by Jess Smith
With a full moon shining a clear bright path before her, the final half mile was easily visible. Suddenly voices could be heard further up the road, and she darted instinctively behind a twisted oak. Men came nearer; they were cursing and laughing at the same time. ‘Filthy bloody tinks, that’s the last time they bother us,’ one said. ‘Yes, too true, lad,’ answered another. ‘Did you get the Irishman, he’s a slippy bugger that one, did you slice him?’
‘If he’s not a goner then I’m not the best ploughman for miles. Oh aye, it went through him!’ Another voice barked, ‘See how the tents flamed, best fire I’ve seen in a long while. Aye, well rid I say. We’ll not see their kind round here again. Come on, let’s celebrate.’
Megan slid to the ground. She knew exactly what form of carnage awaited her. How many warnings had she given them, but they had to find out the hard way. She must have sat there for ages, stiff and terrified to go round the corner for fear of what lay and bled there. She didn’t want to share such awfulness with the night.
It was a very early dawn before she dared to walk gingerly into her campsite, bottom lip trembling with each step. Her footsteps felt warmth on the singed ground; she scanned the burnt remains of what was once her small canvas home. Everything smouldered. ‘They must have torched the place yesterday when I was up the hill,’ she thought. Taking a stick she prodded at the remains of her material life; the family box that held keepsakes and trinkets.
Where did they put the men? she thought, because there was no sign of bodies. It was useless, she knew, to pretend that either was alive, but in a vain hope she called their names. Death had hardened her, and suddenly her head filled with wicked thoughts. ‘I hope Old Nick has them planted in hell, then I will be completely free. Rory would only have stayed off the drink for a short while. No, I hope he’s finished.’ She wanted them gone, needed a clean slate. Feelings of desertion fought with her conscience. A desire to just run away from that horrible, smouldering ruin flooded her mind, but her heart wasn’t hard. In the woodland next to the site she thought something moved. She wanted to run away, never look back, but again she couldn’t, and called in reply. A weak voice, barely audible, answered.
‘I’m coming,’ she called, running over to see, lying half-dead on the earth, O’Connor. A great gash slit his face wide open, and blood trickled slowly from a wound in his chest. ‘Where’s Rory?’ she asked, helping to sit him up.
‘I don’t know. Those bastards tricked us. We were having a quiet drink in the pub when a boy came in an’ said the campsite was on fire. The big man was worried you might have been attacked, so ran back here without me. I feel he might be here somewhere but it’s been the devil of a silence all night, with not a sound but my own heart. Help me, Megan!’
‘How the hell can I do that, the ploughmen have torched everything, there’s not even a torn sheet to bandage you with. Anyway, what was he doing in the pub? I left him promising he’d finished with the drink, forever.’
‘For sure he was. Not so much as drink o’ water passed his lips. He’d come to say goodbye, but when the boy runs in he took off as I said, tinking you were in danger.’
‘God curse you, Irish, I hate you for this.’ But nevertheless she did her best to wash his wounds with burn water. If he was to survive, though, his only chance was Doctor Mackenzie. But where was Rory’s body? She had to search for him first.
O’Connor was pleading. ‘You know they’ve done him in, lass. Please fetch the old doctor, I’ll bleed to death while you look for him.’
‘Another thousand curses on you, Irishman! This is all your doing! You’re the one who should be dead! Taking him to whores and pouring drink into him. I hate the very ground you walk on, and I hope you do die and I hope it takes ages, with maggots chewing you from feet to collarbone.’
Just then a great roar of an engine was heard from far down the road. In no time a motor car trundled to a halt. Their old friend Mackenzie wobbled from the passenger side. He’d brought the new doctor with him. When he saw that Megan was alright, the old man sat his shaky frame on a stone seat and said, ‘One of the ploughmen’s wives heard her man saying they’d killed the tinkers! I’ve been out of my mind with worry thinking on what state they may have left you in, lassie. But have they hurt the men?’
