Chapter 15

Katie learned of her brother’s death two days before the R-100 was scheduled to depart for Cardington.  When she was questioned about it by the press, the pinto mare wisely chose to make no comment.

But in fact she had already begun to formulate her plans.  She had never wanted to become the Duchess of Strathdern, a position she regarded as little more than a social straitjacket.

But neither would she stand idly by while Colin brought ruin upon both sides of her family...and if assuming the family title was the price she had to pay for stopping him, so be it

And neither she nor Jim Spanaway ever again spoke of their meeting with Samuel Bronfman.
Four days later, after a 57 hour return flight on the prevailing westerlies, the R-100 returned to Britain...and Katie officially became Her Grace, Dame Catherine MacArran, the14th Duchess of Strathdern.  Her behavior upon her arrival was surprising...at least to all who had known of her relationship to her brother.  Katie arranged for a lavish memorial service, and announced that Colin would be interred in the family burial plot in Strathdern, besides his brother and sisters...AND his mother and father. 

She even said a few words on his behalf at the wake.

“I only hope...I pray that Colin somehow finds the peace in the next life that always eluded him in this one.”

She declined to deliver the eulogy, however.  That task was left to her brother’s best friend, Josslyn Hay, the 20th Earl of Errol, and the words he spoke were less in praise of his departed friend than a thinly veiled indictment of the one he blamed for Colin’s downfall.

“Some come here not to bury Colin MacArran, but to praise him.  I come here offering justice on behalf of my dear, departed friend.  On my honor, I do swear that I shall never rest until not only are those who murdered Colin MacArran are given their just desserts...but also those who sought to destroy him while he lived.”

At these words everyone present looked visibly shocked, glancing sideways at Katie and then back again the Earl or Errol.  Had looks been lethal, Duchess Mary of Bedford’s icy stare would have blown a six-inch hole right through the foxhound.  Nothing had happened to Colin MacArran that he hadn’t brought on himself, and they all knew it.

Only Katie herself remained impassive throughout Josslyn Hay’s tirade.

After the services were concluded, the Earl of Errol was just about to climb into his car for the ride back to the train station, when a butler arrived bearing a note from Her Grace, the new Duchess of Strathdern.

Katie didn’t expect him to respond in the affirmative, so she was more than a little surprised when the foxhound arrived in the Strathdern House cavernous drawing room.

What did NOT surprise her was that the canine brought two of his servants along, “as witnesses.”

“What I’m about to tell you Your Grace, is purely an opinion.” she began, and the leveled a finger at the dog, “It wasn’t me who really destroyed Colin, Josslyn Hay...it was you.  It wasn’t until after he joined up with you in Madeira that my brother began to go wrong.  If you really want to know who ruined him, I’d suggest you find yourself a mirror.”

It wasn’t often that Katie MacArran underestimated an opponent, but in this case she quickly discovered that she had done just that.  Josslyn Hay might have possessed the same low morals as her late brother, but he owned a far higher level of intelligence and self-control.  The dog just smirked at her and chortled...a deep, dark, wicked sound that might have emanated from the Prince of Darkness himself.

“Oh, really Duchess Catherine, d’ye think I never expected that?” he pointed at the two servants flanking his either side. “They’re na’ here to prevent you from slandering me...they’re here so that I’LL be able to deny saying what I’m about t’ tell YOU.”

“Out with it, then.” said, Katie outwardly unperturbed, but reeling inside.  This was not going the way she had expected...not at all.

The foxhound’s expression became even more oily.

“So y’ think I led yer brother astray, d’you?   Well, DUCHESS Catherine, ye’re exactly right...I did.”  He shook his head in mild disgust. “Couldn’t believe what a bluidy stick-in-the-mud Colin was when he first arrived in Madeira; your da had him almost completely tamed.  Took all my powers of persuasion to bring him round,” He smiled in wicked relish, “but eventually I succeeded.  And what a grand time we had afterwards, the two of us.  And how wonderful it was to have a companion so willing to take the fall over that speedboat incident.  Oh aye, that was my idea, not his.  Thought he’d reject me once and for all after I abandoned him to the tender mercies of the gendarmes...but the next day, he was as devoted to me as ever.  By the time we got to Nice, there was nothing he’d not do if I dared him...such as when I dared him to seduce that young minkette, Mademoiselle Soraigne.”

