The Hill of the Red Fox

by Allan Campbell McLean

  When I had finished, I was surprised — and, to be truthful, annoyed — to see that Duncan Mòr was smiling.

  He took his pipe from his mouth, and said, “And you have kept all this to yourself all this time?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying to conceal my dismay at his cool reception of my story.

  “You were afraid that something might happen to you?” he went on.

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  “But you never showed the message to another living soul?”

  “No.”

  “How old are you, a bhalaich?” he asked.

  “Nearly thirteen,” I said.

  Duncan Mòr sat forward, resting his chin on his hands, wrapped in a brooding silence.

  After a while, he took out a large khaki handkerchief and blew his nose several times.

  Not looking at me at all, he said, “My, what would I give to have the big black fellow here this day.”

  “You believe me, don’t you?” I said sharply.

  His big brown hand covered mine for a moment, and he said, “Surely, I believe you, Alasdair Beag, but you are too like your father, an duine bochd.” He smiled, showing even white teeth. “You must give me time to get used to being an old man, and not a boy any longer.”

  “Well, what are we to do?” I demanded. “Who do you think was the man who came to see Murdo Beaton?”

  Duncan Mòr stroked his chin.

  “Likely enough, it would be the fellow with the bright blue eyes. It follows, do you see? Remember the words you heard — Lochailort and Silenced. Well, the bold fellow pulled the communication cord and got off the train near Lochailort, and I don’t doubt but that he silenced your man with the scar. Then he came to the house to tell Murdo Ruadh.”

  “But how would he know his way to Achmore and why didn’t he try to question me?” I said.

  “Think,” said Duncan Mòr quietly. “If the man with the scar hid the address label on your case, the other fellow would have no idea where you were bound for. But like as not Murdo Ruadh has been mixed up with him since a while back. Aye, I’ll warrant it is not the first time that he has had a crack with Blue Eyes.”

  “But how do you know?” I insisted.

  “Och, I’ve known for a while back that the Red Fellow was up to his long neck in some dark doings,” he answered guardedly.

  “But what can it be?” I asked.

  “I don’t rightly know,” he said, tapping his pipe stem against clenched teeth.

  I thought of the rest of the conversation I had overheard.

  “What about midnight Saturday?” I said. “It’s Saturday today. What do you think they are going to do?”

  Duncan Mòr’s grey eyes regarded me steadily.

  “Whatever happens this night,” he said slowly, “don’t be thinking ye’re going to be stravaiging around the countryside, because you’re not. And why this Saturday? Blue Eyes might have arranged to meet the Red Fellow next Saturday.”

  I knew he was putting me off, and I said quickly, “You know well enough that if anything happens it will be tonight.”

  “Maybe I do,” he answered, and his eyes were steel hard when he said, “This is no idle ploy, Alasdair, mark that well. One man has died already. The less you know about this business the better for you. Myself will keep an eye open tonight, and you can see me on Monday.”

  “Perhaps we should go to the police,” I said, knowing the truth of his words.

  “Well, aye, we could go to the polis,” assented Duncan Mòr, “but I am not for the polis as long as Murdo Ruadh is in this. You see, Alasdair Beag, it is a habit in this place to steer clear of the polis where our own men are concerned. We kept our own law before the English brought their law to the Highlands, and it is the old law that will try Murdo Ruadh in the end.”

  I told him of the aircraft that had crashed on Sgurr a’ Mhadaidh Ruaidh during the war, and how Murdo Beaton had been the first man to reach the scene of the crash. When I said that the aircraft could have been carrying bullion I got the impression that he was not really listening. His grey eyes had a faraway expression and he kept tapping his teeth with the stem of his pipe.

  When he spoke, it was not of the aircraft at all.

  “That number on the message,” he said slowly. “Think now. Are you sure that it was MI5?”

  “Positive,” I said readily. “It was a capital M and a figure one and a figure five.”

  “All the same, I would like to be seeing it,” said Duncan Mòr. “Bring it over with you when you come on Monday.”

  I said I would, and he walked with me as far as the dyke.

