A Scottish Scout in Geronimo's Land - Prequel
by Toby Johnston
Chapter 3
The Resistance Movement Crumbles
Before I could even process my cultural victory, I felt a hand on my arm. I turned to find one of the Blonder of the Blondes —a girl with hair currently at Level Three on the Texas Vertical Scale —fluttering her eyelashes at me.
"I'm Paige," she chirped, her voice like a high-pitched violin. "I just love your English accent! It sounds so exotic and smart."
I felt my spine stiffen. "Ummm, it's actually Scottish, not English," I began, preparing to launch into a tactical breakdown of the Acts of Union and the distinct sovereignty of the United Kingdom.
I didn't get far. Paige was clearly not interested in a geography lesson; she was looking at me the way one looks at a particularly clever poodle.
"Oh, but it's just a tiny little island," she said, waving a manicured hand as if dismissing three thousand years of history. "They really are both the same, aren't they?" It wasn't a question; it was an imperial decree. "It's like North Texas trying to say they're different from Central Texas. Bless their hearts."
She gave me a look of profound, sugary sympathy—the kind you reserve for a clueless moron who doesn't realize his house is on fire. I was momentarily paralyzed by the sheer, unadulterated audacity of the comparison. Scotland...compared to North Texas?
Fortunately, before I could declare a formal blood feud, she let out a piercing squeal and I was instantly forgotten. One of her besties had arrived, and the two of them merged into a high-decibel cloud of blonde hair and gossip. I was beginning to think Paige was to be my version of Morgan's antagonist Merlin.
I stood there, blinking, feeling like a soldier who had just been shot with a bubblegum bullet. At that moment, I'd never felt more like a displaced person. I found myself looking down at my white crew socks and feeling a profound sense of regret. I really should have tucked my sgian dubh into the side of my right one this morning; if I was going to be insulted by the locals, I at least wanted the comfort of six inches of sharpened steel against my calf. It's what any self-respecting Highlander would do when faced with a Bless your heart, whatever that means.
That's when I sensed him. My tactical perimeter was being breached again, my heart began a frantic, rhythmic pounding against my ribs that no amount of King's Scout training could settle. I took a deep breath and turned.
He was right there. Not in my space, but close enough that the air between us felt charged. Just like before, I found myself locked into those coal-black eyes. They didn't just look at me; they held me like a tractor beam, pinning me to the spot.
He smiled—a wide, effortless expression that made those campfire-starting cheekbones stand out—and stuck his hand out. "Hey. Hank Allen. Welcome to America, Texas, and Saint Luke's."
I took his hand, "Lachlan MacKenzie. Thanks. But aren't you just being nice to lull me into a false sense of security? Since you're the revolutionary assigned to keep an eye on the King's man?"
"Maybe," he countered, his grin widening, "Some say the Navajo have a long history of ambushing unsuspecting palefaces! But I wouldn't worry, probably folklore!"
I didn't buy it, giggling, "Just what a Navajo ambusher would say!"
He leaned in, softly singing, "Look out for hirelings, King George of England…"
I rolled my eyes, "Right King George; but Wexford's in Ireland, not Scotland…" I knew in a nanosecond that I'd stuffed it. He pounced!
"But I'm thinking you'll never see it coming. After all, you're the one from that tiny island who thinks Ireland, Scotland, and England are different." He laughed, fluttering his eyelashes in a perfect, devastating imitation of Paige. "Bless your heart."
The poise I'd spent fifteen years cultivating evaporated in an instant. I didn't just laugh; a violent, involuntary snort erupted from my nose—the kind of sound a startled pig might make. It was loud, it was deeply plebian, and it was entirely out of my control.
I felt my face go hot, the Scottish sunburn of embarrassment flaring up instantly. My Clandestine Insurgency wasn't just in shambles; it had been defeated by a parody of a blonde girl.
Hank didn't recoil in horror, though, instead he gave me a pass. His eyes lit up, and his laugh became even more genuine, "So, you're into Scouts too?" Hank asked, leaning back but keeping his gaze fixed on mine. "I'm with Troop Five here in Austin. You should join up with us."
I managed to pull a frown together, trying to salvage some dignity. "We've been coordinating between Scouts Scotland and a troop here in Austin, but I don't think it was Troop Five. No, it was definitely three digits."
"Well then, they aren't in our league," Hank said with a mock-serious shrug. "Troop Five has been around since 1911—one of the first in the entire country. Our first meeting is tomorrow night, and you're coming."
He flashed a confident, dazzling grin, but his gaze made it clear that 'no' wasn't an option. Not that I would have argued. The part of Rule Number Two about waiting to understand the lay of the land before cementing friendships had gone right out the window and over the perimeter fence.
I didn't want to observe this native. I wanted this boy to be my mate.
