Snared

by JL Merrow

  Snared

  MARTIN used his elbow to ring the doorbell of the Callander B&B and did his best not to bleed on the paintwork.

  “Good gracious!” The lady who opened the door blinked up at him like a startled lamb, the resemblance enhanced by her spry little figure and tightly curled white hair. She seemed at a loss for any further words. Martin didn’t blame her. After all, it wasn’t every day strange men turned up on your doorstep with their hands all covered in blood—at least, not in Martin’s experience, although maybe they did things differently in Scotland.

  “Mrs. McPherson? We spoke on the phone. Martin Lowrie. I’m booked in for the next three nights? I had a bit of a run-in with the local wildlife,” he added, waving his hands in illustration and wincing as he saw a droplet of blood flying onto the doormat. “Sorry about that.”

  The landlady’s eyes widened. “Dear me! Your hands are cut to ribbons. Come in, young man, come in, we’ll get that seen to just now.” She bustled down the narrow hallway in front of him in a waft of lavender. Luckily the hall happened to be tiled, not carpeted, saving Martin the further embarrassment of trampling mud and blood into the Axminster. Or was it just luck? Perhaps they did do things differently in Scotland, after all? Martin grinned to himself at a sudden vision of the sweet, little old lady turning out to be some kind of Scottish Sweeney Todd, murdering one week’s guests and serving them up to the next. Mind you, it’d play hell with the repeat business.

  “This way, my dear. Now, let’s get those hands under the tap. Och, that’s some nasty scratches you’ve got there. What on earth have you been doing with yourself?”

  Martin held his hands under the cold water as directed. The initial stinging gradually eased to a dull throb and then an icy numbness. “You know, people warned me about the midges here, but….” He laughed, trailing off at her genteelly raised eyebrows. “I found a cat caught in a snare on my way over,” he continued hurriedly. “Not very grateful things, cats, are they?”

  The old lady turned off the tap and examined his wounds. “Well, if it was a wildcat, you’ll get no gratitude from one of them, it’s true enough. So you freed the wee creature, did you?” She turned unexpectedly sharp eyes on him, not looking away until he nodded. “Did you no think to call the SSPCA?”

  Martin drew in his breath sharply as she wrapped his hands loosely in a tea towel. He’d have felt bad about ruining her linen, but the shortbread recipe and improbably colored picture of the Isle of Skye led him to suspect she wouldn’t be too devastated by its loss. “Well, yes, in hindsight that might have been an idea. I don’t suppose you have any Savlon?”

  “Och, no, we’ll get Dr. Brodie to look at those. Alan?” Martin jumped as her soft, high voice suddenly became a bellow. A red-headed boy, all gangly limbs and hands too big for his body, came hurtling down the stairs in a manner so uncoordinated Martin was amazed he didn’t fall headlong.

  He shot Martin a deeply suspicious glare. “Gran?”

  “Will you go down the way and ask Dr. Brodie to come up? This young man’s in need of some first aid.”

  DR. BRODIE turned out to be somewhere between Martin’s age and Mrs. McPherson’s, and appeared to be doing his best to perpetuate single-handedly the stereotype about the dour Scotsman. “Well, you’re lucky you were wearing thick sleeves,” he admitted with an air of disappointment. “It doesn’t look like the creature’s teeth have broken your skin.”

  Martin shrugged as well as he could whilst keeping his hands still for the doctor. “Yes, there was a sort of steady, light rain when I was coming over the tops—what do you call it round here? Mizzle? So I had my waterproofs on. Just as well the cat only bit down on my arms, not my hands.” Martin winced involuntarily at Brodie’s none-too-gentle touch on a particularly deep scratch. “I can’t really blame it. The snare was caught around its hindquarters and pulled tight like a corset—it must have been out of its mind with pain.”

  Brodie nodded sourly. “Still, you’ll be wanting a tetanus injection for these scratches, lad,” he huffed as he finished dressing Martin’s wounds. “You can come in after surgery tomorrow. Eleven-thirty.”

  “Are you sure that’s really necessary?” Martin had intended to walk up to Strathyre tomorrow, and this was going to totally bollocks up his plans.

