see Richie was startled at the thought, and smiled.



"I'm not new, I'm not under anyone's protection anymore.  I made a decision

based on ethics and faith, and I *have* to live by that decision.  I don't

mind running away, but I will not hide behind anyone else as they fight in

my name.  And, Richard . . . you don't know this man."



"Yeah, I do," the young man contradicted her.  "I met Curtiz not too long

after I left you in Franklin last year.  He . . . well, he had me and . . .

he almost took my head--twice.  I got away and I ran like hell.  So, see, I

know him.  That's why I know how scared you must be."  He got off the bed,

went to his knees in front of Belle and took one of her hands.  "I don't

want you to be scared and alone."





Belle looked down at Richie rather myopically, blinked several times, and

then smiled and nodded.  "Well, if you're here to keep me from being scared

and alone, that's help I can accept."  She patted his cheek.  "You're very

sweet."



Duncan had listened to Richie with a growing certainty that there was more

to the youngster's encounter with this Curtiz character than had been

implied when Richie had first claimed to have met him.  He decided it was

time to take some control of the situation.  "Belle, what are you doing in

a place like this?  I know you're not wealthy, but I had thought . . ."  He

cleared his throat and shrugged the rest of his question.



"Oh, it's so annoying!  You're right, I'm not wealthy, but I am

comfortable, and I have credit cards, but . . . well, I've been afraid of

using checks or credit cards, for fear Senor Curtiz would track me through

them.  I always keep a few hundred dollars' emergency cash in my cookie

jar, but that doesn't go very far anymore.  I only have forty left, and I

just don't know what I'm going to do."



Richie stood up and turned to Duncan.  "Mac's got lots of money, right, Mac?"



His elders all laughed, but Duncan did agree.  "I'll be happy to lend you

whatever you need, Belle, all in cash.  But what makes you think Curtiz

would go to such trouble to catch you?"



She appeared confused.  "I thought you knew all about him?"



Duncan looked at Richie, who looked away, then at Joe--who, now that he

thought about it, had never told him anything about this Immortal.  "They

do, I don't."



"Oh.  Well . . . I first met Senor Curtiz in the household of Mr. Durgan.

Mr. Durgan was my teacher, I suppose you could say, although he never tried

to actually teach me anything other than the Rules," she admitted,

wandering off the topic slightly.  "Well, except to read--he did have the

butler teach me to read.  Really, I was just his cook, but he did protect

me.  Senor Curtiz was a businessman from South America.  That's all I knew

at the time, except that he . . . well, he couldn't understand why Mr.

Durgan let me live.  I never quite understood that," she mused, falling

silent.



"Why he let you live?" Duncan prompted.



"No, I understood that well enough.  Mr. Durgan saw no reason to kill me,

and he wasn't one to kill without a reason.  I'm not saying it had to be a

good reason, mind," she interrupted herself again.  "Just a reason.  He

told me himself, he planned on being the One, but he intended letting

everyone else fight it out and then coming in and to collect the Prize at

the end.  He said, until then, I was safe from him as long as he continued

to like my cooking.  Senor Curtiz was like him, I thought, a

pragmatist--not that I knew the word pragmatist then!  He wasn't interested

in fighting Mr. Durgan because Mr. Durgan could defend himself and Mr.

Durgan didn't attack him.  What he was interested in was making money, so

the two of them got along just fine."



She sighed.  "What I couldn't understand was, why did he want to take my

head?  I had nothing to offer him, no power.  I was no threat to him.  But,

for some reason, he really wanted me dead.  He didn't even seem to care if

he was the one to get the Quickening.  He said . . ."  She looked up, and

the fright in her eyes touched Duncan's heart.  "He said my weakness

sickened him, that I was an embarrassment to all Immortals.  I never

understood that."  She produced a small smile.  "He nagged about it and

nagged about it.  But, finally, Mr. Durgan pulled his sword and said an

attack on me would seriously inconvenience him, and that was the end of it.

 Senor Curtiz left the next day."



She knotted and unknotted her hands in her lap, chewing on her lower lip.

"I met him again during the 20's.  I was back in Laredo, posing as my own

grandniece.  Laredo is a natural crossover point for smugglers and

wetbacks; they streamed across the Rio Grande, and people just looked the

other way.  They were afraid, or they welcomed the liquor and hated

Prohibition, or the smugglers were family to them.  They had their reasons,

but they allowed this weed to get established and like kudzu it grew till

it was too late to pull it out.



"Senor Curtiz was still in business, but now it was running tequila and

cervesa over the border.  He didn't do it personally, of course.  He wore a

suit, and smoked expensive cigars, and had the whole top floor of the best

hotel in town, while the men who worked for him fought bloody wars with

other bootleggers.  For the most part, they only killed each other, but

sometimes . . . sometimes others got caught in the crossfire."





"The same thing that happened in Chicago and New York," Duncan agreed.



"And they didn't stick with bootlegging, any more than the gangsters in

those cities did.  Now, I have had to accept that in the course of my long

life I will see injustices I can't do anything about.  I have baked sweet

desserts for murderous brutes just to survive, and some might think--and

they might be right--that I had an obligation to try to stop such men.  But

I knew I couldn't and chose not to throw my life away trying.  But when I

see something I *can* change, I do my best."



Joe thumped the floor with his cane, and Duncan turned to see the Watcher

smiling with a sly admiration behind his beard.  "This lady conspired with

G-Men to get evidence on Curtiz, and then she testified against him in court."



Belle stared, looking rather spooked.  "Yes, that's true.  And it made him

very angry at me.  He spent two years in prison before he was able to

arrange a death.  While he was there, another inmate cut off his left

earlobe and three of the fingers on his left hand.  That made him even

angrier."



"But what makes you think he could trace your financial transactions?"

Duncan asked.



It was Richie who volunteered the answer to this one.  "He's a real big

deal, Mac.  He wears fancy suits, and he's got wiseguys working for him."



Joe clarified.  "He's CEO of an international bank headquartered in New

Orleans--a BCCI kind of setup.  It's a front for money laundering and

illegal transactions; he deals with the Honduran, Dominican and Colombian

mobs.  He has hit squads, and some of his men are Immortals.  He is one

seriously dangerous dude."



Duncan had to remind himself that he'd never asked Joe for further

information, and fairly regularly told the Watcher to mind his own

business--he could hardly blame him for not having volunteered it sooner.

He looked at Richie.  "How much of this did you know?"



"I knew he had a bank and men," Richie admitted.  "I didn't know the

details.  but I knew about the hired guns."



"Why didn't you tell me?"



The youngster had the grace to blush.  "I was afraid, if I told you, you

wouldn't loan me the money for the trip.  Then, when you showed up on the

plane, I . . . I was looking for the right moment to mention it."



Every now and again, Richie would say something that proved just how much

he'd matured from the disaster-prone seventeen-year-old who had made

Duncan's and Tessa's blood run cold with his stunts--hitch-hiking,

motorcycle accidents, smart-mouthing Immortals forty times his age, and the

like.  And then there were moments like the present, when he'd look out of

those wide blue eyes and drop some disingenuous little gem that raised his

teacher's blood pressure till his ears bulged.



Duncan took a moment to get centered before he exploded, conscientiously

reminding himself that Richie was little older than he looked, and even

calling upon his parents' shades to remind himself what a bloody boob he'd

been as a young man.  "When was that going to come?"



Richie looked a little uncomfortable.  "Now's good," he offered.





Behind a scowl, Duncan admitted to himself a certain amusement.  He wasn't

sure how long his renewed spirit of Christmas would last into the new year,

but for the time being he couldn't get *too* mad at the kid so soon after

being reminded how fragile the good things in his life were.  "Sooner would

have been better."



Richie shrugged and looked down.  "He cornered me.  I fought and I lost,

but he shot me instead of taking my head.  He kept me a few days," he said

quietly.



Duncan eyed Richie sharply, but the kid's face was devoid of any expression.



"There was him and two other Immortals.  He asked about my age, my

training, what styles I knew, who I'd fought and who I knew.  I . . . tried

not to talk.  I don't know exactly what he figured he'd get out of me, but

I was afraid he wanted to find out where my friends were, maybe find out

what you knew, Mac."



Duncan nodded.



Richie looked Duncan in the eye, but there was a faint tremor in his voice.

 "I don't remember it very well, but know I said more than I wanted to."

Duncan put a hand on his shoulder, and Richie ducked his head once more.

"Finally--I guess he figured I'd given him all I could--he handed me my

sword and attacked."  Without looking up, he asked in a small voice, "I

beat Annie Devlin because she's not real good, didn't I?"



Duncan hesitated.  The truth would hurt, but a lie wouldn't do him any

good.  "You beat her because you're larger and stronger than Annie, with a

longer reach, and I'd taught you her favorite move.  And, Annie doesn't

have to excel as a swordswoman--she's always surrounded by fanatics with

guns."



"I beat Mako because he was trapped.  I've . . . thought about that fight a

lot and . . . he wasn't really trying, was he?"



This was a harder question to answer honestly.  "He didn't intend to lose

his head, but, no.  He was clearly not trying to take yours.  He was trying

to talk you out of fighting."



Richie bit his lip and wrapped his arms around his knees.



Duncan had debated sitting his student down and discussing that fight with

Mako.  He had been angry and disappointed in Richie when it happened, for

killing in a dishonorable way, for killing for the sake of vengeance, for

not listening to him.  It wasn't till after he'd sent Richie away that he'd

been able to put aside his own grief, fear and anger long enough to think

it out from Richie's point of view.



Richie had been grieving, afraid and angry.  Mako had just killed Laura,

and Richie hadn't had time to realize it was an accident.  It had also

never occurred to the boy that Mako didn't want to kill him.  Richie had

thought he was fighting for his life, and he wasn't advanced enough a

swordsman to ignore any opportunity to take out a larger, stronger, more

skilled opponent.  Mako was centuries old; he had known the chance he was

taking by not treating Richie as he would a mature opponent.  It wasn't

fair to blame Richie.



"It's done, Rich.  Learn the lessons and go on."



Richie looked up with a rueful smile.  "The lesson is, I'm a loser that

can't win a fair fight."



"Oh, no," Belle protested gently.  "Even if you weren't a good swordsman,

that wouldn't make you a loser."





He shrugged.  "I am.  I finally figured that out, about halfway through

the time I spent with Curtiz.  So, instead of staying to finish the fight,

I took a header out of his penthouse window.  And all I've done since is

run.  I ran from Martin Hyde, and I ran from Kern, and I ran from

Bratikowski last week."



Duncan squeezed the slim shoulder beneath his hand.  "Part of growing up is

knowing how to pick your fights, Rich.  You did the sensible thing."  It

occurred to him that something else needed saying.  "By running away, you

gave yourself time to learn and grow stronger."



"Yeah, well, running away's what I do best, right?  *You* wouldn't have

done it."



Belle reached out to brush a stray curl from Richie's face.  "Don't compare

yourself to others, Richard.  Just be the best *you* you can be, that's all

anyone can ask."



Duncan flashed her a smile of thanks.  "She's right, Rich.  And don't hurry

yourself, either.  I grew up with swords, I was raised to be a warrior--it's

all new for you, but your time is coming.  Now, what about those other two

Immortals?  Who were they?"



"I didn't catch names, at least I don't remember them.  They were young,

like me, I think."



Joe shook his head.  "Curtiz does have some youngsters on the payroll, but

more young like me than young like Richie.  He takes more students than

most, and keeps them a lot longer if he keeps them at all, but he kills

most of them eventually."



"That's horrible!" Belle exclaimed.



"He tests them, gives them some training.  If they don't learn fast enough,

if they're not good enough, if they're not obedient enough, he kills them.

If they're good students, he keeps them on a leash for a hundred years or

so before he lets them go."  Joe gave Duncan a look full of some kind of

meaning, but the Highlander wasn't sure what it could be.  "His graduating

students do have an excellent survival rate."