I wasn't sure where to go next, but I couldn't let the silence take over so I decided to push it. Without bothering to filter myself, I blurted out the first question that hit me.
"How do you get away with the grooming violation? Is the ponytail an...Indigenous person thing?"
Hank let out a snort—a much cooler version than my own outburst. "American Indian," he corrected. "Indigenous is what New Yorkers say when they don't know any better. I'm half-Indian, half-white—Navajo on my mom's side; American Melting Pot my dad's."
"Oh, that's awesome," I said, my inner scholar waking up. "I've read a lot about the tribes—Navajo, Apache, Iroquois. But wait...are you really a Son of the American Revolution? Did one of your American Indian great-granddads fight alongside the colonials?"
"Yes, to the SAR; no, on the Indian side," Hank said, clearly used to the confusion. "Navajo is a western tribe. The colonials are on my dad's side—I'm the Allen Mr. Schneider mentioned. As in Ethan Allen's family. Green Mountain Boys out of Vermont."
My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. I'd read everything there was to know about the Green Mountain Boys—the rugged frontiersmen who had been a thorn in the side of George III. I was sitting next to the lineage of a legend. I was about to unleash an absolute onslaught of questions, but Mr. Schneider signaled that the period was over and we needed to move toward our next objectives.
Fortunately, Hank and I were both in his first-period history class, so we didn't have to navigate the asylum hallways just yet. It gave us a moment to compare our schedules
In addition to History, we had Geometry and English together, as well as Cross-Country— excellent! He had Physics and Spanish II to my French II and Spanish I, but I wasn't worried. If he was an Allen, surely he could help a vile toady of the King with his Spanish homework.
History class was a total victory. I was definitely beginning to appreciate Mr. Schneider's style. He was positively vibrating with excitement as he re-introduced me to the reinforcements that filtered in for the hour. I think he nearly suffered a medical emergency when I dropped the next piece of intel: my great-great-great grandfather, Alister MacKenzie, had been a Lieutenant with the King's Royal Regiment of New York.
The room went silent as Schneider processed this. I was no longer just a vile toady in theory; I was the literal descendant of the Royal Greens —the King's own hand-picked loyalist militia. In Alister's defense, he had only just stepped off the boat in the Colonies when the war kicked off. The poor man barely had time to find a decent pub before he was buckled into a gorget, handed a fine steel saber, and told to lead a company against his neighbors.
I could almost see Alister in my mind, standing on the edge of the wilderness with a brace of flintlock pistols in his sash, looking profoundly confused as to why everyone was so upset about a little tea, a few taxes, and westward expansion.
I glanced sideways at Hank and smiled. The descendant of Ethan Allen—the man who led the rough-and-tumble Green Mountain Boys with their long rifles and woodsman's axes—was staring at the descendant of a Royal Green officer. Two hundred and fifty years ago, our ancestors would have been trying to outmaneuver each other in the brush of the Champlain Valley. Now, we were just two sophomores in Austin trying to survive a first day of school.
Schneider rubbed his hands together, looking like he'd just won the historical lottery. "Ladies and gentlemen," he announced to the room, "the powder keg hasn't just been lit. We've invited the spark and the fuel to sit in the same row. This is going to be a glorious year."
The rest of the day was a whirlwind—a blur of new teachers, new classmates, and a relentless series of I'm from Scotland introductions. I quickly discovered that Paige wasn't an anomaly; she was a prototype. I encountered a recurring set of New Paige's in almost every corridor, all of them equipped with the same vertical hair and the same alarming level of enthusiasm for my exotic English accent. The Paige collective was definitely my Merlin antagonist.
I managed not to get lost in the maze of the school, which I counted as a major tactical success. Even better, I found Hank sprinkled throughout my schedule like a recurring character in a favorite novel. Every time I walked into a joint class, there he was—a familiar face in the sea of strangers.
When I finally reached the mess hall for lunch, he was already there, waiting. When he spied me, he flashed the biggest, eye-sparkling grin I'd ever seen. It made me feel all kinds of fluttery—a sensation that was definitely not covered in the King's Scout manual for Maintaining a Stoic Demeanor Under Pressure. But it was a good kind of fluttery, though. Like a light in a fog.
He pulled me over to sit with his friends, and it was immediately clear that Hank was the center of his own particular gravity. He was effortlessly well-liked, and that social capital was being transferred to me by association. By the time I finished my mystery-meat sandwich, I realized I had an instant social circle. It was moving faster than any of my previous infiltrations in Paris or Munich.
For a Scottish Scout in the Texas asylum, I was finding the natives surprisingly easy to love.
To top off what had been the most awesome, expectation-shattering day of my life, we finished with sports.
The locker room was a sea of confusion; half-naked boys everywhere. Hank and I picked out lockers right next to each other, a tactical move that nearly proved to be my undoing. I had to concentrate with the intensity of a bomb-disposal technician just to keep my composure as we changed.