  “Have you ever seen a man with the lockjaw? Not a pretty sight, I can tell you. You’d not be scared of a little needle, now would you?”

  “What? No, of course not!” Martin defended himself, annoyed by Alan’s snigger.

  “Good. Then I’ll see you tomorrow, lad. Good day to you, Mrs. McPherson.” Brodie rose, and Mrs. McPherson saw him out with a prim smile before heading back into the kitchen.

  “Well, now. I’ll be getting supper ready just now, so if you don’t mind…?”

  Martin stared at her—then belatedly realized this was her polite way of telling him to stop taking up space in her kitchen. “Oh! Sorry. I’ll, er… right.” Grabbing his rucksack, he escaped into the hall and finally managed to take off his boots.

  Young Alan had become a lot more friendly since finding out that Martin had been injured helping a wildcat. It’d been a mixed blessing; he took advantage of his captive audience over supper to have a bloody good rant about farmers who set snares.

  “Wildcats can’t be tamed,” Alan told Martin earnestly, the effect slightly marred by the tomato soup moustache he was currently wearing. Martin made a mental note to check in the mirror later to make sure he hadn’t managed something similar. “Even if they’re reared in captivity they keep their wild nature. Bite your hand off soon as look at you, they would. That’s why your one attacked you. It’s their instincts, you see? They don’t trust you not to turn on them again. And they’re not wrong.” His ears reddened as he became more heated. “Wildcats only hunt because they need to eat. I think people who set snares ought to try getting caught in one themselves. See how they like it!”

  Martin recoiled inwardly at the violence of the boy’s tone. If Mrs. McPherson was murdering guests, he thought only half-jokingly, young Alan was definitely in on the plot.

  “OCH, don’t mind the boy, he’s a good lad at heart,” Mrs. McPherson told Martin later, a fond look on her face. Martin was sitting gingerly in the front room, which appeared to have suffered a makeover by an insane interior decorator with a doily fetish. Little lacy bits of pristine white linen adorned every item of furniture, up to and including the TV. Martin wondered how long it would be safe to sit here before he, too, would be attacked by an antimacassar. “He wants to be a vet when he’s grown, but I told him, you’ll have to knuckle down to your studies if you want to do that. But he’s no wrong about those snares. Wicked, cruel things they are. And it’s not just the wildcats they catch. Badgers and all sorts, and Alan tells me he’s seen pictures of some poor lady’s cat that got caught in one and had to be put down, the poor wee thing.”

  “Oh, it’s all right,” Martin told her. “I remember when I was his age—everything always seems so important, and nobody ever seems to listen to you.” He laughed self-consciously. “And anyway, I totally agree about those snares. You should have seen the cat I found: the wire had cut right into its flesh. I’ve been kicking myself for not leaving it to the SSPCA, they could have made sure it got treated, stop it getting infected and all that.”

  If Jonathan had been with him, he’d have thought of that, Martin knew. Jonathan always thought of everything. Martin felt a stab of annoyance. He was doing just fine on his own.

  “Well, there’s no doubt your intentions were good,” Mrs. McPherson comforted him as he rose to go to bed, “so don’t you go losing sleep over the poor beastie.”

  MARTIN wondered, later, if the old woman had had her fingers crossed as she wished him a pleasant night’s sleep. Tired from his wal
k, he’d expected to sleep like a rock, but the damp, grey day had turned into an oppressive and clammy night. And the window, although wide open, seemed to let in not a breath of fresh air. In his too-soft bed, Martin tossed and turned, troubled with constant dreams in which he was running through coarse, long grass by the pale light of the moon. All color was bleached from his too-wide field of vision and his whiskers quivered at the tantalizing scents upon the air.

  Whiskers? Martin barely had time to register this thought before he was distracted. There: a faint rustling to one side of him. Prey. His ears erect, senses tingling with the thrill of the hunt, Martin stilled, then leapt—and excitement turned to pain and fear as the wire closed upon him. Panicking, he struggled to break free, yowling and snarling—and woke up in a cold sweat, the sheets tangled about him. His hands were itching unbearably. Panting, his heart thumping, Martin straightened the bedclothes as best he could and lay down again to try to get some rest.