Belle spoke their bewilderment.  "But why would a teacher murder some

students and take such good care of others?"



"I guess you could say that Curtiz was a eugenicist before the word was

coined.  He's content to leave an Immortal alone, if he's got no personal

quarrel with him--as long as that Immortal meets his standards.  He regards

Immortals as a superior race, and any Immortal who doesn't fit that mold is

something to be eliminated.  He's offended by the idea that an inferior

Immortal might possibly win the Prize."



"That's why he's always wanted me dead?" Belle asked.  "To keep me from

winning the Prize?  That's ludicrous--I never could.  Even if I wanted to,

I never could."



Joe shrugged.



Richie looked up at the mortal.  "And that's why he wanted to kill me.

Because I'm inferior."



Joe shook his head and gave his cane an irritable thump on the floor.

"Most likely, Rich, he hadn't decided, yet.  He knew how new you were.  He

probably intended to keep you, test you to see if you had any promise of

meeting his standards.  His tests and his training are brutal, and you

mistook one of his tests for a real fight."



The implications were clear to Duncan, who couldn't help but remember he'd

been the one to send Richie alone into the world, half trained.  If Richie

had measured up, he would have been molded in Curtiz's brutal likeness.  If

he had not, he would have died.  For good.  At nineteen.





"Never mind that, what're we gonna do about Belle?" Richie demanded,

dismissing his unpleasant memories.



Duncan also turned his thoughts to the present problem: getting his

friends--all of them--to safety.  Someone would have to intercept Curtiz,

or there was no point in their entire exercise.  Of course, Belle didn't

want anyone fighting for her, and he would respect her wishes, but that

didn't mean he couldn't defend himself--or Richie or Joe--should the

opportunity . . . er, need arise.  "Well, the first thing is to get out of

this Roach Motel," he decided.  "Ideally, to another town.  If we could

find you, Curtiz could, but his people are tracking one lady by herself.

They may lose the trail if you aren't alone anymore."



"So, we're all going?" Richie asked.



"No, someone needs to stay to confuse the trail.  I was thinking the three

of you should go on, maybe pose as three generations of a family."



"Belle doesn't look old enough to be my mother--" Joe protested.



"Well, but, Mr. Dawson, I have passed for a youthful 70, and that's more

than old enough," Belle suggested gracefully.



"A very youthful 70," Joe insisted with a chuckle.  "Anyhow, I'm not going

on without Mac."  He looked at Duncan, reciting with a twinkle in his eye,

'Whither you go, I go.'  Or, something like that."



"Ruth, chapter 1, verse 16.  'Whither thou goest, there will I go also,'"

she corrected him.  She peered at Duncan and Joe with perplexity.  "You . .

. always travel together?"



"Not exactly," was Duncan's dry response.  Joe was clearly showing off with

all his inside information, but the Highlander would rather not upset Belle

with the knowledge she was being spied on--and had been for more than a

hundred years.  He opened his mouth to offer a vague explanation about Joe

being an historian.



"Joe's a science fiction writer," Richie interrupted.



Duncan knew a moment's temptation to cry.



"He found out the truth about Mac, but he promised not to tell anybody if

Mac would tell him all about us, and about his own history, and let Joe

follow him around for a while to collect material for a whole series of

novels about a Scotchman--"



"Scotsman," the Scot interrupted indignantly, wondering if he could pass

this tale off as a joke and still tell his own, somewhat more likely story.



"--who lives forever and goes around the world righting wrongs.  He comes

into a town, meets somebody in trouble, defeats all the bad guys with his

claymore, and then goes off into the sunset on his trusty Harley, leaving

behind a . . . a Scottish thing to remember him by."



"A . . . Scottish thing?"



Duncan, having given up all hope of telling his own cover story, saw Joe's

dismay and quickly intervened--to increase it.  "Joe's still deciding what,

but I--I mean, the hero--carries them around in his sporran."



Joe's expression clearly promised dire revenge, but the Watcher said only,

"It's going to be a children's series, science fiction in the vein of

classic serial heroes like the Lone Ranger."



"Oh.  I see," Belle said, her face politely blank.



"Anyhow, I need to stick close to Mac for my research," Joe explained.  "I

don't have a deal with Richie."



"But, it's so dangerous for you."



If there had not been the threat of Curtiz hanging over their heads, Duncan

might have enjoyed this.  As it was, they were wasting time they didn't

have.  "A true artist must be ready to risk all for his art," he suggested,

though he would have preferred to send Joe with the other two, and not just

for his safety--Joe's judgment and experience could have tempered Richie's

impulsiveness, his grit could have counterbalanced Belle's extreme

pacifism.  "Belle, do you need to pack anything?"



"Nothing I can't have ready in two minutes," she replied, promptly getting

up to go about it, and starting by scooping up Betsy and returning her to

the carrier.



"Good, then we're getting out of here.  We'll head to the nearest actual

town, check into a decent hotel, and rent a second vehicle tomorrow.  I'll

turn over a credit card to Richie--he can forge my signature very nicely.

You two will travel as Duncan MacLeod and his grandmother, and leave this

region.  We'll travel as Joe Dawson and friend, but, if you'll turn over a

credit card to us, Belle, we'll periodically use it to withdraw cash from

ATMs--that should draw pursuit away from your actual trail, but anyone

trying to follow your credit card trail won't find anyone fitting your

description.  Belle, you stay out of sight as much as possible; let Richie

take care of any business transactions so no one gets a good look at you.

You two call my voice mail each day to leave a message letting me know

you're safe and where you are.  I'll leave messages for you, too."



Richie nodded, looking very earnest and determined.  That expression

worried Duncan.  "Rich, you take good care of Belle, but listen to her

judgment, and don't take any unnecessary chances."



"Of course not, Mac, how dumb do you think I am?"



Duncan forewent answering that question, noting that Belle was already

finished packing.  She had obviously been living out of her suitcase rather

literally.  "I don't think you're at all stupid."  Just too brave for his

own good, altogether too quick-tempered, and disastrously protective of

those weaker than himself.  Despite his best efforts, and to his utter

bewilderment, the Scotsman had been entirely unable to break the kid of

these dangerous habits--he couldn't imagine where Richie had picked them

up.  "The idea is to avoid confrontation and get Belle to safety.  That

means keeping your heads low, and that means both of you."



*****



The best suite in the best hotel in the nearest good-size town had only

three rooms.  Duncan didn't want to split their group up, particularly

since not all of Curtiz's henchmen were Immortals who would give off an

early warning signal, so he opted to share a room with his student.  He

intended to take advantage of the opportunity to give Richie a long

inspirational talk on the better part of valor, but Richie walked into the

room, sprawled on the bed fully clothed--taking his half right out of the

middle--and was asleep instantly.  The clock on the bedside table read

slightly after three, a little late to try to make a very young Immortal

understand the difference between cowardice and living to fight another

day.  With a sigh, Duncan removed his long leather coat and his boots and

gently shoved Richie over to one side so that he could get some sleep, too.





The party enjoyed a very late breakfast in the hotel restaurant several

hours later, during which Duncan and Belle regaled the others with tales of

Texas in frontier days, determining that they must have come within a few

miles of each other several times.  Belle used her Visa card to rent a car.

 She then traded rental cars with Duncan and turned the card and PIN number

over to him.  Duncan gave Richie his American Express and pin number, and

the two parties split up, headed in opposite directions.  Duncan and Joe

drove east three hours before using Belle's card in an ATM to withdraw a

hundred dollars.



"First crumb dropped," Joe quipped as Duncan got back into the car.



Duncan frowned.  "*If* you and Belle are right that he's monitoring credit

card transactions to track her.  If he's not, then we've made a terrible

mistake.  Belle can't and won't defend herself, and Richie . . . "



"Is a bright kid, and a better swordsman now than most Immortals three or

four times his age."



"Immortals three or four times his age are still young," Duncan pointed out

acerbically.



"Besides," Joe added, giving him a thump on the arm, "don't forget you have

an ace in the hole: Belle, Curtiz, and his students all have Watchers on

them, and you have me."



Duncan didn't find this as comforting as he could have wished.  If their

ruse didn't work, he was now traveling in exactly the wrong direction.

Should they get word they had failed, that the fleeing Immortals had been

found, he'd be too far away for Joe's connections to buy him anything but a

blow-by-blow of the slaughter.  And he kept remembering those hired guns

who weren't Immortal: they would have no Watchers, and give out no warning

sense of presence.  Still, he produced a smile.  "Yeah, you're right."



"So, let's scout out the most expensive restaurant in town," Joe suggested.



"The most expensive?"



"You think Richie's not treating Belle to the best of everything off your

AmEx even as we speak?"



"Good point."



*****



"Are you really *sure* Duncan meant us to live in such high style?" Belle

asked--again--in a careful whisper as they checked out of the Peabody

Hotel, a Memphis landmark, the next morning.



"Positive," Richie assured her equally softly, picking up Betsy's carrier.

"Mac said to take real good care of you."



"Good doesn't have to be expensive."



"Hey, don't worry about it--Mac's loaded, and he loves taking care of his

friends."



On their way out to start the day's trek north, they paused to watch a

procession of ducks move out of the elevator in single file, up a red

carpet, and into the lobby fountain.



*****



"They're on the road again," Joe reported, snapping his cell phone shut

just as Duncan joined him at the breakfast table.  "Passed the night in

Memphis, ate in their suite, spoke to no one other than hotel staff, did

nothing to call attention to themselves, called one another Duncan and

Grandma at all times in public, and let drop that they were on their way

home to Alabama."



This news heartened Duncan, though he still wished he could hit on a good

long-term solution.  Unless and until someone took Curtiz's head, Belle

would have to give up her current life and identity.  Unfortunate, but she

was accustomed to it and would undoubtedly adjust with minimal fuss.

However, should Curtiz discover Richie's role in her disappearance, he

would very likely come after the young Immortal, and Duncan knew all too

well that Richie would not willingly consent to run on his own account.





Connor would undoubtedly recommend he go after the head-hunting Immortal

himself, a pre-emptive strike.  But it went against Duncan's usual

practices to be the aggressor, except where mortals were endangered.

Immortals, even helpless Immortals like Belle and fledglings like Richie,

were fair game, and so long as Curtiz didn't cheat he had the right to

challenge them and take their heads whether they fought or not, whether

they were seasoned or not.  The rub--the possible loophole--was the matter

of cheating.  "Does Curtiz fight fair?  When it comes down to a serious

fight, I mean?  Not one of his 'training' sessions?"



Joe tossed his menu aside as if he had lost his appetite.  "You're thinking

of hunting the hunter?"



"I was thinking," Duncan temporized.



Joe frowned out the window and didn't reply immediately, not until a pretty

teenage waitress with big curls and a homey East Tennessee accent had

swirled off to the kitchen with their order.  "Historically, yes, he fights

fair when it's the real thing.  He appears to relish the duel as much as

the Quickening."



That was what Duncan had been afraid of.



"Mac, he won't find them.  We'll make sure of it.  We'll drop our crumbs

from here to New York and then head home--Curtiz can search New York from

now till doomsday, and never know where he lost the scent.  Meantime, you

settle Belle someplace safe, someplace she hasn't lived before--and with

any luck it'll be another sixty or seventy years before he runs into her

again."



"Yes, that's the plan," Duncan agreed absently, hardly paying attention.

There was a severe flaw in this plan somewhere, something he couldn't quite

put his finger on.  With some regret, he concluded there was no

justification for seeking out Curtiz--unless Curtiz learned of Richie's

involvement.  There was no dishonor in protecting a young student targeted

by an aggressive older player.  "How old is this guy, anyway?  You never

said."



"Older than you.  We know he came to this hemisphere with some of the

earliest Spanish explorers, but we don't know how old he was then."



"And how good is he?  One-on-one, the real thing?"



"Good.  Real good.  About your level, I'd guess."



That was unwelcome news.  Richie was smart and athletic--and damned

lucky--but Duncan could still beat him easily every time they sparred.  "I

noticed an ATM machine in the lobby.  I'll go drop another crumb and get

cash to cover breakfast."



