Fraser's Voices

by Jack Hastie

  “So the otter died,” repeated One-eye thoughtfully. “He came up from the pools below the woods. Decided to change his hunting grounds and fish Kwarutta’s pool. I told him that would be bad luck. Kwarutta killed all that was in it and then was killed himself. Now the fish are dying and the frogs and toads and newts are leaving. The water birds are going too, those that came back after Kwarutta was killed. Nothing lives there any more.”

  “Why are they dying?” Fraser whispered.

  “The water smells bad,” said the fox. “I wouldn’t drink it or eat anything that came out of it. Some of the birds say it’s Kwarutta’s curse. Or perhaps it’s some new trick of your people to kill off the wood folk.”

  Fraser had no answer to that.

  THE HAUNTING

  Dyer crouched in his caravan. The yellow calor gas light let him read and write. There were noises in the night all around; the howl of the wind; the rushing and gurgling of the burn outside.

  The wind came and went, like a sick man gasping for breath. In the strongest gusts the caravan shook and Dyer decided that he would have to anchor it more securely in the morning. Then he heard another sound, above the wind and the chattering of the burn; an unearthly yell like nothing he had ever heard before.

  For a moment his mother’s Highland blood spoke to him of kelpies, but his brash Australian common sense soon reasserted itself and he turned over and went to sleep.

  The next morning was clear, the sky washed clean of cloud and the three blue peaks looking so close Dyer felt that he could reach out and touch them. This was a scene he had to paint, and to get the foreground he wanted he decided to take his easel down the Range Rover Track for several hundred yards, out of sight of the caravan, till the reflection of the peaks was mirrored exactly on the still surface of the loch and the houses of Dunadd crouched like brightly painted toys.

  He was there all day. When he returned in the early evening he saw at once that something was wrong.

  The caravan had moved.

  The wheels were no longer in line with the chockstones he had so carefully placed to keep them in position, and there were scratches in the paintwork he was sure had not been there in the morning. All around were the prints of cloven hooves as if a flock of sheep or a herd of deer – or devils – had danced around the caravan.

  And so a pattern was set; by night that unearthly howling; by day, whenever Dyer left the van, scratches and signs that it had been moved slightly; sometimes at night grey ghosts of mist would rise from nowhere and crawl and swirl over the moor so that everything was veiled and muffled and a rock would suddenly loom as if it were alive, like a… kelpie?

  But there wasn’t a lot of mist about that summer. The June heatwave lasted through July and local people told Dyer that he didn’t realise how lucky he had been. The burn grumbled quietly to itself among its rocks and pools and Dyer couldn’t imagine the slope above his site turning into the waterfall that Archie had predicted and sweeping his van away.

  “Locals are always like that,” he thought. “Like to exaggerate the dangers of where they live, just to impress tourists.”

  In fact Dyer now found himself with the opposite problem – how to collect enough water. But this was something he knew about from his expeditions in the Nullarbor Plain in South Australia, and he soon had sunk jerry cans in the burn and the bogs in places where they would collect all he needed.

  KWARUTTA’S POOL

  The dry weather did not suit everyone.

  Hobdax the hedgehog had a lean time of it because slugs and other soft creatures that need to stay moist, burrowed deep and kept well out of the way so that he had difficulty in finding them; Barook had to use his claws and dig deeper than he could ever remember.

  Klamath the heron fared better. He patrolled the wetlands below Sebek’s pool and, although frogs were hard to find, there were always enough fish to keep him going. Sebek himself ignored the hot weather; his pool would never dry out.

  Those who liked to hunt dry footed were in their element. One-eye prowled the trails of the wood, nose to the ground, for scents lie long when there is no rain to wash them away. Cruach the cat was out on the moor every night. Happiest of all was Eye of the Wind soaring endlessly and effortlessly in the rising currents of hot air.

  In the middle of the month the real drought set in. The wind settled in the east and brought a brown haze down on the land. The sky burned blue-hot day after day. The smaller burns shrivelled to the tiniest of trickles and even the fat peat bogs on the moor began to dry out, leaving cracked and caked crusts where there was usually soft mud.

