by Jeff Gulvin
He fished a Mastercard from his wallet and handed it to her. ‘Upgrade it for me, will you?’
He negotiated the exit from the rental lot and followed signs for the M4. He couldn’t decide which way to go, whether or not to try London itself or head south right away. In the end, he took the wrong turn at a roundabout and the decision was made for him as he found himself heading into central London. He got snarled up in the traffic and looked for an exit route. He came down a slip road, turned round and headed west again, out of the city. The map the rental company had given him told him to head for the M25, then the M3 towards Southampton. He drove more carefully now, wondering why London had beckoned at all, considering how much he despised big cities.
There was concrete everywhere. The M25 was thick with fumes, cars, coaches and eighteen-wheel trucks clogging the eight carriageways. The road looked as though they were trying to widen it further and he wondered if it would make any difference. People seemed pretty relaxed, however, considering all the congestion. There was nobody bruising anyone’s bumper, not many horns blaring and no rifles hanging in the backs of any trucks. Some of the good old boys in Rapid City did that: hung a 30/30 in the rear window of their pickup. It sure put people off ramming your rear bumper. Connla had never bothered; the only rifle he owned was the kind that fired darts.
He found the M3 motorway only slightly less congested. London seemed to sprawl from its southwesterly limits all the way to the coast. He passed Basingstoke, witnessing a couple of twin grey towers on his right, and still the London overspill appeared to tail him. He missed Southampton and took the M27 west; then, at last, moorland rolled out on either side of him, and the forest that William the Conqueror had planted drifted against the horizon. It was late afternoon when he pulled off the road and into the car park of a pub that advertised accommodation.
The reception formed part of the bar, or rather the barman took the bookings, and charged him £25 for the room, which he worked out to be about $40, which wasn’t too bad. The room had a shower and he stood under the hot water for a full half-hour. His hair was too long—Holly had been right about that at least—he needed to get it cut. When it was wet it stuck to the top of his shoulders and got cold really quickly. Towelling himself dry, he sat on the edge of the bed and spread before him the series of photographs the zoo had sent.
Two cougars: a big male and smaller, very pretty female. The pictures had been taken in Banff, where the two cats had been found as cubs when their mothers were killed—one in a rare fight with a grizzly and the other having been hit by a truck. Four cubs in all had been recovered from two different areas by park rangers. Two of them, a male and female from different families, had ended up in Banff. Connla knew them both well and had been asked to help out during their first weeks in Canada. The keepers over here shouldn’t have too much trouble, so long as they treated them properly. He wondered how big their pens would be, and what kind of flight across the Atlantic they had had. He hated the thought of animals flying; it was just about the most unnatural thing in the world. Still, there were very few cougars in the UK, and the park had a good reputation. They were renowned for breeding Siberian tigers, which were all but extinct in the wild, now. The cougars ought to fit very well with their collection generally, and given a little luck they might begin to breed.
Downstairs, he laid his hat on the bar, and one of the locals made a crack about cowboys, which Connla took in good humour. He bought a pack of cigarettes, though he was trying to quit. A good-looking girl was serving and she seemed to take a special interest in him, much to the displeasure of a group of three workmen in their early twenties who came in at about nine o’clock. One of them commented on it and Connla told him it was only because he was American. ‘Come on out to Rapid City,’ he said. ‘Same thing’ll happen to you.’
It was enough to placate them. Connla was all but twice their age, and the last thing he needed was any aggravation on his first night in the UK. So he bought them a drink and they quietened down, and he ended up beating their butts in a pool game.
He got up at seven in the morning and drove straight over to the park. He could hear an African lion roaring as he parked the Land-Rover. The sun was up and he could feel the beginnings of the heat in the day. Already the thin cotton of his shirt was stuck to his back from the car seat. He took his cameras and made his way to the main gate. The park wasn’t open to the public yet, and his was the only vehicle parked between the logs laid in the dirt. The lion was calling across the park as the early morning mist burned away, asserting his authority, or trying to. He would smell the antelope, zebra and giraffe, not to mention the other big cats. Connla slung his camera bag over his shoulder and stopped at the barred gate by the wood-cabin entrance. A wall-mounted telephone faced him, and he picked up the receiver and listened: a buzz, a hum, then a female voice in his ear.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi there. Dr McAdam from the United States. I’m your mountain-lion man.’
