The Tartan Ringers

by Jonathan Gash

  Hell of a place to hide, I grumbled inwardly as I drifted through the dark garden. Soon after Mrs Buchan had blundered by admitting that Hector’s dawn patrol was on the hillside opposite to the main gateway, I’d sussed out a cracked path between lines of old bleached canes. It made stealth clumsy and full of din, but what could I do? The map showed a fairly smooth slope, then a few upland folds. And, in grand solitude two miles off, a cottage marked Shooters in a narrow gully.

  Climbing the wall was easy, and quieter. Torch in my pocket, I began the long slow climb up the fellside, walking bent and pressing my hands on my knees. The ground was soaked to squelching over my shoes. It made me slip on rocks projecting underfoot. Heather started kicking back at each pace, whipping my legs. There was no moon. How the hell had highwaymen managed? I did my best to follow the direction I’d planned, but within minutes I was using my torch to find the first gale-torn hawthorn and check its position against the faint glow of light from the house below. There were two leaning crags which would be my markers to aim off at a forty-degree angle to the right. The cottage was more or less a mile from there.

  Common sense told that Shooters wasn’t Hector’s home. If it had been, why did he need to walk out there? The shepherd had innocently assumed that, being a McGunn, I was in on the cottage thing. Maybe Shooters, I hoped with spirits rising, was in fact a great Victorian shooting lodge and it was there that Duncan/Robert/Michelle or whoever had salted away the missing antiques from Tachnadray, if any.

  Maybe nine o’clock when I set out. That made it getting on for ten when I made the first leaning crag. Odd, but I was starting to understand how the nightwalkers had managed. It’s quite easy, really. Once you get used to being away from civilization’s buildings and lights, night resolves into distinct components. Ground underfoot stays pitch black, but the sky’s dark intensity lessens somewhat. Tall stones and trees condense the sky’s consistency, so that though you still can’t actually see them as such, you can somehow perceive that they’re there in your path. Tachnadray’s light was more distant, but seemed almost blinding from the hilltop. I stopped looking at it because it lessened my night vision.

  From the crags the ground descended and took me out of direct view of Tachnadray for the first time. Even so, I wasn’t too worried. The faint sky shine from that direction was enough to show me the hilltop’s sky interface. Ever so often I cricked over on the stones that littered the fells, so I developed a trick of walking with knees bent, using short steps, not putting my heels down first. It intrigued me. I’d adopted Robert’s curious gait. A new way of looking, and a new way of walking, all in one go. I felt a real discoverer.

  In fact I was so busy praising myself that I was stuck when a building thickened the darkness to my left. I’d actually come upon Shooters. A disappointingly small edifice. A pointless low wall ran from it for a short distance. Something to do with cattle? A snowbreak to halt fell drifts in blizzards? I felt my way along it, stepping carefully in case tins or bottles or other fell-walkers’ debris lurked in wait.

  Derelict? There was no sound. I halted, listened. In the distance a short deep bark sounded, curt and businesslike. I dismissed it. Hector’s dogs probably wouldn’t be out at this hour. I’d heard Duncan talk of red deer. Perhaps a stag calling its herd, maybe scenting me and resenting intrusion on its patch?

  Risking, I took my flashlight and moved off a few silent yards. If somebody saw me I wanted a head start. I wasn’t in good enough shape to sprint the two boulder-riddled miles to Tachnadray without breaking my neck, so I’d have to do a short dash and hide among the outcrops. Escape by subterfuge is really my thing, but it’s easier in towns than out here in all this loneliness. I crouched.

  Flash. The beam swept, hit buildings, dowsed into blackness again. In that instant of brilliance, my eyes beheld a child’s drawing two-storey cottage, symmetrical and unadorned. The windows were wood-shuttered. Slate roof. Single chimney. A bare building on a barren hillside. What the hell was I doing out here, I asked myself irritably. One upper-floor shutter had stood slightly ajar, I’d noticed. I thought over the image in my mind. The obvious thing was to wait a minute in case my beam had disturbed an inhabitant, then creep up and simply try the door. For all I knew I might be stalking an empty house.

  As I felt around me for a couple of decent-shaped stones I heard again that deer’s bark. Closer, and only once, but now out beyond the cottage. I actually chuckled to myself. If only that apprehensive stag knew how little it had to fear from me it would get back between the sheets and nod off. God’s creatures are gormless. No wonder. God was a beginner at creation.

