Beyond the Wild River

by Sarah Maine

  When Marcel had first told them all this Louis’s eyes had sparkled, and he had been thoughtful for a couple of days. Somehow he had persuaded Marcel to take them to find Achak, to try to establish a claim. Just a small one. One that Achak might agree to – no claims had yet been registered and the exact location of the seam was known to few. The original prospector had only been an agent, Marcel had told them, acting for another man. So this was the moment to seize, Louis had insisted, before others beat a path to Achak’s door.

  And last night, incredibly, they had managed to persuade the new chief to agree to the outline of a deal. He had listened to them in silence, surrounded by his dogs and his family, and then had nodded, and after further discussion the business had been done. They could mine on a limited scale over a defined area, dividing their profits with Achak and his followers, and with Achak retaining a measure of control. It was a better outcome than they could have dreamed of, and they would start next season.

  Next season, when the geese returned—

  James stretched out and rolled himself in his blanket, listening as Louis and Marcel slipped into the patois they used between themselves, and grinned again in the darkness. There was a glorious craziness to it all! Louis was undoubtedly right, it had been a moment to seize, but what did they know about mining? He might shrug off Marcel’s questions, mesmerised by the glinting quartz samples, but between them they hadn’t a clue—

  He folded his arms beneath his head, and lay on his back, breathing deeply the aromatic scent of spruce blended with woodsmoke from their fire, and listened to the vast silence beyond the circle of its light, sensing the mile upon mile of virgin forest, which surrounded them. A great empty wilderness – unimaginable. Somewhere, in the distance, a wolf howled, and its cry was taken up by others, more distant. They would not approach the camp, but even so the three men would take turns through the hours of darkness, keeping the fire alight, a rifle in readiness.

  He should sleep now until it was his turn to watch, and he closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. But sleep eluded him, and after a while, he opened them again and lay staring up at the full moon watching as it lit the fringes of a cloud.

  And, uninvited, a memory slipped into his mind – an image of how the moon shone on the bend in the river above Ballantyre House, transforming it into a ribbon of beaten silver. And he found himself thinking back to when he had lain beside another fire, with a different companion, sheltered by a rocky overhang, hidden by roots and brambles, and how they had listened to a different sort of silence. A softer silence—

  But they had remained alert, not for fear of wolves but of men who despised them and wished them harm. Worse than wolves, and meaner. And there was an irony that here, in this wild place, James felt safer. He could travel openly, taking food at will, and sleep untroubled under the starlit dome of the heavens. No keepers stalked him, no landowner could charge him with trespass, no magistrate deny him his liberty. No one would accuse him – and as James stared at the night sky it seemed that Jacko’s face stared back at him from the stars, weather-wrinkled and homely, split by his vagabond grin. But then the image fractured and he saw the old poacher as he had last seen him, a toothless wreck, half-crazed as he lay bleeding in his arms.

  James rolled over onto his side and tried again for sleep. It was the same each year, the onset of autumn seemed to stir these memories.

  Autumn had always brought trouble.

  He pulled the blankets close, shutting his eyes, but found he was drawn inexorably back to that day, and to that night – a night that divided the before and after. And he heard Melrose’s hooves ringing hollow on the wooden footbridge as he fled astride the mare, the leaves falling around him as he sought the old way through the woods, his passage lit by filtered moonlight.

  Bad things happened in autumn.

  Once it had been harvest and plenty, full hearts and full bellies, and he, at eighteen, had strutted about the stable yard at Ballantyre House like a game cock, complacent and self-satisfied. Then the shooting season had come, and a single shot had shattered the illusion. Blood had spread on Jacko’s filthy shirt like the summer’s colours draining from the land, leaving him betrayed and bitter. And cast out.

  It had been autumn too, years earlier, when his uncle had died in a bleak cottage on the Kelso road, and Jacko had come for him, then a boy of nine, spiriting him away before the parish worthies arrived. ‘They’ll not starve you with their cold comfort,’ he had promised, taking James’s small hand in his. ‘Your uncle was my friend, and now I’m yours.’ And the old poacher had rolled him in his coat that first night, and he had slept curled up like a hedgehog beside him in a frosty ditch under the waning moon.

