The Hill of the Red Fox (14 page)

“What happened?” I cried.

“Ricked my ankle,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “I doubt I can never put this foot to the ground.”

He struggled to his feet, and put both hands on my shoulders.

“Help me up the path,” he gasped. “I’ll try to hop along behind you as best I can.”

When we got to the top of the gorge, he sank to the ground, holding his ankle in both hands.

“Maybe the pain will ease off in a while,” he said. “As long as I can just crawl down and take a look at the door of the bothy. If it were anyone but the Major I would never attempt it this night, but the poor man is depending on me and I promised him I would see that the place is locked up.”

He tried to get to his feet, but groaned in pain when he felt his weight on his damaged ankle.

“You’ll never manage it,” I said. “I had better go for you.”

“Were you ever down there before?” he asked.

“No, but surely it’s not all that difficult,” I said.

“Not at all,” he said. “Just follow the track; that is all you need do. You will come to a bridge. Cross the bridge, and the bothy is about fifty yards down the river bank. Mind you, Alasdair, it is myself that is thankful, for my conscience would never let me rest until I had seen to the bothy, supposing I had to crawl down on my hands and knees.”

I set off cautiously along the track, digging my feet hard into the ground to make sure that I did not lose my footing. I was reminded of a game of snakes and ladders, because one moment I was going in one direction, then the track would wind round sharply and I would be groping my way along in the opposite direction.

The mist had drifted in from the sea, so that I could not see the river and the bay below or even the waterfall. As I made my way down the roar of the falls became louder, but all I could see was the dim outline of the gorge towering high above me, and a few feet of the path ahead. I was half dazed by the noise of the falls, and I felt sure I would lose my footing and crash down to the foaming torrent
of the river far below, and I wished I had not been so foolhardy as to volunteer for the job.

The loose earth of the track gave way to bare rock, and I almost slipped and fell. I steadied myself and strained my eyes trying to see what lay ahead. I felt the wall of the cliff-face rising vertically above me, and the track appeared to be a narrow ledge cut in the rock. It fell sharply away in front of me and I edged forward slowly until I came up against two iron bars about eighteen inches apart that forked out at an upward angle over the river. They were bound with rough rope, making a sort of cat-walk to the narrow plank bridge that loomed up out of the mist and darkness of the night.

I crawled up the cat-walk on my hands and knees, and made my way on to the bridge. I stood up slowly and took two uncertain steps forward and then my nerve failed me. I stood quite still, knowing that I could move neither forward nor backwards, and I felt my head reel.

The roar of the falls was deafening, and I could hear the surge and splash of the river against the rocks far below. I knew with a sudden, terrifying clarity that the only thing between me and the river was a narrow greasy plank with no handrail.

I blinked the rain out of my eyes and tried to keep a grip on my senses. One false move and I was over the side, and my cries would be drowned in the roar of the falls. In any event, Murdo Beaton was helpless and in no condition to come to my aid. I felt my head swimming, and I knew I must force my limbs into some sort of action before a fit of giddiness overtook me and I toppled off the narrow bridge.

My first thought was to crawl back the way I had come, but I knew I could never turn round on that greasy plank. I tried to make myself believe that I was standing on a kerbstone and running along it, as I had so often done in London, without slipping once. I dug my teeth into my lower lip until I felt the salt taste of blood, and started to inch forward along the bridge.

I shall never forget the terror of that walk across the bridge. It was the noise of the falls and the darkness and the sense of not knowing
what lay below that was the worst of all. I kept looking down at my feet until I remembered that the best way to keep one’s balance was to look straight ahead. I forced my eyes up and stepped on gingerly.

I have no very clear recollection of what happened. I know that I put one foot out and found no solid plank to support me, and I tried to draw back and lost my balance. I seemed to fall very slowly, and I clawed desperately for a support. My fingers closed round an iron bar, and I felt a searing pain in my armpits as the downward motion of my body was checked.

I hung on desperately, but my hands were cold and numb and the rounded iron bar offered no purchase. Slowly, so slowly that I
wondered
for a moment if I was imagining it, I felt my hands slipping off the bar. I can recall thinking stupidly what a relief it would be to have the awful strain taken off my arms.