Seriously—a white jockstrap against that honey-gold skin? It was a biological ambush. It was totally unfair to expect me to remain unphased, not that I was complaining, mind you. I don't know if he peeked as much as I did, but I made sure I spent a suspicious amount of extra time digging around in my sports bag after I'd already dropped my boxer briefs.
If this was a test of my ability to focus, I was definitely failing.
Today was a light day—or so Coach Roberts claimed. He spent the first portion of the period laying out his philosophy and expectations for the year. Everyone was technically on the team, but he made it clear that he'd be the one deciding each week who would actually represent the school in the meets.
After a grueling stretching session, we set out for what he called a light run with the entire team moving together. I immediately sensed a shift in the atmosphere. Coach Roberts and the seniors weren't just running; they were circling us like hawks. I could feel them judging the fresh crop of talent, looking for the weak links in the chain and the thoroughbreds who could actually go the distance.
I took a breath, the humid Texas air feeling like warm soup in my lungs, and settled into a rhythm right beside the boy with the ponytail. If I was going to be judged, I was going to make sure they saw exactly what a King's Scout was capable of.
Good God, I thought after the first mile. The heat wasn't just a temperature; it was a physical weight. Between the dust kicking up into my lungs and the hard-packed, unforgiving ground, the lush Highlands felt like a different planet.
"We're not in Scotland anymore!" I muttered as we hit a slight, shimmering rise in the trail.
Hank was running right at my shoulder, his pace as steady and effortless as a heartbeat. He glanced over, his dark eyes searching mine. "You okay? We can ease off if you need."
That kicked my Scottish defiance right into gear. No way was I going to look weak in front of him—even if I had to die a quick, dusty death in the middle of a Texas scrub-field.
I shook my head, forcing my breath to stay even. "Nae, I'm good. Just used to cooler weather. Our big issues were always rain and mud—not whether I was going to choke on dust or get eaten by a snake!"
Hank laughed and flipped his head, tossing that black mane of hair back. "No worries. Our snakes don't eat you; they just kill you with venom. Rattlers, cottonmouths, copperheads, coral snakes...we've got the full menagerie."
He didn't stop there. He was clearly enjoying the look on my face. "Now, if it's being eaten you want, you've got your cougars and mountain lions. Not to mention the feral hogs—those things are really nasty."
I just laughed, a dry, dusty sound, and shook my head. "Crazy country. Why did anyone ever move here?"
"For the freedom, Master MacKenzie," Hank shot back with a wink. "And maybe for the tacos."
I managed a dusty smirk. "You know, I've decided you're a dangerous influence, Hank Allen. You're like a reverse version of Twain's Morgan."
Hank didn't even break stride, but he arched a dark eyebrow. "Twain? A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court?"
I nearly tripped over my own feet in surprise. Not only was he a descendant of a Green Mountain Boy, but he was well-read. My Rule Number Two assessment of the natives was being revised by the second.
"Exactly," I panted. "Except in the book, Morgan goes back in time and shows off his superior knowledge to the primitive locals in Camelot. Here, I'm the one from the Old World, but you're the one acting like the boss of the place. You're the Texas Yankee in Master MacKenzie's Court."
Hank let out a loud, appreciative laugh that echoed across the hard-packed trail. "I like that. But just remember, Lachlan—in Twain's book, Morgan eventually ends up running the whole show. And he didn't even have to deal with the Texas heat."
"Fair point," I conceded, feeling a fresh surge of energy. "But he didn't have a King's Scout looking over his shoulder, either."
Hank and I ran shoulder to shoulder for nearly the entire course, our rhythms syncing up until our footsteps hit the hard-packed earth in a steady, dual-time beat. Occasionally, he'd edge a bit ahead, and I'd find my Rule Number Two observations shifting from general scanning to a singular, pure aesthetic appreciation. There was a lot to appreciate: his athletic build, the long, powerful stride of his legs, and the way that black hair almost floated as he ran.
I found myself hoping he was performing a similar reconnaissance when I pushed forward to take the lead, but without eyes in the back of my head, I had to rely on hope over operational intelligence.
Finally, we circled back toward the athletic facility, our lungs burning with that thick, humid Austin air. Striping off our shirts, we collapsed onto the cool grass in a patch of glorious, life-saving shade, the ground feeling like the most comfortable bed in the world.
Coach Roberts and the team captain stood over us, looking like triumphant generals reviewing the troops. They said a few brief words—likely praise for the survivors and a warning for the weak—and then cut us loose to hit the showers.
As I pushed myself up from the grass, every muscle in my legs screaming in a language I didn't want to translate, I looked at Hank. He was already up, offering me a hand once again.
For a moment, I froze, staring up at the gloriously lean torso towering over me. My eyes instantly flicked to his glistening stomach—his flat, hard-packed ridges, bronzed and tight across his midsection. They were mismatched, like mosaic tiles, yet fit together perfectly into a work of art.