  It’s a fallacy to assume that burglars can’t climb a wall without a ladder. A burglar can climb anything, because even a blank wall offers ledges, pipes, rectifying studs, cistern overflows. You might say that such feeble supports might not support a burglar’s full weight – and you’d be right. But they’d support a quarter of a burglar’s weight, and that’s all he needs because he can do the bolus trick, the town burglar’s favourite.

  This evolved from sailing ships, I’ve been told. Others say it’s what Argentina’s cowboys do to hobble bulls. The stones make the cord whiptangle anything hit. I’ve even seen it used to put a rope round untouchable scalding steam pipes along a mill ceiling. You take a piece of strong twine a yard long, and tie stones at the ends. This is the bolus. Then fasten a long length at the midpoint, and coil that length on the ground beside you. Take the midpoint of your bolus between finger and thumb of your left hand, and hold one tied stone in your right. Then start swinging the other dangling stone in a circle. Clockwise or anticlockwise doesn’t matter. Once it’s going, you simply fling the opposite stone in the opposite direction, and you’ll find you are holding a piece of string by its middle with two stones whirling round in opposite directions. Naked tassel-dancers do it in nightclubs from their breasts – er, I mean I’ve heard they do. To keep the bolus spinning, you simply move your hand up and down.

  You lean, fling the bolus with a slow overarm cast. The best is that if you miss the chimney you simply reel it in again, or cut your cord and make another bolus. This actually happened. I missed the chimney stack twice. I tried pulling on the twine but the bolus must have caught on something on the far side of the cottage roof. It’s usually the guttering or a cistern overflow pipe. I bit through the nylon, let its free end whip away into the night air, and chewed away another one-yard length. By feel, I’d still got enough to stretch from roof to ground, and I was in no haste.

  Mostly, I (I really mean burglars who go in for this sort of thing) prefer elongated waisted stones because they hold the string better. City burglars use spark plugs, partly to assume innocence if they’re caught. I only took a minute finding a decent heavy pair of stones out in all this horrible countryside, and I was in action, for another go. I reached for my coiled twine.

  And stopped.

  Almost beyond hearing, I could just make out a faint yell. ‘Run! Run!’ Quite like a yell heard through glass.

  Baffled, I strained to hear. Run? Run where? And why? I actually got up and turned this way and that, head tilted to catch the gnat’s whine of a shout, before it dawned. It was inside the cottage. Somebody was yelling for somebody to run. If I hadn’t been thick I’d have guessed, but I’ve a zillion untrained neurones. I was quite unconcerned, merely puzzled.

  My beam cut the night. And something moved, far over to my right beyond the low wall.

  Robert stood there. He looked gigantic in the solid glare from my torch. With him on a leash stood Ranter, its eyes two brilliants against jet. That bark had been no deer. Dogs bark.

  ‘Hello,’ I called feebly. ‘I was just out for . . .’

  Robert fiddled with the huge animal’s neck. Nervously I backed away a pace. Robert stepped aside, a whole dark space between him and the giant hound. He raised an arm and pointed at me. His kilt flapped once in the night breeze.

  ‘Run! Run!’ the little insect screamed inside the cott
age.

  Frightened, I backed off. Run? Somebody was warning me – me – to run. Christ. From what? From . . .

  The giant figure held its biblical pose in my torchlight.

  ‘Kill,’ Robert said. He turned and walked away. I turned and ran like hell.

  Chapter 18

  FOR A SECOND OR two I thought the damned animal wasn’t coming after me. I fled across the slope I’d climbed, my torchlight flickering ahead on shining angles of granite projecting from the heather. Maybe I even imagined I was going at a speed Ranter couldn’t match.

  Then I heard it, breathing like a train. It slobbered as it ran, a flopping sound as its feet landed. It didn’t dash like a greyhound or scamper like a beagle. It simply loped. In that first terror-stricken moment when I’d seen it start, its apparently casual movement said it all. What’s the hurry? its graceful mass announced as it hunched up to start the pursuit. It’s not a race – it’s a hunt. Sooner or later, it seemed to say, the quarry’ll tire, weaken, flake out, and then . . . I was moaning as I ran. If I’d had breath enough I’d have whimpered, prayed, screamed, anything.