‘Oh aye, doctor, they done a grand job. O’Connor is bleeding to death over there, and as for big Rory, well, I fear he’s breathed his last. I can’t see hide nor hair of him.’
‘I’ll see to the Irishman if you and the new doctor search for Rory. Who knows but he might have crawled off to shelter.’
The young doctor ran behind her as she called out to Rory. Her fear mounted at what state he would be in. Nor was she wrong! Lying in a crumpled heap, not far from where she had found O’Connor, was the dead body of her father-in-law. Big Rory Stewart’s throat was sliced open from one ear to the other. His blood covered the ground beneath him, so he lay on a deep red carpet.
‘He came to help me because he thought I was here yesterday,’ she told the young doctor, who had remained silent throughout. She continued, ‘This was a good man, and only the evil hand of fate brought him along a path of heartache and destruction.’ She fell by his side, kissed his stony face and whispered, ‘You go now and join that beautiful wife and two sons of yours.’
‘We’ll have to bring the law into this,’ said the young man to Mackenzie.
The older man ignored him and said to O’Connor, ‘Your wounds aren’t life-threatening. I’ll take you back to my place where I have the instruments to stitch your cheek, but you’ll be badly scarred. I’m willing to let you stay with me until healed, but promise me that then you’ll leave here and never come back.’
‘Aye, that’s a promise I’ll take on me late mother’s life, whoever the hell she was.’
Mackenzie turned to the young doctor, and said in answer to his request for a police investigation, ‘Son, there’s not a policeman in this country that will lift a finger to help a tinker. In fact I’d bet my last penny that at this moment Sergeant Wilson is supping tea with the ploughmen and congratulating them on a job well done.’
‘Surely you’re wrong—this is a heinous crime. Barbaric, even.’
‘Son, the boys who did this have been away fighting for their country, they’ve killed and seen horrors you and I could never imagine in our whole lives. These men here knew what they might do and they took the risks.’
O’Connor nodded in painful agreement. He then asked if Megan could be given her time to prepare big Rory for burial. The young doctor, still reeling from the injustice he was witnessing, was further horrified to hear that the deceased was to be buried in the forest.
But this couldn’t be the case. The Highland Stewarts’ burial site was in the north, the far north. Megan told them that until she could afford to transport it there, her father-in-law’s body had to stay above the soil. One place waited for Bruar, but now that it was certain he’d not fill it, then his father should.
‘Now, lass,’ said her old friend, ‘there’s no way a body can stay above earth in the summertime. It would need to be embalmed and boxed, not in a thin makeshift shell like you would provide. No, lassie, this is something you can’t afford.’ He put an arm around the young woman and assured her he would see to things. ‘I’ll get him sorted and pay to have you and him go up north by train, Megan.’
She raised a proud hand to say that was far too much, but he insisted, and that was final.
Her pride however could not accept such a vast handout of charity, so she point-blank refused to agree unless she could make payment in return.
He was losing a long-held patience with the whimsical lass, and told her so. ‘Look, why don’t you think less on your stubborn pride and more on what is fact, and that is that all you own lies in ashes at your feet? How can Rory’s body be traditionally prepared in muslin? Where is the cloth?’
A wee bit taken aback by the words of the usually mild-tongued doctor, she didn’t know whether
to smile or frown. Yet how true, what had she got left, only ashes!
‘Now, here’s a proposition for you and I don’t want no for an answer! You and I have known each other a long time. My heart grows cold in this chest of mine and my eyes let me down daily, and they’re getting worse, that’s a fact. Would you come back to Kirriemor, move in to my old house and look after me? Now I’m not telling you to give up the old ways. All I ask, is to stay in the cottage until someone offers you a better life. You never know, lassie, maybe a handsome tinker lad might pass through one day and he’ll sweep you away. But until then, say you’ll stay with me and be my housekeeper?’
