by Jeff Gulvin
So they came to the place where the Owl of Cwm Cawlwyd made his home, and enquired of him after Mabon.
‘If I knew I would tell thee,’ spoke the Owl. ‘When first I came upon this place, this great valley you see before you now was a wooded glen. But the race of men came and tore it up by the root, and there grew a second wood and then a third. All this time passed and I remained here, and yet I know not of this Mabon you speak.’ He ruffled his wings and said, ‘Nevertheless, I will guide thee, emissaries of Arthur, to the place where dwellest the oldest creature of this world. Where he has not travelled there is no such place. I’ll take you to the Eagle of Gwern Abwy.’
As she rode home the rain had been replaced by clear skies and a sun that picked out the flattened pieces of exposed rock and heated them. Warmth spread through her veins and she knew the image of the breeding pair would remain imprinted on her mind for ever. She rode back to the field and unsaddled the horse, then shovelled the muck from the stable. Keira stood while she groomed her, Imogen taking the brush to her mane and tail as well as her flanks. Then she loosed her and sat for a while with the sun on her face, looking across Loch Duich to Skye. When she finally got home she found the American parked in her drive.
Connla had been there for an hour already. He had driven straight to her house, not thinking about food or where he would stay for the night. He knew she wasn’t home as soon as he saw the Land-Rover was missing, so he’d turned the truck around and headed up to the horse’s field. She wasn’t there, either, and he had hesitated for a long moment, sitting by the five-bar gate with the engine idling. The man with the shaggy hair had gone by in his green Volvo and given Connla the eye, so he’d decided to drive back to her house and wait.
He didn’t know why he had come other than on that morning’s impulse; he had followed such urges all his life and had never really regretted it. But as he sat there and the time dragged by he wondered if he might regret it now. It was two in the afternoon and he lit a cigarette, something he never did unless his head was up his ass. He was staring at the loch when he heard the rumble of her old oil-burning truck. He saw her cross the second bridge and then disappear into the trees before coming round the headland, past the last of the whitewashed houses. He waited, aware of the tension in his gut. He really had no idea why he had come here and less still of what he was going to say to her. But her truck pulled up and there she was in her heavy work boots, grubby dungarees, and yet with a femininity about her that took his breath away. He opened his door and slid to the ground. She looked into his face and smiled.
‘Hello,’ she said.
‘Hello.’
She hauled her pack from the back of the truck and led the way to the house. For a second Connla paused, waiting to be asked in, but she just looked over her shoulder and smiled once more. He followed her into the kitchen, where she laid down her pack and went straight to the kettle.
‘Would you like a cup of tea or a beer?’ she asked.
‘Tea would be great, thanks.’
‘Sit down.’ She gestured to the pine chairs at the table and Connla eased one back. He slipped his field jacket from his shoulders and set it behind him. The kitchen was warm, with the sun streaming through the window, setting the particles of dust dancing.
He watched her at the sink, sleeves pushed up, revealing the smooth skin of her forearms, the hair over her face hanging in a braided curtain of black. She washed her hands, shook them out, then turned to face him, flicking her hair over one shoulder as she dried her hands on a towel. She watched him watching her and she could feel a hint of butterflies in her stomach; not fear, not apprehension, just that strange nervous fluttering when someone you like has their attention fixed totally on you. Neither of them spoke. She finished drying her hands, then turned from him again, aware of his gaze even more intensely as she reached for mugs from the dresser. She placed tea bags in the mugs, then poured on the boiling water, fetched milk and sugar and set everything out on the table.
Connla was aware of the tightness in his throat as he watched her, the little smile edging her lips into creases. She held up the milk bottle and he nodded.
‘And sugar?’
Again he nodded, studying her face, little crow’s-feet just beginning to show at the corners of her eyes and laughter lines by her mouth. She glanced at him, her hair falling over her face. She hooked it behind her ear.
‘What brought you back?’
‘You did.’
She paused, the mug in her hand half extended towards him. Then, avoiding his eye, she set it down before him.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. I woke up before dawn this morning and decided to come and see you.’ He could see the movement in her throat as she swallowed a mouthful of tea, eyes still anywhere but on his. ‘Where were you this morning?’
‘Tomintoul.’
‘Was your trip successful?’
‘Yes and no.’
Now she did look at him and her gaze was clear and even. She considered his face: the lines in his forehead and around his eyes from years of squinting in sunlight; hair hanging to his shoulders; eyes like slices of green crystal. She looked at his hands as they encased the mug, veins blue and prominent against the skin, a broken nail on the index finger of the right one. She could see the hairs on his forearm poking out from the sleeve of his shirt.
‘I was tracking a panther that killed a sheep at Cock Bridge.’
She stared at him now, eyes suddenly wide. ‘Really?’
He nodded.
‘Did you find it?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re joking.’
He shook his head. ‘A black leopard with cubs.’
‘You’re serious, aren’t you.’
‘Very.’ He leaned forward. ‘I wanted to get a photograph. To prove that big cats are running wild in the UK.’
‘And did you?’
Connla shook his head.
