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466 lines
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HTML
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<title>3</title>
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<h1>3</h1>
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<p>The pigeons clattered round the chimneys, white wings exploding on the rise to catch the morning sun, fantails and
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blues in tight formation. He watched them circle and wheel. A lone snow feather cradled its way to the grass.</p>
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<p>"Is that you Jack? Come in, <em>hombre</em>."</p>
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<p>Jack waited a minute or two, admiring the way the birds stayed tight and drilled, turning or gliding, all in
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unison, perfect teamwork. </p>
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<p>He pushed between the pigeon loft and his uncle's big old motorbike, opened the door and almost fell over a
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thigh-high black plastic bin. He sniffed thick musty air.</p>
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<p>"What's that stench? It would knock you flat."</p>
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<p>Sandy Bruce laughed. "You get used to it."</p>
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<p>"Man, you'll <em>never</em> get used to that. What the hell is it?"</p>
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<p>Sandy came out of the kitchen into the hall. He wore a sixties-style string vest under his boiler suit, a
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pair of fifties style octagonal glasses and a quarter inch of silvery stubble from two days before. He must
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have been busy with the pigeons or the boat boys who hung about down on the river. </p>
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<p>Sandy pointed to each of the three plastic bins, counting off in turn. "Irish stout, heavy and lager. Pilsner
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lager, the kind you young fellas like. <em>Bueno cerveza.</em>" Sandy had picked up a few languages from his
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sailing days. Tomorrow it might be Italian. Today it was something like Mexican bandido.</p>
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<p>"Are you sure? It smells like dead bodies. "</p>
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<p>"Sure I'm sure. That's just the mash fermenting. Once it stops, it's okay." </p>
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<p>"How much are you making?"</p>
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<p>"Sixty gallons this time. It's the club's AGM in two weeks and you probably heard that tosser Tim Farmer's
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done a bunk with the kitty. Being entertainments convener, it's up to me to make sure we've got a decent
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purvey."</p>
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<p>He was using a broom handle to stir the contents of the bin nearest him, sending up a blister of bubbles that
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stank as badly as the marshes out on the golf flats and looked even more poisonous. Jack held his nose. </p>
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<p>"I really don't think it's worth it."</p>
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<p>"Sure it is. You get to pension age and see how much beer you can buy. The price of it's just an absolute
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scandal and every year the tax goes through the roof. Hell, it's the only pleasure a man's got left, that
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and the birds."</p>
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<p>"So you say. You're up to every scam going."</p>
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<p>"You know what it's like Jake. The older I get, I stand for more and fall for less."</p>
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<p>"I thought you were racing the birds today."</p>
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<p>Sandy shook his head and kept stirring and Jack kept his hands clamped on his nose. The thick malty smell
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caught him in the back of the throat and he wished he hadn't had so much to drink the previous night."</p>
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<p>"Have you got a license for this?"</p>
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<p>"Don't need one, seeing it's just home brew. Me and Willie McIver chipped in for the sugar and stuff and what
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we'll do is charge entrance money, so we can't get done for selling."</p>
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<p>"You're a twenty carat scoundrel, Sandy."</p>
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<p>"Takes one to know one. Tell you what, if I had a still, I could turn this into whisky, and then we'd really
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be in business."</p>
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<p>"And then I'd be bailing you out of jail."</p>
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<p>"My old grandfather, he had a still himself, him and my uncles, up the back of beyond some place near the
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Cardross Hills. Made it out of an old copper boiler. That was back in the twenties, a whole long time ago.
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That stuff they made would have lifted paint and raised blisters but they got a taste for it. All you do is
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make beer and then steam it off."</p>
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<p>"And you end up going blind."</p>
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<p>Sandy laughed and stirred and the bubbles farted about on the surface as if the mash was alive. </p>
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<p>"You got to take the opportunity. Like what you're always telling me about supply and demand. I've got the
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supply, and the boys in the club, well, they'll be doing the demanding, and me and Willie can make enough to
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get another batch going and make a bit of profit besides."</p>
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<p>"But it stinks. I mean, it would make you boke. You should let him do it in his place."</p>
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<p>"He's <em>doing</em> it in his place. That way we end up with a hunner' and twenty gallons. There's a bowling
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club smoker coming up as well and we're catering for that as all. Then the Boat Club bash. Next thing you
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know, we'll be bigger than Interbrew."</p>
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<p>Sandy laughed again and scratched his stubble. "Wish I'd thought of this years ago. I could have been big.
