The Arches of Orkney County

by Ryan Holden

Seasons came and went. The child forgot the bauble; the boy did not. He grew older, as all do, and became the boy not eighteen. He also grew up, as some do not. But we get ahead of ourselves, and I must make some note of the intervening years.

  He did not treasure the bauble as some would: kept within reach, like a pet or a pillow. He need not touch it or look at it to remind himself. He had returned it long ago, once his arm was strong enough to throw the roped bucket to the other side.

  By then it was too late. The bauble was the lodestone of his mind's compass, the north star of his sailing thought. No longer was his imagination freewheeling, soaring to the stars and dissipating into nothingness. It was firmly chained. The weight of that burden gave him focus, gave him strength, like the pull on a great paper kite that, oddly enough, keeps it aloft. If a bauble could go from Stromness to Kirkwall, why not something else?

  He had long thought on the nature of things: why things were, and why things weren't. But castles in the air have a way of dissipating at the slightest breath when no more weighty material than thought has been seeded. Buildings need thought, that is true, but also sweat, tears, and often blood. He began to question why things move and how they stay and, most of all, how they stand.

  He rambled here and there, as he had before. To the cliffs where the sea waves roiled, to the mountain heights overlooking small glades of wind-tossed trees, to the mines where the men of Stromness toiled. Before he had seen through things, seen past things: now he saw things themselves.

  He still walked to the ravine. Sometimes he saw the girl there, sometimes not. He would look at her and she would look back. Once he threw her the bucket with a piece of quartz he had found in the mines. Another time she signaled to him for the bucket and when he retrieved it he found a shell like a snail's, only vastly bigger. Following her pantomime he held it to his ear and heard the sea.

  He smiled at her and she smiled back. Then a strange look came over her face and she turned and fled. She looked back at him once more before disappearing into the trees. Though he walked to the ravine often he saw her no more, unless she was in the company of other women at the proper water gathering times. She did not seek out his look anymore.

  At sixteen he was sent to the mines. The work that ended in making men weak first made them strong, and his body grew to match his tasks. His indolent habits lost their hold on him: he had too much to do, and too little time with which to do it. He asked himself how things might be done faster, better, and with less effort.

  The path the donkeys used to carry their cargo out of the mines was longer and less steep than the shortcuts the men used. One of these required a long step over a crevice, something no donkey could be persuaded to do, and so the rough shortcut was not considered for cargo despite cutting off a long loop of the main path.

  No one had thought to bridge it, given the roughness of the approach to and from it, but the boy not eighteen was interested enough in how rocks break to keep at the work longer than a reasonable person would. Chipping at one and smashing another, he got a feel for stone that mining in the dark in cramped quarters could not teach.

  He also learned what rocks did not break. He knew he could take a paving stone from further down the path, but that did not interest him. A paving stone was big enough for the crevice but he had none big enough for the ravine. Wood was longer but weaker and more rare.

  As was his wont when his arms screamed for rest, he played with the crushed rock, stacking it one piece on another until it fell. The bigger the base, the higher he could go, but he did not want to go upwards. He toppled his latest pile over. What was the point?

  He stared at what was left of his pile. Why couldn't rocks be like trees, and be made to grow? Then he saw something he'd seen a hundred times before: two rocks slightly apart with a third rock resting on them. He grabbed a fourth rock and moved the third to make room. He tried a fifth and it all fell down. Putting the four back together, he took careful note. Neither suspended stone rested on the far base, only the near one.

  It grew dark and he still could not make the fifth stone work. In the days that followed he kept trying, and four stones became six then nine. He turned back to the crevice. Many mistakes were made. The base stones bulging outward. A stone with not enough pinch, as he liked to call it, slipping. And rocks tumbling out of reach into the crevice, causing him to have to find new stones to replace them. But stones only have so many tricks and eventually he found them out.

  The other miners laughed at his work. Laughed, yes, but now took their donkeys over the paving stones he set up around his bridge. He kept on building until he finished his bridge. A man could walk over it, yes, and the miners dared each other to do so. But it was too steep for any real use. He piled rocks before and after—he had plenty of castoffs nearby—until it was no longer steep. Too rough, yes, but he knew how to solve that problem. Adding crushed rock smoothed it out.

  It was done. Completely now, and he saw no problem with it. But no one would lead his donkey over it. No one, that is, until a paving stone broke under a donkey and it fell, braying in terror. Most said the place was cursed, and avoided the shortcut, blaming the boy. Some tried his bridge. Eventually the foreman wouldn't allow anyone to take the longer route.

  And so the full tale of sweat, tears, and blood was paid. He had created a bridge that worked. A strong bridge. And it was five times longer than any single piece of stone used.

  At eighteen he was reassigned. A main artery in the network of tunnels had collapsed one too many times. Wood was not strong enough to support the roof, and the foreman told him to make a roof of stone. The job thrilled him and terrified him. He set to work with a small crew. He could make no headway: the amount of pinch required, for the length of the tunnel, was more than he could maintain.

  Walking home after a fruitless day he saw masons building the Master of Stromness a new room. They set block upon block of stone for the new outer wall. He wished he could do their work. Very simple it was, block upon block. They were working on the Master's house, so they had the best stone the quarry could offer.

  He was working at the Master's business, too. Stonework that would save lives. And keep the rich south fork open. When he built the bridge, no one believed him. No one wanted him to do it, so he had to do it alone. Now was different. He spoke to the foreman and told him what materials were needed. He knew just the type of block: not quite a square, but slanted on both ends, for the pinch.

  The foreman could not issue a writ for the quarry, especially for custom work. He took it to the steward. The steward spoke with the boy not eighteen and gave him the writ. The masons hemmed and hawed but he pointed at the writ. They didn't give up their hemming and hawing but began dressing and sawing. He had his stones, and soon he had his tunnel.