  Only the Ballagan Burn still carried a little water and only the two biggest pools, Sebek’s and Kwarutta’s, remained deep enough for the bigger fish. There they bellied down into the mud and showed scarcely enough energy to rise for the water boatmen skating over the surface or the midges dancing in clouds just above it.

  It was during this time that Fraser set out to discover what had poisoned the otter. From what One-eye had told him he realised that whatever it was had come from Kwarutta’s pool. This was the highest pool in the wood. Beyond it the Ballagan Burn crawled through a gap in the boundary wall which separated the wood from the moor. Kwarutta had killed or driven away everything that had lived in or around the pool, but after he had died they had quickly re-colonised the place, for there were plenty of insects and plants and the feeding was good.

  Here Fraser came on his mission. Water creatures were, he knew, difficult to talk to. A shiver still ran down his spine when he remembered his meeting with Sebek the pike in the lower pool.

  “Perhaps,” he thought, “the best thing would be to settle down and listen and try to understand whatever I hear.

  So he squatted down on a big square stone which had fallen from the ruined cottage that stood beside the water, tried to shut out the silly chattering of the birds, and listened for the noises from the depths of the pool.

  There was a whirring of insect wings as big blue dragonflies hunted like hawks across the surface and wild bees droned round flowers in the patches of sunlight between the trees.

  There were plops and splashes as stickleback and perch came up and gulped for air and the rustle of reeds as larger fish nosed among their roots. All this was unintelligible to Fraser, so he settled down sleepily to wait for something more.

  Then he saw the stain. Like a big snake lying in wait, it meandered lazily, green and brown, from the inlet burn across the far end of the pool.

  There was also the smell. The pool was already beginning to dry out and the caking mud at the edges gave off a sharp-sour smell. Perhaps that was what One-eye, whose nose was a hundred times keener than any human’s, had meant when he said that the water smelled bad.

  It was hot and still and stuffy and smelly. The droning and the buzzing drummed a dreamy sort of sleep upon Fraser and he began to feel again that tumbling of the mind…

  When he wakened he was lying by the side of the pool, almost at eye level with the water. He could see the water boatmen on the surface and below them a diving beetle with its bright silver bubble of air under its tail and tiny leeches twisting like wires on the bottom.

  With one ear to the ground he could hear the shaking of moles in their tunnels and with the other the lapping of the water and the soft voices of the creatures in it. He lay still, trying to breathe short and shallow so as not to disturb their talk.

  “What’s the matter with the water? I can’t breathe.” An elderly trout flipped his tail weakly and gulped air in desperation.

  A newt under a stone on the bank turned a goggle eye in the direction of the fish. “I don’t know. I’ve had to come out.”

  The newt could, of course, live on land but he always felt uncomfortable there and it was reluctantly that he had crawled out of the pool, his skin burning and his eyes nipping.

  “All right for you,” gasped the trout, ”but I’m stuck here.”

  “Not really,” said the newt. “The water seems to be bet
ter downstream, as far as I can see. I’m going to try it once I’ve got my breath back. Why don’t you get out of here and take your chance in the burn?”

  “Looks too shallow, with the water as low as this.”

  “Well, its worth a try. Anything’s better than suffocating here. Give your tail a flip and get moving.”

  Fraser understood most of this, although the dialect was strange to someone used to the talk of birds and small animals and the voices were very soft. He wondered if they would be able to understand him, or would speak to him, since most of their enemies came from the world outside the water.

  “What moves?” he called, trying to imitate the accent of the fish.

  “This moves,” grunted the trout, obviously unaware of who had actually spoken to him. “This scum moves, and it stinks, and it suffocates. Who asks?”

  “Just someone on the bank,” replied Fraser, hoping the fish could not see how big he was.