*****



Joe was just signing off a call as Duncan climbed back into the car with

their room keys in hand that evening.  "Thanks, Daly.  Talk to you later."

The Watcher flipped his phone shut.  "That was the last one to check in.

Curtiz is back in Atlanta, awaiting word from his bloodhounds; Tengu and

Kenda are just a couple hours behind us, still enquiring everywhere for a

lady of Belle's description; and Richie and Belle are in Chicago, where

they dined on deep-dish pizza and Pepsi."



"Chicago?  That's it?"



"They zig-zagged a lot.  It's okay, Mac--they're being careful, and the bad

guys are sniffing after us, not them.  Besides, you told them yourself

there was no hurry getting anywhere."





"Yeah, I guess."  There was still that irritating little doubt nagging at

his brain, telling him he had forgotten something, and it was growing in

intensity.  "How close can Curtiz's Watcher get to him?"



"He's in his organization.  It's a liability as much as it's a help--he has

no independence of movement.  Why?"



"As close on Belle's heels as he thinks he is, why would he go home?"



"Pressing business?"



"Find out?"



Joe flipped the cell phone open once more and hit speed dial button 8.



*****



"I feel so guilty spending Duncan's money like this," Belle complained,

just as Duncan and Joe were letting themselves into their room in Hunt

Valley, Maryland.



"Why?  He's spending yours."



"Well, yes, but all this is for my benefit.  I really should be footing all

the costs."



"Don't worry about it--Mac's got a lot of money."  He stuffed a second

Chicago hotdog into his mouth, engulfing it.



Belle regarded him with a certain fascination, but Richie was accustomed to

it.  Lots of people were amazed by his appetite, for some reason he could

never understand.  But, when she spoke, her comment surprised him.  "And do

you make a habit of spending his money?"



He could feel himself blush.  "Well, uh, no, not usually."



"I didn't think so."  She dipped a napkin into his icewater and then dabbed

at his cheek.



"Be--er . . . Grandma!"



"You were going to get mustard and chili on your collar."



He writhed under her ministrations, looking around with the expectation

that everyone in the place would be staring.  To his surprise, the only

person who showed any sign of noticing was a young woman of about his own

age, and she wore an expression compounded of sympathy and amusement.  "I

*can* wipe my own chin," he reminded the older Immortal when she was finished.



"I know.  But I need to fuss over someone," she told him soothingly.  She

put down the stained napkin with a sigh.  "I'm going to miss this life."



"Yeah, but your new one will be just as nice, you'll see.  You hadn't even

been in Franklin very long."



"No, but I was settled in so happily--and I really did think I could stay

for twenty years, at least.  I was working in the church nursery, with all

those *lovely* babies . . . and . . . "



"And what?" he enquired, when she trailed off and a brief expression of

dejection crossed her normally placid face.



She shook herself slightly and forced a smile.  "Nothing, really.  It's

just . . . I had a beau.  And I really did think Abner might be working

himself up to a proposal.  He is such a *nice* man.  A widower, a decorated

veteran--of Korea--honest and upright, a good church-going Tennessean.  He

has two children and five grandchildren, none of them nearby; and he's

retired from his career as an outdoor photographer, but he still always has

a camera with him.  And he's very handsome and distinguished--as long and

tall as I am short and broad."  She shook her head wistfully.  "We could

have been so happy together."



Richie reached across the table to give her hand a squeeze.  "You'll meet

someone in your next life just as nice, you know.  Just show up for the

senior choir rehearsal at your new church, or bring a pie to the first

pot-luck supper, and those guys will see what a fox you are and line up at

your door."





She chuckled, perking up a little.



Richie grinned at her, the ingratiating grin he had used to get extra

dessert out of Tessa and, more recently, turned on Joe to pry the

occasional illegal drink out of their bartender friend.  "If I wasn't

afraid of getting caned by the competition, I'd join the line."



Now she outright giggled.  "You don't fool me, Ri--Duncan--you're just

after me for my pies."



Heartened to see her cheerful once more, Richie gave her hand a second

squeeze.  "I'm gonna go call in to Mac's voice mail.  I'll be right back."



"I'll pay the bill and meet you by the door," she agreed.



*****



When Duncan emerged from the shower late the next night, he found Joe

signing off his ever-present cell phone, but the Watcher's expression when

he looked up was not the cheery optimism he usually projected.  In fact, he

was downright pale.  "What's wrong?"



"Your hunch was right--Curtiz smelled the salmon.  He went back to homebase

yesterday and started two of his best research people on a project.  He

added another two this morning, and about eight o'clock this evening,

Curtiz took off in his private jet--after perusing the credit records of

one Duncan MacLeod."



"Let him come," Duncan shrugged.  "I'd just as soon get it over with anyhow."



"Mac, right now, *Richie* is Duncan MacLeod, remember?"  He thumped his

cane irritably.  "The two young Immortals have been called off our trail,

too--they were within twenty miles of us this afternoon and suddenly went

haring off to MacArthur."



Duncan could feel the blood draining from his face.  "Get Belle's Watcher

on the line, warn them."



"I already thought of that, but he doesn't carry a cell phone, remember?

They checked out of their hotel well before dawn, headed northwest--and

they aren't carrying a cell phone, either.  Tengu and Kenda's Watchers tell

me they arrived at Fargo about half an hour ago.  We don't know yet if

that's anywhere near Richie and Belle, but Curtiz might just have the

resources to tap into the rental car's satellite location system."



Duncan grabbed his clothes from the night before and jammed them into his

bag haphazardly.  "Get cracking, Dawson, or I'm going without you!"



Joe pushed himself to his feet and started packing, too.



Duncan suddenly recognized the flaw in his plan that had been nagging at

his subconscious for two days.  Belle was a Southerner and a Westerner, and

Curtiz knew her well: they should never have laid a false trail to New York

City.



*****



Richie kept checking the rear view mirror, becoming more and more

uncomfortable with what he saw there.  The same car had been following them

since shortly after the last stop for gas.  Of course, it was a long road

with no turnoffs, and the nearest town still a considerable drive--it could

just be two guys heading in the same direction.  Still, the hair on the

back of his neck was standing on end.



"They're following us, aren't they?" Belle asked abruptly.



"I don't know."



"I do.  They're following us."



They were driving through the Black Hills, it was already quite dark, and

snow was falling.  The nearest town was still a long way off.  Which meant

help was a long way off.  "Maybe not.  They could just be going to the same

town we are."



"Possibly, but I don't think so."  Richie could feel her anxious eyes on

his profile, and wasn't surprised to hear her say, "I should never have

agreed to this.  I had no right to endanger you."



"I'm a big boy, Belle.  I knew it was dangerous being with you, and I made

the choice myself.  If Mac hadn't agreed to help me, I would have come

alone.  If he had tried to stop me, I wouldn't have let him.  It was my

choice," he said firmly.





She gave his forearm a squeeze.  "I know.  And it was a fine choice, made

by a young man with a good heart and excellent principles.  But I won't be

responsible for your death, Richard.  Stop the car and let me out."



"No w--"



"I didn't ask you, Richard, I told you.  I'm not a child, either, and if

I'm to die tonight, I'd like it to mean something.  Your getting away would

give it meaning.  Now, you do as I say."



Richie sped up.  "Uh-uh.  We face it together, like Butch Cassidy and the

Sundance Kid."



She regarded him sombrely.  "I knew them, Richie.  They weren't the figures

of romance you've seen in movies.  And I've seen a lot more death than you

have, too--there's no such thing as a good way to go, but there are ways

that are worse than others, and senseless heroics is right up near the top.

 There's nothing to be gained by your dying with me."



"Who says I plan on dying?" Richie asked with a grin.  He jammed on the gas

pedal all the harder.  "Belle, did I ever mention I've always wanted to race?"



For a moment, the headlights in the rearview mirror receded, and Richie

allowed himself to hope.  Then they started catching up again.  From what

he could make out of the grillwork, their pursuers were driving a Porsche;

he was stuck in a boxy Mercedes sedan.  They could out-muscle him, but only

if they were prepared to drive up a kiss-your-ass road at ninety miles an

hour, and the chances were they would not be.



*****



This time, Joe went for the rental booth while Duncan picked up the

luggage, and by the time the Immortal arrived with their bags he was

waiting in their Porsche with a grim smile on his face.  "Our people were

able to put a trace on the car's satellite tracking system, too--I know

exactly where they are.  I've also made contact with the Watchers for

Curtiz, Tengu and Kenda--the bloodhounds are right on their backsides, and

Curtiz is about twenty minutes ahead of us."



Twenty minutes was plenty of time to take a Quickening--or two--and drive

away.  Belle was probably safe till Curtiz arrived, since he was out for

revenge.  Was Richie?  Or would one of the Spaniard's students--Joe

described them as being on the high side of fifty, with several heads each

already to their credit--take him as a table scrap before their master even

arrived?



He turned on the dome light so he could examine the map Joe held.  "Show me

where they are."



*****



Richie was pushing the upper limits of even his nerve, driving at an

absolutely insane pace through blowing snow, but the Porsche was sticking

right to their tailpipe.  "Damn it, Mac, just this once you had to get a

mommy car!"



"What?"



"Nothing.  Don't worry, Belle--that guy's not as good a driver as I am."



"Of course I'm not worrying," she assured him--but, out the corner of his

eyes, he noted that she had a death grip on the dashboard.



Something zipped through the back window, past Richie's ear, and out the

windshield, leaving behind the unmistakable pit of a bullet hole.  They

were coming up on a very tight blind curve, with a yellow sign posting a

recommended speed of fifteen miles per hour.  Richie floored the

accelerator, reflecting that the chances of their losing their heads in a

crash probably weren't *too* great.  The tires lost contact with the road,

and they started to slide.  His heart leaping, Richie tried to strike a

compromise between steering into the skid and steering around the corner.

To his surprise, he succeeded.





Their pursuers weren't so fortunate and, in watching them in the rearview

mirror sailing off the side of the mountain, Richie knew a moment of relief

washing through him like a draught of prune juice.



Unfortunately, as a fireball lit up the rearview mirrors and the ground

shook, the sedan once more began to slide.  Time telescoped as he fought

for control and lost it.  'We're gonna die.'  It was just too cruel.  With

their pursuers blown to smithereens, they could have escaped clean, but . .

. for a moment, the tires caught, and he tried to turn them back into line

with the road, thinking 'no, we're gonna make it'; then the car started to

slide once more and, after they bounced off the sheer rock wall to their

right, they careened across the road and over the side.



Richie had just one unreal moment to realize 'no, we're gonna die' with an

odd detachment, and then they were crashing and tumbling down the steep

mountainside, taking trees and shrubbery with them.



With no concept of up or down, hanging helplessly in the shoulder harness

and cut off from any true or meaningful awareness of his surroundings or

his companion, Richie could only sit out the ride and hope he landed at the

bottom with his head attached.



He awoke to find Belle struggling with her seatbelt by the light of a

fire--a fire under their car, which was resting at a 45 degree angle, so

entangled by greenery he couldn't make out their location.  "Shit--this

only happens on TV!" he protested aloud.  His own seatbelt released without

difficulty; he immediately snatched his sword from the back seat and,

awkwardly in the confined space of the catty-cornered front seat, slashed

Belle's seatbelt.  Once he had helped her get her feet under her--and with

no desire whatsoever to discover what it was like to die of fire or

explosion--he turned his attention to opening his door, but it had buckled

and there was no budging it.



"Break out the window," Belle told him, her voice urgent but calm.  Her

door was against rock, so escape was up to him.



It was easier said than done, even though the window was already cracked

from the crash.  Holding up one arm to shield his face, he attacked the

weakened area with the hilt of his sword.  With the safety glass knocked

out, he tossed his sword and coat as far as he could, then crawled after

them, pausing on the windowsill. The car had come to rest on a ledge of

some sort, but there was no foothold beside it.  Richie twisted his torso

around to look at Belle.  "We're going to have to jump," he told her.