  Winter, when it came, had been mild, softened too by an early spring and then a fruitful summer, but autumn had brought a new disaster. McAllister and his henchmen had caught them taking salmon one clouded night, using lanterns and harpoons. Jacko had put up a tremendous fight, inflaming the keepers’ anger and holding them off until James could escape, yelling – ‘Run, lad! Don’t look back. Run!’ And James had run, leaving Jacko to his fate, and had spent the winter working as a stable hand in the inn, fed and housed by the friendly landlord, gnawed by guilt as he awaited Jacko’s release.

  And then, joy of joys, as May blossoms bedecked the hedgerows, Jacko had come for him, lifting him high with a jubilant roar, swinging him round and round until he was dizzy. But it was a harder, angrier Jacko who had come, more ready with his fists and his curses, though not for James, never for him! He gave James only kindness. And they had had a high old time of it, living well off Ballantyre’s bounty, taunting McAllister with their impudence through the whole summer and into the glorious autumn: they had stolen washing from the drying green behind the house, vegetables from the walled garden, milk from cows which strayed to the riverbank, and as much game as they had a fancy to catch. And that winter had been a good one too. Jacko had taken up with the blacksmith’s widow and James had slept in front of the fire, well fed and content until the spring, when she had grown tired of Jacko’s attentions and thrown them out.

  James heard a movement and was wide awake at once. A shadow moved on the edge of the darkness, and he sat up. ‘Wolf.’ Louis spoke softly. ‘Been there awhile, in the shadows, watching us. Cubs too, I think. Smelled the partridges.’

  So the creatures had found them after all, they too made reckless by hunger. ‘I’ll watch now,’ said James. ‘Can’t sleep anyway.’ Louis passed him the rifle, pulled a blanket over himself, and was soon snoring. And James sat with the gun across his knees, resting his back against a boulder, watching the shifting shadows around the fire while memories poured through his breached defences.

  Another year passed and autumn had come again, and Jacko was taken up a second time. James had hidden, cringing in the brambles near the riverbank, listening in horror to the sounds of Jacko taking a beating at McAllister’s bidding: Ballantyre’s head keeper was a vindictive man. James had remained frozen there, trembling long after they had taken Jacko away, too frightened to move – and that night it had been a fox not a wolf who had come, casting a contemptuous glance towards his fearful presence.

  He had been only twelve that autumn, left hungry and wretched to fend for himself. And what a poor job he had made of it – just two weeks later he had run into the keepers as they sheltered in a copse, the smoke from their tobacco blown the other way. McAllister had grabbed him with a roar of triumph and thrown him to the ground, tearing the jacket off his back, pinning him down with a mighty booted foot while he searched his pockets for an incriminating snare. But James had been well taught and he had found nothing.

  ‘Clever lad,’ he had growled as he hauled James to his feet, twisting his arm behind him, his mean eyes narrowed, his teeth black and yellow, his breath foul. ‘So it’s Jacko’s little apprentice, is it? Keeping your hand in while the old man’s locked up? Mr Ballantyre’s been wanting to meet you, my lad,’ and they had pulled him wr
iggling and twisting until subdued by blows, and dragged him out of the forest, along the riverbank and onto the bottom of the manicured lawns which swept up the slope to Ballantyre House.

  A low sound came from the edge of the trees and James stiffened, peering into the darkness. Louis was right, there were cubs, two of them, and one of them was growing bolder, making short dashes, scrabbling amongst the partridge feathers and gore for scraps. Somewhere in the shadows the mother gave another soft growl and the cubs returned to her, and as they melted away into the darkness the forest grew silent again.

  James got to his feet, easing his cramped muscles, and went to put more wood on the fire. He moved the kettle to reheat the last of the coffee, although he was wide awake now, consumed by the past and the memories, sharp as the wolf cubs’ teeth, that gnawed at his consciousness.