This last sentence was directed at Katie through a mocking wall of bared teeth.

Katie just stared with her one blue eye...ears pulled back against her scalp, refusing to give the Earl of Errol the satisfaction of seeing her cry.  And already starting to.

Josslyn Hay saw this, and his voice lowered to a menacing growl, “D’you know why I’m telling you all this, Duchess Catherine?  Do you?  It is because I know how much it hurts you to hear it.”

He turned and strode to the door, looking highly pleased with himself.

“Get off my property and don’t ever come back.” Katie whinnied at the departing canine.

“Why, Your Grace.” said the Earl of Errol, regarding her over a shoulder with that oily smile again. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

She could hear him laughing as the car door closed.

When he was gone, Katie allowed herself a short cry, then set about hitting the ground running.

There was a lot she had to do.

The first order of business was her brother’s legacy.  As Colin had died without a will, that might have been a messy proposition -- except for the clauses in the wills of both her sire and dam which stated that in the event of Colin’s passing without an heir of his own, all their property left to him would revert to their sole, remaining child.

Meaning her.

Even before her brother had been laid to rest, Katie had gone about setting up a trust-fund for the widow and children of Duncan Campbell...and now, before doing anything else, she journeyed to Inverness to meet with them.

She found the Campbell’s modest brick home surrounded by a phalanx of burly species, all of whom were wearing union arm-bands, and several of whom were carrying makeshift truncheons.  Katie had no sooner dismounted her motorcycle than the largest of them, a rhinoceros who looked as if he could have wadded up her bike like so much tinfoil, came marching in her direction, waving his club in the air.

“Be on yer way, y’ filthy toff!  Ave yer family not done enough already?”

Katie walked right up to the rhino and put her hooves on her hips.

“Who are you?” she demanded, “the new leader of the MacArran Distillery Workers Union?”

“No, I...”

“And are you any relationship to the Widow Campbell?”

“Do I look like a yiffin Border Col...?”

“Perhaps Mrs.Campbell designated you to speak for her.  Is that it?”

“Nae, but...”

"Then what the yiff makes you think YOU can tell me to piss off, you great, cocksucking ARSEHOLE!?!"

The rhino stared at her slack-jawed.  So did everyone else.  They had never before heard one of THEM address them using language as coarse as their own, not even Colin.  Katie took rapid advantage of the lull to speak to the group as a whole.

“You all know who I am, I’m Catherine MacArran, 14th Duchess of Strathdern.  That’s my title, but it’s not how I think of myself.  I call myself KATIE MacArran.  In my life, I’ve gotten my hooves as dirty as any one of you lot.  I’ve worked hoof in paw with furs like you in helping to build the R-100.  I respect the working furs of Britain.  I always have and I always will.  You can take that to the bank.”

“What are you going to do about our demands, then?” called a ferret near the back of the group.

Katie looked straight at him and shrugged, “How the HELL should I know what I’m going to do?  I don’t have the first Goddam clue about how to run a distillery.”

The ferret snickered and began to work his way through the crowd.

“Well, finally someone’s being honest wi’ us, then.” he said, and as he came closer, Katie saw large button pinned to his waistcoat.  In simple, black lettering it read, ‘President, MDWU’.

“Billy Sinclair,” he said, offering a paw.

“Katie MacArran,” she said, taking it.

“Pleasure,” he said, then corked a thumb over his shoulder at a slender border collie standing behind him, “and this here is Mrs. Campbell’s brother, Michael.”

“She says she’ll see you.” said the canine, stepping forward, but with neither a smile or an outstretched paw.

No one would ever know what triggered it...but Katie and the Widow Campbell ended up weeping in each other’s arms.  More than anything else, that was what raised her esteem in the eyes of the distillery employees.  Katie’s tears on behalf of the border-collie femme were both genuine and spontaneous.

The next order of business was to try and talk Simon White into taking his old job back.  This turned out be a much tougher nut to crack than the Distillery Workers Union.  The Ayrshire bull knew full well that the only way to get the MacArran Distilleries going again was with him at the helm.  And so at first, he refused to even talk to Katie.  When he finally did, the price he quoted for his return was as steep as face of the Dover cliffs.