She nodded tightly.  "I'll be right behind you."



Richie jumped and rolled down the steep slope in a jumble.  It was a more

up-close and personal version of the car's tumble down the slope, and he

landed in a bruised and battered heap against a substantial pine.  Pulling

himself upright, he looked around for Belle, but saw evidence of only one

falling body in the snow.  He looked back up at the car, and though flames

were now dancing all around her, he could see Belle straining to reach

something in the back seat.  'Betsy!' he realized, angry at himself for not

having rescued the cat when he had gotten his coat and sword.  It was much

easier for him to reach into the back seat than for stout Belle.  "Belle,

jump!  Jump!" he shouted.  She couldn't afford to linger--a powerful enough

explosion might kill even an Immortal.  "Jump!"





Belle hauled the carrier over the seat and pushed it through the window,

squeezing her torso through after it.  "Catch her, Richard!  Please, catch

her!"  And she sent the carrier sledding down toward him.  Obediently,

Richie did his best to intercept it, but, slowed down by the snow, he

barely caught it before it bounced on by him.  Sitting up triumphantly with

the tiny carrier, he saw that Belle had finally jumped--and just in time,

for she hadn't even hit the ground, yet, when the car went up in an

Earth-shaking explosion.



Richie dashed furiously through the snow to reach Belle, who wasn't moving.

 He found her back studded with shards of metal and glass, her neck broken

from her impact with a gigantic fir.  She was dead.



"Belle, we haven't got *time* for this," Richie complained, as he put aside

the plastic carrier and set about pulling out the largest shards.  There

was no knowing how long they had.



*****



While he awaited Belle's awakening, Richie checked on Betsy.  He found a

staggering and terrified animal with fur all on end and a bleeding tongue,

but so far as he could tell she had no major injuries.  There might be

internal damage, of course, but only time would tell.  He took comfort from

the old saying about cats having nine lives, and tucked her back into her

carrier, where she had her familiar cushion and a crocheted baby blanket.

She needed Belle before she would truly be comforted; there was nothing he

could do for her.



"Belle, come on," he urged, knowing she couldn't hear him.  The injuries

she had suffered would have left Mac dead only minutes; they would have

left him dead for an hour at least, he guessed.  It had already been a

quarter hour since Belle's leap.  Surely an Immortal almost two hundred

years old couldn't take much longer to recover from a couple dozen

projectile injuries and a broken neck?



And how old were the two pursuing them--how long would they take to get up

from their own crash and resume the hunt?  It was always possible they

hadn't been Immortal at all, of course, but Richie knew he wasn't that lucky.



No, they were Curtiz's pets, and Richie remembered them all too well from

the torment he had suffered in New Orleans.  He would be perfectly willing

to fight one of them, but the prospect of facing two of them, with his and

Belle's lives depending on his success, frightened him.



Losing his own head . . . well, it wasn't a matter of indifference to him,

but living long had never figured very large in his expectations.  Costing

Belle hers, that he didn't want to live--or die--with.  And he would far

rather die the final death than end up in Curtiz's clutches again.  "Come

on, Belle, wake up," he begged, wishing he could carry her.  "Hurry," he

prayed.



*****



Joe clutched his cell phone with one hand and his shoulder harness with the

other.  He wanted to remind his friend that he couldn't heal like an

Immortal, but he didn't.  Richie's life, and Belle's, depended on their

reaching them in time.  Though Joe liked to think of himself as being a

cautious and practical man, a man of judgment and discretion, the truth was

he hadn't changed that much from the young man who had played football and

volunteered to go to war--and joined the Watchers.  The truth was, he was

enjoying the roller-coaster ride they were on almost as much as he was

terrified by it.





"Say again," he shouted over the interference.



The man on the other end repeated his information, giving him his location,

which Joe, using a pen flashlight, located on the map in his lap.



"Thanks, Jordan--I'm about an hour behind you.  Sandoval with you? . . .

Daly? . . . Really? . . .  Thanks, Jordan.  Let me know about developments,

okay?"



He flipped the phone shut and turned to Duncan.  "They're on foot.  So are

Tengu and Kenda, but they're right behind them."



"On foot?  In this?"



Joe looked out at the blizzard closing around them.  "In this," he

affirmed.  "Richie has no wilderness survival training, does he?"



Duncan shook his head.  "He's such a city boy--I could never persuade him

to really cooperate when I dragged him off to the island.  And I've never

yet even attempted to teach him winter survival."  He struck the steering

wheel.  "Damn it!  When I get him back, I'm going to take him out into the

woods without so much as a belt knife and we're not coming back till he . .

. " They went into a skid, and Duncan paused in his rant to fight for

control of the car.



*****



As soon as Belle had satisfied herself that Betsy had suffered no

substantial injury, she took charge of their flight.  They set off down the

mountain, being very careful to avoid any further falls but moving as fast

as they were able to reach the thicker forest below.  Freezing gusts of

wind cut right through them, and flakes of snow pelted them so hard they

stung, but they knew they were in more danger from their probable pursuers

than from the weather.  In fact, as Belle bracingly pointed out, the

weather would stand their friend--footprints wouldn't survive long under

these conditions.



'Yeah, but we may not, either,' Richie couldn't help thinking, as he fought

the wind to break a trail through the drifts.  He periodically cast a

glance back over his shoulder to check on Belle and, just incidentally, for

signs of pursuit.



Once they were among the trees, going was easier--the wind was broken

considerably, and the snow was relatively level compared to the drifts they

had floundered through above.  The two fugitives pressed onward till Richie

actually began to feel warm... the exercise, he supposed vaguely.  His teeth

stopped chattering, and he paused to remove his denim jacket.



"What are you doing?" Belle asked immediately, struggling to come up beside

him.



"I'm too warm," he explained.  It was so obvious, he couldn't imagine why

she asked.



"No, put that back on," she insisted.



"But, Belle--"



"Do it, Richard."  She grasped his arm and actually gave him a shake.  "Do

as I say."



Unsure why she would insist on such a thing, Richie nevertheless

reluctantly acquiesced.  But, "I'm too hot," he insisted, watching her with

an unaccountably slow brain as she buttoned his jacket up.  "Belle, why--?"



Belle ignored his protests, and ordered him to start gathering brush and

branches.  As they worked, and a woven lean-to began to take shape in the

lee of a large tree, Richie began to feel slightly more like himself and

the shivering began again.  They established a lattice foundation of dead

branches first, used pine boughs Richie hacked from surrounding trees to

fill in the chinks, then packed snow over the hole.  By the time they had

taken refuge within their snug creation, he wondered how he could even for

a moment have felt warm in this freezing hell.  Belle blocked the entrance

hole with pine branches she had kept aside for the purpose.



The sudden cessation of the wind's roar and sting was almost shocking.  The

equally sudden near-total darkness, after the enormous whiteness outside,

was unnerving.



With their backs against the tree and their coats over them like blankets,

Richie snuggled up against Belle's side while his friend released Betsy

from the carrier and cuddled her under her coat, to her bosom.  "How did

you know how to do that?" he asked, trying to control the chattering of his

teeth.



"It's one of the things a child learned on the frontier."  With Betsy

well-cradled in one arm, she slipped the other around Richie.  "Richie,

remember this: when your mind knows you should be cold, but you stop

feeling it, you are in danger.  You could have died out there, and you know

I could not have carried you to safety."





"I'll remember," he promised her puzzledly.  He hadn't been cold, it had

been warmer; he knew he had been warm.



"With any luck, the men after us don't know woodscraft," she said with a

nervous tremble in her voice.  "They could easily die in a storm like this

and not revive till the spring thaw."



"You think?" Richie asked, cheering up a little.



"Very easily.  Unless they are old, or Senor Curtiz has given them survival

training, they probably don't know how to get on in this weather.  And Mr.

Dawson did say they were young--well under a century.  That gives us a good

chance of escape, I think."



Richie frowned as he tried wiggling his toes just to make sure they were

still there.  He had to remind himself firmly that Immortals couldn't get

gangrene from frostbite.  Could they?  "Yeah, but . . . why were they

following us?  We're Duncan MacLeod and his grandmother, remember?  If . .

. if Curtiz's guys are following us, that must mean Curtiz knows who's who.

 Which means Curtiz is after us.  I mean, after *us*, not Mac and Joe."



"I'm afraid you're right," she agreed, and gave Betsy a kiss on her head.

There was barely enough light to see the cat's head above the collar of

Belle's coat; she was kneading Belle's ample bosom almost frantically, and

purring as if she had something to be happy about.



"And Curtiz *is* old."



"Yes, he is."



"So he probably knows how to . . . survive.  And he could find us."



"I'm very sure of it."  She gave Betsy a scritch behind one ear.  "I would

never have agreed to this plan if I hadn't thought we stood a good chance

of escaping him entirely.  I never wanted to endanger you, honey.  If he

does find us, Richie, I want you to run.  I'll run the other way, and he'll

come after me.  By the time he catches me, and . . . and kills me, and

recovers from the Quickening, you can be far away.  He has no motivation to

hunt you down under such uncomfortable circumstances--I'm sure he'll let

you go."



Richie leaned back and sighed.  He suspected very strongly... no, he

knew--Curtiz wasn't one just to kill Belle if he had a beef with her.

Curtiz blamed Belle for the loss of his fingers, so Belle could count on a

slow and painful death.  She had extracted from him a promise not to fight

Curtiz on her account, but . . . how could he let that happen to her?  "Why

is Betsy purring?  I mean, what's she got to be happy about?" he asked

after a period of silence.



"Cats also purr when they are ill or anxious, and when they are nursing

their young.  One theory is that they purr to comfort themselves and to

offer comfort."



"It is a nice sound," he allowed, reaching over to tickle the little cat's

chin.  "Poor thing doesn't have any idea why her world's gone crazy.  But,

Belle, you could've gotten your head blown off rescuing her.  I mean, I

know you love her, but . . ."



"Her life is terribly short already," his friend explained.  "And mine has

been quite long enough.  Besides, though her life is a small one, it still

has value--look how she offers us comfort even in the midst of her own fear

and distress."





"Yeah, I guess."  The longest lives were not the most valuable, he knew

that.  Look at Tessa, who had lived a fraction of Curtiz's time, and how

much more she'd done with her years.  "I'm glad Betsy's okay."



Not long after, just as Richie was starting to drowse, something not the

wind--someone--disturbed the branches of their shelter.  He shot up,

reaching for his sword.  He felt no Immortal presence other than Belle's,

but they hadn't, after all, any proof it was Immortals who had been chasing

them.  Curtiz had mortal henchmen, too.  And he didn't particularly want to

be eaten by a bear, either.  The branches blocking their "doorway" were

removed systematically... not a bear.  And then a shadow fell between them and

the deadly white outside.  "Stay back," Richie warned, raising his sword.



The mysterious figure produced a basso profundo chuckle.  "I'm coming out

of the cold, in more ways than one.  Just remember I don't instantly reseal

when punctured, okay?"



"Abner?"  Belle gasped, and rose awkwardly to her knees as a big man

squeezed his head and shoulders through an opening scarcely broad enough

for them.  "Abner?  What on Earth . . .?"



"You know this guy?" Richie demanded.



The stranger stuck out his hand.  "Abner Daly.  Pleased to meet you."



Mechanically, Richie switched his sword to his left hand and put out his

own right, to have it pumped vigorously.  "Richie Ryan."



"Yes, I know."  He turned back to Belle, and though Richie couldn't make

out his features in the gloom, the young Immortal had the impression he was

viewing her with an odd intensity.  "There comes a time when a man must

take a stand.  I'm taking mine."



"Abner, what on Earth?" she repeated, settling down on her bottom once

more, her cat pressed to her heart as she watched him squirm the rest of

the way in with them and turn to replace their door.



