Chapter III

III

“McKinney,” one of the good men from the village shouted as he rode up to Malcolm’s home and stopped abruptly for the second time today. “It looks like we have found your son. “Aye, but the Lass is still missing I’m afraid my friend.” This morning, they hadn’t even noticed that the boy who had been hurt was Drew. There had been so much blood on his face from the cut on his forehead that no one even recognized him, and originally they thought he was dead. They had just tossed him into a wagon and took him back to town.

“My son is ok?” Malcolm said as a calm feeling quickly came over him. “But what about Aileen, me daughter?”

“There’s not a trace of her my good man, but it looks like the boy’s going to be ok. This morning we thought he was dead, but he woke up after a while. The doctor said it was something called a concussion.” Then the good man said. “Come with me, and I’ll take ya too him, mon!”

“Yes, we should go quickly.” Malcolm said, and he went to get his wife. “Sheila, come quick, Drew is alive.” He yelled.

In the town, Malcolm and his wife hurried to the doctor’s office where Drew was lying in a back room. There was no Hospital in this little town in the year 1844 and they were lucky to even have a doctor. This was a farming village and the doctor might even be treating a sick cow as well as a boy.

“So, what was it Doctor?” Malcolm asked.

“Well, I don’t think it was one of those silly Dragons you men up there in the highlands are always talking about.” The doctor said with a certainty. “I don’t suspect it was a magic of any kind, Malcolm.  But it looks to me like your boy fell and hit his head on a rock and split open the skin on his forehead. A cut up there can result in a lot of blood that makes it look worse than it is. His skull doesn’t seem broken, and I think it was just a concussion, so he is going to be ok.”

At the Pub that afternoon, the good men were talking about the events of the day. “When the boy comes too, we must go and ask him if it were a dragon it was that tried to slay him.” O’Malley said to the three with him.

“Aye, that boy must be some sort of hero to fight so strongly to save his sister.” One of the group said.

It were his own sister?” The third man spoke as he pulled the bottle of Ale from his lips, interrupting his swig.

“Aye, that boy must have fought hard. A father can be right proud of a lad like that. Who is his father mate, isn’t it Malcolm McKinney who lives out by Glen Hale?”  The other man said. 

“I knew it was a Dragon moon last night, and that old Dreacues might come out of his lair,” said the first. “We haven’t heard from him in a few years, but he can sleep under the loch for years without killing anyone ya know.