He told her about the SSPCA and meeting Cullen, and the trips they had made together. Imogen was leaning forward now, the ends of her hair trailing on the tabletop. Connla had to fight the urge to lean over and caress that hair, run his fingers through that hair, drag that hair to his face and smell the warmth in it.
‘What happened?’ she asked him.
‘We found the panther, or rather Cullen’s pitbull did.’ He told her what had happened.
‘There’s a male out there somewhere, and she’s mated with him, which proves the numbers must be reasonably significant. The cub was pure leopard. I didn’t get a chance to see the other one, but I think there were two. Leopards usually have two cubs at a time and there’s nothing to kill them out here. I didn’t get any pictures because, like I said, Cullen’s dog went for one of the cubs. The mother killed the dog and Cullen tried to shoot the mother.’
Imogen stared at him then, her hand trembling slightly where she rested her wrist against the edge of the table. Her own recent experiences echoed in her head. Connla suddenly sat back and ran both hands through his hair. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.’
‘It’s OK.’ She smiled, and her smile was reassuring, urging him to go on.
‘Anyway, I was too busy trying to stop Cullen shooting her to get any pictures.’ He sighed, then thought for a moment. ‘I’ve got some plaster casts of the paw prints in my truck, though. Would you like to see them?’
‘I’d love to.’
She watched him cross the yard, long-legged, loose-limbed, hair picked up by the breeze. His shoulders were lean and sinewy, and not too wide. She watched him every step of the way; watched his back and the way his shirt bagged just above his bottom. She watched him open the boot of his truck, reach in and come out with his pack. She leaned in the doorway, arms folded, one dungaree strap hanging loose at her waist. Connla turned and caught a glimpse of her before she straightened up and lifted the strap over her shoulder. He had felt her eyes on him as he’d crossed the yard and he delight
ed in the intensity of the gaze. He felt warm and wanted and, above all, understood, as if something deep inside her knew who he really was, though the realization had yet to break her consciousness.
She made more tea and watched while he undid the drawstring on the old canvas bag. But his face froze as he reached inside, and then he closed his eyes, biting down on his lip.
‘What is it?’ Suddenly her hand was on his arm.
He lifted out the polythene bags. Imogen stared at them, filled with crumbling bits of plaster. Connla sat down heavily. All the casts were broken, shattered beyond recognition.
‘Was it the journey?’ she asked him.
He shook his head and lifted the pack to the light. Both of them could see it clearly, the dirty outline of a boot mark on the material. ‘Cullen did this.’ Connla frowned deeply. ‘But how? I had them in my room with me all night.’
‘Where were you staying?’
‘Just a small hotel.’ He forced the air from his cheeks with a hiss. ‘I didn’t lock my door. I never thought to. Thank God my cameras weren’t in there.’ He kept those separately in twin aluminium cases. Then another thought struck him. He still had the undeveloped film he had taken of the paw prints. He looked at his watch, nearly four o’clock. ‘Imogen,’ he said. ‘D’you know where I can get film developed quickly?’
‘There’s a place in Kyle.’ She smiled again, softness in her eyes. ‘I’ll show you, if you like.’
They took his Land-Rover and drove to the Kyle of Lochalsh. ‘Could you track the leopard again?’ she asked him.
He shrugged. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. But they’re awful hard to find. This one’s gonna be even more careful after what happened with the dog.’ He sighed. ‘I guess if I holed up in the Shelter Stone for a week or two I might catch a glimpse. The trouble is, I don’t have a week or two.’
Imogen could feel her heart sinking. ‘You have to go home?’
He glanced sideways at her. ‘Yeah, I guess I do.’
He drove with his left hand resting on the gear stick. Imogen looked at it for a moment, then, almost unconsciously, she reached over and let her hand settle on his. Connla felt the breath catch in his throat.
‘Stopping the cub being killed was far more important than getting a picture,’ she said. ‘You know they’re out there now. You’ve seen them with your own eyes. Something tells me you’re the kind of man to find a way round the problem of locating them again.’
‘I hope so.’ He furrowed his brow. ‘But right now those two semesters I told you about are beckoning.’
Imogen stared out of the window at the loch, aware of a sudden inexplicable sense of loss. ‘Do you have to go back?’
He entwined his fingers in hers. ‘I wish I didn’t. More than anything I wish that I didn’t.’
They took the pictures into the photo shop and then went to a small cafeteria overlooking the loch which was full of coach-party tourists from Bournemouth. They sat opposite one another and drank thin but frothy coffee. It started to drizzle, then rain harder and harder until the loch and the sea and the Isle of Skye were completely obscured from view. Connla longed to tell her the truth, aware that with every minute that passed it was becoming harder and harder to do so. Imogen told him about the eagles and how she had first discovered them and what had happened subsequently.
‘I thought they were dead,’ she said, ‘poisoned like the peregrine. But they weren’t.’ She half smiled. ‘This’ll sound really stupid, but this morning, when I saw them again, I couldn’t help thinking they were looking for me.’
Connla gazed across the table at the softness in her eyes. ‘It doesn’t sound stupid. They were a long way from the sea.’
She laughed then. ‘Coincidence.’
‘Why?’ he said. ‘The other night you told me Redynvre always seems to know when you’re coming.’