  Before I left him, he said, “When you get back to Achmore, Alasdair, be sure to tell Murdo Ruadh you met me today.”

  “But why?” I asked, surprised.

  “Well, we have two foxes to deal with,” he said slowly. “One o’ them is the Hill of the Red Fox and the other is that long red fox at Achmore. A harmless enough cratur the fox, Alasdair, until it is cornered. Then it can be dangerous. So if the Red Fellow should think to turn on you, I doubt himself will think again when he knows you and I have had a crack together.”

  I saw the look in Duncan Mòr’s steely grey eyes. It was a look that would have quelled stouter hearts than Murdo Beaton’s.

  Chapter 12

  I was cheered and heartened by my meeting with Duncan Mòr, although I could not help feeling disappointed by his refusal to consider my suggestion about the crashed aircraft. I was certain he was holding something back from me, but it could be, I reflected, that he was unwilling to acknowledge the fact that I had stumbled upon the truth in case I unwittingly betrayed my knowledge to Murdo Beaton. He had told me it was dangerous to know too much, and if he had made no comment on the crashed aircraft it showed how close I was to the truth.

  The cailleach was reading the Oban Times. She had spread the long sheets across the table and was peering at the print through a large magnifying glass. Mairi told me it was the only paper her father allowed in the house, and I wondered from whom he had obtained the Daily Express that had fallen from his pocket when I knocked his jacket off the bench. Perhaps Blue Eyes, as Duncan Mòr called him, had given it to him.

  I helped Mairi to feed the hens, scattering handfuls of grain on the grass, and laughing at their frantic foraging. They would start up at each fresh handful of grain and rush towards it, leaving untouched the corn already spread on the grass.

  “I saw Duncan Mòr today,” I said.

  Mairi was about to cast a handful of grain, and she checked herself, her hand poised in mid-air still clutching the grain.

  “Don’t be telling himself,” she said quickly.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  She let the grain trickle slowly to the ground between her slightly opened fingers, and picked another handful out of the pail before she replied.

  “He doesn’t like Duncan Mòr,” she said slowly. “He wouldn’t be pleased if he knew you were seeing him.”

  “Do you like him?” I said.

  “Who? Duncan Mòr?”

  I nodded.

  “Everybody likes Duncan Mòr,” she said guardedly.

  “But do you like him?” I insisted.

  She glanced back at the house.

  “I like him better than anyone in Achmore,” she said fiercely.

  The surprise must have shown on my face, because she went on, “You should have seen him last Hallowe’en at the guising. He was dressed up as an old cailleach. I saw him over at Hector MacLeod’s, and he made me laugh so much that I got the hiccups, and Roderick MacPherson dropped a cold key down my back to try and stop me hiccupping.”

  “I’ll bet your father didn’t know you were there,” I said, “or the cailleach.”

  She tossed her dark head, sending her pigtails whirling.

  “I don’t care,” she said defiantly, “but, anyway, the cailleach wouldn’t tell him. She tells me all sorts of things that he doesn’t know about.”

  “But she is his mother
,” I stammered. “It … it doesn’t seem right.”

  “Well, she doesn’t like him,” said Mairi flatly. “She is getting old right enough, and she talks to herself and she is deaf, but she doesn’t miss much for all that. She tells me stories of long ago. She told me Duncan Mòr was going to marry my mother until himself told a lot of lies and put an end to it, and that is why Duncan Mòr hates him.”

  I could not understand Mairi. She had never seen a train or a railway station or a city street, but there were times when she spoke like a grown-up and seemed much older than I. She went down to the main road and bought the groceries off Lipton’s van, and worked at the peats and the potatoes, and fed the calves and herded the cows, and did many things that I could not have done. She had a small, serious face, and did not laugh easily, no matter how much I teased her. There was always a watchful look in her eyes, as if she were waiting to hear a footstep behind her, so that she would be ready to shut the smile off her face and dart away to take up some workaday task.

  Caileag suddenly appeared, sniffing at the scattered grain, and Mairi picked up the pail and darted off to the house. When I looked round, Murdo Beaton was standing in front of the cottage.

