"Ahhh! That was mighty delicious!" Scottie exclaimed after he had drained the last few drops of Gaelic Ale from his cup. He placed the bottlecap in a pocket, but...
"Och! I've nae got a place for this bottle," he said. He wondered how the bloke on the label bore such a striking resemblance to himself. "Maybe I'll just tuck it back 'ere I foond it and someone else will come along and find it." (Little did he know...)
That done, Scottie headed back down the slope, stepping over the sideways-growing pine. He paused in the shade of the leaning pine on the edge of the ledge and listened to the sounds of bagpipes playing and drums thumping and thought, "Well, Scottie, ye've got tae be gettin' back to yer responsibilities. Yer bagpipes need mendin' and that's that." Scottie took a look -- a long, slow look -- all around to see if that shimmering apparition was going to bother him anymore. He didn't see it, but he did spot a trail of sorts winding down the slope and through a thin spot in the trees.
"Ah, that looks like a fine way tae go," Scottie announced with a smile. A few steps down the trail...
"Noo, that's a strange one! Look at these three wee trees, growing right oot of the rock! And all this time I thought ye needed to plant things in dirt! Ha!" Scottie continued downward on the trail, which was nothing more than a footpath discernible from the surroundings only by the tamped-down pine needles and the natural way the stone cut through the debris. He passed tree skeletons slowly decaying in the brush, and fallen branches covered with delicate, brittle lichen.
"Ah, what have we here?" Scottie asked the trees as he looked left and right. "Methinks this would be the trail I was following afore those deer attacked me! So that awa," he said, pointing to his left, "would take be back tae where I started this adventure. And this awa..." he pointed the other way, to his right (och!), "will take me back toward me bagpipes!"
Resoundingly jubilant, Scottie smiled at the thought that his navigational skills got better when he drank beer. And so he turned to his right and walked along the much wider path. The Gaelic Ale kicked in as Scottie followed the meandering path, and he found himself rather enjoying the gorgeous weather and the pleasant scenery. At a time like this, what's a Scotsman to do but sing!?
Some friends and I in a public house
Was playing a game of chance one night
When into the pub a fireman ran
His face all a chalky white.
"What's up", says Brown, "Have you seen a ghost,
Or have you seen your Aunt Mariah?"
"Me Aunt Mariah be buggered!", says he,
"The bleedin' pub's on fire!"
And there was Brown upside down
Lappin' up the whiskey on the floor.
"Booze, booze!" The firemen cried
As they came knockin' on the door (clap clap)
Oh don't let 'em in till it's all drunk up
And somebody shouted MacIntyre! MACINTYRE!
And we all got blue-blind paralytic drunk
When the Old Dun Cow caught fire.
As he sang the trail transitioned from clear granite in a somewhat open area to a narrow path covered with layers of pine needles. "Ah, such a pretty glade," Scottie mused when he paused a moment to admire the tumbled boulders interspersed among the pines for a few moments, and to take a drink of water in the cool shade. He then continued on the trail.
"Oh well," says Brown, "What a bit of luck.
Everybody follow me.
And it's down to the cellar
If the fire's not there
Then we'll have a grand old spree."
So we went on down after good old Brown
The booze we could not miss
And we hadn't been there ten minutes or more
Till we were quite pissed.
And there was Brown upside down
Lappin' up the whiskey on the floor.
"Booze, booze!" The firemen cried
As they came knockin' on the door (clap clap)
Oh don't let 'em in till it's all drunk up
And somebody shouted MacIntyre! MACINTYRE!
And we all got blue-blind paralytic drunk
When the Old Dun Cow caught fire.
When the trail changed back to granite, he found himself walking on an open expanse, the side of the mountain stretching far upward into the horizon. Rivulets of ground water seeping from the stone and trickling downhill reflected the noonday sun and decorated the granite with veins of silver. "Och! For a camera right abou' now..." Scottie opined.
He continued at an easy pace, admiring the splendor of nature while he sang...
