A Black Bridleless Horse

A Black Bridleless Horse

‘Can’t you feel it?’ said Caz, shivering as she turned her back on the railway track. It was a railway track no longer in fact, but a cold desolate lane, stretching out across half the length of the Black Isle. If I tell the truth, I was not sorry to see her shiver, for it gave me a chance to comfort her. I reached out and held her hand. She was wearing gloves. ‘I hope no-one perishes on this old road tonight,’ she said, dark eyes flicking back over the long earthen track.
     ‘Why should they?’ I said softly, squeezing her hand. She did not try and push me away. It was about one o’clock on a cold December afternoon: we had had an early lunch. I was still getting to know Caz. Her expressive brown eyes looked past me, over her shoulder, again. Most of her long blonde hair was concealed under a soft black hat. It used to belong to me. The hat, that is, not the hair. Though sometimes, I could do with some extra hair.
     ‘I wonder you don’t have gloves yourself,’ she said.
     ‘You know why. I don’t feel the cold as you do.’
     ‘Are you from another planet?’
     ‘Just maybe I am.’ Her breath fogged out past me as she looked nervously back the way we had come. It seemed to be getting dark, even so early in the afternoon. The sides of the cutting seemed oppressive, casting shadows.
     ‘Do you remember,’ she said hesitantly, ‘what he said?’
     ‘Who?’ I said, my head still full of her smile, and my research the night before.
     ‘The Brahan Seer, our local prophet, you idiot.’
     ‘Oh. Him.’
     ‘Yes. Him. “I would not like to live when a black bridleless horse will pass through the Muir of Ord”.’
     ‘Ah. What did he know?’
     ‘He knew a lot, Donald. He may have seen that time is relative, that not all the things he foretold would happen at once. Natural shrewdness aside.’
     ‘So… that may be why not everything he said came true in his own lifetime.’ I had enjoyed watching her breath puff out as she spoke. I still held her hand. We went on a little way. There came the snap of a twig behind us. Caz turned sharply, pulling her hand from mine.
     ‘What was that?’
     ‘What, Caz?’
     ‘That! That noise!’
     ‘Probably just a stray dog.’ I was thinking of the warm fire in my study, a toddy to drink, and more writing to do later.
     ‘I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen a single dog all the time we’ve been here. Not a cyclist, either. Isn’t that strange?’
     ‘It’s the time of year. Cyclists don’t want injuries in a place like this, so they stick to the roads.’
     ‘What about the dogs, though?’
     ‘I think they’re hibernating.’
     ‘Ha ha. Dogs are dogs, and they need exercise.’
     I grew tired of her enquiry. ‘Are you coming, or what?’
     ‘I like to know where I’m going, though. Don’t you?’
     I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets, and carried on walking. I could hear her silence, stubborn and still, behind me for a while. I did not look back. Then, a long exhalation of breath. I smiled at the thought of her as a kind of stationary engine, not yet out of the shed. I sauntered on. I could hear her walking briskly to catch up. ‘Donald. Wait up.’ I slowed a little but did not stop. We were almost at a dilapidated bridge. The sky grumbled, and there was the smell of rain.
     Caz looked up at the bridge, and the road somewhere beyond it, above our heads. ‘Donald! I thought I saw a face…’
     I smiled. ‘It’s that time of year…’ I squinted up at it myself. Some of its girders had become quite rusted, giving it a dull orange sheen. One panel, most of its rivets gone, almost resembled a pouchy face, a little like a gargoyle, for a moment. I shook my head.
     Reaching out, I took Caz’s hand, pulling her nearer me, and in the same motion, both of us directly under the bridge. She looked surprised, then smiled. I rubbed her gloved hand attentively. She looked straight at me, then up at the underside of the bridge, her dark eyes showing a little bloodshot. Her breath came past me, vivid and warm. ‘How long has it been since we first met?’ she said softly.
     ‘Yesterday.’