Once the opening was resealed, he turned once more and pressed himself

against the bole of the tree, on the other side of Belle from Richie, who

remained on his knees, watching the newcomer suspiciously.  His eyes had

adjusted enough to the dark that he could make out silhouettes and

movements.  The stranger--Abner--put one arm around Belle's shoulders, and

placed his other hand over hers on Betsy.  "It's cold as a brass monkey's,

er, fundament out there--damn hard on my old bones.  Got just a little

touch of the arthritis, you know, nothing too bad, but . . ."  His voice

trailed off.  "Belle, my girl, I know what you are.  I've always known what

you are.  And I know what your young friend is, and about the men chasing

you."



"You . . . know."



"I know.  And I can't stand back and pretend I don't anymore, or that I'm

an impartial observer."



"You're a Watcher!" Richie accused him.



"He's a what?" Belle asked, still sounding rather stunned.



"You know about us?"



Richie nodded.  "I know Joe Dawson."  He raised his sword once more, and

pointed it right at Abner's chest.  "And I know about Hunters."



"Richard, no!"



Abner's gloved hand grasped the rapier's blade and pushed it--slowly and

cautiously--aside.  "It's all right, ma Belle, if the lad knows about

Hunters, he has his reasons."  He turned to Richie.  "I'm not a Hunter.

I'm Belle's Watcher.  And her friend.  I'll be her husband, if she'll have

me," he added abruptly.





"Oh, Abner . . ." Belle exclaimed.



Very hesitantly, Richie lowered his sword.  "Belle, he's the boyfriend you

told me about?"



"Yes, he's . . . he's my Abner," she agreed, stunned.  "Watcher?  What's =

a . . . ?"



"I'll explain that later," Abner said, waving her question aside.  "The

important thing is, you're in danger.  One of Curtiz's men, the African,

was overcome by the cold--didn't have a clue about cold weather survival.

The other wasn't too far behind you, but I took care of him, temporarily.

I shot him, and then I tied him up with his belt and tossed him into that

stream you crossed, and stuffed his sword into a hollow tree."



"You . . . you shot him," Belle echoed.



"I'm not supposed to do things like that, but I don't give a damn.  I'm not

going to let you face this alone."



"Hey!" Richie protested, indignant at the implication.



Abner continued speaking to Belle.  "With all due respect to your young

friend, he's no match for Curtiz, who's probably not too far behind me.

Your trail's being swept away by the storm, but not fast enough."



Richie frowned.  "Not to mention you've just refreshed our tracks."



"True."



"How did you get through the storm while an Immortal died?"



"I'm a hunter--small H," he hastened to add.  "Rifle, crossbow, camera.

I've been hunting since I was less than half your age, learned woodscraft

from my grandfather.  I'm dressed for the weather, and I've got a pack of

gear just outside your little shelter, here.  Kenda isn't even accustomed

to snow.  He's a dangerous man with a sword, but he doesn't know the first

thing about winter survival."



"Me, either," Richie confessed.  "If it weren't for Belle . . ."



"Sometimes old skills come in handy," she said modestly.



"The younger MacLeod is on his way," Abner announced suddenly.



"Mac?" Richie asked, perking up.  He hated to confess it, even to himself,

but he was vastly relieved to hear his teacher was coming.



"I talked to Dawson just before I left the road and set out after you, and

he had just spoken to Curtiz's Watcher.  MacLeod was about twenty minutes

behind Curtiz on the road.  If he's a better woodsman--by what Dawson says,

he may be--he'll make up some of that.  Which means, all we have to do is

to hold Curtiz off for a short time and the cavalry will come over the ridge."



Belle shook her head.  "Abner, no.  Duncan knows I don't want him to fight

anyone for me.  He promised he wouldn't fight Curtiz on my account."



The big man produced an exclamation of disgust.  "Belle--Bella--why is it

better . . . ?  Never mind, I understand.  But what about this youngster,

here?  Did you get the Highlander to promise not to defend his student?"



"I have a sword of my own, you know," Richie interjected.  "It's got a

point and everything."



Abner turned to him, actually looking at him for virtually the first time,

though Richie knew his features were completely obscured by the darkness.

"I know, son.  But I looked you up when my Belle met you.  You were a

newborn, then, and that's not been so long ago.  And I checked into your

progress when you and MacLeod came to help.  Your Watcher tells me you're

brave and you've got real talent, but you've only taken one Quickening and

you lack confidence."





This summation cut altogether too close to the bone.  "I've only been

Immortal a little over a year.  Having one Quickening is doing pretty well."



Abner nodded.  "It's doing real well.  I've been Watching almost forty

years, so I know.  But, you're only twenty.  Tengu and Kenda have been

Immortal longer than you've been alive, and Curtiz is more than twenty

times your age.  Most teachers, in a situation like this, will step in.

There's nothing wrong with that."



Richie curled up next to Belle, his coat over him once more.  "Except,

maybe if I can't fight my own fights, I might as well lose my head now."



Belle's response was a distressed, "Oh, Richard!"



Abner chuckled.  "Extend that kind of thinking, and you may as well

strangle babies at birth because they can't chew their own food.  If you

could read the chronicles of some of today's big blades, you'd see that

there was a time when all of them needed help--including your teacher."



"Chronicles?  Abner, what are you talking about?" Belle demanded, as Richie

was digesting the Watcher's statement.



It reminded him of what Joe had said at the airport just the other day,

about appreciating Mac while he had him, and accepting help.  It might be

easier to take if he knew any other young Immortals, he supposed wistfully.

 Being the only young person among so many very old and powerful warriors

left him feeling as helpless as when he was a kid on the streets.  He

covered it up with attitude, as he had then, and he thought he pulled it

off pretty well.  But he couldn't fool himself--any more than he had then.



He mused over his life on the streets, and his life as an Immortal, and how

very little they differed--except that, then, he hadn't killed

anyone--while Abner explained about Watchers and chronicles.  He heard the

first sharp words Belle had ever spoken in his presence, and shook himself

out of his brief introspection.  "I know how you feel, Belle.  It's creepy.

 But Joe's one, too, and he's been a friend to Mac and me.  He does it for

history.  He says we live in secret and die in alleys and no one knows what

becomes of us.  He says we shouldn't be forgotten."



Belle turned to him.  "Well, I knew I didn't believe that rigmarole you

told me about writing a series of children's books," she said tartly.

"History is all well and good, but what about privacy?  It's not *nice* to

spy on people.  They could *ask* me."



"But we couldn't, Bella," Abner argued.  "Think about it, and you'll

understand."



"No, I won't.  You could have introduced yourself to me--honestly--like a

gentleman, told me what you were about, and I would have been willing to

talk under certain conditions."



"That's fine for non-violent Immortals like you, or good guys like Ryan,

here, but not all your kind are that friendly.  There are some Immortals

who would want to take advantage of our organization to track down other

Immortals.  If our existence became generally known, we'd be in danger.  So

would Immortals like you, who can't defend themselves except by hiding, and

Immortals like Ryan, who are very young and look like easy targets.  It has

to be a secret."





Belle was silent for several moments.  "Even from me?" she asked finally.

"I understand why you didn't introduce yourself at first, but . . . even

after we became friends?"



"We weren't supposed to become friends.  Forty years in this business,

you're the first assignment I've gotten to know personally.  We take oaths,

Belle, to safeguard ourselves, our organization, each other, *and*

Immortals.  We're like Cold War spies: we know if we talk a lot of people

could die."



"That's why . . . you said you were coming out of the cold."



Richie saw the Watcher pull Belle close to his chest, and felt her

indignation gradually relax as she settled against him.



"They were going to make me retire soon, anyhow.  As far as I'm concerned,

I retired a couple hours ago.  When I had to choose between you or the

Watchers, I chose you."



Richie had to smile at the ludicrous notion of two old people in love, but

he could feel and see their contentment as they snuggled together.  He

wondered idly what his Watcher would choose, but knew he wasn't one to

inspire such affection as Belle did.  It was nice to think Belle would have

someone to take care of her, though, if they could just get out of their

current predicament.



Despite Abner's gun and his willingness to use it in Belle's defense, and

despite Belle's determination not to survive by violence, Richie knew with

grim certainty that their survival would depend on his skill with his

sword.  He fingered the pommel absently, visualizing the fight to come in

his mind.  Maybe if Curtiz took long enough to defeat him, the Spaniard

would still be around when Mac arrived, and his teacher could at least

avenge him.  Richie leaned his head back against the coarse bark of their

tree and tried to get some rest.



*****



With the first distant glow of dawn, Richie's elders urged him to his feet,

insisting they resume their flight.  He crept from the shelter and turned

to watch them crawl out after him while he stretched and flexed his

scrunched-up joints.  They were clearly stiffer than he was, particularly

Abner, and though the snow had eased off to mere flurries overnight, he

doubted they would be moving any faster than they had through the previous

night's blizzard.



Richie reviewed their chances of escaping an Immortal who combined his own

physical vigor with Abner's woodsmanship and Belle's experience.  He was

the only one of the three with any speed, and he was slowed by Betsy's

carrier; Abner wouldn't be able to endure the hardships Immortals could,

and Belle was impeded by stoutness and short legs.  Only Abner was really

dressed for the weather, though at least Belle was wearing corduroy and

snow boots.  Curtiz, at best alone and at worst having recovered his two

students, would have no handicaps but the inexperience of his henchmen.  As

the three of them--and Betsy--separated to attend to the call of nature,

Richie noted that only Betsy was moving with speed or ease in some thirty

inches of snow.



All things considered, Richie saw no point in haste.  Curtiz was going to

catch them.



Abner's news that Mac was on his way offered more comfort than Richie liked

taking from it.  A proper Immortal didn't depend on others to defend him.

A proper Immortal lived or died by the strength of his *own* sword arm, his

*own* sword.  Richie wished he could wake up mortal some morning, but given

that wasn't going to happen, he wanted the dignity of being a proper

Immortal, an Immortal Mac would be proud of.  The need for dignity had been

born of a life that had afforded little.  Why it was so important he be

what Mac wanted him to be, he didn't know--he knew only that in some small,

hurting place, he coveted Mac's approval and respect more than that of

anyone still living.



He also knew that, if he ever were to be a credit to his teacher, he

eventually would have to stand on his own two feet.



If he put himself between Curtiz and Belle, it would undoubtedly be the

last thing he ever did, but at least he would die with some dignity, and to

some purpose.  At least Mac would be proud of his choice, if he ever knew

what happened.  It was a better death than he'd ever had any reason to

expect when he was a dirty little alley-rat, and he'd already lived about

as long as he'd ever expected he would.



Abner and Belle had no place anywhere near an Immortal battle.  Abner,

Richie suspected, could get Belle safely to civilization if he didn't have

to deal with blood-thirsty swordsmen.  It stood to reason, then, that the

best plan would be to send them to safety while he stayed to block the

trail--or at least delay pursuit.  The hard part would be persuading Belle,

but he suspected Abner would stand his friend in this effort.



As Belle gathered Betsy back into the carrier, he marshaled his arguments

and prepared to talk them around to his plan.  "I've been thinking--" he

began.





"No."



"No?  No to what?  You don't think I can think?" he demanded indignantly.



"What I think is that you have a mind to play hero," Belle told him

briskly.  "And you can forget it."



"Come on, Abner, you can--"



To his surprise, Abner shook his head.



"What?  I just want to give you two time to escape."



"We'll move a lot faster with you, youngster.  Besides, even if my Belle

would leave you without a fight--which I know she wouldn't--it would be

wrong.  Curtiz's problem isn't with you.  I want Belle to live, God knows,

and *I* want to live, but not at the expense of your young life."



"But I'm an Immortal!"



"You're also still a kid.  You haven't had your proper turn, yet.  I have,

and--"



"And I've had more than mine," Belle said firmly.



"But I can fight and you can't!" Richie protested.



"I accepted your company on the understanding you were along only to keep

me company as I ran.  You agreed you would not fight on my account."