  After tea, when Mairi and the cailleach were clearing the dishes, I said, “I was talking to Duncan Mòr today.”

  I tried to speak casually but my voice sounded unnaturally loud. Mairi straightened up suddenly and dropped a cup. It smashed on the floor, and Murdo Beaton spoke to her sharply in Gaelic. I wondered if he had heard me, for he went on picking his teeth with a matchstick, his eyes on his mudstained tackety boots. At length, he laid the match on the table but his eyes were still on his boots.

  “Well, well, so you were talking to Duncan Mòr, eh?” he said. “A great talker, Duncan Mòr MacDonald, but the MacDonalds had aye an active tongue in their heads. Look you at Duncan Mòr. He has the souming for six cows and their followers, and forty sheep and a horse forby. And what does he keep? I will tell you, boy. He keeps one old rag of a cross Ayrshire cow and a handful of sheep, the most o’ them cast ewes that should have been cleared long since.

  “Mind you, the same fellow will not go hungry — not Duncan Mòr MacDonald. See you, there is many a way to turn a shilling in this world forby the honest way o’ the poor crofter struggling with his sheep and cattle and a few acres o’ barren soil. There is salmon in the river and the same salmon fetches big money in Portree. But whose salmon, boy? Aye, that iss the question. Whose salmon?”

  His long index finger prodded me in the ribs.

  “It iss Major Cassell’s salmon. Think of the poor Major paying a big rent for the Lodge and the fishing, and the bold Duncan Mòr creeping down to the falls on a dark night to net the pool. Some poor folk must spend all their days in labour, but not Duncan Mòr MacDonald. The big fellow can use his big tongue in idle gossip, and wait for the rain to make a flood on the river, so that he can net the Major’s salmon. Oh, a fine man, I grant you, with the smooth tongue of the MacDonalds on him and all their false pride. But wait you, boy, if you are spared, you will see the day when Duncan Mòr MacDonald is humbled in the dust, even as it says in the Good Book.”

  I had never before heard him say more than an odd word or two, and I realized that I must have touched him on the raw to have provoked such an outburst. He had started by speaking softly, but his voice rose steadily and the colour crept into his sallow cheeks. By the time he reached the last sentence, he spat it out with such concentrated venom that I became aware, for the first time, of the depth of the enmity between himself and Duncan Mòr.

  “Well, I like him, anyway,” I said stubbornly.

  Murdo Beaton’s hands gripped the chair between his legs, and I knew he was trying to control himself.

  “I have warned you, boy,” he said flatly. “I will say no more.”

  “Duncan Mòr was a friend of my father’s,” I persisted.

  “There are good friends and bad,” was all he said.

  He got up and pulled on his cap.

  When he had reached the door, he turned and said, “You come and go as you please, boy, but tomorrow is the Sabbath and as long as I am in this house the Sabbath Day will be kept holy. See that you are in your bed early for the door closes in this house long before twelve o’clock on a Saturday night.”

  And with that he was gone, leaving me wondering if there was any connection between the whispered words midnight Saturday and his insistence on my being indoors early. Not that it was really early, I had to admit. Indeed, it was far later than my normal bedtime at home, but nobody here went to bed early, young or old.

  Mairi leaned across the table, her eyes wide.

  “My, he was wild,” she whispered. “You are a daft beggar, Alasdair Cameron, after I told you not to say anything.”

  But there was a new respect in her look, and for once I felt older than her and strangely proud.

  I sat on the side of the bed, chewing the end of my pen, and trying to think of something to say to my mother. I had sent her a postcard after I arrived, but her first letter remained unanswered.

  I wrote:

  Dear Mother and Aunt Evelyn,

  Thanks for the letter. I am fine and having a good time. They have two cows here and two calves and a brown mare. I help Mairi to feed the hens. She says a lot of them are clucking, and when they are clucking they sit on the nest all day and don’t lay any eggs. Some of the cluckers she puts inside an old creel and hangs it up with a sack tied over the top. After they have been in the creel for a few days they don’t cluck any more.