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<em>Muy grande.</em> Here. . . " he made a beckoning motion. "Bring that siphon across. I have to decant the
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first batch."</p>
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<p>He opened the little cupboard beyond the kitchen door and Jack stood, open mouthed. From floor to ceiling it
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had five deep shelves and each one of them was jammed to the edge with bottles of all kinds. Lemonade, Iron
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Brew, Lucozade, a few dry sherry bottles and a couple of big whisky optics that had obviously made their way
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from some bar.</p>
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<p>"Been all over the place this week, collecting them. Me and Willie. You wouldn't imagine how much good glass
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people throw away."</p>
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<p>"Oh, come on, Sandy, you can't go feeding people moonshine in old chuckaway bottles. You never know who's
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pee'd in them. You could poison all of the old biddies."</p>
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<p>"Less of the old. And don't you worry boy, they're clean as a whistle. We got your Mam to go into Boots and
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buy us some of that stuff she used to clean your baby bottles. If it's good for babies, then it's good for
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the pigeon men. You think my head buttons up the back?"</p>
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<p>"I'm not so sure."</p>
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<p>Jack handed him a corrugated tube that looked like a windpipe with some plastic attachment that Sandy jammed
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onto the third bin and the beer started to flow. Jack had to admit that the finished article smelt a whole
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lot better than the fresh stuff and he was surprised that it actually looked like beer when it began to fill
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the bottles. He did a mental calculation on how many bottles would be needed for twenty gallons and worked
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it out that they could be siphoning the brew for an hour and a half. He turned out to be off by only twenty
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minutes. </p>
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<p>"You want a beer?"</p>
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<p>"At this time of day? Give me a break. Your kidneys must be like saddlebags."</p>
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<p>"Don't get smart. Put the kettle on then and I'll get the board."</p>
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<p>It was a tradition between them and had been since Jack had been only seven or eight and they'd started
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playing draughts before progressing to chess. Sandy sometimes managed to con him into a game of shoot
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pontoon and always took a few notes off him and Jack never saw how he palmed the royals but he knew his
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Uncle was fast as a snake when he wanted to be, a throwback to his old days on tramp steamers up and down
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the Americas. He'd been a wild man, so the stories went, and Sandy embellished just a few of them. Jack made
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tea thick as tar and got a pair of penguin biscuits from his jacket pocket. Sandy dunked them until the
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chocolate spread out on the surface and then slurped them between his teeth. Nothing changed. </p>
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<p>"Here," he said. "You have to try this stuff."</p>
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<p>He went into the hall and came back with a big demi-jon that held a gallon of opaque liquid.</p>
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<p>"What is it?"</p>
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<p>"Try it first and you tell me." He poured some into a small glass. Jack raised it, sniffed, recognised a
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familiar scent and tasted.</p>
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<p>It was smooth as silk with a full, warm aftertaste. For a moment he thought it was the stuff he and the
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Swedish twins had been drinking at Robert's party. He drank again, and Sandy grinned.</p>
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<p>"Not bad, eh?"</p>
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<p>"What is it?"</p>
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<p>"I met this widow woman in Ireland last year, when we were across for the Connaught race. Me and her, we sort
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of..."</p>
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<p>"I know what you sort of, you old skank chancer. I swear to god, when you go, you'll be the last of the
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diehards. They'll never get the lid down."</p>
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<p>Sandy cuffed him light on the back of the head.</p>
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<p>"Some respect young man. Anyway, she had the recipe for some woman's drink from the place she worked. She
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made a batch, just some whisky and bits and bobs. It loosened the laces on her inhibitions right
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enough."</p>
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<p>"And you loosened the rest. Heard it already."</p>
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<p>"Anyway, I watched her and picked up the gist of it. Then I added a few things of my own. The old biddies,
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they can't get enough of it. The bowling night's going to be a hoolie. Want some more?"</p>
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<p>"Another time," Jack said. It was good, but not with a fading hangover. He took a sip of tea to kill the
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alcohol taste, Sandy moved a pawn and they were off, sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by bottles of every