"It would make more sense for you to move on and leave us to face Curtiz,"

Abner told him.  "You can move a lot faster than we can, and Curtiz might

well not follow you once he takes Belle's head.  You stand the best chance

of survival."



Richie gaped at this man who stood in the snow with his arms about Belle's

shoulders.  "How can you say that?  You're supposed to be the guy that

loves her."



"I do."



Richie watched in disbelief as Belle looked up to Abner with tender eyes.



"We push on together.  Agreed?" Abner asked.



Richie scowled.  He'd already been imagining his heroic last stand, and the

tearful funeral . . . 'Get real,' he told himself briskly.  He'd be buried

in an unmarked grave, or maybe just covered with snow to thaw in the spring

and be picked apart by bears or wolverines, or whatever lurked wherever

they were.  When he never turned up again, Mac and Joe would have a drink

in his memory and then go on with their lives.  A hundred years down the

line, he'd be a smudgy footnote in "Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod,

Chronicle VI".  Which was, of course, just about right.



"Agreed," he said, somewhat morosely.



*****



Not long before midnight, Joe and Duncan had come upon what appeared to be

the site of a multi-car fender-bender.  "That's them," Joe said abruptly,

peering through the falling snow.  "The Watchers.  They've staged the

accident as an excuse to hang around here."



Duncan slowed down and let Joe steer while he slid into the parka he'd

bought at the airport and secreted his sword within it.  He immediately

pulled the hood forward to shadow his face, then took back the steering

wheel.  "Don't waste any time, just find out which way they went."



"I know the drill, MacLeod," Joe reminded him.  "I was there when we

planned it, remember?"



"Sorry."  He pulled up behind the hindmost car, withdrawing his head as far

as he would into the hood while Joe lowered the window to greet an

approaching man.



"Hi, there," the man said, coming up to them.  "Don't worry about

us--little fender bender, nobody hurt, and we've already contacted the

authorities."



"Dawson," Joe said, lifting his hand and tugging down his sleeve.





"Maney," the other man said solemnly, showing his own wrist.  "MacLeod's

coming after Curtiz?"



"Yup."



"Nice to see a teacher going the extra mile for a student, but he hasn't

gone by us."  He leaned in the window and indicated the Highlander with his

chin.  "Who's this?"



Joe hesitated only a fraction of a second; only someone who knew him would

have even noted it.  "He's Watching Ryan temporarily."



Duncan couldn't help a grim amusement at this even as he nodded and gave a

small salute--Joe had managed to tell the absolute truth.  Well, something

not too far from it, anyway.  His wardship of Richie was temporary, only

until he was truly independent, but for the time being it *was* his job to

"watch" over him.  This masquerade was made possible by the fact that

Richie's usual Watcher had, luckily, remained in Seacouver, trusting Joe to

do double duty.



Maney grunted.  "Probably very temporary," he said regretfully.



Duncan gripped his steering wheel and clenched his teeth as Joe hastily

asked, "Where do things stand?"



"Kenda and Tengu ran off the road and blew up about two bends along.  Ryan

and Sawyer did the same about a mile farther, but they escaped the car

before it blew.  Kenda, Tengu and Sawyer all bought it, temporarily.

Sawyer woke up pretty quickly and they took off cross-country.  Kenda and

Tengu took off after them, at least an hour behind.  Curtiz arrived about

an hour after that--fifty-five minutes ago," he corrected, with a glance at

his watch, "--found the wrecks, faked a little slide off the road of his

own, and took off after them.  Abner Daly's the only woodsman amongst

us--he's following to report."



Joe smiled and clapped Duncan on the shoulder.  "We're in luck.  My

associate here is a mountain boy, so he can help out."



"Be gladta," Duncan said with a nod, attempting a bit of a drawl.  A

mountain boy, indeed!  "I c'n foller any trail."  It was a lousy imitation

of an old-fashioned West Virginia mountaineer's patois, and he doubted

they'd buy it, but . . .



"That'd be great," Maney said, smiling broadly.  "Daly's the better part of

seventy, and we weren't too crazy about sending him off into a snowstorm

alone, but he insisted."



Joe turned to Duncan.  "Well, what are you waiting for, Watcher?  Hop to

it," he urged, making shooing motions.



"Yessir," Duncan said promptly, letting himself out.  He stepped away from

the artfully-arranged crash site, away from the fitful red glare of the

emergency blinkers.  With a cheery wave to the Watchers, he moved past them

as fast as he well could, thankful that old habits of preparedness had

prompted him to outfit himself and Joe for cold weather before they set out

on a country highway through driving snow.  He even had jerky and energy

bars in his pockets.



After a few minutes' walk, he passed the site where Curtiz's men had come

to grief.  Not far after that, he came upon the blackened wreck of the car

he had traded to Richie and Belle.  "There goes the deposit," he mused, but

his mind was more on the weather.  Belle was . . . well, Belle wasn't built

for this situation.  And he had not yet trained Richie for wilderness

survival, he reminded himself, once again bitterly regretting that he had

pushed the kid from the nest after Mako's final death.  There were

imperatives greater than that of tradition.





'The months Richie was wandering alone, I could have been teaching him,'

he berated himself.  Connor hadn't contented himself with a recital of the

rules and some advanced fencing lessons when training *him*--Connor had

coached him in reaching out with his Quickening, had given him the basic

skills to find his way in the world beyond the Highlands.  'I could at

least have made sure Richie could find his way through the woods.'



Though normally it would have been difficult to follow a trail in the dark,

the very whiteness of the snow provided its own illumination.  With the

snow closing in and the wind picking up, he would eventually have to seek

shelter, but he would push on for as long as he could.



There were dimples that might once have been a trail; another set of

tracks, indistinct, followed the same terrain.  A third set of two, rapidly

filling in but clearly made by larger feet than either Richie's or Belle's,

also led down the mountain. Curtiz and the Watcher, Duncan supposed,

stepping in their tracks to ease and speed his own way.  Curtiz's

students--except they weren't students anymore, not in the traditional

sense of new, untried Immortals, Duncan reminded himself--would undoubtedly

catch the fugitives long before he could reach them.  His only hope was

that they were under orders to save the Quickenings for Curtiz, and that he

could catch up to Curtiz.  Unfortunately, it seemed all too likely that any

such orders would apply to Belle only, and that the students might consider

themselves at liberty to take Richie's head.



With nothing to do but think as he moved as fast as he could through the

blowing, stinging whiteness, and altogether too much time to do it, Duncan

tried to calculate his student's odds against one of Curtiz's men.  Joe had

indicated both were fifty, or thereabouts, but hadn't specified how long

either had been Immortal.  It could be anywhere from two months to thirty

years--they weren't necessarily *that* much more experienced than Richie.

And Richie had proved to have a surprising aptitude with the sword for

someone who'd never used one till he was nineteen years old.  Not every

Immortal had that innate talent.  Or Richie's quick feet and ability to

think on them.



Unfortunately, though he had considerable courage for one so young, and a

great deal of the street-kid's bravado, Richie still lacked any real

confidence in his ability to win, Duncan mused, pondering ways to combat

that.  Richie had been beaten too many times, as a kid and as an Immortal.

He had had to run so many times--from Annie, Curtiz, Kern.  Martin Hyde had

chased him across Europe, and in the week before Christmas a headhunter

named Jens Bratikowski had chased him across half of North America.  His

two victories--one over a petite woman more experienced with guns and bombs

than with swords, one over a man immobilized by a ridiculous

accident--hadn't done anything to combat that self-image.



Richie didn't realize how his self-doubt oozed from his every pore and

reverberated in his Buzz--or how sad it made his teacher.  What Richie

needed most, Duncan decided somewhat dismally, was one good, solid showing

against a good, solid opponent in a fair fight.





'Just not *too* good,' he asked God with a brief glance up, still praying

he'd somehow, miraculously, get there before a fight could start.



*****



"Come on Mac, come on Mac, come on Mac," Richie chanted under his breath as

he fought his way down a steep incline.  His glove had just about frozen to

the handle of Betsy's carrier, and even if it weren't he wasn't sure his

hand would ever unbend to put the damn thing down.



Since he was the youngest, he was breaking trail, making it easier--well,

less difficult--for his elders; Abner, who besides having very long legs

was surprisingly strong and tough for such an old mortal, was assisting

Belle, which sped their journey somewhat.  Snow was falling, but gently,

there was ample light, and there was no more than a gentle breeze.  There

was no question they were better off than they had been the night before.



But they were cold through to the bones, neither the candy bars he had

found in his pocket nor the jerky Abner had produced had made up for the

lack of breakfast, and the gentle snow was not filling their tracks--a

near-sighted six-year-old could track them.  The mountains bounced sounds

around so that they heard the snap and crack of every branch breaking

beneath accumulated weight, each muffled plop of snow sliding from a bough,

and with each of these echoes Richie's heart jumped, thinking it Curtiz or

the sword boys coming up on them.  Because of this sound-carrying property

of the landscape, Abner and Belle had warned him not to talk, and this only

made the flight harder: some really good belly-aching would have eased the

hike.



Midmorning, he heard a sound he couldn't put down to falling snow or

marauding wildlife (at least they hadn't found any bears, cougars or

wolves, yet)--the ring of steel striking rock a glancing blow, and so close

he knew they were caught.  He looked around wildly, wondering why he

couldn't feel the oncoming Immortals, and started to pull his sword.



Abner waved his arms in a negative and motioned Richie on.  Richie

remembered then what they'd told him, realized the sound could have come

from miles away.  He pressed on--knowing, however, that unless God, like,

dropped an avalanche on the bad guys, they were going to get caught.



Forced into silence for this march, Richie had had time to debate his

options.  He had decisions to make before that time came.



He knew what Belle wanted; he knew, too, she would be disappointed if he

violated her wishes and fought to defend her.  On the other hand, he was

increasingly uncertain if it was appropriate to let his moral choices be

guided by another, no matter how he trusted and admired that person.



He trusted and admired Mac, had certainly been affected by the Highlander's

values and principles, had adopted some.  He had--sometimes--deferred his

judgment to that of those older and wiser.  But he had never violated his

own values to follow Mac's precepts, or anyone else's.



Should he do so for Belle?  Would he be worthy of his teacher, or Belle's

friendship, if he ran away and left two old people to be slaughtered--even

if they wished him to?  Curtiz would kill Belle, and probably do it

horribly.  Richie knew without question that Abner would not follow his own

advice--he would defend Belle, and he would die.





If he fought to defend her, would Belle forgive him?  Even if he would

live long enough for her forgiveness to matter to him, should it affect his

decision?



Long before Richie became Immortal, back when Mac was contemplating his

coming fight with Grayson, he had talked to his friend about courage, about

how life should be lived, about what things were important.  Mac had told

him courage lay in doing what was right no matter what the cost, even in

the very face of certain defeat.



Richie, who had never before known anyone with so . . . structured a view

of the world, asked how one knew what was right, when it often seemed there

were only varying degrees of wrong.  Mac said that was a judgment to be

made with the heart and conscience, admitting that sometimes it wasn't so

much a question of what was right, but of what was the best of available

alternatives.



The guiding principle, the Highlander had suggested, was that love was more

important than survival.



That seemed like a value Belle should honor.



A man who lived by love and courage would not allow total strangers to be

slaughtered, much less a friend. *Friends*, he amended, having come to like

Abner in the course of the long, cold night despite his general distrust of

Watchers.



Pausing at the top of the rise to watch the old couple battle their way up

in his footsteps, he made his decision.  He would fight for them.  He would

probably die with them, but he'd known what it was to live caring for no

one and with no one to care for him.  Mac was right--it was better to love.

 Just surviving wasn't enough.



He hoped Belle would understand when he broke his promise.



*****



Duncan emerged from his makeshift lean-to and resumed his trek as a

pre-dawn glow lightened the sky.  The weather was much improved from the

conditions which had forced him to hunker down and wait some four hours

before.