Five
IMOGEN CAMPED ON THE banks of Loch Thuill, with the coire—the ancient glacial flow—lifting to the uppermost crags. Keira was safely hobbled and grazed close by on the sweet, short grass of the mountain in high summer. The white-tailed eagle had been fishing for trout and, undisturbed by the presence of the woman or the horse, he soared and dived in turn at the loch. Imogen had had no idea there were trout here. For a long time she had sat and watched him, legs crossed, sketchpad laid in the crook of her lap, marking the colours of bird, mountain and water. She’d had a real thrill when Redynvre, intrigued by her presence and perhaps the fact that she was all but ignoring him, had wandered to within ten feet of her. He had lifted his head, nostrils steaming as the afternoon temperature fell, and lowed at her like a cow straining to its calf.
Later in the afternoon the hunting eagle was joined by his mate, who was slightly smaller, her wing span less full, and they flew together, soaring on the up-draughts of the barely perceptible breeze while Imogen watched them with one hand shading her eyes from the sun. They fished and fed until dusk, then lifted off from their perch on a withered tree to glide in one final loop over the loch before soaring to the massed height of the crags. Somewhere up there, she thought, they must be nesting.
Imogen looked at the sketch she had made, and the colours, which weren’t yet filled in, were imprinted on her mind. When she got home she would paint the eagle in flight. She took her fishing rod from where it was stowed across the saddlebags, set it up and hooked some trout for her supper. It was too late to head home, and the sun was fading fast in the west when she cleaned and gutted two ten-inch rainbow trouts before setting the fillets on sticks to cook over the small fire she had kindled. She was deep in thought, at one with her solitude and the darkness, which quietly smudged the land. Redynvre and his cohorts were long gone, having roamed as far as the distant tail of the coire, no longer even dots against the ever-dimming horizon. The stars scratched like imperfect diamonds at the purpling haze of the sky, and Imogen sipped coffee, smoked a cigarette and considered. This was Atholl McKenzie’s land, a tough, dour farmer who had bought about a thousand acres from the estate. It was virtually all sheep and she would bet her life on the fact that neither he nor any of his labourers knew that a pair of white-tailed sea eagles from Norway were nesting on Tana Coire.
She sat and stared at the sky, turning the fish now and then and sipping from her coffee cup. She wondered if she was the only person who knew about the eagles. She had seen nobody on her way there. She had watched closely and scrutinized the birds through her binoculars, and neither of them were ringed or wing-marked, as far as she could tell. She doubted, then, whether anyone else was aware of their presence, and she felt very privileged—the kind of emotion she experienced whenever she encountered Redynvre.
She debated what she should do. First, she ought to try to find out if they were actually nesting or just passing through, as was sometimes the case. Eighty-two of these birds had been reintroduced to Rum. P
erhaps they had just been caught on a particularly strong westerly blown in from the Hebrides. On the other hand, they might be nesting here, though they were some miles from the sea. If they were, she ought to inform somebody—the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds or Scottish Natural Heritage, maybe. She determined that she would rise with the sun, ride Keira as far as she could up the coire, then leave her and climb in search of a possible site for an eyrie. The pair had been here for at least two weeks now, almost certainly because of the trout. Then it occurred to her that Atholl McKenzie had probably stocked Loch Thuill to supplement his meagre income from the sheep. She looked at the pair she was about to feast on and felt a little guilty. A sense of unease moved in the pit of her stomach. If McKenzie had stocked the loch, he wouldn’t have done it to share the fish with eagles. But it was so remote up here. How often would he bring out parties of fishermen? She had no idea. Her emotions were probably doing all the talking; she was aware of that much at least. Happy, and yet disturbed, she unrolled her sleeping bag and slid it inside her bivvy bag, though judging by the sky it wasn’t about to rain. She let the fire burn low and closed her eyes, listening to the gentle combination of water lapping on the bank and Keira cropping the grass.
