The Hill of the Red Fox (19 page)

I lay across the rough blankets listening to the drumming of the rain on the tent. My immediate reaction was one of relief that I was no longer exposed to the fury of the storm. I was too dazed to
appreciate
the extent of my good fortune. All I wanted to do was to lie still and rest. The chase across the moor had exhausted me, numbing my mind as well as my body. I could hardly realize that I had succeeded, at least for the time being, in eluding my pursuers.

Somewhere outside, a man cried out. I was on my feet in an instant, poised ready for flight, my tiredness forgotten. But flight was impossible. I was trapped within the narrow confines of the tent; what had been an eagerly sought shelter was now a cage. Sick at heart, I crouched down, straining my ears to catch every sound.

A sudden furious gust of wind shook the flimsy walls of the tent, and the framework rocked and creaked under the onslaught. For one dreadful moment I thought it was about to succumb to the force of the wind and leave me exposed and defenceless. Then the gust subsided and there was only the steady drumming of the rain against the taut canvas.

I heard several voices all talking at once, then a cold,
commanding
voice that I knew only too well, cut in and silenced the others. It was Major Cassell.

“What are you doing out at this time of night?” he demanded curtly.

It was the young tinker who replied, although I hardly
recognized
his voice. There was nothing belligerent about him now; indeed, his voice had such a whining, grovelling note that the little confidence I had left, vanished at the sound of it. I waited tensely for him to betray me.

“What are you doing out at this time of night?” repeated the
Major, in an even sharper tone.

“We heard the shot, sir,” whined the tinker, “and saw the lights on the moor and we were after wondering what could be the cause o’ it.”

“There was no shot,” snapped the Major. “My car backfired. Understand?”

“Your car back-fired, sir,” he repeated obediently.

“Don’t try to bluff me,” said Major Cassell angrily. “You chaps are never inside at night; it’s in the daytime you take your rest. I know you too well. At night you’re prowling around to see what you can lift. It’s the police for you, if you’re not careful. Understand? And the old man as well.”

I could hear the whining note of complaint in the tinker’s voice, although I could not make out the words.

The Major cut him short, and said curtly, “Enough of that. I want to know if you have seen a boy running this way. I am responsible for him. He is mentally unbalanced. Understand? Not right in the head. Thinks everybody is going to harm him. It’s not the first time he has run away, but I am worried about him. If he is left out on a night like this he will get his death of cold. If you can lead me to him, I’ll not report you to the police this time.”

Nobody spoke for what seemed an eternity.

“Well,” said Major Cassell impatiently, “have you seen the boy? Come on, man, there’s a five-pound note for you if you help me.”

“Aye, I’ve seen him,” admitted the tinker.

Once more there was an ominous silence. I could picture the tinker silently pocketing the five-pound note and pointing to the tent. Still nobody spoke. There was no sound save the beating of the rain on the canvas and the rising shriek of the wind as it swept down from the hill, flung itself against the tent, and subsided angrily into a low sough, gathering strength for the next gust. It would have been a relief to my overwrought nerves if I had shouted, “I’m here,” and put an end to the terrible suspense of my own free will. Somehow or other I controlled myself and waited tensely.

“Well, where is he?” barked the Major. “Speak up, man.”

At least he had been unwilling to give me up, I thought, and no poor man could be expected to withstand the lure of a five-pound note coupled with the threat of the police. Whatever happened, it was better than waiting like this, anticipating each word as if it were the stroke of an executioner’s sword. I crouched back against the wall of the tent, expecting the flap to be thrown open at any moment and the Major’s men to rush in and seize me.

“I didn’t want to be disappointing you, sir,” whined the tinker. “It was myself tried to stop the boy, but he was away before I could get a right grip on him. Running like a hare he was and heading straight for the cliff. Never a chance would he have with his head down and the night so black. Aye, and bad off-shore currents too. Maybe the poor boy’s body will never be washed up.”

“You are sure he went over the cliff?” queried the Major eagerly, and I noticed that he could not keep the relief out of his voice.