‘What can I say, my dear old friend? I must be the first tinker to be offered lodgings with one as kindly as yourself. As I look round about my feet, all I see is a life unliveable. My man, along with his brother and father, all were cursed by a seer from the far north, the Omen came to foretell their fate, and they are stone dead because of it. My sister, who by now is living the life of a lady’s maid, is probably sunning her pale skin in America, aye, her and my nephew. The forest over yonder holds the bones of my mother. You’re right, I have nothing but the skin on my worthless back. Yes, I’ll bury Rory at the Parbh, then I’ll come back and take care of you. And I make this solemn promise, you will want for nothing! I’ll clean and care like you were my own father. Come to think of it, Doctor, it’s a father you’ve been to me these past years.’
Doctor Mackenzie put his arm around her shoulders and smiled. ‘That’s my girl. Now let’s us get on with things.’
Back at the cottage, his colleague stitched O’Connor’s face and chest-wound. Mackenzie emptied an old leather medicine bag of its contents; a few yellowed bandages and some half-filled bottles of iodine among other bits and medical bobs and gave it to Megan. ‘This will take a few necessities if and when you get them, lass.’
Still feeling the doctor had been over-generous, she reluctantly shook the hand of O’Connor, kissed the wrinkled cheek of the only friend she had left in the world and set off. The good doctor had organised Rory’s remains to be hearsed to Forfar train station, and from there it would go on to Thurso.
NINE
As she gazed from the train heading northward, Megan looked back towards her beloved high hills. She felt she belonged there, and that in no time she’d be back with her dear old saviour, Doctor Mackenzie. She thought on Rachel and wee Nicholas, her one and only nephew, wondering if they’d ever meet again. She’d promised Annie that when she was back once more she’d tend the forest resting-place and never allow it to be flowerless.
Thinking on O’Connor’s thickset Irish frame, brought a cold shiver, she pulled a shawl over her shoulders. Something about him always made her feel uneasy. Oh, nothing that one could put a finger on, just a sense of foreboding. Her old friend would give him shelter until his health was regained, but whether or not their roads would ever cross again was not for present thoughts.
Her train journey passed through the most stunning scenery she had only previously heard about from Bruar. Several times mountains of fearsome splendour threw their mighty peaks toward a powder-blue sky, leaving her awe-struck. Now she could see why her man’s eyes used to open wide with wonder as he told stories of the magnificent Highlands. After a journey that was exhilarating but left her dog-tired, her train whistled to a halt in Thurso Station. Gingerly stepping from the carriage, she hoped someone had been sufficiently informed by the letter Doctor Mackenzie had sent ‘To whom it may concern, The Chapel, Durness.’
Shading her brow with chilly fingers she surveyed the smoke-shrouded station. She could see no one remotely likely to ease her of her oblong burden. An officious voice cut through her growing worry. ‘With respect, lassie, we have to get it off the train, we’ve got a schedule to keep, you know.’ The stationmaster was quiet but forthright. She began to fret. Perhaps her in-laws hadn’t got the message sent to the church in Durness. Before fear took a tighter grip on her, a loud voice boomed from behind the station wall. A moustached man of over six feet walked over to her. ‘Are you Megan, the one with the coffin?’
It was obvious to see by the flowing black gown and white collar that the letter had indeed found a positive response. Father Flynn shook her hand so hard her neck hurt.
‘There’s a three-day journey ahead across wild bog land. I’ve taken some food for our trip, no doubt you’ll be hungry. Helen isn’t strong enough to come all this way, so she asked me to.’ He was reading her mind, ‘But I know two fine inns where we can rest.’
She was soon heading along a single-track road on a plain carriage with the coffin secured on the back, pulled by two fine heavy Clydesdales. Her sandwiches of beef and mustard tasted so good. In no time she and her constant chattering companion were sleeping soundly in the first stop: Bay Inn, a peaceful little whitewashed house with three bedrooms. The couple who ran the place were nowhere to be seen, but the priest informed Megan that it was the coffin that kept them in their rooms. The kitchen had a ‘help yourself’ sign, and from the table they fed on cold porridge, buttered bread and milk. The next night a similar attitude prevailed from another set of landlords. It left Megan thinking that if Father Flynn hadn’t been there she’d have ended up dumping Rory in the bog, which went as far as the eye could see in every direction.