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variety, in a fug of beer and Sandy's Virginia flake roll-up, stout tea and chocolate biscuits and apart
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from the beer and the creamy liqueur, that's how it went most early Saturday mornings. </p>
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<p>"It's not looking too clever at the dairy." Pawn up two squares. </p>
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<p>"I heard that too." Knight two up, freeing the bishop. "I also hear Andy Kerr's facing a whole heap of
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trouble."</p>
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<p>"Looks like. His cousin Billy's been at some sort of scam. I'll get the details on Monday."</p>
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<p>"Billy was always sticky fingered. Had too much too easy. I hear he's done a bunk with some bimbo, just like
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that daft old git Tim Farmer. He's nicked off with a secretary from the distillery, just half his age."</p>
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<p>"Tim's about seventy, is he not?"</p>
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<p>"Aye, and she's about forty. Far too young for him. Once the money's gone he'll be back with his tail between
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his legs and his willy shrivelled to a peanut." Bishop out and hunting. </p>
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<p>Sandy looked at him over the cup, judging his next move and his next remark. </p>
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<p>"Billy Kerr was keeping two sets of books and working one for himself. He was supposed to pay the VAT and
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your national insurance, is what I heard, and none of it's been paid, and that means you could be in a wee
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pile of hot manure."</p>
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<p>"I heard that as well. You don't miss much."</p>
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<p>Sandy winked, while Jack contemplated the defence of his queen. </p>
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<p>"But what are you going to do?"</p>
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<p>"I'm going to take your queen's knight."</p>
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<p>"Don't get smart." King's knight out on a flanker, threatening the queen.</p>
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<p>"Watch the board." Jack looked up. Sandy was still gauging him. "It looks like I'll get to sleep late in the
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mornings."</p>
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<p>"Billy Kerr will take a fall as well. Once a chancer, always a chancer. Makes you wonder Jake, does nobody do
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a decent job around here without their hands in the till or stealing off somebody else? Look at Tim Farmer.
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Off with two grand of our money that was set aside for the big Christmas party and all the prizes. Brains in
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his balls and head up his arse. Everybody stealing from everybody else. Used to be a time when people were
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honest. Honest enough anyway. Nowadays it's the done thing to rip people off. That's the way business is, am
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I right? Dog eat bloody dog and to hell with the hard-working folk."</p>
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<p>He watched as Jack moved his queen deep infield and tut-tutted disapproval like the old women on the golf
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course. </p>
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<p>"And what are you going to do?"</p>
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<p>"I don't know, Gramps. Tell you the truth, I'm really fed up getting up at daft o'clock and delivering other
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folk's milk. Fed up bursting my arse."</p>
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<p>"Watch your fucking language, boy."</p>
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<p>Jack laughed. His Sandy always said that.</p>
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<p>"And don't call me Gramps. You make me feel old."</p>
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<p>"You are old."</p>
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<p>"Not too old to cuff your ear. Watch your queen."</p>
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<p>"Don't make me laugh. Watch your king. Check." The games were always fast. </p>
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<p> Sandy castled, got the king right out of there. </p>
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<p>"You don't steal off people, that was always the rule. Maybe lift a length of two by four, or a bag of coal
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from the railyard. Lead off a roof, or some whisky from the distillery, but you didn't steal off
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<em>real </em>folk. Maybe net a salmon or two out of the river, but not steal folk's money." He shook his
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head and rubbed his chin, a gesture of scratchy disgust. Jack ignored it. He always did that to distract
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him. </p>
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<p>"Ever tell you about the time your Granddad stole a bull?"</p>
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<p>That got Jack's attention. He finished the biscuit and washed it down with thick tea. </p>
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<p>"That would be when you rode the trail in the wild west, I suppose. Rustlin' Sandy Bruce rides the
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range."</p>
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<p>"Don't mock boy, I got around when I was your age. Went right round the world with the marines and then on
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the boats. And watch your queen." </p>
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<p>Jack had seen it coming and took the other knight, quick as a blink. Sandy sat back and kept on scratching
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his chin. He was under pressure. </p>
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<p>"Was back in the fifties. Fifty two I reckon, just after the big TB epidemic that took your aunty Janet.