He had feared there would be no trail remaining, but of the six people who

had passed this way, there were two sets of nearly-filled tracks, two

three-quarter-filled tracks, one half-filled set, and one partially-filled

set--Curtiz's, he supposed.  Half an hour later, he found a lean-to much

like the one he had made, and realized with rising gorge that if he had

just pushed on a little longer through the storm, he would have

overtaken--and could have eliminated--the principal threat.



The trail leading from this shelter was fresh, the tread of the man's boots

still clear, but Duncan estimated that Curtiz had resumed the hunt earlier

than he had and probably had, now, an hour's head start.  An hour might as

well be a week, he thought bleakly.



However, he had not gone far before he came across a spot where someone had

recently dug something large out of a snow drift--an Immortal something,

Duncan guessed, since while only one fresh trail led to the spot, two sets

of footprints led away from it.  Curtiz, retrieving one of his students,

then.  Duncan was somewhat comforted to find he wasn't the only teacher

who'd neglected an important arena of survival training.



More to the point, he was now barely more than half an hour behind them.

Heartened, he pulled a strip of jerky from his pocket and continued with a

lightened heart.



A half hour's trudge further along, he found sign that someone had been

dragged.  Fearing what he might find, he walked in the broad, compressed

depression to the edge of a mostly-frozen creek, and found that Curtiz and

his student had dragged someone from the water.  Again, an Immortal

someone, because three sets of tracks led from the bank of the creek.

Three sets of tracks no more than twenty minutes old, their edges scarcely

even softened by the falling snow.



Just twenty yards from the bank, he spotted something gleaming in the

hollow of a dead tree and decided to risk the brief diversion to check it

out.  One of the older trails he was following led to and from that tree,

so it wasn't mere idle curiosity.  The gleam was the pommel of a sword, he

found, an eighteenth-century Spanish sword of Damascus steel.  Perplexed,

he nevertheless pulled it out and stashed it inside his coat.



Not long after that, he found the woven shelter in which his friends had

spent the night.  He thankfully recognized Belle's childhood in the Ozarks

in this structure: he had feared they might have frozen to death in the

driving snow, and that they would, thus, be lying about like frozen entrees

for Curtiz to find.



With interest, unsure what it meant, he saw that Richie and Belle had now

been joined by someone.  Since he had already accounted for Curtiz and two

Immortals, this had to be the Watcher--but why would a Watcher have joined

them?  The man could have been seeking shelter from the weather, of course.





Or he could have nefarious purposes.  But it had to be the Watcher who had

dragged Curtiz's student into the creek.  A Watcher would know that

wouldn't kill the man, and a Hunter wouldn't have missed such an

opportunity to dispose permanently of an Immortal.  Perhaps the man had

just been looking out for his own survival, Duncan decided.  He had

defended himself from an aggressive Immortal when he was discovered, and

taken shelter with two non-aggressive Immortals when he was desperate.

Yes, that would account for it.



Meantime, the man had thrown in his lot with Richie and Belle, and that

might be to the good.   The Watchers had said he was an experienced

woodsman.  By the size of his feet and the depth of his tracks, he was a

big man, and Duncan saw that he was assisting Belle.  That combination of

experience and strength considerably improved their chances of evading the

pursuers long enough for him to arrive in time.



If the Watcher was on the up-and-up.



He had also noted the tiny pawprints near the shelter, and wondered if

Belle and Richie could possibly be dragging Betsy along on this desperate

flight.  With a half smile, he answered his own question.  Of course they

were.



*****



Richie stopped atop another rise to wait for the others, holding himself

ready, if necessary, to pull Belle the last few feet.  The sounds of

pursuit were becoming quite common, now, and his nerves were all on edge as

he barely restrained himself from becoming impatient with them.  Belle was

stout, Abner was old, and the terrain was treacherous beneath the

snow--they were doing the best they could.  Betsy was getting restless,

too, causing the carrier to rock as she moved about, and rattling the metal

door.  She wanted food, he supposed, or had to go, or just wanted out, but

they didn't have the time to indulge her, because when he heard a muffled

curse and looked back the way they had come, he saw three men coming over

the last ridge.  The three men saw them, too.



'Busted.'



Belle and Abner looked back and up, too, knowing they would be caught

within minutes.  Curtiz and his two students were moving a lot faster down

that slope than they had.



Belle looked up at Richie.  "Go."



"No, Belle."  He put down Betsy's carrier, wondering idly what would become

of her.  Perhaps they ought to release her.  He didn't know what a domestic

cat's chances of survival would be in this mountain wilderness in winter,

but it couldn't be worse than freezing or starving to death in a tiny carrier.



"Go, Richie, you've done all you can do," Abner said gently.  "I'll stay

with my Belle."



"No.  I'm sorry, but I can't."  He pulled his sword and looked around for a

good spot to meet an opponent.  The trees were rather close to allow for a

duel, and there was no knowing, when you put down a foot, if it was going

to come down in a hole or on a rock, fallen branch or root.  "I'm sorry,

Belle, but I have to be able to live with myself, or there's not much point

in being alive."



The old couple regarded him with sad eyes, and he could see various

arguments flitting through their brains in the changing expressions

flitting across their faces.  Belle's eyes filled with tears.





"I have to follow my conscience, Belle.  You wouldn't *really* want me to

do anything else, would you?"



Slowly, she shook her head, then resumed her struggle up the slope.  With

Abner pushing and Richie pulling, she made it to the top.  Standing beside

him, looking up into his eyes, she managed a faint smile as she reached up

to run her ice-cold fingers down his cheek.  "You're not a child anymore."

She let her hand fall, shaking her head.  "I should never have accepted

your company.  I never wanted to bring anyone else down with me."



"I know."



"I wanted you to have a chance to see the world and experience so much."



"I know.  But, hey, I've seen France, and New Orleans, and Rio, and Madrid,

and lovely downtown Franklin, Tennessee, you know.  And now I've seen

Memphis and Chicago and Fargo--that's not bad for a kid who didn't think

he'd ever get out of the East Side, right?"



Abner's hand closed around Belle's and he gave her a squeeze.  "It's not

enough.  She wanted more for you."  He looked down into Belle's face, then.

 "And I wanted--want--more than anything to think of you living on long

after I'm gone.  It's a sad thing for a Watcher to outlive his Immortal.

Not that I suppose I will," he admitted wrily.  "Curtiz isn't going to

leave a witness."  He leaned down to kiss Belle on the lips, a long,

lingering kiss that had Richie turning away in embarrassment.  "Just had to

do that once," the old man whispered.



To Richie's astonishment, Belle giggled as if she were a shy teenager

getting her first kiss.  He turned back, and saw that his friend was

actually ducking her face.  "We *are* facing the Grim Reaper, here, you

know," he pointed out, a little exasperated.



"I, for one, intend to live till I die," Abner informed him.  "Besides,

it's not a foregone conclusion we're going to die.  Right?  You're an

active young man, you've had a good teacher, right?"



"Right," Richie agreed, surprised.



"You're smart, right?"



He shrugged, feeling himself blush.



"He's smart," Belle affirmed.



"You're agile and quick, right?"



"Yeah."



"Well, remember that.  There's more to winning an Immortal duel than age,

you know that."



That was true.  After all, Mac had beaten Grayson, and Grayson had been,

like, four times his age--which was saying a lot, considering how old Mac

was.  Of course, Mac was twenty times Richie's own age . . . But Richie

wasn't facing Mac, just a guy who'd been living a life of privilege behind

wealth and bodyguards, plus two guys who'd been kept at their teacher's

side all their lives and never had to fend for themselves.  "Yeah, I know

that," he agreed, thinking of a story his mom--that Emily Ryan had read him

when he was little, about a little train trying to make it up a big mountain.



Their pursuers reached the bottom of the opposite slope and started up

after them, death in their eyes, and Richie surprised himself by actually

chuckling as he detected the buzz of their approaching Quickenings.

Hopefully, he would be 'the little Immortal who could.'  "'I think I can, I

think I can,'" he muttered, doing some stretches to get himself warmed and

limbered for the fight to come.  The exertions of a duel were very

different from those of slogging through snow.





When the men topped the rise, Richie stepped forward to meet them,

surprised at how calm he was.  He hoped his demeanour reflected confidence

as he silently recited, "'I know I can, I know I can.'"



Curtiz stopped at the top and looked at them with the smile of a man

expecting a succulent meal.  "Now, here is a treat I had not anticipated,"

he admitted, recognizing Richie.  "My little lost lamb.  I have missed you,

infant.  I had plans for you."



Richie bit down on a retort and gripped his rapier all the tighter.  "I

have my own plans.  And I haven't missed you one bit."



One of Curtiz's men, the African, drew his sword, but Curtiz waved him

back.  "You have spunk."  He grinned.  "I hate spunk."



"I'm not too fond of you, either."



The Spaniard's smile grew.  "You want revenge.  Very well, here I am."



"I don't want revenge," Richie insisted.  "You leave me alone, I'll leave

you alone."



"What if I told you I would let you go if you get out of my way and let me

take the weakling's head?"



"I'd tell you to go to hell.  You want Belle's head, you go through me first."



"I have no problem with that, nino.  Surely you must realize that?"



Richie raised his sword.  "I knew that all along."



"Bueno."  Slowly, with a broad, carnivorous smile, he dropped his heavy

parka, withdrawing from it his sword, also a rapier.



*****



Duncan was gaining on Curtiz and his men--from the look of it, Curtiz was

slowed down by his students, who probably hadn't been dressed for the

weather.  Unfortunately, they were still moving faster than the three

fugitives.  And then he heard the clash of steel.  It sounded as if it

could be next to him, but he knew how the mountains threw sound around.

Though his legs were dragging with weariness already, he redoubled his

efforts.



To what purpose?  He couldn't interfere.  Still, he was determined to get

there.  He might be able to lend Richie encouragement, perhaps even advice.

 And if the kid did lose his head, he could at least die knowing he would

be avenged, that his Quickening wouldn't long be trapped within his killer.



Forging his way to the top of a ridge some minutes later, he was able to

look across a wash to the next ridge over, and saw there the figures locked

in combat.  Belle stood by, enfolded in the arms of a tall man.  Two other

men also watched--Tengu and Kenda, Duncan supposed.  Facing Richie was a

dark man of medium height, perfectly built for swordsmanship.  Duncan could

tell Richie was fighting hard, but his opponent was easily deflecting all

Richie's attempts.  What hopes he'd retained failed the Highlander.  Curtiz

was winning, and making it look easy.  Duncan plunged down the slope.



*****



Panting, bleeding from dozens of minor wounds, struggling to keep his feet

under him, Richie knew he was going to lose.  He was fighting the best

fight of his life, and it wasn't enough--it was like going up against Mac,

except this wasn't sparring practice.  Richie suspected he would end the

fight on his knees in the snow--Curtiz was fighting casually, letting

Richie wear himself out, neither attacking nor raising a sweat defending

himself.





Then, they all felt the approach of another Immortal.  Mac, Richie

thought, despairing.  Half an hour ago, he had wanted to see Mac's face

more than anything in the world.  Now . . . he hated to think Mac's last

memory of him would be of a loser dying on his knees.  On the other hand,

with Mac there, Belle would be safe.



Belle surged forward, interposing herself between him and Curtiz, talking

fast.  "Stop this, please!  There's no point!  Don't you understand?  His

teacher is here.  Duncan MacLeod.  If you take this boy's head, his teacher

will just take yours.  What use is that?"



Richie used the opportunity to catch his breath, then snatched Belle back

by her jacket.  "Belle, it's my fight, now," he gasped.  "To win or lose."



Abner quickly stepped in to pull Belle back.  "Don't break his

concentration, Bella.  Not now."



Richie noted out the corner of his eye that Mac was almost at the top,

could probably see him.  Wanting at least to make a bid at earning his

mentor's respect for how he faced death, Richie lunged for Curtiz as soon

as Belle was clear.  Curtiz parried it easily, with that minimal flick of

the wrist that Richie hadn't yet quite mastered ("Rich, you parry clear to

China!" Mac kept nagging) and riposted with a neat slash from Richie's

right eye to his throat.  The young Immortal fell back, fighting not to cry

out.