  I met Duncan Mòr MacDonald today. He was first mate on the Empire Rose and he says I am like my father. He is the biggest man I have ever known and I like him a lot. He is going to take me fishing.

  I wondered if I should tell her what he had told me about Murdo Beaton, and how he had secured the croft by a trick, but I decided against it. My mother would be worried and there was no knowing what she might do. It never even occurred to me to tell her about the mystery of the Hill of the Red Fox. I wondered if every boy felt like me. Here was I, writing to my mother, and keeping back all the things that really mattered. Was I so different from other boys, or did everybody behave like that? It was strange how you could love someone like your mother, and yet always keep a part of yourself locked away, so that it was easier to talk to Duncan Mòr than to her.

  I went on:

  I have been out fishing already. Roderick MacPherson and two other men took me out in a boat and we caught lots of mackerel and saithe. I was the only one to catch a lythe. One of the men was Lachlan MacLeod and he asked to be remembered to you. He is a nice man.

  It has been very hot here, but it is not like a hot day in London. The air is lovely and fresh up at Achmore, it is almost like being in an aeroplane.

  There did not seem to be much more to add, so I signed it, “Love Alasdair.”

  I read the letter through, and as I did not want to appear to be too happy away from them, I added, “P.S. — I am missing you both.”

  I had taken off my sandals and was pulling off a stocking, when I remembered the whispered conversation I had overheard. Midnight Saturday! And Murdo Beaton had been insistent that I should be indoors early! Duncan Mòr had said that he would keep an eye open, but how could he possibly watch Murdo Beaton’s movements? I drew back the blankets and slipped into bed fully dressed. At least I could see what Murdo Beaton did. He had said that nobody left the house late on a Saturday night, so if he went out it must mean that he was keeping his midnight assignation.

  There was a wind rising. It came in sudden, sharp gusts that shook the branches of the rowan trees, and I heard a wild flurry of leaves and then silence until the next gust came. From far down the croft came the harsh croak of a corncrake; on and on and on with never a break. It made my throat feel sore listening to it. It was like the steady drip of a tap; at first no more than a background noise but steadily thrusting its way into your consciousness to the exclusion of all else. I started to co
unt, saying to myself, when I have counted sixty it will have stopped. I went on from sixty to a hundred, and then two hundred, but the steady croaking went on and on. I dozed off to sleep with the sound of it loud in my ears.

  Had it not been for a dog’s angry barking, I would never have heard the door opening. The sound of the dog barking in the distance awakened me, and I struggled up in bed and glanced at my watch. It was half past eleven. At that moment, I heard the scrape of the front door as it was opened and pulled carefully shut again. I leapt out of bed and pulled on my wellingtons.

  Tiptoeing across the room, I opened the door and eased my way into the lobby. I opened the front door a little and peered through the crack. The sky had darkened but it was still clear enough to see to the bottom of the croft, and I saw the long figure of Murdo Beaton hurrying past the byre. I waited until the byre hid him from view, then I opened the door wide and stepped outside. A sudden gust of wind drove a spattering of rain into my face, and I stepped back and snatched my raincoat from the nail on the lobby wall. Closing the door quietly behind me, I ran down to the byre.

  In the shelter of the byre, I struggled into my coat and watched Murdo Beaton. He was walking fast with his head down and he never once glanced back. When he disappeared over the dyke at the bottom of the croft, I ran after him.

  I wondered what I would do if he suddenly turned back and I met him face to face, but I steadily put the thought from my mind and carried on. When I reached the dyke, I was panting hard, and I leaned against it and peered cautiously over the top.

  I thought I had lost him, but then I made out his stooping figure cutting across the bog in the direction of Achmore Lodge. He was moving faster than I had realized, and I clambered over the dyke and ran after him, ready to fling myself flat at the first sign of him turning his head.

  After I had covered a few hundred yards the ground sloped sharply to the burn, and I sprinted along, bent almost double. I was so intent on keeping my quarry within sight that I was careless of my footing, and I pitched forward heavily on my face. When I picked myself up again there was no sign of Murdo Beaton.