“Certain sure, sir,” assented the tinker. “If I could have got a right grip on him I might have held him, but how was I to know that the poor
truaghan
would make for the cliff?”

Major Cassell cleared his throat. “I’m sure you did your best, my man,” he said. “Here. Take this.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the tinker. “Thank you.”

The Major said something that I didn’t catch and then there was silence again with only the monotonous drumming of the rain on the tent. I shivered suddenly and picked up one of the blankets and wrapped it around my legs, and sat down to wait.

I must have dozed off to sleep for when I looked up suddenly with a start the young tinker was standing in the middle of the tent with a lighted match in his hand. He lit the lamp and blew out the match and stood looking down at a silver coin in his hand. He thrust it into his pocket.

“Gentry,” he growled, making the word sound like an oath, and spat on the floor.

“Have they gone?” I asked nervously, hardly able to believe that he had stood by me.

“Aye, the most o’ them,” he answered. “But a couple of them are
searching around the edge o’ the cliff and another one is prowling about below the crofts at Achmore.” He looked at me thoughtfully, and said slowly, “They must want you terrible bad, boy.”

Looking up at his dark, unshaven face I wondered how far I could trust him, and I was instantly ashamed of the thought. Had he not sheltered me from Major Cassell’s men, and rejected a handsome reward, all on the strength of the name of Jamie Finlayson? But I knew it was one thing for a tinker to help the friend of a fellow poacher and quite another for him to come to the aid of the law. He would want nothing to do with the police, so I would have to be careful I didn’t scare him off. If only I had Duncan Mòr to guide me.

“Do you know Duncan Mòr MacDonald of Mealt?” I said
suddenly
.

“Aye, I know the big fellow,” he said guardedly.

“He has taken to the hills,” I said. “The police are after him.”

The tinker showed no surprise.

“I know that,” he said calmly, “and many the long day will they spend looking for him. There is not a better man on the hill in all the western world than Duncan Mòr. It is me that knows that, and it is the
polis
will be knowing it before they are done with the big fellow.”

There could be no doubt where his sympathy lay, so I said eagerly, “I’ve got to see Duncan Mòr before tomorrow night. I …”

I stopped short. The tent flap was pulled aside and I saw the old tinker’s face framed in the opening. He hissed something in Gaelic, then withdrew again, and the wet flap slapped back across the opening.

“The men are coming back from the cliff,” said the young tinker softly.

He pushed me into the far corner of the tent, and I lay flat on the grass while he threw some blankets over me.

“Be quiet,” he whispered. “You are safe enough.”

Almost at once my throat started to tickle and I wanted to cough. I could feel the cough welling up inside me, but I fought it back and tried to breathe slowly through my nose. To make matters worse, my back started to itch, and I was sure that some insect was crawling up
my leg. I clenched my fists until the nails dug into the palms of my hands, and willed myself to lie still when every fibre of my body was longing for movement.

Suddenly the blanket was yanked away from my head and
shoulders
. I let out a cry of surprise and sprang to my feet, but it was only the young tinker.

“They are away now,” he said quietly, “but there is still a man on watch below Achmore and others forby for all I know. It is yourself is here for the night, boy, and maybe longer or the name of my father’s son is not Seumas Stewart.”

“But I must see Duncan Mòr,” I protested. “You don’t
understand
. It’s important. I’ve got to see him. You don’t understand, I tell you.”

“I understand well enough,” he retorted. “You would never make the hill at all on a night like this, and what happens if you walk into the men from the Lodge? Fine they would know who had hidden you, and they would be after telling the Major. Aye, the Major with the eyes on him as cold as a hungry cat. No, no, boy, when you leave this tent it is inside a bedroll with you and into the bottom of the cart. That is all there is about it.”

“But I’ve got to see Duncan Mòr,” I cried wildly, and in my
anxiety
I stepped forward and clutched his ragged jacket.

He looked at me curiously, and said slowly, “Many a thing I would do for a friend of Jamie Finlayson, but if you leave this tent, and the Major’s men get you, myself and the old man are done for. We are poor folk of the road and hard enough is the life for us
without
the Major putting the law on us.”