Then, Smith walked over to the port wine tub
And gave it just a few hard knocks (clap clap)
Started takin' off his pantaloons
Likewise his shoes and socks.
"Hold on, " says Brown, "that ain't allowed
Ya cannot do that thing here.
Don't go washin' trousers in the port wine tub
When we got Guinness beer."
And there was Brown upside down
Lappin' up the whiskey on the floor.
"Booze, booze!" The firemen cried
As they came knockin' on the door (clap clap)
Oh don't let 'em in till it's all drunk up
And somebody shouted MacIntyre! MACINTYRE!
And we all got blue-blind paralytic drunk
When the Old Dun Cow caught fire.
Of course, singing and looking at the scenery meant Scottie wasn't paying all that much attention to where his footsteps fell, and he happened to be traversing a wide patch of wetness when one of those footsteps landed on a particularly slippery spot.
"FahhHH!" Scottie hollered as the downhill foot slipped out from underneath him and tried to go its own way. He didn't fall, though, but the half-split caused serious discomfort in his crotch and right knee. "I must pay attention tae where I'm a-guin'!" He laughed at himself, gathered his foot and leg and put them back in their proper place.
Scottie heard a train whistle blow from somewhere behind him. "Oh, how quaint," he said, "the train's coming 'roond the mountain!" He looked for the trail and found it leading away from the open area next to a tree with a bright unnaturally-hued patch of color. The trail became a series of shallow catch-steps formed by the small roots of trees, and Scottie had to step carefully lest he put a foot into one of the puddles in the steps.
Then there came from the old back door
The Vicar of the local church.
And when he saw our drunken ways,
He began to scream and curse.
"Ah, you drunken sods! You heathen clods!
You've taken to a drunken spree!
You drank up all the Benedictine wine
And you didn't save a drop for me!"
And there was Brown upside down
Lappin' up the whiskey on the floor.
"Booze, booze!" The firemen cried
As they came knockin' on the door (clap clap)
Oh don't let 'em in till it's all drunk up
And somebody shouted MacIntyre! MACINTYRE!
And we all got blue-blind paralytic drunk
When the Old Dun Cow caught fire.
The catch-steps ended and the path became a narrow meander of granite. The train whistle blew again, and now Scottie could hear the rumbling of the train. The tracks were clearly visible to his left as the trail turned back to packed pine straw. As Scottie stepped into a small clearing with a small dead pine as a centerpiece, the train whistle gave a short "toot!". The rumble and creaks of the old train were just over his shoulder, and Scottie turned when he heard a voice coming from tinny-sounding speakers.
The Stone Mountain engine cruised leisurely by, pulling behind it a number of open-air passenger cars. A tour guide was belaboring the riders with stories of the railway's history. Some of the riders, surprised to see a regally-dressed Scotsman on the trail, whipped out their cameras while others waved.
Scottie smiled and waved back. Then he puffed up his chest, stood with his legs shoulder-width apart and placed his fists on his hips. Hearing laughter from younguns onboard, he launched into a little Scottish dance, which illicited more laughter from the passengers. He ended his performance by lifting his cap straight above his head, twirling around once, then half again, placing his cap back on his head, slightly askew, and flipping the back of his kilt up.
Laughter and applause resounded from the passengers, and Scottie gave a sweeping bow to his audience as the train rolled out of sight. Scottie laughed heartily as he turned to view his surroundings.
He looked uphill and saw another expanse of granite reaching way up the side of the mountain. A small group of people were making their way uphill, oblivious to the performance they had missed.
"Huh. I ha' tae say, laddies and lassies, I'm wondering where they're a-guin'." Scottie began to seriously consider a detour. The bagpipers and drummers were still going at it, and they sometimes had notions to play on and on for hours and hours until at least several of them collapsed from exhaustionm. "Maybe I ha' some time tae wander aroond some more... after all, I did set out tae explore this mountain!"