  Ahead a roaring sound. I’d say I headed for it except that that expression makes my progress sound like a ramble. Reality was different. I was scrambling, stumbling, gasping, across the stony hillside slope, trying to hold my torch out ahead for sight, anything to keep ahead of that dreadful slapping which proved the bloody monster was gaining.

  It could have been only a minute when a roar opened the ground ahead, and I tumbled over an edge. I fell maybe ten feet, more, found myself in swirling water and floundered forward, anything to keep going.

  A waterfall. Some sort of gully, with a narrow freshet of water. I’d kept hold of my torch. I splashed across, climbed a tall projecting slabbed rock dividing the swirling course. Maybe I could get to the top, sit there and somehow stop it climbing up after me. A stone, a cobble. I realized I’d got my new untried bolus still in my hands, stuffed it in my jacket pocket and hauled a cobble up out of the onrush.

  A flop, flop, behind. Here it came. With a slither Ranter appeared at the margin I’d fallen over and without a pause came bounding on. I saw him hit the water with a ploosh, force his way up to the base of my rock, and try to leap up. I flung my cobble and hit the bugger. He leaped to one side, and halted. I squatted up on my pinnacle, sick from breathlessness and fright.

  He looked at me, transfixed in my beam. Ranter’s appearance arrested me. He honestly appeared noble. The strain of chasing hardly showed. He’d cornered me. His teeth would be along in a minute to perform massacre. It was all so serene, this hunting business.

  So that’s what a hunter-killer looks like, I thought dementedly. His stance was one of attention, of cool certainty. His tongue lolled. His flanks shone. What I hated most was that he was thinking. I honestly mean it. The murderous beast was actually cerebrating, its great head swinging as it took in the geography of the gully and the pouring beck, calmly working out how to catch and kill the shivering bloke perched ludicrously up there.

  Directly upwards from the water my angular granite projected, its faces a mixture of smooth and rough, but on the whole vertical, thank God. The side I’d climbed up had barely a fingerhold. I’d done well to haul myself up. I prayed fervent gratitude that I had hands and Ranter hadn’t any means of clutching.

  Its head swung, marcasite eyes glittering. I whimpered. It took no notice and benignly continued inspecting my slab. Don’t worry, its urbane manner informed me; this is only a job. I’ll get you in a minute. Above all, be patient. I moaned. The bloody beast was a real pro.

  We were maybe thirty feet apart. The animal – it wasn’t good old Ranter any longer; executioners don’t have names – backed, tried to get space for a run, changed its mind.

  My torchlight couldn’t be helping it. I kept the beam trained on its face. Not much of a dazzle, but what else could I do? I found a single loose stone flake, chucked it. The murderer leaned its head an inch and the stone flew by, clattered down the rock wall. It didn’t even blink. For a daft second I thought of persuasion. I said, ‘Ranter. Good dog.’ It gave me a glance of withering scorn. In fact, so compelling was its thorough examination of the stream’s narrow gully that I did it too. We were a weird partnership, quarry and hunter.

  Downstream no hope that I could see, the spate frothing on a mincing-machine of large stones. The gully’s sides slanted outwards from the granite bed. My beam flicked, returned to the dog, flicked away for a quick glance, back. I didn’t want the beast doing anything sly while I was being conned into studying the terrain.

  The monster moved, one of those sudden tensions as if about to leap sideways. I yelped in fright. It stayed, splay-footed. I followed its gaze, used my torch to see what it had worked out. The sides of my slab were ripped vertically by ancient geologic forces. A man could just about climb up there but no dog. So? I shone back at Ranter. And it was smiling, its stare fixed above me.

  Above? I shone upwards and nearly peed myself in terror. There was an overhang. Barely seven yards above my head the gully’s side leaned in to form a shelf. Ranter could get me. I’d had it. Any creature on earth could get up there, look down on me. Then leap and . . . and . . . I whimpered.

  The hound gave one last calculating stare, gauged the distance from the ledge to me, then splashed off downstream bounding from rock to rock with that casual, lethal grace. A mad hope swept into me – suddenly Shona had missed him and whistled one of those dog whistles to call him off.

  But no. The overhang was from the side opposite. No way to cross upstream, so it was doing the sensible 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, s
hoved 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 them? 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 travelling 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.