I knew well enough that he was speaking the truth, but all I could do was to repeat doggedly, “I’ve got to see Duncan Mòr.”

The tinker took my hand from his jacket and said quietly, “If the big fellow is to be found, it is myself will take a message to him, but time enough for that in daylight.” I made to speak, but he went on quickly, “You are blue with the cold, boy, and shaking like a leaf. Off with those clothes and dry yourself.”

I had not realized how chilled I had become. My legs were numb
and I could hardly stop my teeth chattering. I stripped off my clothes obediently, and the tinker handed me a tattered towel and I rubbed my wet body until the skin tingled and glowed.

There was an old iron stove in the centre of the tent with a crooked chimney protruding through the domed roof, and the tinker tied a string from the chimney to one of the hazel ribs of the tent and hung my wet clothes over it. Then he spread some dry hay on the ground and folded four blankets in such a way that they formed a rough sleeping bag and laid them on top of the hay.

I wriggled down between the rough blankets, certain that I would never sleep again until I had seen Duncan Mòr and told him all I knew. I can remember seeing the tinker break a peat across his knee and drop it into the stove, then my eyes seemed to close of their own volition. I must have fallen asleep instantly.

I woke up once during the night and I started up and looked around fearfully, wondering where I was. The lamp was still burning and the old tinker was crouched down beside the tent flap, puffing away at a short clay pipe. There was something reassuring about his watchful figure and I turned on my side and closed my eyes again. In the morning Seumas Stewart would take a message to Duncan Mòr and all would be well. But how was he to find him in all that
rock-girt
waste of hill country? With a sob of relief, I recalled the cave in the hill hidden by the two rowan trees. Duncan Mòr was sure to be lying up in the old still. With that comforting thought in my mind, I fell into a deep, untroubled sleep.

When I awoke the flap was open and the sunlight was streaming into the tent. The gale must have spent itself during the night for the air was still. I sat up, rubbing my eyes and yawning. The old man was standing over a pot on the stove. Without a word he gathered my clothes from the makeshift line and tossed them over to me. They were dry and warm and I dressed quickly.

I was about to go out of the tent when the old man seized me by the shoulder and dragged me back.

“Stay. Stay,” he said excitedly. “Wait for Seumas. Understand?”

His English was halting and difficult to make out, but there was
no mistaking the urgency of his tone. I nodded, but he did not return to the stove until I had gone back to my bed and sat down on the blankets.

I never heard the approach of the young tinker. His shadow fell across the opening and when I looked up he was standing inside the tent. He was wearing a pair of badly fitting, thin-soled shoes, the uppers of which were split and broken, but he moved as quickly and surely as a cat. His jacket hung about his shoulders in tattered shreds and his trousers had been patched and repatched until it was hard to trace the pattern of the original cloth. Perched on the back of his head, at a jaunty angle, was an old tweed cap, and his black curly hair sprouted out from under it in all directions. His face was lean and watchful, and he reminded me of some wild animal, bold in its own fashion, but poised ready for instant flight.

“Time for food, boy,” he said, “and then we will be after seeing about the big fellow on the hill.”

I hadn’t thought to look at my watch and when I did so I saw that both hands pointed to twelve o’clock. A flood of remonstrances rose to my lips, but I bottled them down. It was my own fault that I had slept so late, and I could not deny the tinker his meal before he took the long tramp to the hill.

We ate fresh salmon with our fingers and thick slices of bread and butter and washed it all down with strong sweet tea. Nobody spoke, and I was glad of the silence because I was so hungry I did not want to waste time on words when I could be eating.

When we had finished, Seumas Stewart eyed me
contemplatively
.

“What do you want me to say to the big fellow?” he asked.

“Tell him to listen to the radio,” I said slowly. “Tell him a special announcement is being broadcast every two hours. Tell him it was a submarine we heard that Saturday night in the Sound. Tell him Major Cassell is trying to get Dr Reuter away from Skye tonight.”

The tinker repeated the words over and over again, until he had memorized them, and I told him to search the hill to the south of Loch Cuithir, for I was sure that Duncan Mòr would not be far from
the old still.