In the morning she was up before dawn, heating coffee and eating a slice of malted bread from the small loaf she had brought with her. With Keira saddled and the gear stowed, she mounted and swung west up Tana Coire. An hour later, Keira was left hobbled to graze as far as she wanted to hop, and Imogen left her pack beside a stone, taking only a small bottle of water.
She climbed the rough path, and the sun rose to warm her limbs and set the sweat tingling against her skin. By mid morning she was as high as she could go and the western view took her all the way to the sea. She moved with great care, making as little sound as she could. The eyrie, if there was one, would not be as inaccessible as it would on a sea cliff and she didn’t want to stumble on it inadvertently, especially if eggs had been laid. She had no idea how many eggs a white tail would lay—one probably, two at the very most. Every now and again she would pause and squat among the rocks to watch and wait and listen. But nothing stirred, nothing flew and no cry came to her. She used her binoculars to scan the sun-dusted stone for any sign of nest-making.
By midday she had found nothing, and was on the point of turning back, having decided that the pair were merely visitors from Rum, when she saw them. Side by side they sat, crown feathers ruffled in the wind, watching her every move from their vantage point 100 feet across diagonally from where she stood. Imogen didn’t move. They would have seen her long ago, but clearly she had not intruded far enough for any overt display of unease. They were merely content to scrutinize her progress. The male was massive, and she took up her binoculars and studied his wings for letter markings. Nothing; this pair were not tagged. Quite what that meant definitively she didn’t know, but they were here and, from what she could see in terms of twigs and twine and bits of bracken among the rocks, they were nesting. Instinctively she marked the spot in her mind—no need for a second glance—then moved slowly backwards until she was out of sight.
At home later Imogen sat on the floor of her studio, the soles of each foot pressed against one another, looking at the sketch she had set on the easel. She was at a loss to know what to do. She should tell someone, but the discovery was still fresh and private and full of silent emotion and she was loath to break the memory of the moment by sharing it with somebody else. Yet she feared for the location, knowing only too well the sort of battles that people had had with Atholl McKenzie in the past. Few farmers bought the land they leased and he must have fought tooth and nail to get his. He knew he had no right to stop people roaming across it, but he did have the right to protect his livestock and fish. Imogen was in two minds. If she told somebody she drew more attention to the situation, but if she didn’t, the eagles would be offered no protection at all.
In the kitchen she made a cup of coffee and pondered her dilemma. Morrisey sculled Loch Gael in his red-hulled boat and Charlie Abbott led his hens around the yard, pecking at the corn seed she had laid for them earlier that morning. Imogen could see the male eagle in her head, the laconic ease with which he coasted above the chopped waters, casting his eye for fish. Maybe the eagles could be an attraction for McKenzie. Maybe he could not only offer sport fishing to his guests, but the chance to see a pair of eagles that had been extinct in the UK since the First World War. Imogen thought about that. Maybe she should just go and see him herself. It didn’t take her long to decide against it, however. McKenzie was a miserable old man, not noted for his love of wildlife. He might listen to her, but she thought she ought to get some back-up first. Picking up the phone, she dialled the RSPB in Inverness.
The receptionist put her through to someone called Daniel Johnson, who told her he was the bird-of-prey expert for the region. Imogen hesitated for a fraction of a second, then said, ‘I don’t know if you’re aware, but there’s a pair of white-tailed eagles nesting in the crags above Tana Coire.’ Silence. ‘I know they were introduced on Rum,’ she went on, ‘but I wasn’t aware they nested inland.’
Johnson remained quiet for a moment, then he said, ‘No. Neither were we.’