A vice-like grip fastened around my wrists and I was hoisted high in the air and thrown across a broad back. I lay there limply, head downwards, utterly spent. What was happening to me had assumed the vague, nightmarish outlines of a bad dream. I could only lie still and hope that I would wake up in the morning in the snug safety of my bed.

I was not really conscious of being carried over the bridge and taken behind the shelter of a rock on the other side of the river. All I know is that I was set down as gently as a baby and supported by a strong arm.

“It is me,” a voice whispered. “Duncan Mòr. Are you hurt, Alasdair?”

I heard somebody say, “No, I’m fine,” and realized dimly that it must be my own voice. It seemed to be coming from a long way off.

“Don’t speak. Rest a while,” counselled Duncan Mòr, and his arm tightened around my shoulders.

I closed my eyes, thankful for his support. My arms felt as if they had been dragged out of their sockets, but the searing pain had subsided to a dull ache. The roar of the falls was not so loud as it had been on the bridge, and I heard the sound of a dislodged stone tumbling down the hillside.

It was then that I heard the footsteps — quick footsteps —
running
down the track to the bridge, and the creak of the bridge as a man’s weight descended on it. It must be Murdo Beaton, I decided, coming to see what had happened to me, and I was about to call to him when Duncan Mòr clapped a hand over my mouth. I often wonder what would have happened if he had not acted so swiftly.

“
Ist!
” he hissed in my ear.

The beam of a torch stabbed the darkness, playing on the rushing
waters of the river, and we crouched down behind the rock. After a while, the torch went out and there was the sound of hurried
footsteps
on the track. It seemed an age until Duncan Mòr sat up and took his hand from my mouth.

“Well then, what happened?” he said grimly.

I told him how I had looked in at the window of the cottage, thinking to frighten Mairi, and seen Murdo Beaton counting his money at the table; of his anger when he saw me, and his sudden friendliness, culminating in the offer to take me fishing.

“I know he took you down to the rocks, but when I saw the pair of you heading back for Achmore, I thought you would be safe enough,” said Duncan Mòr. “Why did you come down here with him?”

I told him Murdo Beaton had forgotten to see if the bothy was locked up for the night, and how he had sprained his ankle and I had volunteered to look at the bothy for him.

I had been through so much that night that I thought I could be startled no longer, but the force of Duncan Mòr’s reaction to my words jolted me upright in stark surprise.

“I will break that long
cratur
in pieces,” he vowed, and the words were somehow more deadly because they were spoken in a whisper instead of his usual booming tones. “I will have the black heart of him out of his miserable body supposing I have to tear it out with my bare hands.”

“But he wasn’t to blame,” I stammered, still too dazed to
comprehend
the significance of the quick footsteps I had heard. “I fell off the bridge.”

But he swept on, unheeding, and I was glad of the darkness that I could not see the terrible anger on his face. It was enough to hear it in his voice.

“The Red One had you on the rocks, never thinking that I was up on the cliff watching his every move,” he raged. “The bold fellow was standing behind you. One push in the back and you were away. But no. That would have been murder by his own hand, and Murdo Ruadh would never stain his conscience with murder. So he takes
you to the gorge with a tale about seeing the bothy.
A Chruthaidhear
, the slyness of the man! Nine seasons Neil Ross has been at the salmon fishing, and not once did he fail to lock up the bothy. But any tale is good enough if it will drag you here. Aye, the Red One would never smirch his conscience by pushing you off the rocks. Not him. But he would fox a sprained ankle, so that he could keep well clear of you, and send you down here. Aye, he lay up there on the grass knowing he was sending you to your death.”

“But it is all a mistake,” I cried. “I tell you, I slipped and fell.”

Duncan Mòr picked me up in his arms like a baby and clambered over the rocks to the bridge. When we were in the centre of the bridge he set me down, holding me close to him with his left arm. He fumbled in his pocket for matches and struck one.

