The Prince of Earth by Mike Robinson

Chapter Two

The Town & the Pass

1988

Quincy saw the words in the man’s eyes long before they reached his tongue, and said, "Yes, I know of him."

The man, leaning on the bar, did not waver in his varied expression built of admiration, doubt, and flirtation, though the latter seemed too trivial a description, the best Quincy could dredge from a brain hazed by two pints. His look was a quiet wilderness, wise to things within her that even she had yet to uncover, and so maybe, thought Quincy, that was where the smile came from, the smile she thought flirtatious—maybe it was expectant, relishing a certainty that she might soon discover what he knew.

"Am Fear Liath Mor," Quincy said. "The Big Gray Man."

The man nodded. "Up here in Ben MacDui."

 "I know the story."

"Isn't any story to know," the man said. "He's just there."

She could tell the man didn't believe his own words and tried in vain to hide his playful deception.

"In a land as fertilely mythological as the U.K.," Quincy said. "That's what it comes down to? He's just there?"

The man smiled, parting the wiry thicket of his beard wide and revealing for the first time the gummy stretch of his lips. "I suppose I jumped to the end there. That's how myths usually end right? With the thing just being there?"

"So, then what's the story?"

"It's being written," said the man. "It's a myth-in-progress, wet and alive, not the dried text of a thousand years ago. The story is still coming. The story is growing and will be ready for generations down the line."

"So, I could be a chapter," said Quincy. "In an unfolding myth."

"Precisely." The man extended his hand, which swallowed hers as they shook. "I'm Jamie."

"Quincy." Jamie, she thought. Rather delicate name for someone of his size.

"I'm sorry if I ambushed you at all. When I heard your accent earlier I had to talk to you. We don't get many Americans in this region."

"Don't worry about it."

"Let me buy you another pint."

Quincy wasn't sure she wanted to extend this interaction but acquiesced. Jamie turned and signaled Gregory, the bartender.

You've been lonely and now you don't want company? And this man's the company of three.

"So, why Ben MacDui?" he asked. "Because of the Gray Man?"

"Actually, kind of, yeah. I wanted to do something a little more out of the ordinary to make up for the more touristy things I've done throughout the mainland."

Jamie laughed. "Touristy. You've got a cynical name for everything, you Americans. Aren’t they just beautiful things everyone rightfully wants to see?"

Quincy shrugged. "I suppose so."

Jamie took the newly-arrived beer in his bulbous hand, raised it along with both eyebrows, and proclaimed, "To travels well and to travels safe."

Quincy thanked him and touched her glass with his and sipped. Jamie guzzled half the pint, then emphatically put it down. A smear of creamy head hung to his mustache.

"But the only reason you knew about Ben MacDui," said Jamie, "was because of the Gray Man. Am I right?"

"It's also the second highest mountain in Britain."