Page 49 of Highland Fire

The dog cocked her head to one side, and looked at the girl with huge, soulful eyes.

In the same bracing tone, Fiona continued, “See what I’ve brought to tempt your appetite?

A shank of mutton. I know it’s your favorite, because you-know-who told me so.

” As she spoke her fingers fumbled with the buckle securing the dog’s muzzle.

“I daren’t say her name, and you know why.

Bocain, this is silly. She has only been gone a fortnight, and already you are down to skin and bone. ”

The muzzle was off, and Fiona dangled the meat bone in front of the dog’s nose. Bocain sniffed at it disinterestedly, then licked Fiona’s face. When the outside door creaked, both girl and dog went still.

“Who’s there?”

The door banged, then silence, and Fiona let out a shaky laugh. “I shouldn’t be here,” she told the dog. “Mama would have a fit if she could see me now. She thinks you are unpredictable, can you believe it? Why, you are as safe as a newborn lamb!”

Sitting back on her heels, she studied the hound. Though Bocain’s wounds had healed nicely, and the sutures were out, bald patches of skin showed up redly on the dog’s back and neck. Her coat was dull, and her ribs stood out prominently. In only two weeks, she had lost more than a stone.

“Eat!” This time Fiona’s voice was rough with anxiety. She pushed the bone under the dog’s nose. Bocain merely turned her head away.

“You must eat.” She had gentled her tone, trying to coax the dog. “How am I going to face Caitlin if you pine away to nothing?”

At mention of the forbidden word, Bocain’s tail began to lash the air, and she strained against the lead that tethered her to the wall. Pitiful, almost human whimpers of distress, like the crying of a baby issued from her throat.

Fiona flung her arms around the dog’s neck.

“I know, I know,” she said soothingly. “You miss her dreadfully. I wish there were some way I could make you understand. She isn’t gone forever, you know.

She’ll be back. And even supposing Rand insists that they stay on in England, I have my instructions.

I’m to take you there in person. Now doesn’t that make you feel better? ”

The hound had lost interest in Fiona. Something outside, some sound or scent discernible only to herself, had caught her attention. Her lips were pulled back, and she emitted a low growl.

“If you are not going to eat the bone I’ve brought you, I should go.

” Fiona looked down at the muzzle in her hand.

“I don’t like this any better than you, but it’s for your own good.

” She made to slip the muzzle over the dog’s jaws and Bocain snapped at her.

Fiona pulled back in alarm, dropping the muzzle.

“Bocain!” she berated. “I’m your friend. You’ve never objected before.”

Bocain licked the girl’s face, but when Fiona picked up the muzzle, the dog growled warningly.

“Oh, have it your own way! I don’t suppose there’s any harm in leaving it off. See that you eat the meat on that bone before I return.” She rose to her knees, then to her feet. “I’m warning you, there’s going to be the devil to pay if you open those wounds.”

The dog’s head was up. “What is it you hear? What scent have you picked up?” Fiona cocked her head, straining to catch any stray sound that would account for the dog’s unease.

Everything she heard was reassuring: the occasional snort or whinny from a horse in one of the other stalls; the sound of the rain as it bounced off the roof of the stable.

There were few gillies about, for most of them made up a search party that went out every day at dawn to systematically comb the countryside for Mr. Haughton.

They never returned until dark had fallen.

It was a sad business. It seemed that only the day before Caitlin and Rand had departed for England Mr. Haughton had gone off on some unspecified errand and had simply vanished into thin air.

Two days were to pass before his son had given the alarm.

He’d suspected, hoped, that his father had had an accident while out walking and would be soon found.

Two weeks had gone by, and still the search parties had not found him.

There was no hope for him now. No one native to Deeside doubted the outcome. The temperatures warmed up during the daylight hours, but at night, once the sun had set, in the mountains the cold was lethal.

She shivered. “Poor Mr. Haughton,” she said softly.

Finally, with a last regretful look at the shank of mutton, Fiona left the stall, picking up her lantern as she went, taking the light with her.

Ignoring the succulent meat bone, Bocain made to follow the girl.

Her head was jerked back by the short leather lead which tethered her to the wall.

She gave a low growl and tried again, with the same result.

Whining now, Bocain put her head back and strained at her collar, using her powerful haunches for leverage.

Abruptly lowering her head, she turned and stared into the gloom.

Though her lips were pulled back and her hackles were up, she made no sound.

“Bocain!”

At the sound of the hateful voice coming to her through the darkness, the hound tensed her powerful muscles, readying herself to spring.

Soft laughter, barely audible, brought the dog’s head up even more.

When the door to her stall slammed shut, she launched herself at it.

The collar brought her up short with so much force that the wooden walls of the stall began to shake.

“I thought as much,” said the voice on the other side of the door. “It’s uncanny that a dog should sense the change in me. No one else does.” There was a pause, then, “Forgive me, Bocain. I have no choice.”

Though the words were said in a soothing undertone, the dog went wild.

Again and again, she rushed at the door.

At each assault, the collar around her neck tightened, almost strangling her.

By this time, the horses in the adjoining stalls were stamping their feet and whinnying their alarm.

But this was as nothing when a sheet of flame suddenly engulfed the north wall.

Thoroughly maddened now, Bocain leapt for the door. At the second attempt, the leather lead snapped and the dog slammed against the obstruction. There was the sound of splintering wood; then the door came away from its frame, and Bocain went tumbling into the central corridor.

The exits were a solid wall of fire. Whining, tracking and backtracking, the hound frantically circled the stable, looking for an escape.

The smoke was thick and acrid and though she kept her head well down, it entered her nostrils and she began to heave and choke.

As each second passed, the horses became more and more panicked until they were pounding their hooves against the doors of their stalls, their ghostly screams echoing and reechoing under the wooden rafters.

Outside, men were calling out to each other.

When one of the beams overhead burst into flame, the dog was galvanized into action. She charged.

Like an exploding artillery shell, she went hurtling through a small window that gave onto the tack room at the back of the stable.

Glass shattered into a thousand shards as the hound’s momentum carried her forward, over a wooden water trough and into a quagmire of mud and water.

Half-stunned by the impact, she lay shuddering in the mire, sucking fresh air into her lungs in great noisy gulps.

At the sound of human voices close by, she bared her teeth.

A moment later, she loped away into the shadow of one of the stone dikes and gained the track that led to the shieling.

For three days and a night, Bocain haunted the places where Caitlin’s scent was still strong.

Though there were plenty of people about, she never showed herself to any of them, but slunk away before her presence could be detected.

Dried blood and mud covered her once glossy coat and her skin hung grotesquely in folds.

On the fourth night out, she left the environs of the shieling.

As if driven by instinct, she made for the place where Caitlin had found her as a pup, taking the long way round, crossing the river at the ford, then recrossing it further up.

Once there, before many days had past, starvation compelled her to hunt for her own food.

Rabbits and small game were all that she could manage, until she slowly regained her former strength.

Soon, she was stalking deer. On one occasion, she crossed the river at the Inver ford and lay in wait, high up in the hills, where the snow still lingered, above Balmoral Castle.

The buck she selected for her prey was fleet of foot and led her for miles over rough terrain.

She was gaining on it, when some scent distracted her attention.

Growling now, Bocain turned aside and picked her way down a steep incline to the bottom of a gully. Wedged into the gully, she came upon Haughton’s remains. The scent that she hated above all others was still clinging to the dead man’s clothes.

Bocain worked at the loose scree and snow which covered the dead man until she had freed him. Dragging him clear, she tore at his clothes until they were in shreds and the wind had whipped them away.