  However, the trout was not alarmed. He probably thought that Fraser was some kind of wading bird for he went on, “Can’t you see for yourself? This dark stain is taking away our breath. Those who have legs or wings have gone long ago. Some of the smaller fish, minnows and sticklebacks have taken their chance in the shallows and got out of the pool, but I’m a fair size and I can’t do that easily.”

  Gasping with the exertion of this speech, the big fish settled belly deep in the mud like an elderly invalid taking to bed for good.

  Gently Fraser reached down and touched him. “Do what the newt said. There’s better water down stream. Go for it. Don’t let yourself be trapped in this poisonous place.”

  In desperation the trout summoned the energy to lash with his tail until he surged through the weeds and over the bar at the bottom end of the pool. Here the water was just deep enough for him, and he half swam, half wriggled until he reached a stretch where he could settle comfortably below the surface. Here the water seemed to be fresher for almost at once the fish livened up and Fraser saw him rise to take an insect from the surface.

  Until now Fraser had not dared to move. Now he stood up unsteadily, his head throbbing so that he had to hold on to the branch of a willow that overhung the pool. He knew what he must do. As One-eye had said, the water was poisoned. The fish and the frogs couldn’t be expected to know where the poison had come from, but one creature surely would. The only one who knew about all the burns and pools in the district was Klamath the heron. Fraser had to find him.

  KLAMATH THE HERON

  Klamath the heron was too big to do much flying. He had long legs to wade through shallow water and a long neck with a beak a foot long to snatch fish or frogs with a single dart. What he was best at was standing motionless with a patience One-eye or Cruach could never have matched, until something moved in his line of strike, and then the big beak did the rest.

  He could fly when he needed to, of course, and he had to in order to reach his nest, a big untidy affair at the top of a tree at the very bottom of the wood, near Sebek’s pool, handy for the wetlands and the shore of the loch.

  His other reason for flying was to change his fishing grounds and when he felt like doing this he would take off with a jump, coil his long neck back and fly with powerful sweeps of his big grey wings at a very fair speed.

  When the water was low he would often do this. He didn’t go far. He was no goose to set off on marathons to the other side of the world. Klamath knew where all the pools and burns were between the shore of the loch and the Sgurr and he flew on precise expeditions to definite destinations.

  Only he didn’t fish within the woods – his wings were too broad to manoeuvre among the branches; so the two biggest pools, Sebek’s and Kwarutta’s, were places he never visited.

  As that stifling July scorched on and the burn dropped and the pools dried out, the toads hid under stones and the frogs buried themselves in the mud. As Klamath strode the shrunken water even the fish lay low and were difficult to find.

  Then, once every day or two, he would dive into the air and flap his way over the wood and up above the moor to visit some lonely lochan or the upper reaches of the burn to decide where it might be worth coming down to try his luck. But the fishing was never good enough for it to be worth his while to come back. It was just after one of these expeditions when he had returned to patrol the shore of the loch that he met Fraser.

  “What moves?” asked the boy.

  “Not much. The water’s too low. Besides, it’s tainted. There’s something in it.”

  “I hear the fish are dying upstream.”

  “The water’s all right up on the moor,” answered Klamath. “No decent fish up there though. It’s not too bad down here; just a taint.”

  “The fish are dying in the pools in the woods.”

  “I don’t go there. But there is something new on the moor above the woods; a man’s house, and yet not really a house; it’s on wheels, like a tractor. Anyway he’s putting something in the burn. That’s what’s killing the fish. I went close for a look, but the smell was foul. I wouldn’t eat anything that came out of that stretch of the burn.”

  “A house on wheels,” thought Fraser. “A caravan, perhaps. On the moor? I wonder where.”

  RONA

  Rona, the vet nurse, was walking Sandy, her big yellow labrador, when he met her. Once or twice, since he had brought the otter to her, Fraser had wondered whether to tell her that animals can talk and that he could talk to them. She wasn’t like Jim Douglas, she loved animals, but then she was a lot older than he was and might not take him seriously.

  When he did let her into his secret, it was by accident.

