Free Fraser's Voices by Jack Hastie Page A

while it was still light was something he could handle. But if the van turned over in the night, during the dark, with the track by then perhaps washed away… so he put on his boots, waterproof trousers and cagoule and slurped off down the crumbling pathway.
    Tomorrow JCBs would be brought up to rebuild the track and the next day Archie would come up with the Range Rover and a squad of men to repair the damage to the caravan site.

    * * *
    Bhuiridh and his six wives and innumerable offspring huddled under trees and behind bushes in the lee of the boundary wall of the wood and rode out the storm. The Ballagan Burn threw itself like a rabid animal at the wall and by morning there was a gap six feet wide where there had been only a small opening the evening before. The level of Kwarutta’s pool rose until it burst its banks and surges of angry water slapped against the stonework of the ruined cottage. The scums and stains were churned and scattered and spread far and wide as the whole wood became one wide river.
    Further downstream burrows were flooded and mice and voles had to take their chance above ground and fly for their lives, while slower moving creatures like slow worms were drowned.
    At the bottom of the wood Sebek’s pool filled fuller than even he could ever remember until it too overflowed its boundaries and the force of the water falling from above churned up the peaty bottom until the water looked like cocoa.
    And lowest of all, the wetlands beside the Loch flooded and Klamath stepped delicately to a delicious feast of frogs and fish flushed out from the mud and stones where they had been hiding.

THE CHALLENGE
    The next day the cloud lifted a little and the downpour eased to a drizzle. Bhuiridh mustered his wives and his kinsmen and led them, as he had done for years, up the Goat Trail to their moorland pasture. When they reached the caravan they found it tilted precariously, one wheel overhanging what was left of the ledge. It was still blocking their ancient right of way. Bhuiridh stepped aside when he reached it; there was room enough to pass.
    â€œI’d knock it over.” The speaker was Gobhar. “It’s got no right there. I wouldn’t stand for it.”
    â€œIt’ll rot away in time,” said Bhuiridh as he scavenged for anything edible that the flood water might have left.
    â€œScared to take it on then?” insinuated Gobhar. “Want me to do it for you?”
    Three of Bhuiridh’s wives and several younger females were watching with interest. Gobhar was a good-looking buck with fine, circling horns and a heavy mane and beard.
    â€œWant me to show you how?” he repeated.
    Four or five of the younger billies had gathered round by now, their interest in grazing temporarily suspended as the tension between champion and challenger riveted their attention.
    â€œYou can’t teach me anything,” Bhuiridh was scornful.
    â€œThen get on with it or I’ll do the job myself.”
    For a moment the two faced each other, foreheads lowered, horns swinging, like two boxers sparring for an opening. But Gobhar knew he wasn’t ready to take on the older billy and Bhuiridh knew that he couldn’t afford to lose face by standing back and letting his challenger topple the van.
    â€œHere we go.” He reared on his hind legs and then, with lowered head, crashed against the side of the van. His horns scratched the paintwork. Another heave and the van juddered and balanced, rocking like a logan stone. At this Gobhar rushed forward, charging the van and with a sudden creak of resignation it lurched over the edge of the platform and somersalted in leap after leap two hundred feet down the slope, until it lodged – what was left of it – against the strong trunk of a mountain ash.
    Dyer, toiling up from Kilrasken on foot to inspect the night’s damage, was appalled to see the savage horned heads of the two goats staring down as his home