The flare of the match lit the darkness around us and I felt my stomach heave in a spasm of nausea. Part of the bridge was missing! I gazed blankly at the rushing waters of the river far below, and the match sputtered and went out. But the darkness could not hide the picture in my mind. The bridge was built on two horizontal iron bars. The bars were covered with wooden planks about a foot wide and two feet across, and four of those planks were missing.

Without a word, Duncan Mòr picked me up and made his
sure-footed
way back to the river bank.

When we were behind the shelter of the rock, he said, “Now do you see? Those planks have been missing this while back. It is safe enough for a man who knows the place, but what chance had you creeping along in the darkness?”

I tried to speak, but my lips moved without any words coming out. I was ashamed to find I was trembling uncontrollably.

Duncan Mòr patted my shoulder.

“You are feeling the shock,
a bhalaich
, and no wonder,” he said. “But wait you. When I lay hands on the Red Fellow he will wish it was himself had fallen off the bridge.”

“But why should he want to kill me?” I burst out.

It had been an adventure before, but now I was frightened and unsure of myself.

“I told you it could be dangerous to know too much, but I thought you would be safe enough for all that,” he said slowly. “I doubt there is more than the Red Fellow had a hand in this
business
. He would be afraid to make a move by himself, but if
somebody
big enough suggested to Murdo Ruadh that you would be better out of the way, the same fellow would take the hint quickly enough. And if you were out of the way, Alasdair, there would be nobody left to take the croft at Achmore from him. Aye, that would be the way of it. The Red Fellow would be helping himself in more ways than one.”

“If he tried once and failed,” I suggested nervously, “he might try again.”

“You stay with me from this night on,” said Duncan Mòr shortly. “Murdo Ruadh will need to be watching his own skin.”

He fell silent and I sensed he was thinking hard.

At length he said slowly, half to himself, “It’s queer they didn’t try to put me out of the way, too.”

“Perhaps Murdo Beaton tried to kill me because I saw him with all that money,” I suggested.

“You may be sure he wouldn’t be pleased,” said Duncan Mòr dryly, “but tonight’s work was planned a while back I’m thinking. See you, Alasdair, the fly fellow picks a night when all the men in the place are indoors at a meeting, and the
cailleach
and Mairi are away at the kirk. There is nobody about to see him take you to the rocks, and he could go creeping back and say he had never laid eyes on you. Fine I know the man.”

“But
you
saw him,” I pointed out.

“Aye, I saw him right enough,” he agreed. “But I was the only man in the place not at the meeting, and I saw him because I was looking for him.”

“I don’t understand,” I faltered.

“You mind the day you found the message had been stolen from your wallet,” said Duncan Mòr in his deep, commanding voice, “and I told you a fox could be a dangerous sort of
cratur
when it was cornered?”

“Of course I remember it,” I said.

I could never forget that day. It was the first day I had tramped through the heather with him. It was the day he had taken me to Loch Liuravay and we had eaten a supper together of brown trout.

“Ever since that day,” he went on slowly, “the Red Fellow has not taken a step outside the house between nightfall and sunrise without me seeing him.”

“But … but how?” I stammered.

“I was on the hill behind the house,” he said simply, “flat to the ground. It is easy enough if you have ever stalked deer.”

I thought of nights when the wind had swept across the open crofts, driving the rain before it in swirling, maddened gusts. I thought of him lying in the wet grass, cold and numbed, waiting until the morning sun crimsoned the Ross-shire hills before he crept stiffly away. I knew perfectly well that it was myself he had been watching, not Murdo Beaton, and I did not know what to say.

“That was how I saw the pair o’ you leave the house tonight,” he continued. “I followed you, but when you came up from the rocks I only waited to see you cross the road for I thought you would be safe enough seeing you were heading back to Achmore. Then I made straight for this place.”

“But how did you know I would be crossing the bridge?” I asked.

“Never the thought I had of you being on the bridge,” he said grimly. “Good life, Alasdair, if I had known you would be after
crossing
the bridge it is myself would have been standing at the other side. No, no, if it wasn’t for a broken gasket on Alec Nicolson’s lorry it was you for the river, boy.”

I thought he was joking, but he went on to explain.