He drove down from Inverness to see her that same day, arriving at two in the afternoon. Jean Law had come round for a cup of tea and a natter, and Imogen had to shoo her out the door before he got there. It was very important that nobody knew about the nest, not even Jean. Tongues had a terrible habit of wagging, and there were egg collectors everywhere. Johnson had warned her about not speaking to anyone, so they were clearly taking the find as seriously as she was.
He was in his early fifties, but fit-looking with a ruddy-brown quality to his skin, grizzled grey hair cut close to his skull and circular gold-rimmed glasses. Imogen made coffee and they sat at her kitchen table with her bird-of-prey book open at the pertinent page.
‘And that’s what you saw?’ Johnson asked her.
She nodded.
‘Did you photograph it?’
‘No. I paint, I don’t take pictures.’
He smiled. ‘But you’re sure?’
‘Positive. I spent two days watching him and his mate. Why are they so far inland? I thought they were only found on Rum.’
Johnson sat back then, tapping at the table top with his fingernails. ‘We introduced them to Rum first, but since then we’ve had some breeding pairs on the mainland. Not many, and only on the west coast. They nest in the sea cliffs.’ He shook his head. ‘We’ve never had them inland before. Their primary source of food is fish.’
‘Atholl McKenzie’s stocked Loch Thuill with trout,’ Imogen said.
‘Has he indeed?’
She nodded. ‘He bought a thousand acres of hill land for sheep from the estate. I don’t suppose he thinks he can make enough money from them alone. Fishing permits can bring in quite a bit of money, although you’d need a four-wheel drive to get to the loch.’
Johnson sat forward then. ‘Imogen, this year’s been the worst in the last five for illegal poisoning of raptors. So far we’ve had twenty-two buzzards, four red kites, two golden eagles, as well as peregrines and a hen harrier, killed. White-tailed eagles are on the world’s near-threatened list. If these two are nesting close to a loch stocked with trout, they’re going to be in danger.’
Six
CONNLA CROUCHED ON HIS haunches and watched the male cougar pacing back and forth behind the heavy wire mesh. Hat pushed back on his head, eyes skinned, he studied the gait, the movement of muscle, the way the tail flicked from side to side. The cougar watched him as he paced, head low, neck down, the muscles of his shoulders fluid against his skin. The female sat in a separate section of the enclosure, cleaning herself.
Jenny, the young keeper with whom he had been working all week, handed him a can of Coke and Connla smiled at her. The sun was high, the centrepiece of a perfectly blue, perfectly cloudless sky, and the sweat gathered in his hairline. Taking th
e rag from his back pocket he wiped the moisture away, then, snapping off the ring-pull, he downed a long draught of ice-cold Coke and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.
‘What do you think?’ Jenny asked him.
Connla looked once more at the twin open-topped enclosures containing tree trunks, waterholes and plenty of shade. The male cougar had stopped pacing, and was now perched among the branches of the tree set right in the centre.
‘We tried to model it on what they had in Canada,’ Jenny went on.
‘I think you’ve done a real good job.’ Connla finished his drink, crushed the can and tossed it into the bin on the edge of the footpath. ‘A real good job. This guy’s finding his feet already.’
The male was down from the tree again and moving around the enclosure, scraping and spraying his mark. ‘You’ll need to give them a few weeks to settle properly, but I don’t foresee any problems.’ He glanced at Jenny. ‘You got a good vet?’
‘We think so. Local chap. Certainly the best in the area. He spent a lot of time in Africa right after he finished his training.’
‘Good. Has he seen them yet?’
‘No. He’s coming over this afternoon. You can meet him, if you want to.’
‘That’d be good.’ Connla looked at the sun. ‘Let me buy you lunch,’ he said.
They ate in the staff canteen, which was tacked on the other side of the kitchen to the main customer cafeteria. Jenny was twenty-two and had just graduated from university with a degree in zoology.
‘What d’you want to do?’ Connla asked her, spreading hard pats of butter onto a crusty roll.
‘Work here while I do my Ph.D.’
He smiled. ‘That sounds familiar. And after?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t want to teach, if I can possibly help it.’
‘Sounds familiar, too.’
‘I might try to get a research grant.’