Scottie squinted one eye, cocked his head and looked down the path ahead of him. Then he raised the other eyebrow and looked uphill. The desire to seek adventure welling up inside him finally rose above its threshold, and with a boisterous laugh and a flamboyant spread of his arms, Scottie took off uphill.
And then there came a mighty crash
Half the bloody roof caved in.
We were almost drowned in the firemen's hose
But still we were gonna stay.
So we got some tacks and some old wet sacks
And we nailed ourselves inside
And we sat drinking the finest Rum
Till we were bleary-eyed.
And there was Brown upside down
Lappin' up the whiskey on the floor.
"Booze, booze!" The firemen cried
As they came knockin' on the door (clap clap)
Oh don't let 'em in till it's all drunk up
And somebody shouted MacIntyre! MACINTYRE!
And we all got blue-blind paralytic drunk
When the Old Dun Cow caught fire.
For a minute or so Scottie kept a brisk pace, but the sudden incline got to his muscles quickly. He slowed down to let his legs warm up a minute, and noticed a patch of white painted on a rock to his left. He glanced around and saw another to his right, further uphill. The group of hikers were following this trail uphill toward the treeline.
"Ah! Noo that's where I'll be a-guin'!" he proclaimed, feeling quite energized by the beer and the little show he had put on. Scottie followed the white markings uphill.
Later that night, when the fire was out
We came up from the cellar below.
Our pub was burned. Our booze was drunk.
Our heads was hanging low.
"Oh look", says Brown with a look quite queer.
Seems something raised his ire.
"Now we gotta get down to Murphy's Pub,
It closes on the hour!And there was Brown upside down
Lappin' up the whiskey on the floor.
"Booze, booze!" The firemen cried
As they came knockin' on the door (clap clap)
Oh don't let 'em in till it's all drunk up
And somebody shouted MacIntyre! MACINTYRE!
And we all got blue-blind paralytic drunk
When the Old Dun Cow caught fire.
"Och! This is getting... steeper... and steeper... with every step!" he panted, his quads aching. He finally made it to the treeline, where white markings made the trail blazingly obvious. The groundwater seeping from underneath the big, flat boulders resting on the mountainside didn't get much sun here in the treeline on this side of the mountain, and the wet surface made the going here a bit trickier.
More than once Scottie slipped, but finally he realized that if he walked on the pine straw along the downhill edge of the exposed granite he wouldn't lose his footing. He noticed a sign posted on a tree...
"Och! Now ye tell me that the trail is slippery! Bloody idiots..." he muttered. Scottie followed the trail as it snaked between the trees. Soon he saw another sign on a leaning tree, and he focused on it as he walked. Just as he got close enough to read it, "Animals Not Allowed on Mountain" he felt his right foot step on something that was definitely NOT pine straw or rock.
Scottie looked down as the stench of freshly-squeezed doggie doodie reached his nostrils. "Och! Bloody effin hell!" he cried when he saw the pile he'd just stepped in. "Can't you lousy bauchles READ!?!?"
Scottie spent several minutes swearing vehemently and scraping and wiping and dragging his shoe over anything he could find that would take the crap off. And swearing some more. And stumbling about (after all, he was rather intoxicated!). When he had removed all the crap he could, which was also when he ran out of profanities (and he was rather positive that the ears of the person he was cursing were not just ringing but bleeding), he continued on the trail.
The incline became steeper still, with more vast patches of wet rock. Scottie charged up the mountain, trying to outrun the smell still attached to his shoe. He did the best he could to follow the white blazes while avoiding the water rivulets, sometimes stepping on tufts of pine straw, other times grasses.
Higher and higher he climbed, and more and more winded he got, until finally he had to stop. He unceremoniously sat down on the rock.
"Occcch!" he gasped... "Phew!"... "Burp!"... "My gollickers!"... "Hoooooo!"... "That was a mite foolish, yeah?"
When Scottie's huffing and puffing had calmed down enough for him to swallow, he reached around to get his water bottle and noticed a strange trail blaze (as it was circular, unlike the others, which were rectangular) right next to him. If he'd sat down just a little to one side, he'd probably never have seen it.