  THE next day dawned brightly, as if anxious to raise Martin’s mood a little as he dragged himself out of bed and stumbled downstairs for breakfast, his legs protesting a little at the previous day’s exercise. Mrs. McPherson clucked in disapproval at the dark circles under his eyes and made him a cup of blisteringly strong tea without asking. “You’ll be having the full Scottish, now?”

  That wasn’t really a question, either. Martin gulped the tea down gratefully and sat down to await whatever Mrs. McPherson might consider a healthy breakfast. It wasn’t bad, as it turned out, although if he listened hard he could hear his arteries weeping softly at the prospect of so much grease. He could definitely have done without the two hefty slices of black pudding that glowered on the plate oozing fat and menacing the eggs. For a moment he considered hiding them under a slice of fried bread, but he was damned if he’d let a couple of slices of blood, grease, and sawdust beat him. Taking a deep breath and metaphorically holding his nose, he gulped them down as quickly as he could, wondering darkly whether the late Mr. McPherson had died of a heart attack.

  “Well, now! That’s better,” Mrs. McPherson told him with a smile. “And what are your plans for today?” She frowned a little. “You’ll not be forgetting your appointment with the doctor, now will you?”

  “No, no,” Martin reassured her, fighting an urge to roll his eyes like a teenager and huff “Yes, Mum!” Come to think of it, she was probably around the same age as Martin’s mum, although his mum wouldn’t have been seen dead with white hair and a pinny like Mrs. McPherson. Plus, his mum didn’t even own a frying pan, much less cheerfully serve up heart attacks on a plate. “I haven’t forgotten. Eleven-thirty.”

  “Good. And will you be having dinner here tonight?”

  Martin’s over-filled stomach suggested with a gurgle that it might be a good idea to go somewhere he wouldn’t feel obliged to clean his plate. “No, thank you, I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble.”

  “Och, it’s no trouble at all, young man!”

  “No, really, there’s no need,” Martin told her firmly. “I’ll just go to the pub.”

  She nodded sagely. “No doubt you’ll be wanting some livelier company than I can provide. Well, if you’re sure…?”

  “Absolutely,” Martin said, and rose hurriedly in case she carried on trying to persuade him. “Thank you for breakfast, Mrs. McPherson.”

  Having escaped from the B&B, Martin wondered what on earth he was going to do with the day. He had a map already marked up with two days’ worth of walks around the area, but the doctor’s appointment neatly put paid to the idea of accomplishing any of them. There was the Rob Roy centre in the village, but Martin had been at a highly impressionable age when his mum had brought home a history book about the farmer turned cattle rustler. He’d spent the whole summer prancing around in his sister’s skirt pretending it was a kilt, and he’d really rather not be reminded of it, thank you very much.

  He wandered half-heartedly up a footpath and back down it again, then popped in for a look at St. Andrew’s church. He’d barely got in the door, though, before he saw the rector approaching with the light of evangelism in his eyes. Beating a wary retreat, Martin checked his watch as he jogged through the graveyard. Eleven-fifteen. He could just about go to the doctor’s now without being ridiculously early. At least there might be some magazines in the waiting room. He grinned at himself. It was a sad commentary on things when the prospect of a two-year-old copy of Reader’s Digest seemed enticing.

  Like most of the village, the doctor’s surgery was only a few minutes’ walk from the church. It was in a rather pretty, white-painted crofter’s cottage, and looked like it was Dr. Brodie’s home as well as his place of work. Martin’s breath caught as he saw the young man leaning against the garden wall.

  Tall and lean, and with a relaxed, easy look about him as if he had been there for some time, he was clad in faded jeans and a battered black leather jacket. His collar-length hair was dark, almost black, and slightly curly. Martin’s mum would have said he looked like a gypsy, although you had to call them travelers these days, didn’t you? Any casting director for a production of Wuthering Heights would have snapped him up for Heathcliff like a shot. He had a roguish face with strong, sensual features and an air of arrogant self-assurance, and Martin cursed himself for feeling so bloody self-conscious as he opened the gate.