“I had some salmon for Alec Nicolson and he was going to
collect
them last night but the lorry broke down. Willie The Post told me Alec would be along late tonight, and when I saw you on your way back to Achmore I came down to get the salmon. I heard your cries when you fell and made for the bridge. I’m telling you, another minute and it was you away.”

I shuddered again at the thought of the terror I had known on
the bridge, and I said quickly, “Well, the lorry did me a good turn, anyway.”

“That’s the spirit,” approved Duncan Mòr. He stood up and his voice was brisk, “Think no more of it, Alasdair. It was a hard knock you had there but that is the way o’ the world. Many a bad time your father had, but I never saw him down in the mouth. He always used to say, ‘Never mind, Duncan, we never died a winter yet.’”

I stood up alongside him, feeling stiff and sore. He took my arm in his and led me along the river bank. The towering walls of the gorge loomed up on either side, and I felt I would never breathe freely again until I had escaped from the dark prison of the gorge.

We had been walking on smooth grass, but the grass gave way to rocks and Duncan Mòr guided me over them. When I looked up again, we were standing almost directly under the falls. I could see the creamy surge of the river as it raced over the black rocks above and cascaded down to the pool in front of us. The noise was
tremendous
; a ceaseless pounding of the ear-drums as thousands of gallons of water crashed into the pool.

Duncan Mòr bent over a hole in the ground and drew out a large sack. There was a neatly rolled net on the rock beside me, and he wedged it into the hole and shouted something at me.

The noise of the falls was deafening and he had to put his lips close to my ear and shout before I heard him say, “Up you get, Alasdair.”

I was sitting on a big, flat rock, and I did not think it possible that one man could move it. But Duncan Mòr swung it around as easily as if it had been a kitchen chair, until it was covering his hiding place.

He stooped down and swung the sack on his back, and I was glad that I was compelled to shout, so that the tremor in my voice was not apparent.

“Do we have to cross the bridge?” I yelled.

“No, there is a path on this side that will bring us out on the road,” he bellowed, “but it is not for your legs tonight.”

Before I could protest he bent his knees and scooped me up over his left shoulder, as easily as if I had been a bag of thistle-down.
With the heavy bag of fish on one shoulder and me on the other he started the arduous climb out of the gorge.

It was a country of strong men, and I had grown accustomed to seeing hundred-weight bags being lifted from ground to shoulder level with no apparent effort, but I am sure that no other man in Achmore could have done what Duncan Mòr did. I knew the weight of the fish, because I had tried to lift the sack and could not move it from the ground, but he carried me as well, and at the same time climbed up the steep, twisting track in the darkness.

We came out on the main road close to the bridge over the river, and I slid to the ground. Duncan Mòr hid the sack in the deep bracken by the roadside and took out his pipe.

I was the first to hear the sound of a vehicle, and when I told him he drew me down into the cover of the bracken.

“Maybe it isn’t Alec at all,” he said softly, “and it would look bad if we were seen here at this time o’ night.”

I saw the dim lights of a vehicle as it passed the drive leading to Achmore Lodge and came down the brae to the bridge.

“It is Alec, right enough,” said Duncan Mòr. “He has only his sidelights on.”

He stood up, and the lorry drew in to the side of the road. No time was wasted. The driver jumped out of the cab and hurried round to Duncan Mòr. I heard a few whispered words in Gaelic, then the driver opened the cab door on the nearside and slid the seat forward. There was a hinged panel under the seat and he opened it, revealing a deep compartment. Duncan Mòr lifted the bag of salmon into the hidden chamber, and the driver closed the panel and replaced the seat.

I watched the red tail-lamp of the lorry disappearing into the distance, and realized for the first time how tired I was. Duncan Mòr put his hand on my shoulder and we moved off along the road. When we had crossed the bridge we left the road and took the short cut alongside the river to his house.

We had almost reached the house, when I said, “What are we going to do now?”

“We must wait and see for a day or two,” said Duncan Mòr slowly. “This is a queer, queer business, and we must be sure we make the right move.”

“You know a lot more about it than you’ve told me,” I said, and I could not keep the resentment out of my voice.