"Awe-inspiring abs, aren't they?" Hank giggled, rubbing his stomach. "Most stunning this side of the Mississippi!"
I couldn't let that challenge go unmet. I tugged the waistband of my running shorts down a fraction, exposing the sharp, final two lobes of my eight-pack. "Mine go to eight," I laughed.
That earned my eight a stinging smack. Hank took off for the locker room with a laugh, me in close pursuit.
I had been looking forward to the showers since the second mile of the run, and the reality did not disappoint. The squad stripped off and crowded into the shower room—a humid chamber of spray and steam with no room for modesty. Hank and I managed to secure a corner, which was a choice tactical position; it made copping a look significantly easier.
I was surprised to find that he was uncircumcised, just like me. We were the only two intact soldiers in the entire room. I made sure not to be obvious, but I was taking mental snapshots like a madman, recording the way the water cascaded over his lean, honey-gold frame. It was enough to threaten my tactical composure; fortunately, I'd set my water to a bracing cold to counter the Texas heat.
We were toweling off back at our lockers when the proximity alarm went off again. Hank leaned in close, his voice a low, conspiratorial whisper. "We're the only uncircumcised guys on the team!"
I let out a startled laugh. "Oh, so you were peeking? I'm surprised; I thought all you American boys were cut."
"Of course I peeked. Everyone does.," Hank smirked. My eyes nearly bugged out of my head as he gave his foreskin a casual, confident tug, making his deep purple head pop out for a look-see. "I've got my Indian side to thank for this. We believe the body is a vessel gifted by the Great Spirit. Altering it would be disrespectful."
"Well, thank your Great Spirit for that," I said, feeling a sudden, reckless surge of boldness. "I'm certainly glad I still have mine." Since he had started the demonstration, I was happy to let him see me give mine a healthy tug in return, proudly showing off my apricot-colored head—a silent, slightly brazen salute from one unaltered boy to another.
Hank, his hand still playing distractedly with his skin, got a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "In the locker rooms around here, we call it a Hood. Or a meat jacket."
Not to be outdone, I giggled and countered with my favorites from back home. "Snapper and mudflap!"
Hank thought for a second, his grin widening. "Turtleneck, curtains, and drapes!"
I'd exhausted the common slang of the British Isles, so I turned to the Continent for reinforcements. " Gänsevorhaut," I whispered conspiratorially. "That's German for Goose foreskin. Or the ultimate political put-down from France: Prépuce du Général. It refers to de Gaulle's...well, his lack of stature."
Hank's giggles turned to outright laughter at that, the sound echoing off the tiles just as several other runners filtered into our row. The tugging ceased immediately.
I quickly turned away to slip on my boxer briefs. Between his demonstration, my own enthusiastic response, and our impromptu language lesson, my shaft was starting to become way too visible for a public space.
Still sweating from the Texas humidity, we donned our button-downs and shorts. Apparently, the powers that be liked us to look proper when leaving the premises, maintaining the illusion of order for the parents waiting at the gates. We were almost at the cars when it hit me: we were about to head our separate ways. The realization felt like a physical blow. I stumbled over my own feet, giving Hank a quick, pained look that I couldn't quite mask.
He caught it instantly, his brows knitting together in concern. "What's that face for?"
I was caught out. My usual Scottish composure failed me, so I just let the truth hang there in the heavy afternoon air. "It's just...we have to say goodbye now. I'm no' ready for it. Today's been...incredible."
Hank nodded, his expression softening into a smile that made me feel like I was melting into the asphalt. Those deep, obsidian eyes seemed to wrap around me, pulling me in. "I was thinking the same thing," he said softly. "The goodbye part sucks. But we've got tomorrow. I'm just really glad you moved to Texas."
I barked out a sudden, sharp laugh, making him blink in confusion.
"Don't take that the wrong way," I explained quickly, my Scottish lilt thickening with the emotion of the moment. "I just spent the last three months trying every trick in the book to avoid moving here. Now, I'm happy I failed. I'm really glad I moved to Texas too."
Mum's horn blared from the sedan, a noisy intrusion into our moment. I had to say a lightning-fast goodbye and bolt for the car. As she pulled out of the lot, I looked back. Hank was still standing there, watching us leave. I gave him a small wave and a smile, and the reward was instantaneous—a matching grin and a hand raised in a salute.
Mum held out for exactly half a block before her curiosity finally snapped. "So, how was it? Looks like you might've actually made a mate?"
If she was bracing for the usual monosyllabic teenage grunt—the standard fine or alright that had been my primary mode of communication since the move—she was in for a shock. I didn't just answer; I erupted. I was still mid-sentence when she swung the car into the driveway, still rambling as we crossed the threshold, and still shouting details over my shoulder as I bolted upstairs.
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