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Rationing was still on and we were all built like whippets, skin and gristle. I'd be about three or four. My
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old Grandpa, he was still alive at the time and stayed with us, down in the old house beside the river
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before they cleared all the tenements away. He was a tough old coot, I can tell you."</p>
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<p>The stories always started with a preamble. Sandy had been plenty of places and seen things in his service
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days and always had a yarn and some of them were undoubtedly true. Jack couldn't always tell which ones
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were. </p>
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<p>"Anyway, the old man was knocking on, and he hated the rationing. He used to take me up the hill, snaring
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rabbits, and once he caught a sheep that had its horns caught in some bushes and before you knew it the skin
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was off and buried under a pile of rocks and the whole street was eating mutton. It was tough as old boots,
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but with the rationing you'd have eaten old boots and the insoles, laces, hob-seggs and all. Everybody stuck
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together and nobody said a thing. We took about forty salmon out of the river that spring and Jimmy
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Crawford, who was foreman at the shipyard wood store gave us all the oak sawdust we wanted and we cured them
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in Malky Dunnet's rail shack and then the whole street was like royalty, eating smoked salmon for weeks. You
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did what you could, know what I mean?" </p>
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<p>Sandy moved a bishop up in a new threat. Jack pulled his king back, on the run, waiting for the rest of the
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story. </p>
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<p>"But beef? You couldn't get beef, or chicken either. The old fella had worked the railroads in the states
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back in the twenties when my dad was a boy, and he used to talk about steaks the size of washing boards. Two
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inches thick. I tell you Jake, sometimes I was drooling at the mouth just listening to him, sitting at the
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fire, just thinking about big beefy steaks. Anyway, your granddad and Willie McIver and a couple of others,
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yon ginger boy's grandfather, Davie Watson, dead now, bless him. They were on a trip up by Linnvale and
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there were fields full of cattle, every one fatter than the next, and with udders like blown up bagpipes.
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The guys were droolin' just to look at them, because there were no cows around here. All the farms were
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growing turnips and potatoes. But up there it was all the Colquhoun land and the laird, whatever pull he
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had, he had one of the best dairy herds in the country, all of them feeding all day and getting fat as
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lard."</p>
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<p>Sandy laughed, thinking back, and Jack knew this would be a true one. </p>
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<p>"They hatched this idea, and a mate of theirs, he was in the army, doing national service but he was in the
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transport corps and he got the loan of a five tonner. They went up, all of them in old uniforms so they
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could say we were on exercise if they got caught, and they went into this shed at night and got a rope
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around this big cow. It never said a word and they walked it up the back ramp in pitch dark and freewheeled
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it down the track for half a mile without the engine on and back home. Big Peter McFarlane, the butcher's
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apprentice, was all set to cut the thing up and they had worked out who was going to get what, and
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somebody's mother could make sausages for everybody. It wasn't until they got it round the back of Malky
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Dunnet's old yard and into his shed that they saw it wasn't a cow at all. Even I could tell that. It had a
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pair of <em>cojones</em> like melons, scraping and bouncing off the ground they were, and something else
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they never noticed in the middle of the night. It had a big brass ring stuck through its nose."</p>
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<p>"That would be better than a cow," Jack said. "Better beef."</p>
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<p>"Aye, so you'd think. But what they never knew that the <em>merdo</em> had hit the fan in a big way. Somebody
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had seen an army truck out in the middle of the night and there was a general alert out and the laird, he
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was spitting bullets and going to sue the ministry of defence."</p>
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<p>"For a bull?"</p>
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<p>"For <em>his </em>bull. He had the best milk herd in the west, and that was because he had the biggest bloody
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prize bull you ever saw. Even then it was worth five hundred guineas. It was more famous than <em>him</em>
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even. It's picture had been in all the papers. My dad was only earning seven pounds a week back then, so It