Imogen shrugged and sipped coffee. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘I know McKenzie didn’t kill them; that’s the main thing. Maybe they’ll build another eyrie on the sea cliffs. He can’t get at them there.’
They talked about Scotland and she told him then how sick she got of village gossip, how debilitating it could be and how she constantly had to fight off the attentions of men like McKewan and Patterson.
‘I noticed they’d staked a claim,’ Connla said. ‘How come you never got married?’
She shook her head. ‘I nearly did. To a boy I met at university. It would’ve been a mistake.’
‘What was he like?’
She made a face. ‘I don’t know. He was quite good-looking, I suppose. Very studious, very aware of himself, ambitious. He was heavily into computers, which was much less common back then. No doubt he’s made a whole pile of money since, married someone in London, had two point two children. You know the kind of thing.’
Connla sighed heavily. ‘Tell me about it—regular everyday life. The kinda thing I never did very well.’
Imogen laughed. ‘You and me both. Peter was nice enough, I suppose. But he was wrong for me. You know, you think you’ll find your soulmate so easily when you’re young, but it never works out like that. I’m just grateful I realized in time.’
‘And what made you realize?’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I don’t really know. Maybe it was the Saturday morning golf, or the endless evenings he spent in front of his computer, or the banking systems he prattled on about.’
‘And you were busy painting?’
‘Painting, sculpting, creating. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m not decrying what he did. It was just so different. I don’t know, there just didn’t seem to be much soul in it.’
Connla rested his elbows on the table. ‘I know what you’re saying. When most of my contemporaries were thinking about corporate law or Wall Street or whatever, I was up to my knees in mountain-lion shit.’
‘And how did you get into that? Metaphorically, I mean.’
Connla laughed. ‘I don’t know. I guess I found them fascinating. They go their own way, Imogen. They’re solitary and they’ve withstood the advances of the American dream, unlike most anything else. I found one busted up on the highway one time and I managed to get her fixed up. She’s called Mellencamp. Here.’ He fished in his wallet and brought out a picture of the cougar. Imogen looked at it. It was just of the head: yellow eyes, white mouth and high black-tipped ears.
‘She’s beautiful.’
‘Something, isn’t she. Thinks she’s queen of the hill.’
‘And she’s a pet?’ Imogen looked up at him.
‘Oh, no.’ Connla shook his head. ‘She’s wild, all right. She just comes to visit me once in a while. I don’t lock my doors in Keystone and I’ve woken up to a rough tongue on my face on more than one occasion. She deems to grace me with her presence now and again, but she could just as easily kill me if she had a mind.’
Imogen laughed then. ‘You know what, most people carry a picture of their wife or girlfriend or children in their wallet. You’re the first man I’ve met who carries one of a mountain lion.’
Connla squinted at her. ‘You think I ought to see someone about it?’
They laughed again and looked at one another across the table, then Connla asked her how old she had been when she’d broken off her engagement.
‘Twenty-three.’
‘You know, you talked about finding a soulmate just now. I don’t think many people of twenty-three have even begun to consider that. They might get married, be planning kids even, but a soulmate isn’t what’s on their minds when they set out. I think you come round to that way of thinking later on in life.’
‘What, when you’ve had a lifetime of soul-searching, you mean?’
He smiled. ‘I guess. Hey, what do I know? I’m the guy with the picture of a cougar in my pocket book.’
Quietness then: no words, just the hubbub of conversation from the elderly people around them and the rattle of rain on the glass. Connla glanced at his watch.
‘Guess those pictures will be rea
dy pretty soon, huh.’ He looked into her eyes and saw his face reflected in them for the second time in his life, and for one tiny moment he was back in Idaho, sitting on a log with his head between his knees, staring at red ants crawling in sand at his feet. She was next to him, the little girl with brown skin and black tangly hair, that dirty yellow blanket hanging over her shoulder.
‘Are you booked into the hotel?’
He looked up. ‘Not yet.’ Silence again, awkward this time. ‘I’ll get it organized on the way back.’
They collected the pictures and they were good, but Connla knew that Cullen wouldn’t verify the geographical locations, and although he had taken landscape shots they could still be anywhere. Not only that, but pictures of paw prints had been doctored many times before and people had every right to shout ‘hoax’. Damn the man to hell for smashing up the casts. Imogen seemed to sense his unspoken frustration.
‘There’s nothing you can do?’ she said.
Connla lifted his shoulders wearily. ‘I don’t suppose there’s a law against breaking plaster in this country.’
They drove back in silence and he felt the defeat begin to weigh on him. His mission in coming here was a failure now and he had complicated his entire life with this new situation. He almost regretted walking into that store in Dunkeld. But when he sensed her next to him, when he glanced sideways and caught a glimpse of her face in profile, when he took in the easy manner with which she held herself, he didn’t regret it. He gazed out of the window as they came back towards the castle—at the peppermint black of the loch, the way Skye lifted in a rumble of slow hills and the snaking canyon of water that separated it from the mainland.
‘Where are you?’ she asked him gently. Connla smiled and looked out of the corner of his eye at her. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Right here, I guess.’