“I’ll have full authority to run MacArran distilleries any way that I see fit,” he told her, in a brusque voice that scotched any possibility of negotiation, “And also full authority to deal with the union in whatever manner I see fit.  AND I want the rise in salary that your brother promised me, plus 10% for all the aggravation I’ve had to endure this past year...retroactive to last year, when I was supposed to have it.  AND it’s to include the period from my resignation until whenever I join the firm again.”

After more than a week of frustrating negotiations, Katie finally managed to persuade the bull to drop his final condition.  The rest, she had to accept.

As things turned out, she got what she paid for.  Within a fortnight of Simon White’s return, a contract agreement was reached with the MacArran Distillery Workers Union, and the distilleries themselves were being put back in order.

But not without considerable expenditure on Katie’s part.  While the parts taken from the floors of the distillery works needed only to be put back where they’d been before, the vandalism of the offices had destroyed countless irreplaceable records.  It would be months before they could get the books back in order...if they were lucky.  Until then it would be well nigh impossible to tell just how old the whiskey in any of the vats really was.  ( Fortunately, Katie was dealing with customers who didn’t care how old the next batch of Scotch, Gin and Irish Whiskey the MacArran distilleries shipped out was...as long as it got to America, pronto. )

Compared to what was occurring on the other side of the Atlantic though, all of this was only a minor inconvenience.  The board of directors of Combs Mining Machinery, now devoid of any Jim Spanaway partisans, still stubbornly refused to call for HIS return.  Worse, the courts refused point blank to hear Katie’s petition to administer her grandfather’s assets, and so they remained trapped in legal limbo. Even more distressing, the board literally couldn’t agree on anything.  Decisions would be passed down one day and rescinded the next.  Worst of all, nepotism was rampant; practically every mid-level managerial post in the company was filled by a son or a nephew...almost all of whom were arrogant little ne’er-do-wells whose stock method of employee management was bullying. 

The results were predictable.  Orders for equipment, which had been slowing rapidly since the Crash, now ground to a halt. Those customers whom the company still retained were beginning to complain about the slow pace of delivery of spare parts.  One was even threatening legal action.

And that company was United States Steel.

“When things bottom out, you’ll be able to buy the bonds at distressed levels,” Jim Spanaway advised her by cable, “Maybe 20 cents a share, plus any trade debt.  Likely few takers for either.  Once you have that, you can take control from the shareholders.”

“No!” said Katie, forcing herself not to wad up the telegram as soon as she read it.  By that time, it would be too late to save Combs Mining Machinery...not with such capital as she possessed after all it was costing her to get the MacArran distilleries working again...AND the expense of the R-100's new tail-cone. To say nothing of that pending lawsuit against Combs...and lawyers never came cheap.

Katie MacArran, half English Hunter, half Mustang, the 14th Duchess of Strathdern was not usually a mare given to melodramatic gestures...but now she hurried into Strathdern House’s Great Hall, where the family Claith Mhore was kept.  There, on the mantle beneath it, was a blade much smaller than the sword of William MacArran...but one that dated back even further, all the way to the time of William the Conqueror.  It was a long dagger with a curving, horn handle and a thin, straight, double-edged blade and now Katie plucked it from it’s resting place.

A moment later, found Katie standing on the hilltop where her parents and siblings were buried, the highland winds rippling her mane and tail as storm clouds gathered ‘round the ridges encircling the valley of Strathdern.  Pulling the dirk of the MacArran’s from it’s sheath, she raised a defiant fist to the heavens.
 
“I swear...” she murmured under her breath, sounding much the way actress Vivien Leigh would, in the role of another Katie eight years hence, “I swear by the dirk of my clan and upon the grave of all my ancestors that I will not be forced to choose between preserving the legacy of my father and my maternal grandfather.  I WILL find a way to save both Combs Mining Equipment and The MacArran Distilleries from going under...so help me, God.”

And in compliance with the ancient Scottish ritual of swearing on the dirk...she put the blade to her lips and kissed it.

At that instant, a cannonade of thunder rolled across the valley and the skies opened up in a torrential downpour.



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Much thanks again to EO Costello for his input regarding finances, etc.