Murder At Deviation Junction

bothered to live.

    'Hello there,' I said, while flat on my back.

    No reply.

    I tried 'Steve.'

    No answer. I rolled upright, and all my body was saying, 'No, no, time has stopped, don't try and start it again.'

    I could not hear Bowman. He had disappeared into the darkness. I dragged myself about the stone hut like a man on a wild sea. Twice I slammed into the walls, gashing my head each time. I rolled back towards the middle. I wanted to vomit, but my headache wouldn't allow it. I was slowly upended by the constant lurching, as it appeared, of the floor, and I found that I had fallen on a soft mass.

    My hands were on Bowman's face, but it was far away. It ought, from memory, to have been red and hot, but it was as cold as the stone under my boots.

Chapter Thirty

    I slapped the face twice, hard. I was trying to make it red again: the face red and the nose brighter red still - that was the correct order of things with Bowman.

    There was a rattle at the door, which rose and fell.

    The cold had become an illness with me: it was dragging me to the place where Bowman was - some great white land further north than anywhere.

    And I needed water.

    The rattle at the door again. Was I making that rattle or was there another person in all this? That I could not credit; I was finished with people. The door was coming towards me, and the light lifting with it. The door was opening, but caught on the stone I'd lifted.

    'Who's there?' I called, in a weird voice.

    'Ah've come tae dae ye.'

    The light had brought Small David with it.

    'Where's Marriott?' I called.

    He was shaking the door, trying to get it past the upraised flag.

    'Hum? Deed.'

    It was his favourite word.

    'Dead?'

    'Aye, kulled.'

    'Who killed him?'

    'Husself.'

    Small David was now revealed in the open doorway - the full width of the man. Small particles of snow flew about behind him, as though playing a game, and beyond them lay all the white, beautiful Highlands. The revolver was in his hand. He stepped forwards and fired, and I thought: that sound was pretty loud, and then it struck me that I was enjoying the luxury of hearing the sound die away. I was still alive, and the bullet had given life, not taken it away, for the soft mass underneath my hands was rolling again. Bowman raised himself up quickly and without a word. But Small David, over by the doorway - the snowlight was flowing in over the top of him, for he was down on the ground. The small hole I'd dug had been enough to trip him, and now it was his turn to scrabble on that stone floor as he searched for the gun he'd dropped.

    I stood, still shaking, and thinking: what do you do with a man when he's down? Why, you kick him, and I knew I could give a kick for all the queer feeling in me. His big brown head was football-like, and I got him squarely on the temple. He went down further and I was across the floor, spider-like, searching for the revolver.

    Bowman lurched towards the doorway.

    He turned there, and said, in a dazed sort of voice, 'That's the second time today I've come within an ace of dying.'

    I couldn't find the gun; I gave it up. Small David was breathing heavily on the stone floor like a man sleeping off drink.

    'Is it the same day, though?' I said to Bowman, as once more we half-walked, half-fell down the hillside towards river and railway line. The light was changing: a mysterious smokiness was brewing over the white- covered fields, but whether it was increasing or decreasing, I could not have said. Small particles of snow flew about us - just the odd one or two, racing each other or circling in a dance.

    We walked as before, moving forward and down with each stride, looking back fearfully to the house that had held us. But there was no sign of Small David.

    'I might have put his lights out for good,' I said.

    'Let me get alongside you,' said Bowman. 'I can't see my way.'

    The walking had warmed me somewhat, and I kept scooping up snow from the heather tops as we walked, drinking the stuff. That stopped me thinking of water while giving no satisfaction. I took Bowman's arm. He was shaking very violently with cold, and I thought his face was becoming the same colour as his eyes: a pale blue. I fumbled the gloves back to him as we pressed on.

    'Wear these, and you'll be able to pick up snow,' I said.

    'What time is it?' I asked, and he held up his watch for me to see.

    It was coming up to five o'clock, which was, perhaps, no more surprising than any other time. It must be five in the evening; we had passed the entire day - a full twelve hours - in the deer shack. I looked down and saw a railway signal, with a small gangers' hut nearby.

    'We've struck the line,' I said.

    But the track was invisible under the snow, so that the signal, which was giving the all-clear to nothing, looked a very ridiculous article. In both directions, the line curved away into rolling whiteness.

    Bowman stood at my side, breathing steam; and then I saw to my left, beyond him, what seemed to be snow whirling upwards - snow making a ghost of itself, and rising for a haunting.

    Instead, it was an engine.

    'See that, Steve?' I said, but the engine was in earshot now.

    It was doing its beautiful work in a world of whiteness: white steam, white snow. It ran over tracks only dusted with snow, and was now, as we watched, running at the thicker stuff. The soft crash of the snow plough was almost silent, and then the plough ran on, through the snow, looking for a marvellously exciting few seconds like a boat moving through rough water. But then the snow checked it, and it began to reverse, ready for the next go.

    We were stumbling down towards it now.

    'It's the first time I've seen a proper snow plough at work,' I said to Bowman, who gasped out, 'I'm thrilled for you, Jim.'

    I had before only seen the small wooden ploughs attached to the buffer bars of ordinary engines. This engine - of some Highland make unknown to me - pushed a snow plough vehicle: a hollow steel wedge on wheels, a great metal arrowhead - and there was a man inside, I saw now, for he was leaning out of it and waving, calling on the engine driver and fireman for another try. That man was part lookout, part team captain, for what he gave was encouragement.

    I was moving ahead of Bowman now.

    'Push on!' I called back to him. 'I want to be up there for the next run. If they break through, we'll be clear away from that Scots bastard!'

    The driver and fireman first noticed our approach; then the caller-on who rode in the plough spied us.

    'We need to come up!' I called, wading on through the snowy heather.

    We approached the beating warmth of the engine, and driver and fireman stepped away for us to climb up, and just gawped at us for a while. The man in the plough was hanging out of his cab, monkey-like, watching us. Bowman warmed himself by the open fire door, and then he turned about, and said, 'I need to sit down.'