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was like ten years spending money, all of it stamping about on the hoof."</p>
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<p>"So what happened?"</p>
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<p>"Pete McFarlane, he took cold feet and said he couldn't cut the beast and Mickey Dougan, he was shitting
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himself because he had nicked the van for the night. That turned out okay, because it was never signed out
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and nobody was the wiser. So there they were, with a fortune on legs and nobody knew what to do, and all of
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them facing the jail. Yon old chinless wonder would have hanged them for rustling, without a second
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thought,"</p>
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<p>The old man chuckled again, scratched his chin and moved a pawn to free the bishop's line of sight, making it
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look casual. </p>
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<p>"Somebody came up with the idea of taking it back, and they decided just to dump it along the Linnvale Road,
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make it look like it had just gone a-wandering, and maybe later on go after one of the cows. But when they
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were getting the thing into the back of the truck to take it back, it started kicking and hauling and it
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butted Willie right in the chuckies and he went down like a sack. There was only your Grandad and Mickey
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holding it and that wasn't enough and the bull took off with them dragging behind it. I swear to god it was
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like a rhino, must have weighed a ton. Off it goes, slipping and sliding in its own shite and it knocked the
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yard door off its hinges and out in to the street. You should have heard the screaming then. There was a
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bunch of women all gabbing together and when this thing came out, snorting and pawing they all started
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yelling and running about like headless chickens. Mickey grabbed the rope and it tossed its head and he went
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flying arse over tit and then it was off. It went down the alley by Thomson's bakers, and across the greens,
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dragging all then washing with it, and straight through the hedge at the dairy as if it wasn't there. It
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came out the other side and hit a car straight on and knocked it into a wall. It went bombing up Gooseholm
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Street, ploughed up all the allotments and out the other side, doing about forty, balls swinging like a
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sporran and it clattered straight through the big fence on the far side and onto the flat."</p>
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<p>Sandy chuckled again. "What a mess!"</p>
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<p>"What happened?"</p>
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<p>"It ran straight on to the railway line and the big morning freight from Oban smacked its head clean off its
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shoulders."</p>
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<p>He shook his head, grinning. </p>
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<p>"There wasn't much anybody could do then, and everybody was up on the line before the cops arrived. There was
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no mobile phones then, and they only needed half an hour. Pete McFarlane had his bone saw and a set of
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butchers knives and somebody brought a big two-handed bandsaw and in no time at all there was nothing left
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but a puddle of stinky grass that had been in its belly. Everybody got a share and that night we threw the
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biggest street party we ever had. My grandfather had a T-bone a yard wide and we were all eating beef for a
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fortnight. The Laird, he could do nothing about it, even after the cops identified the hide they found
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hanging on the railway fence. It was just an act of God, so they said. It was finders keepers, and nobody
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ever said a thing. It was the best kept secret ever. But like I said, that's the way it was."</p>
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<p>He reached out and moved the bishop. <em>Check. </em></p>
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<p>Jack pulled the king back and the rook moved to block. <em>Check. </em></p>
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<p>He ran back, using his queen as a shield. His grandfather took her by automatic reflex and Jack used the
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vacant space to free his second bishop and move six diagonals until he was two in front of the white
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king. </p>
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<p>"You're screwed."</p>
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<p>Sandy paused, scanned the deck and blew out from puffed cheeks. </p>
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<p>"Sucked me in, Jake, so you did. Best of three?"</p>
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<p>He shook his head. "I've got to sort a few things out."</p>
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<p>"Like Gus Ferguson?"</p>
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<p>Jack was pushing his chair back and he came to a sudden stop. </p>
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<p>"How did you know about that?"</p>