During the long journey, her fellow traveller learned the whole of her life story up to that minute and she his. He’d come to the area as a young man, and fallen in love with the wildness. He came back after graduating from theological college, rebuilt the crumbling chapel and had been there for ten years. Of the few Catholics living along the coast, Helen was the most devoted. He knew about Rory, his wife’s demise, and the boys.
The changing terrain along the rough road, sea and mountains on either side, let her see another part of Scotland, one she felt close to: Bruar’s birth land.
Not before time, Helen’s tiny, low-roofed cottage appeared on the horizon; another hour and Megan would have left the wooden seat of the carriage for some foot work. Father Flynn laughed; she could have run faster and been there yesterday, she told him, rubbing her backside.
He lifted a hand and waved to the tall woman with grey hair coming to meet them. ‘So here you are then, Rory, home once again. You won’t be going anywhere this time, brother.’ Megan was ignored by the woman whom she took to be Helen, as she patted the coffin and stood silently, obviously praying.
The priest offered his companion a hand, but she was already on solid ground. Helen approached, having said her piece to the coffin, and much to Megan’s surprise threw welcoming arms around her. ‘Lovely girl you are, Bruar chose well. This letter your friend sent us—terrible. Not just Rory, but the boys too. What manner of curse would take so many of the one line? Poor wee thing, you must be shattered.’
A hankie was already soaked with tears, and Megan could tell by her nervous shaking voice that this poor soul was grieving. The letter held all the explanations about her family’s loss; there was no need to open the wound further.
The priest left them to become acquainted; he’d a funeral to arrange. It was early evening, and first thing in the morning they’d lay Rory to rest, thanks to the dedication of Megan and Doctor Mackenzie.
The two women chatted for ages, drinking tea and eating bread well into the early hours, but Megan was exhausted. The hard journey spent worrying in case anything should happen to Rory’s remains had taken its toll. In a bed with soft pillows and a large patchwork quilt, she slept like a baby, not moving a muscle until a cool early morning breeze whistled through a crack in the window-frame. When she awoke, a hand holding out a warm, sweet cup of strong tea welcomed her to a new dawn.
‘Did you sleep well enough? Take your time in drinking this and don’t come ben the house until you feel like it. There will only be three of us at Rory’s burial, us and the good Father—oh, and not forgetting two grave-diggers. I’ve dressed my brother’s box with a black drape; the horses are fed and watered, so after a bit br
eakfast we’ll get off. The road down to Balnakiel is short.’
‘Is he not being put into the Parbh? Bruar told me that was the last place, and as he’s gone, that’s why I thought...’
‘No lassie, we can’t cross over the water with a coffin, so Father has organised a wee plot down at Balnakiel graveyard. I know why you think his remains should go into the Stewart burial ground, but there’s not enough men to ferry him over, so the nearest burial ground will have to do.’
Megan felt robbed, her thoughts were troubled and she wished she’d buried Rory back in the glens beside Annie in the wood. All this train journey and three days travelling through bog roads seemed in vain. However, Helen was not a strong woman, and as the priest seemed to be organising matters it was out of her hands.
After the funeral she’d say her goodbyes and trek back to Thurso. The doctor’s eyesight and health were failing rapidly; he would be in need of help.
Father Flynn had dressed himself as if he were conducting a regal funeral. He’d all his purple and gold vestments hanging perfectly, his hair combed straight and a little cap perched like a scone to the back of his head. His most precious missal was clasped firmly. Megan had never witnessed a Catholic funeral and was both curious and apprehensive. To complete the entourage, two gravediggers stood on either side of the carriage, cloth caps in hand.
Nestled behind a wall of ancient stone, crossed by a meandering burn filled with marigolds, the little graveyard was filled with history. To its back, towering into mist, rose the mountains of Sutherland. Before it, Pentland Water, (near which Bruar, wide-eyed and excited, would listen to Viking tales) made its way to meet the northern ocean.