     ‘Oh, I think it’s been a wee bit longer than that.’ I smiled, enjoying the aura of life that emanated from her. She reached over and kissed me. I held her, and folded her into a hug. There was a slight rain whispering outside, rattling on the derelict roof of the bridge, falling through the joyless branches of the trees beyond, their arms outstretched like dark candelabra that no-one would ever light again. I held her a little while, and she pressed against me, so warm and vital. There was a long red streak of rust down one side of the bridge.
     ‘Warmer now, Caz?’
     ‘Oh, yes.’
     ‘Will we go?’
     ‘If we must.’ I released her, perhaps before she was ready. She stumbled for a moment, and I  caught her before she fell. ‘Thanks.’ She smiled. Caz ventured out onto the other side of the bridge, her voice echoing slightly. ‘Look, it’s snowing.’
     ‘Nearly.’ I joined her on the far side, and stood looking out onto the next part of the abandoned railway track for a moment. ‘Kind of sleeting.’ She shivered.
     ‘Look, are you sure you don’t need a hat?’
     ‘I’m sure. I don’t get cold easily.’
     ‘Now, why is that?’
     ‘I wish I knew. I could make a lot of money. The sooner we go, the sooner we’ll be back. You sure you want to come?’
     ‘Always, with you.’ She sighed. I was fascinated by the longer puff of her breath, and the little cloud it created. I shielded my eyes with my bare hand, for a moment. The track wound on ahead of us. I stepped out first. Visibility was becoming reduced. The sleet was too thin to be true snow. Some of it settled on my jacket, my head. I did not mind. Caz stepped out after me, looking around her. I looked back at her. For a moment, a red face seemed to smile down at her out of the rusted ironwork, but it faded again.
     Caz walked briskly to keep up with me. ‘Do you think you’ve got enough for your book, Donald?’
     ‘Nearly. I’ll enjoy writing it up later.’
     ‘I’m sure I’ll enjoy reading it.’
     ‘Good afternoon.’ Caz shrieked. I almost did the same, drawing in my breath sharply. A red-cheeked, jovial man had joined us. His clothes seemed a little old-fashioned.
     ‘Do you know much about the history of this line?’ he said. Caz was startled, staring at him.
     ‘A little,’ I said, more calmly. ‘This was one of those lines closed by Dr Beeching.’
     ‘He was after my time,’ admitted the man, dressed in a kind of navy-coloured uniform. He puffed out his cheeks as he rolled along beside us: there was no other way to describe it. Perhaps he had once been in the Navy.
     ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Did you work on this line when it was still running?’
     ‘I did indeed sir, surely as my name is Jack.’
     ‘Really? Do tell us about it.’ Caz had stood stock still since his sudden appearance. She now walked a little way behind. ‘Caz,’ I said, without turning around. ‘Come and join us.’
     ‘Donald.’ She spoke softly. ‘I think we should go home.’
     ‘We are going home, Caz. Just a longer way round.’
     ‘Are we?’
     Now it was the turn of the old railwayman to stand very still. Then he reached out his hand, slapped his pockets. He took a few moments to search for something. Caz watched him intently, her eyes flicking back and forth between him and me. He eventually found an old, blackened pipe of a kind I had not seen since my grandfather’s generation, and some matches.
     ‘Tell us,’ I said again, quietly. A slow smile spread across his face. Jack puffed out his cheeks again. A brief strike of the match illuminated his face, shadows forming under his eyes. His hands seemed curiously blackened. He stood completely still, as the first tendril of smoke wafted from his pipe. Then he began to move, very slowly. We had to slow right  down to keep pace with him.
     Caz maintained her distance from him still. She looked over her shoulder, back at the rusted bridge. Then she sighed, her breath fogging conspicuously as she did so, and followed the railwayman and me along the track, leading away from Fortrose, towards Avoch, another Black Isle village, north and east of Inverness.
     ‘This is where Rosehaugh stood,’ said Jack, his pipe clamped between his teeth, staring straight ahead into the sleet, as if defying it to harm him. ‘The big house… did you know about that… “foolish pride without sense will put in the place of the seed of the deer the seed of the goat, and the beautiful Black Isle will fall under the management of the fishermen of Avoch”.’
     Caz quickened her pace, and came closer to me, yet still further from Jack. ‘Donald,” she hissed. ‘What does he mean? I don’t like this.’
