Finlay Morlich cast sharp eyes over the wintry mountain vista below him, where, fifty yards away, ears and tiny antler stubs poked up from the bracken that almost concealed the lone stag who was resting, sending up a haze of vapour from his warm body. During the autumn rut the stag had carried his eight-pointer headdress like a crown. Now he was hiding away, bareheaded and embarrassed, in the damp fern thatch.
Finlay and the stag had caught sight of one another many times out on the straths and glens of the Cairngorm range, when they’d momentarily freeze and stare at one another before passing peacefully by. Theirs was by far the easiest friendship of Finlay’s thirty-one years. He related more to the stag (and the other creatures of the mountains) than to any of the humans he encountered as they clambered past his cruive (that’s a wee Scottish cabin to you and me, fit mainly for sheltering shepherds and their lambs, or crotchety hermits like Finlay). The cruive sat amidst a tiny patch of ancient forest beneath the lower slope of Cairn Dhu mountain’s western face.
To Finlay it was paradise. Or it would be, if it weren’t for the hillwalking parties who’d stop, wanting to chit chat on their way to the snow-capped summit, so many of them with the attitude of Disney day-trippers visiting a big pink plastic castle. Not that Finlay had ever been to Disneyland to see if it really was pink, or made of plastic.
‘Couldnae think of anything worse,’ he huffed now, sending white vapour spiralling in the frigid air.
Solitary, still, watchful. Just like the stag; it was the only way Finlay Morlich knew how to be.
Cairn Dhu mountain, in the westernmost reach of the Cairngorms National Park, rises like a great split tooth above the populous valley. Even from up here on the boulder pass, where he liked to take his morning coffee, Finlay could make out the strung lights on the high street, the last of the Christmas display, now that the council had taken down the big tree by the police station. The bulbs twinkled through air thick with white dampness as if to say why not take a wee wander down and see what’s on offer? January’s the time for cultivating new, sociable habits.
‘Pfft!’ Finlay snatched his eyes away, taking a swig from his steaming enamel mug with the chip on the handle. ‘Nonsense.’ He rarely ventured into town, preferring it up here where he had everything he needed.
The weak morning light worked upon him, recharging him like a battery. Breathing in, he tasted the sweet scent of lichen and moss, wringing wet after the recent downpours, the clean, resinous smell of the pines, and the reassuring earthiness of the cold granite and dirt beneath his feet. More than enough sustenance for him.
Through binoculars, he witnessed his colleagues’ van pulling up at the Rangers’ Station all the way down on the scrap of tarmac where the visitors would soon be arriving, wanting to scramble up the mountain; far too many of them turning up ill-prepared and ignorant of the dangers they’d face: from scree slippage to avalanches and hidden crevasses, or the threat of suddenly descending fog or winter darkness leaving folks stranded.
He’d seen grown men felled by something as simple as bad boots and wet socks. He’d followed rescue teams on the search for city lads on ‘team-building’ outings who’d badly miscalculated their water supply, thinking a hike up a four-thousand-foot incline nothing but a jolly jaunt, and they’d come down on stretchers, jittering like tadpoles in their jelly and hallucinating with thirst.
God knows, if there were dunderheids with perilously thin rain macs and a death wish, or microspikes instead of mountain crampons, they’d make a beeline for his mountain. So far, he’d helped save every one he’d been called out to, meaning that, for Finlay Morlich, the worst day was yet to come.
Every ranger, every rescue unit, has their story of the one they couldn’t get to on time, the one who hid so well in the snow they couldn’t be found until the spring thaw, the one who couldn’t have seen the black tarn at their feet until they’d fallen headlong into the breath-stealing slush.
The waiting for that awful day, looming darkly inevitable somewhere on the horizon of his life, had long ago turned Finlay’s heart bitter with anxious fear. Yet all that the carefree day-trippers and picnickers registered as they sallied by on the tourist paths was a crabbit man in camo gear with a ranger badge and an attitude problem.
‘Hmph!’ He shook off the notion. Who cared what people thought?
The stag’s ears twitched to attention and Finlay apologised soundlessly for disturbing him.
A light went off down at the edge of Cairn Dhu town, drawing his attention – it was that garish new floodlight that had been installed in the autumn to illuminate the carpark of the community repair shop. Finlay’s eyes settled on the old mill house and its huge shed that housed the repairers, currently with its back end under scaffolding. The floodlight’s glare wouldn’t be needed now that the morning sun was trying to cast watery rays through the wet white fog that sat inside the bowl of the valley. Still, it irritated him that the floodlight existed at all. It confused the migrating birds and frazzled the moths. He’d have to mention it when he was next down there. Not that he had any reason to go down, yet.
He checked his rations tin by his side on the low storm shelter wall where he breakfasted. There were two squares of Senga Gifford’s walnut tablet left, smelling deliciously of condensed milk and caramelised sugar, one of her chocolate-dipped rock buns, and one wee piece of her clementine shortbread. Not enough to send him panicking yet, even if his sweet tooth was telling him to get back down there and stock up right this instant.
Senga sold her goodies from her café inside the repair shed, and Senga was an old nuisance, always questioning him about his life on the mountain, telling him, ‘But you must be so lonely up there, and such a handsome laddie as you! What a waste,’ and she’d tut and shake her head like she knew what was good for him. Unfortunately for Finlay, Senga also made the best biscuits and buns, traybakes and sweeties this side of Hadrian’s Wall, so he was bound to suffer her again soon. The fact she often slipped a few extra chunks of cinder toffee or coconut macaroon into his tin didn’t make him inclined to forgive her intrusions, but he wasn’t about to ask her to stop.
He checked the lid was sealed shut on his treats, and with a gruff word to himself, he rose, picked the crumbs from his weatherproof fleece, downed the last of his coffee, and went about his day patrolling the mountain and saving daft folk from themselves, trying to ignore the gnawing feeling in his belly. It was probably only sweet-hunger and almost definitely not a yearning for something he couldn’t quite pinpoint, something that had been threatening to get the better of him recently whenever he stared down into the sparkling valley and imagined the lives lived down there beneath the bright lights.
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Love, Kiley, x