He heard Belle sob, and a sound from Mac's direction, too, almost like a

gasp.  Curtiz's silky voice suggested, "Now, in some cultures we might

almost be blood brothers after that--I have given you your dueling scar."



"I'll send a thank you card when I get home."



Curtiz laughed, but, to Richie's surprise, stood back and waited for his

healing to begin.  "You know what to do if you want to walk away, nino."



It was a temptation.  It wasn't as if he had a real chance to win.  And,

either way, the outcome would be the same for Mac and Belle and

Abner--whether Richie gave up or lost his head, Mac would fight Curtiz

next, and take his sorry head, and the old couple would be safe.  There was

nothing to be gained by enduring this death of a thousand cuts.  He glanced

over at Mac, finding an expression on his teacher's face he didn't know how

to read.



What would Mac think of him?



Richie shook his head.  "No.  I have to do what's right."



Curtiz regarded him with a small smile, then nodded and spread his hands as

if to say, "As you will."



Richie used every trick Mac had taught him, including a few he didn't

really have down, yet.  Curtiz countered every one of them smoothly, with

an economy and flair that was almost insulting.  Richie's shirt hung in

shreds and his breath came in gasps.  Worse, his legs trembled with weakness.



"Retire from the list, boy.  You can walk away," Curtiz offered once more.



"Richie, please, do it!" Belle begged, sobbing.  "Please!"



He sagged against a tree, praying for a second wind, and suddenly felt a

hand on his shoulder--a large hand, gripping him supportively.  Mac.

Richie pulled away and staggered forward.  "Stop playing with me," he

insisted.  "If I beat you, I wouldn't do this to *you*.  I'd just take your

head."



Curtiz chuckled.  "Come and get me, then, boy."



Richie took the deepest breath he was able, and charged.  There was no

science to his attack, no grace.  Mac would never have attacked like that.

And Richie quickly had a painful lesson in why Mac wouldn't have done so,

when Curtiz's rapier spitted him like a marshmallow.  This was it, then.

The end.  He longed to look back at Mac, but didn't.  He would die facing

his killer.  And with his sword in his hand, he swore, hanging onto it with

every ounce of his determination.



Curtiz withdrew his blade from Richie's thorax and let him collapse to his

knees.  The Spaniard lazily caressed Richie's face and throat with the

point of his rapier.  "Are you ready to surrender, boy?  Agree to let me

take the old woman's head, and I let you live."





Richie's decision was already made.  He shook his head briefly, then

tilted it back, baring his throat.  "Just do it.  But you won't have my

Quickening long, because Mac'll whack you so fast you'll never see it coming."



Curtiz looked over at the Highlander with a smile.  "Will you?"



"I will," Mac affirmed.  "Count on it."



"Ah.  Well, perhaps it is not the wisest decision I could make, but a fish

must swim and a bird must fly--I must be true to myself."



"Do it!"



"This helpless old woman means so much to you?" Curtiz asked.



"She's my friend."  Teeth gritted, he lurched up once more, trying to run

Curtiz through.



Curtiz took a step back, easily evading the attack, and Richie sprawled

face-first in the snow.  "Not just spunk.  You have real cojones.  Now,

cojones, that's something I can admire."  As Richie fought back to his

knees, Curtiz spoke past him, to the general direction of Belle's crying.

"What is it about you, old woman?  You are the Immortal counterpart to the

lily of the field, neither sowing nor reaping, and yet your betters are

ready to raise their swords for you, even die for you."



Richie turned to see Belle pull forcefully away from Abner, staggering

forward through the snow.  "Please, take my head, please--just let the boy

go."



Curtiz nodded slowly.  "Perhaps I have my answer."  He backed two further

steps and bent to take up his parka.  Slipping his sword into it, he turned

to Mac.  "He has heart and he is well taught.  I don't believe I've ever

had a better workout against anyone less than fifty years old.  I wouldn't

mind taking him with me.  I could make something of him."



Mac stalked past Richie, coming to stand in front of him.  "He's his own

man.  He goes where he wants.  And no one's making anything out of him."



Richie, caught in a twilight somewhere between healing and dying, wasn't

sure he knew what was going on.  Curtiz was letting him live?



"And you would fight me if I tried to take him with me?"



"I'd take your head," Mac promised.



Abner stepped forward.  "The lady's no threat to you, Curtiz.  She wants to

take care of babies, feed folks, and leave the world a better place.  She

wants to marry me and make a happy home for us and go to church and sing in

the choir.  What about that scares you so much?"



Richie saw that Abner's hand was in his pocket, and remembered the old

Watcher was carrying a big-ass .45 semi-automatic.



Curtiz laughed, almost guffawed.  "The old woman chooses her friends with

the same flair with which she makes enemies."  He turned from them,

signaling his silent cronies.  "You may have her, mortal.  In honor of the

boy's brave stand and your own very foolish courage, I give you thirty

years of peace."  He looked right at Belle then.  "Thirty years, old woman,

and then your head is mine."



"You're letting Richie live?" Mac asked.



"He has proven himself.  I have no wish to remove him from the Game, and I

have no quarrel with him, outside of our disagreement about the old woman.

I would be glad enough to find him a place in my organization, train him--"



Richie, his major injury barely begun to heal, nevertheless lurched to his

feet.  He had to lean on Mac's shoulder, but he was standing.  "I've got a

teacher.  I don't need you."





"Muy bien."  He and his men turned from them, starting back.



"Curtiz!" Mac called.



They turned to see what he wanted.



Mac pulled a rapier from within his coat and tossed it hilt first.



The Japanese stepped forward to snag the sword from the air, then turned

surprised black eyes on Mac.  "Domo arigato," he said hesitantly, almost

suspiciously.



Mac gave him a little bow and replied in Japanese.



"I will remember that gesture, MacLeod," Curtiz promised.



As they watched the three Immortals make their way back the way they had

come, Richie felt Mac's arm slide around his back to hold him up.  "Guess I

wasn't worth killing, huh?" he asked, unable to face his teacher.



Mac gave him a bracing squeeze.  "If you'd been paying attention, you'd

know he let you live because you had guts and you're a promising swordsman."



"Me?"



Belle appeared at his side, fussing over his gut injury.



Abner appeared behind her, pulling her away and thumping Richie on the

shoulder.  "You're a good man, Ryan.  Good swordsman, too."



"Me?"  He straightened slightly, buoyed by this praise as much as by

continued healing.



"You," Mac assured him.



"I . . . didn't embarrass you?"



"I never thought you would."



And Richie knew he didn't need to run anymore.  Maybe he wasn't up there in

Mac's league, but he'd faced somebody who was and . . . well, he hadn't wet

his pants, anyway.  He had Curtiz's respect, and Mac was proud of him.  And

he had cojones, he thought with a grin.



*****



After a day for everyone to clean up, catch up on sleep, and make plans,

Duncan, Joe and Richie said their goodbyes to Belle, Abner and Betsy at the

Fargo airport.  Abner had declared himself retired, and would notify the

Watchers later with a drop address for his retirement checks.  He and Belle

were returning to Franklin, where they would have a quiet wedding.  They

would then move on, and Abner pledged to use his Watcher skills and

contacts to keep her hidden and safe for as long as he lived.



"I don't understand why Belle won't even tell *us* where she's going,"

Richie groused as the old couple joined the boarding crowd.



"I can't believe Abner Daly is going to hide an Immortal," Joe groused

beside him.  "From the Watchers!"



Duncan gave one final wave.  "They explained what they were doing and why,"

he reminded his young friends, again.



"But--" they both protested.



"Look, Abner knows all too well that it can be dangerous for an Immortal to

be known to Watchers--Belle would be more helpless against Hunters than

against an Immortal.  He's promised to maintain a chronicle of their lives

together, and to mail it to your headquarters whenever they move on."



"It's not the same," Joe complained, then sighed.  "Oh, well, it's not like

she's active in the Game, I suppose."



"I can understand them hiding from the Watchers," Richie insisted.  "No

offense, Joe, but I wish *I* could.  But explain to me again why she's

hiding from *us*?"



Duncan gave Richie a pat on the shoulder.  "Because she was right in the

first place.  Remember what she said before?  That if she's near us, we

would fight for her, and sooner or later we would kill or die for her.

Belle doesn't want that, she never did."  He looked down at Richie's bitter

expression, sorry to see he was taking Belle's decision so to heart.  The

kid had just been rejected too many times, he supposed.  For his own part,

though he would be sorry not to see her again, he thought Belle's decision

the right one and honored her for her integrity and courage.  "She's

cutting off contact because she loves you."





"Yeah, right.  'We love you, but . . .'  'You're a great kid, but . . .'

I know the speech."  He walked off in the direction of their own boarding

gate.



Joe looked over at Duncan.  "It's a shame he has to take it like that.  It

wasn't an easy decision for Belle to make.  I guess it would have been

better if I'd never come to tell you she was alive."



Duncan shook his head as they followed Richie at Joe's more decorous pace,

and spoke softly so they wouldn't be overheard.  "No, Joe, it's worked out

for the best.  Belle's alive, and I think she and Abner will be happy

together.  And Richie may be unhappy right now, but someday he'll understand."



"Meantime, his feelings are hurt."



"Meantime, " Duncan corrected, "the experience has been good for him.  He's

always had a lot of courage, but he hasn't had confidence in himself as an

Immortal."



"Richie?  He plunges into everything headfirst."



"That's because he thinks with his heart--and lower organs.  But he hasn't

believed in himself.  I would protect him if I could, but I can't and I

shouldn't--his best hope for long-term survival is to become independent.

After this, he'll believe in himself.  He still needs more training, more

experience, but next time he faces a challenge, he'll know he's got what it

takes to make it."



"Cojones."



Duncan chuckled.  "Mentioned that, did he?"



"Seems he didn't take Spanish in high school.  He wanted a translation."



Their eyes met, and they burst out laughing.  They joined Richie at Gate 4,

but refused to explain what they found so funny.



*****



A few months later,. . .



Richie finally succeeded in wriggling a hand free.  Within a minute, he had

freed himself entirely from the chair to which he'd been bound, and leapt

up without even pausing to let his circulation recover.  He retrieved his

sword, which had been left propped against a nearby table, and set off

after the Cossack who had had him kidnaped and tried to use him as a weapon

against Mac.  Kristov was going to have to meet him man to man, now,

Immortal to Immortal.  And unless Kristov was a whole lot better with a

sword than with a paintbrush, Richie would certainly win, he thought,

passing one of the man's paintings and grimacing with distaste.



---finis---





Author's Notes:



1. The last scene, for those who don't recognize it, references the third

season episode "Testimony".  I was interested in exploring how Richie went

from the kid who ran to his teacher in "Prodigal Son" and "Line of Fire" to

the young man who fought his own fight against the much-older Kristov, won,

and then thanked his teacher for "not letting him use me."



2. Yes, Virginia, there is a Peabody Hotel in Memphis, Tennessee, and they

do have a procession of ducks.  Each morning, the ducks exit the elevator

and march down a red carpet to the lobby fountain.  In the afternoon, the

ducks march back up their red carpet to the elevator and return to their

rooftop home.



3. If you've never heard of Jens Bratikowski, it's because he's never

appeared by name in any previous story.  For those who have read "It's a

Wonderful Highlander", Bratikowski is the Immortal who was chasing Richie

home from a cycle rally the week before Christmas.  In the week since the

events of that story, Duncan has intercepted Bratikowski and taken his head.





4. Richie's visit to Franklin, Tennessee, occurred during his wanderings

after taking Mako's Quickening.  This visit is covered in an unfinished

story with the working title "The Visit".



5.  Nino (with a tilde over the second "n") is Spanish for boy. Cojon(es)

is also Spanish; if you don't know the word, or can't figure it out from

the context, look it up!





Kat Parsons

Calamity@Virginia.edu

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~fke2d