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<p>"I'm an old soldier. Knowledge is power. What you don't know sneaks up and bites your arse. I hear that
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polecat's well pissed off at you."</p>
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<p>Jack shrugged. There wasn't much he could say.</p>
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<p>"I heard what you did, and that was pretty good. Yon Cullen's got brains in his arse, but he's an animal. I
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heard you hit Wiggy Foley with a six iron."</p>
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<p>"It was a sand wedge."</p>
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<p>"Even better. That would give you lift." Sandy chuckled at his joke, but not for long. </p>
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<p>"Both of them are worth the watching, but Ferguson, he's loony tunes, so you keep an eye on your flanks Jake,
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and have somebody watch your back."</p>
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<p>"They were kicking him half to death."</p>
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<p>"I saw the boy last night. He's carrying the tattoo marks. Your pal's a good lad, but he can't put a brake on
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his mouth. It'll get him into worse trouble some day, you wait. Anyway, Ferguson, he's a stoat, and I don't
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want to have to look out the old Italian shooter, know what I mean?"</p>
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<p>Sandy fixed him with hard eyes behind the glasses. Jack knew he was tough as nails and had been things and
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seen places too. The looted gun was their secret from way back. </p>
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<p>"Ferguson," Sandy let the look fade. "I grew up with his old man, and he couldn't punch his way out of a wet
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hankie. But big Rosie, she was something else, a mean big bitch if ever there was one and that boy took
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after his mother. I remember the dancing down at the Burgh Hall, me in brothel creepers and a velvet jacket,
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doing the palais glide. She was only sixteen, but big with it. Hands like hams. Anyway, this wee fellow
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dances her and asks her up again and when he walks off he claps a hand to her backside. Man, he was very
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brave or really stupid. Next thing he's up on his tiptoes and she's got his goolies in a grip of steel,
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giving them a twist. I never saw the blood drain out of anybody's face just as fast. She walked him straight
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across the floor and out the door, slammed him into a wall. Told him never to embarrass her like that in
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public again. She made him walk her home all the way to Corrieside and <em>then</em> she made him give her a
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standy-up in the washing shed, and by Christ, he had to do the business right or she'd have torn them off."
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</p>
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<p>He looked over at Jack.</p>
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<p>"You watch that Ferguson, <em>compadre</em>. Okay?"</p>
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<p>Jack nodded. He didn't need to be told. </p>
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<p>"And I'm sorry about the job. It doesn't look too promising. You keep at the books and make something of
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yourself. It's a good wee town for them with no ambition, but there's nothing here for a man with your
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brains, so you got to grasp the opportunity and run with it, know what I mean? Screw the opposition. You
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supply the brains and they'll demand it. Start your own business and make something of yourself before it's
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too late. You don't want these tossers to be ruling your life, do you? Get to my age and you have to brew
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your own beer in a bin? Get cuffed at chess by a bloody milkman?"</p>
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<p>Jack laughed, but he knew the old guy was serious now, trying to make it light. </p>
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<p>"You have to remember who you are."</p>
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<p>He knew what was coming, but he sat still for it. </p>
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<p>"Told you before, You're a Lorne on your father's side, god rest him, and a Bruce on your mother's. Go back
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far enough and the Lornes were the kings of the islands, and Bruce, I don't have to tell you about him. You
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come from good stock boy, and you've got a good head on your shoulders. Don't let these creeps rule you. You
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get out and take what's yours."</p>
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<p>"Sure."</p>
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<p>"Remember the story of Bruce in the cave? Before Bannockburn?"</p>
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<p>"Sure I do."</p>
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<p>"That spider tried six times and failed, and then succeeded on the seventh. If at first you don't succeed. .
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. Then you know what happened?"</p>
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<p>Jack waited for it.</p>
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<p>"Robert the Bruce picked it up in his royal mailed fist and smacked it flat with the other. Splat! He hated
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those crawly fuckers."</p>
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