  Sandy, running ahead of his mistress, came bounding towards Fraser, all paws and tail. The boy had serious matters on his mind just then and without thinking, instead of the usual “Good boy,” gave him “What moves?” in the accent he would have used towards One-eye.

  The effect was spectacular. The dog braked to a halt, all four paws spread out, cocked his ears and put his head on one side in a puzzled way.

  “Was that you?” he asked.

  Fraser didn’t feel he could deny it. “Yes. What moves?”

  “Where did you learn that trick?” Unlike the wild animals, Sandy knew enough about human beings to be quite certain that, lovable as they were as playmates, unfortunately they could not talk. “Not even my mistress can do that.”

  “Some birds taught me when I was in hospital.”

  “Birds!” Sandy seemed disappointed. “They’re not worth talking to.”

  Then an idea struck him and he became so excited that he chased his tail three times round before sitting down in front of Fraser expectantly. “Could you teach my mistress? She’s quite intelligent and I think she understands a lot of what I say to her.”

  By this time Rona had caught up, clearly baffled. At first it had seemed to her that Fraser and Sandy were barking and growling at each other and she wondered if the boy was teasing the dog. But as she got closer she could see, from his excited jumping and the flailing of his tail that Sandy was delighted about something.

  “Hi there,” she called to Fraser and then, as the excited dog continued to bark and jump about, “Sandy, quiet now. Calm down.”

  “It’s OK,” said Fraser. “He’s talking to me.”

  “I know, but he’s not supposed to bark like that.”

  “Then he couldn’t talk to me.”

  “Of course he could. Dogs talk with their tail and their ears. It’s called body language.”

  By this time Sandy was completely out of control, bounding round in circles, jumping up on the boy and the girl and making a noise that sounded to Rona like a mixture of a growl, a whine and a yelp. Fraser felt that he needed to prove himself. Anyway it would be OK to tell Rona. She would take him seriously now.

  “Will I tell you what he’s saying?”

  First he calmed the dog. “Your mistress doesn’t believe we can talk to each other. So sit still for a minute and I’ll explain.”

/>   Sandy lay down with his big brown nose between his paws. Fraser switched to human words. “He says he didn’t know humans could learn to talk. He says he thinks you’re quite clever and could I teach you to talk?”

  The girl laughed. “What an imagination you’ve got!”

  “You think I’m kidding?”

  He turned to the dog and they exchanged a series of yelps, barks and whines. Fraser translated: “He says you walked him across a field with cows in it this morning. He says that a fox had passed that way just before sunrise; he picked up the scent quite clearly. He says,” more barks and yelps from Sandy, “that you let him off the lead and he got into a burn and got muddy. Then he chased a rabbit – nearly caught it, he says. Is that true?”

  Rona’s eyes were wide with amazement. “How did you know that? You must have seen us.”

  “No. He just told me. Do you want me to ask him anything?”

  “Ask him who stole the cold ham mum left on the table last night.”

  Fraser obliged with a few growls and grunts.

  The answer was unmistakable, even to a human who couldn’t understand the language. The dog stood up with his ears flat against his head and his tail curved between his legs, whined a few abject apologies and pushed a big wet nose into Rona’s hand for forgiveness.

  “He says it was him. He’s very sorry,” translated Fraser unnecessarily.

  Rona was almost convinced. “Tell him I’m not angry anymore.”

  Fraser obliged again and the forgiven thief jumped up with a joyful bark and began licking his mistress’ face.

  Then it was time for serious human talk.

  While Sandy roamed on ahead and periodically reported back to Fraser on what animals had been there before them from the scents they had left behind, Rona was full of questions. How much could Fraser understand? What could he say to the animals? What animals had he spoken to? What did they tell him? How had he learned to speak their language?

  The last question worried him. Fraser didn’t know how he had come by his gift. But he did know that he had first had it after driving down that road in France with the sunlight flashing through the poplars – the flashing light, the tumbling of his mind. And he knew that he had lost it when he had taken the pills the consultant had given him.