  It didn’t help that he could feel the man’s gaze upon him, sizing him up. God, could he tell Martin was gay? Could he be too? Or was he about to make some comment about “fucking poofs”? Martin kept his eyes resolutely on the path ahead of him and reached the front door feeling slightly amazed he’d managed not to trip up or find some other way to make an idiot of himself.

  There was a mirror in the hallway of the doctor’s, but Martin determinedly looked the other way as he walked past it. If his face was red, he really didn’t want to know about it.

  HALF an hour later, Martin came out of the doctor’s, inoculated against tetanus and supremely grateful that rabies hadn’t yet reached the British Isles. Apparently disappointed with Martin’s lack of obvious squeamishness about the tetanus jab, Brodie had gloomily regaled his patient with tales of apparently hideously painful injections in the stomach. Martin had been left with a strong suspicion that Brodie’s choice of profession hadn’t been entirely altruistic.

  Heathcliff had disappeared. Martin wondered why he felt a slight pang of disappointment. He was in this village for another two nights; the last thing he needed was some local bloke deciding Martin had been eyeing him up and telling everyone he was queer.

  There was a sick feeling in Martin’s stomach that he knew to be shame as he remembered the last time he’d been outed. He’d been in the Dales with Jonathan—the last holiday they’d had together, as it happened. Jonathan had been a bit too friendly with one of the locals, and compounded the error by turning the bloke down when he’d cornered him in the gents later. So the Yorkshire man had vented his frustration by loudly telling his mates and anyone else in earshot that Martin and Jonathan were a couple of shirt-lifters. He’d come up with some other choice phrases along those lines too. There had been more than a few pints “accidentally” spilled in their direction that night, until Martin hadn’t been able to take it anymore.

  Martin cringed as he remembered his overreaction. “Christ, you just can’t keep it to yourself, can you?” he’d raged, insisting they strike camp and get straight back on the train next morning without even a sight of Gordale Scar and the limestone pavement. Jonathan had agreed—but he’d been oddly subdued for the rest of the trip.

  He should have known, Martin reflected as he walked furtively back past the church, the vicar now thankfully absent. The writing had not only been on the wall; it’d been in flashing neon letters six-feet high. He just hadn’t wanted to read it. Sod it. If he saw Heathcliff again, maybe he’d pluck up the courage to say hello. To hell with what the locals thought. He gave a wry smile at himself. After all, there wasn’t much chance a bloke like that would be intere
sted in Martin in any case, so he was pretty safe.

  After lunch in a rather twee little café-cum-tearoom—which consisted of a limp cheese-and-pickle sandwich washed down with a cup of tea so weak Mrs. McPherson might have used it to rinse her dishes—a steady drizzle set in. Well, hopefully it would at least keep the midges at bay. Martin had had enough of being snacked on by the local fauna. Resolutely donning his waterproofs, and making a mental note to go foraging in the hedgerows rather than set foot in that café again, he set out on a truncated walk he’d managed to work out with the help of his trusty Ordnance Survey map.

  MARTIN was feeling a lot better about life by the time he clomped back into the village that evening, his boots somewhat weighed down by a thick coating of good Scottish mud. He’d made it a fair way along toward Strathyre, taking in the Falls of Leny along the way. The recent rain had swollen the river, and the falls were at the height of both splendor and violence, a vast mass of water crashing with deafening force around a rocky outcrop that looked much as if a giant had carelessly tossed a boulder into the middle of the torrent. A few spindly trees clung bravely to the crag, showing the rugged determination to survive that seemed to characterize all the inhabitants of these harsh lands.

  Round about Ben Leny the skies had miraculously cleared, a picture-postcard view over Loch Lubnaig appearing quite suddenly, like a desert mirage. The sunlight was glinting with almost painful brightness off the mirror-like surface of the loch. It was one of those magical moments in time, one of those memories that kept you going when the rain was soaking through your so-called waterproofs and you’d just realized you’d taken a wrong turning two hills back. Perfect peace, and the knowledge that here was something far greater than you were. That was why Martin loved the countryside so much; there wasn’t a mountain or lake in the world that gave a toss whether you were gay or straight.