     ‘It’s like you were saying earlier. The Brahan Seer could see round a few corners, he was well known for it… pity he didn’t foresee his own death. The Rosehaugh estate came to be managed by the Fletchers, whose symbol is the goat, rather than the long-standing Mackenzies, with their badge of the deer, or caberfeidh. Another prophecy fulfilled.’
     The sleet continued to drive into our faces, yet Jack’s pace was unabated. He seemed to pick up speed a little. His breath, when I could see it, seemed so much darker than Caz’s, nearly as thick as the smoke from his pipe. He must have been smoking for a long time. I shuddered to think of the state of his lungs.
     He moved a little more quickly. The smoke spiralled out of his pipe, and over his shoulder, leaving a column of it behind. Caz stepped deliberately out of its path, as it lingered in the air.
     ‘Don!’ she hissed again. ‘Do we really have to…’ she jerked her head in his direction. I smiled at her. She was not reassured. I took hold of her hand, and squeezed tight. I brought her up alongside Jack, with me in the middle, and she at the edge of the track, to the left. Jack’s eyes seemed to follow us, even though he remained where he was, trudging straight ahead.
     Caz addressed him for the first time. ‘Er, was the weather often like this when you worked on the line?’ The column of smoke from his pipe appeared to grow thicker as she spoke. His face grew redder, too.
     ‘Soldiers will come from Tarradale on a chariot without horse or bridle which will leave the Muir of Ord a wilderness,’ he replied, still staring determinedly ahead of him.
     ‘What?’ she said, turning to me. ‘What does he mean? Does he mean- the weather? Oh Don, I want to go home.’
     ‘We are,’ I replied levelly.
     ‘It’s getting so cold,’ she said. ‘And still no-one else is walking out this way.’
     ‘It’s that time of year,’ I said briskly. She looked at me.
     ‘You’re a strange one.’
     ‘Oh, I know. I love it out here.’ We still kept pace with Jack, however unwillingly.
     ‘If this line could be saved,’ I said to Jack, ‘would you do it now?’
     ‘What do you mean?’ said Caz sharply. ‘This line was lost close to 50 years ago.’
     Jack smiled, and seemed to take up more room than he had before. Perhaps it was an effect of the failing light. The sleet lay in a trail behind us, like ball bearings. Ahead of us, improbably, the track was clear. Jack walked a little faster, humming to himself.
     Some distance ahead, I could perceive the mouth of a tunnel I had not seen before, and which I could not recall seeing marked on any map. Jack seemed more squat than ever, and there was increasingly less elbow-room beside him. His uniform was black now; perhaps it had always been so, and I had just mistaken it for navy earlier. A dim red glow seemed to come from his chest, but I knew it must surely come from his pipe. He moved faster still.
     ‘What’s the rush?’ I enquired. ‘Have you a train to catch?’ It seemed as if none of us had the freedom to stop moving of our own accord.
     ‘Och no,’ he chuckled, ‘that was over long ago.’ We were drawn along beside him, almost rattling along. His pipe smoke grew yet blacker and thicker, passing behind him and around him, making us cough.
     ‘Where are we going?’ demanded Caz as we followed him. The long tunnel loomed up ahead.
     ‘To the Muir of Ord,’ he replied in a deeper voice, that had a rattle in it. ‘The trains used to come from there, over this way, you know. There was no direct route from Inverness by road then. For some of us, the trains never stopped coming this way.’
     ‘No!’ she shouted. I hesitated, or tried to. Our feet kept pace beside him. Jack’s arms grew thicker still. The trees seemed to move a little towards us from either side of the track. Jack’s feet moved faster, in a rhythm we could only imitate, drawn along just behind him. He was fast becoming a moving, breathing, chattering thing that was the more horrible for the remainder of its human substance. The transformed railwayman threw back his head and screeched as we approached the tunnel. His head had become a long swollen funnel with teeth, that turned and leered at us. For some time now, I have had the opportunity to reflect on the words: ‘I would not like to live when a black bridleless horse shall pass through the Muir of Ord.’