  And as he stood there, staring down into the embers, it was Ballantyre himself whom he saw amongst the ashes. Ballantyre, as he had seen him that first evening, strolling on the terrace with his cigar and his dogs at his heels, his small daughter skipping beside him. He had looked up as McAllister dragged James across the lawns towards him, and frowned as they approached. But when McAllister explained whom he had caught, the man had studied James with a disconcerting intensity, taking in his bruised face and torn clothes. Then he had dismissed them, bidding the keeper to secure him for the night, and feed him. They would talk in the morning.

  Ballantyre House, Scottish Borders, Ten Years Earlier

  James crouched in what was the only dry part of the outbuilding. He had been in that same cramped position ever since he had fallen after trying to shin up the wall to reach the small window only to find it nailed shut. He had lost his grip, landing awkwardly, and twisted his ankle. He could feel it swelling and wiped a sleeve across his eyes, mingling dirt and terror with unmanly tears. Blood soaked through the torn knee of his trousers. The rank-smelling horse blanket he had draped around his shoulders gave little warmth and no comfort, but he stayed hunched there in the darkness, cold and sleepless, in dread of the morning.

  And of Ballantyre.

  Ballantyre was the enemy, all-powerful, heartless, and hard. Because of him they had been hunted all summer and because of him Jacko was in prison again, and James was here now, on his own. Ballantyre owned the universe around them, while they had nothing. He had had Jacko sent down repeatedly over the years, even before the old poacher had taken James under his wing, convicting him variously of vagrancy, thieving, poaching, disturbing the peace – the length of sentence increasing each time as the courts demanded that he reform his ways. But each time Jacko had come out defiant and unbowed. ‘Ballantyre wants to redeem me,’ he told James, after the last time, ‘but I’ll not submit to him or to any authority which exists only to serve its own ends. When there’re better laws, I’ll respect them. And until then I’ll live by my own rules, in my own way. So let’s see whose will is strongest – Ballantyre’s or mine.’ And James had looked up at the old man with worshipful eyes as he hawked and spat into the fire, sealing his defiance. ‘God dropped me and Ballantyre here like seeds to grow beside each other on this same bit of land,’ he had continued, warming to his theme. ‘But Ballantyre was an acorn, see, and he fell on soil manured by money, so his seed grew mighty branches and became a strong and shapely tree, while my wee willow fell beside the riverbank.’ His eyes had gleamed in the firelight. ‘But it too grew strong there, see? – all secret, sending down deep roots and dipping its branches in the water, making shade for the salmon. Ballantyre’s oak built ships for the empire and roofs for great houses while my willow was only fit for making baskets, or hiding the dabchick and the otter.’ James laughed, but Jacko had raised a finger to halt him. ‘And yet when the oak is felled all that remains is the stump, a feast for ants and beetles, but what happens if you cut down the willow?’ James shook his head, as was expected of him. ‘It sends out new shoots, my lad, low and wide along the riverbank, for the willow is a wily one—’

  The door of the outbuilding was suddenly thrown open. Sunlight spiked James’s reddened eyes, and Jacko’s defiant image vanished. ‘Out with you.’ It was one of the keepers who had taken him up the evening before. ‘And wash the stink off yourself.’ He was shown the privy, and then the pump in the centre of the courtyard where he was told to strip off his shirt and wash while McAllister stood over him, arms folded, and other members of the household came to stare. He washed quickly, conscious of his puny white chest and thin arms, drying himself with his shirt as best he could, before pulling it back over his head, shivering all the while. When he was done, McAllister gripped his arm and marched him, limping, towards the back door of the house. They went through a wash house, draped with laundry, past stores and pantries, a scullery, the kitchen with its tormenting smells, and finally through a green baize door to emerge from the servants’ passage into the hush of another world.

  The silence there was reverential.

  He gawped as McAllister propelled him along wood-panelled corridors hung with paintings and lined with polished chests, through an aura of order and stability where the heady scent of cut flowers mingled with beeswax and lavender. Silken hangings framed long windows, skirting the floors, and James gaped in wonder, swallowing a rising panic as he thought of the man who could command these riches.

