thing. Downstream, where the gully flattened, it could easily lope upslope to gain the plateau, then reach the projecting granite and leap… I’ve made it sound like miles. It was maybe a couple of hundred yards, at most. I wondered if there was time to make a run for it… But it had nearly caught me when I’d had a start. And now I was knackered. I’m not proud of what I did then. I blubbered and wailed, yelled for help. And did nothing.
Wearily I discarded my jacket, some lunatic notion of wrapping it round my forearm for a last futile aquatic wrestle. It rattled. I felt in my pocket. Two stones. I pulled them out, still tied at opposite ends of the strong twine.
My bolus. That gave me… well, one go. The flopping sounded. I set one stone swinging, set the other going, and stood upright with the thing humming vibrantly in my right grip. Up and down, faster. Eyes on the tip of the overhang, I shone the torch there. It was only when I saw his great head loom above the overhang that I realized my stupidity. Too close. My perch was maybe a square yard wide. Any hit would bring me down with him.
He looked. For a millisec I saw puzzlement in his eyes as I leaned away, the bolus whirring. His head nodded up and down in time with my oscillating hand. Perhaps he could hear the string thrumming even over the torrent’s din. Then his brow cleared.
That humming cord in the man’s hand was irrelevant. Orders were orders. He was to hunt and kill, string or no strings. He gathered and leapt down on me.
My arm came from behind. I was already in mid-throw when he left the lip. The bolus met and tangled. The stones were still whipping round and round him as I flung myself forward to avoid his hurtling mass. Foam pressed into my mouth and I was tumbling over, over. Stones slammed my legs, bum, head, shoulder. Noise deafened me. I rolled, engulfed and retching, too dazed to struggle or wonder which way was up. I was drowning. I lashed out, flailed at everything else not me. I was dying.
Except the pandemonium was now somewhere else, with me no longer part of it. I retched. Air. I was in air, not in the water. I breathed, vomited half of the torrent back where it belonged, breathed and crawled. A vertical stone stopped my crawl. I lay there, done for and too terrified to struggle further in case that damned hound heard me and came for me again. I lay, half hiding, half resting. I must have dozed a few minutes, I suppose, not much more.
Something pressed against my feet. Something floating, pushing. Perhaps a log? I withdrew my legs, shoved them out.
Still there. It was being moved by the onrush. It was therefore inert. I reached out, scrabbled a cobble up from beneath me, and lobbed it at the nudging thing by my feet.
Thud. Not a splash, or a sharp crack of stone on stone. A thick bump.
Laboriously I raised myself, extended a hand. Fur. I recoiled in panic, started away. But it hadn’t growled. I felt. A huge paw. A great head. A metal-studded collar. And, tethering its forepaws to its neck in a stranglehold, twine. One of the stones seemed to have struck its eye. It was my hunter, my personal executioner.
You can only retch a few times, they say, then the body gives up. True.
Countryside is supposed to increase insight, make poets. That’s a laugh. Countryside does nothing but dull your wits. My mind was so addled that I actually started towards where I imagined Shooters to be before I said hey, and sat down for a think. It had emitted none of those chiming vibes, so it was no antiques cache. Whoever was in there had warned me, “Run, run!” An ally. And trapped. Could I spring him/her?
Perhaps, but would I get him/her as far as Dubneath before the clan caught up? Hardly, the state I was in and burdened by a possible ex-prisoner. And I already knew Hector checked the cottage each dawn.
No. The thing to do was turn up at tomorrow morning’s gathering and suss out the reaction to my sudden reappearance. So, typically stupid, I started in the reverse direction, then got lost.
An hour wasted wearying myself even more. See what I mean about countryside?
Finally I followed the tumbling water downhill, going slowly and feeling my way. I was perished. No jacket, no torch, wet through, exhausted. The Tachnadray track crossed a stone bridge over a wide fast stream, probably the same water, about a mile from the gateway. I must have been traveling a good hour before I walked into the bridge arch and almost knocked my silly head off. I’ll never make a countryman if I live the rest of my life.
Which is why I had a fluke, coming at Tachnadray from that direction. Not as daft as all that, I was on the drive’s verge for silence, and moved on the grass round the big house, to reach my pad. There was a light showing beneath the curtain. I thanked my inexpert needlework that had left a wide gap. I slid to the wall and waited.
Shona and Robert came downstairs. The light was off now, but I could hear them clearly. I almost stepped out to warn her.
“Nothing but the map,” Robert rumbled.
“That’s proof enough,” Shona said. Her voice was teasing, provocative. “Ranter should be here now, lazy beast. Doubtless enjoying himself chasing something.” They both laughed. She gave in. “Come, then, man. Let’s lay your head.”
They walked together past the end of the workshop, over to the far outbuilding near the perimeter wall. There was no risk of being overheard. Duncan and Michelle slept in the big house, as did Elaine. Hector was miles off. Mrs. Buchan slept downstairs in the cook’s flat.
A light showed briefly. Robert having his head laid, doubtless. I stood unmoving for quite some time. Shona was a busy, busy girl. Sex as a reward for complicity. The idea wasn’t new. What worried me was its use as an assassin’s weapon.
Feeling a hundred years old, I crossed quietly to my garret, went in, and locked the door. I had a bath in the dark and lay thinking until dawn blew the fright from the eastern lift. I wish I’d told Shona I’d had a headache in her cottage.
« ^ »
—— 19 ——
Morning,” I said brightly to the gathering.
“Morning, Ian,” Duncan gave back affably, pipe ready to stink us out. Michelle was in powder blue, her neat skirt stenciling her waist. She wore a light necklet—not necklace—of a single silver band with a central amethyst, say 1900. Risky, but stunning.