When Scottie finally got to his feet, he did so a little too quickly. His vision blurred, little stars floated in front of his eyes and his head spun around. He remained standing, though, while the blood got back to his ale-addled brain.
"Whoa, laddie," he said to himself, "ye'll crack yer noggin open on this rock if yer not careful! Might ye think about slowing doon?"
He gazed down the slope he'd ascended. "Bollocks! That wasn't even that far! Ye be drinkin' too much!" Scottie scolded himself. "HAA-hahahaha...! 'Drinkin' too much... HAA-ahahahaa... hoo!"
Scottie turned and took one step up the blazed trail and then stopped.
Not that he wanted to stop, but he did. He had to. No matter how hard he tried to move his body forward it simply would not go. It was as if there was an immovable object in front of him.
"What the—" Scottie started, and then he felt pressure on his right arm, as if someone had taken hold of him— "Oh, no, not again!" he exclaimed — and then he was forcefully turned to his left a quarter of the way around.
Scottie gasped. Just ahead at the treeline, above a jumble of boulders and the earthly end of a leaning snag, was a heat wave distortion like he had seen earlier. His brain tried to tell his legs to turn and run, run downhill as fast as they would go, but Scottie's common sense beat that thought down.
He knew what that apparition was capable of! "I know what you're capable of!" Scottie said loudly, pointing at the shimmer.
He wasn't about to kill himself by running down the mountain! "I'm NOT guin tae go killin' meself by runnin' off doon the mountain!"
He remembered what the apparition had led him to earlier! "I remember what ye brought me to earlier! BEER! Let's go!"
Scottie moved quickly toward the shimmer, which responded by drifting uphill along a narrow footpath and into a large sloped clearing completely surrounded by trees. As Scottie gained on the apparition, it became more compact and less transparent -- and moved faster, away from the footpath and along the treeline to Scottie's left.
"Och! Thank GOD yoor not guin uphill, ye phantom!" He was able to walk faster, but he wasn't about to run across this slope; he'd twist both ankles for sure, and then what would he be good for?
The apparition led him all the way to the other end of the clearing, past a pine that stood away from the others on this treeline. Scottie stopped at a flat moss-covered rock and watched the phantasm swoop downhill toward the trees. It ducked under a low-hanging pine branch and glided along a small footpath.
Scottie followed, watching his step to avoid the wet spots. He noted, for some strange reason, a small grouping of five or six rocks that looked as if they had been split from one or two larger rocks. He followed the phantom, now denser and brighter, downhill along the winding footpath. He slipped on the loose pine needles and stumbled over half-buried small logs, but he kept going on his feet rather than his face.
The apparition stopped on a large plateau rock, and Scottie, bouncing along rocks, was going to fast to stop. He let out a "AAAAAHHHHH!!" and passed right through the shifting shape. He braked his descent on a couple of small trees at the edge of the boulder, and turned around, heart pounding, gasping for air.
The phantasm was right in front of him! It moved away and dropped to the rock uphill from the big one on which Scottie was standing. It looped around a small tree growing against the rock while it became more compact and brighter, and disappeared underneath the corner of a third, flat rock beyond, mostly covered with pine needles.
Scottie cautiously stepped forward...
knelt down...
and cleared the pine needles away from the corner of the rock. Behind the needles was a rock, which Scottie removed, followed by another layer of pine needles...
And then he saw it, neatly tucked under the rock... that ever-familiar, unmistakable shape...
"Whoooooo-hoooo!!" Scottie exclaimed as he removed a chilled bottle of... "Breckenridge 471 Small Batch IPA," Scottie read. "9.2 percent alcohol! Great Scot!"
He retrieved his plastic cup and his bottle opener and cocked an ear to hear the satisfying pffft!! of the bottle opening...
COLORS: Multicolored - label on stamp backing shows how the stamp is inked. If applicable, the stamp impression in the logbook shows how it could be colored with pencils later on.