  Thick patterned rugs cushioned his footsteps as they crossed a galleried hall, and from above the fireplace a stag’s head looked down on his impudence, while a retriever lay dozing, soothed by the tick of a longcase clock. It lifted its ears as they passed, its tail thumping a greeting, and it sniffed, intrigued by the cocktail of smells that James trailed behind him. Then a movement overhead caught James’s attention and he looked up to see a child staring down at him through the bars of the galleried landing. He recognised the little girl who had been on the terrace yesterday, Ballantyre’s daughter, and she gave him a sort of smile, half-lifting a hand. McAllister looked up, and then pushed him on ahead, stopping at last at a closed door and raising his hand to knock.

  A quiet voice bade them enter.

  The master of Ballantyre House stood at one of the long windows with his back to them, a tall man, erect and handsome, the embodiment of unassailable authority. The window overlooked the garden borders and beyond to lawns which stretched to the river, and beyond the river to the woods that were James’s home. The man turned as they entered and James clamped his jaws shut to stop them from trembling and lifted his chin. Let’s see whose will is strongest – Ballantyre’s or mine.

  The man gave him a piercing look, as if he had heard the challenge. It was a look which seemed to prise open James’s mind, seeing every grouse snared, every salmon speared, every farthing stolen – and saw through his fragile defiance to base wretchedness. Courage curdled to despair – there was, after all, no contest. Ballantyre’s will would prevail and it would take James to one of two places: Rothmere Hall, or the reformatory in Kelso. Or was he old enough now for prison? Jacko would have known—

  ‘Has he eaten?’ Ballantyre’s first words startled him.

  ‘I gave him food, sir.’ Food? A stale piece of bread thrown into the outhouse last night as the door was shut and bolted.

  Ballantyre glanced down at him, and seemed to read that thought too. ‘This morning?’ he asked.

  ‘No, sir.’

  Ballantyre frowned. ‘Then have the kitchen send something here. Something hot – a bowl of porridge, I think. And eggs. Warm milk too.’ James saw outrage on the keeper’s face that he should be sent on such a mission and allowed himself a smirk.

  As the door closed behind him, Ballantyre turned back to consider James. ‘So,’ he said. ‘Poaching, my lad—’

  The smirk vanished. ‘You c’n only get me for trespass. He found nothing on me—’

  Nervousness made him reckless, and Ballantyre raised his eyebrows. ‘Are you teaching me the law, young man?’ The tone silenced him. ‘I need hardly ask where you learned such subtleties; Jack McDonald fancied
himself as something of an expert.’ James looked away and began studying the painting above the fireplace. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Thirteen.’ Was it better to be young or old? ‘Nearly—’

  ‘Well, thirteen nearly is very early to have embarked on a life of crime.’ James continued his scrutiny of the painting; it was of an odd crested bird, black in colour with a strange beak. ‘It’s no sort of life, you know.’ James made no response. ‘Do you hear me—?’ The man had not raised his voice but James jumped, and nodded before looking away again. ‘Your patron got six months this time, I recall, and it’ll be a year if he transgresses again. Look at me, if you will, young man! What’s your name?’ James told him, and the man nodded, as if this accorded with his information. ‘So if you weren’t poaching, James Douglas, what were you doing in my woods?’ It was a simple question, but James had no answer, so he looked back at the strange bird instead, and stayed silent. It wasn’t plain black, in fact, but a bluish-black, glossy like a raven.

  ‘It’s a macaw,’ said Ballantyre unexpectedly. ‘From South America. My uncle brought it back from his travels and it lived for many years.’ James looked at Ballantyre again and nodded cautiously, for want of what to say. ‘I don’t suppose you know where South America is, do you?’ James stayed silent. Why would he? ‘Do you know your letters?’

  ‘Some—’ Jacko had taught him to write his name and to read a little, but he was not sure whether or not to admit to that.