The Underhill Journal

An opening to a new short story I'm working on.

The morning after.  The walls in the hotel suite where we had stayed dripped blood.  My head swam, my stomach heaved.  Someone is shrieking, an awful high pitched dentist’s drill of a  sound that was penetrating my skull agonisingly.  I lie under a heavy drift of ripped and shredded feather bedding, some of which clings to my naked body, red and sticky. Under  my cocooning layer of debris only I am yet aware of that, and since I cannot move, I can’t but help but wonder if I haven’t yet been seen under here.  I am sure that awful noise is being made because of the blood on the walls and the grizzly mess that I know is strewn across the carpet of our room too.  
I am assaulted afresh by jagged shards of memory stabbing through my pained consciousness.  I recall the sepulchre tones of the ticking clock that stopped dead at midnight, the stench of blood, the red-blindness that accompanied the sound of my own voice screaming itself hoarse, the grim look that passed over his pale face and the howling, the dreadful howling that filled my ears as painfully as this shrieking.  I’m not ready for these memories, and the sound that they tear out of my throat brings attention to me.  
There is a confusion of voices, the shrieking is cut off by them, and then there’s hands laid on me and exclamations of horror.  Someone asks if I am ok, someone asks what happened, but I can’t answer.  A penny drops in someone’s head and I hear them ask where he is, in a voice which is already teetering on a hysterical edge because the answer is in front of everyone now around me.  It’s strewn in bloody, torn pieces across the bedroom carpet and slopped like buckets of red paint on the walls.  Questions become demands that I won’t ever be able to answer, there is shouting and panic, and footsteps fleeing in haste.  Someone can’t keep their stomach contents.  I sympathise, I lost mine some time ago though, but I can’t speak up to say.  I’m overwhelmed, speechless, paralysed, just a broken thing left behind in the aftermath of what happened to him.  
Then I hear someone start to weep, lamenting him.
“He was just 27, dear God, just 27,”  
Yes, just 27, my heart weeps with them, but we always knew that the day would come.  

This is from a children's story I wrote many years ago.

 Suddenly there was a scraping noise and both of the boys looked up alarmed. Selena exclaimed excitedly as the head of the owl began to turn round, and a gap began to open in the wall to one side of it.

Some light spilled out into the corridor, the flickering yellow light of candle flame and a doorway seemed to have appeared. A soft draught of air brought a scent of musty autumn forest through to them through the doorway. The three children stood together in front of it, looking inside rather nervously, but they could make very little at all out, apart from what seemed to be gently glowing bookshelves very close to the doorway. Together, they crept as close to the doorway as they dared and put their heads around to see inside.

They looked through into a Library at least as big as the British Library that Daniel had once visited in London with his Uncle Michael. He had been awed by that vast, whispering chamber filled with busy silence, the whiteness of the polished marble and the deep mahogany of the bookshelves, but that feeling could not compare to the astonishment he now felt.

This Library was unlike anything any of the children had ever seen before. It was as large as any cathedral, and it's high, vaulted stone ceiling disappeared off into unseen heights of darkness. The little light in the vast chamber came from old fashioned glass lanterns that hung in various places from the trunk and boughs and, more curiously, from within the bark of a massive tree that grew in the centre of the chamber. The tree was incredibly tall, its topmost branches brushing the ceiling, but its trunk was comparably massive, its girth like the base of a lighthouse. Great banks of bookshelves were carved into it, hundreds of shelves high until the reached the base of the trees crown. Here the tree was clad in a glorious cloak of golden-green leaves gleamed and pulsed with their light, held high by gracefully arced branches whose glowing bark could be seen through gaps in the canopy. Huge, twisted, moss covered roots spread out along the ground all the way to the edges of the room and in them were carved more shelves full of books of all kinds, shapes and sizes. Where there were large spaces left by loops of root there would be a cluster of lanterns and reading desks, tables and chairs, the tables and desks piled high with more books. Spider-webs that sparkled like threads of diamond could be seen everywhere, from the lowest branches to the very tops, crisscrossing between the roots and hanging from the shelves. Alarmingly, drifting to them in the gloom, there came a series of thuds and a rattling of chains, accompanied by sounds like someone thumbing quickly across the pages of a book, but many, many times over, but there was not even so much as a breath of air to stir the leaves of the tree, let alone the pages of the books. All the while there came a soft moaning creak of the tree. The whole, breathtaking, effect of the room was very beautiful, but also unsettling and eerie.

This is a snippet of my newest little project.  Let me know what you make of it!

Surviving

I watch him load the shotgun, hearing the smooth sound of the well-oiled mechanism break the silence that hangs heavy around us. My heart feels like it’s beating too loud in my chest, and I’m worried he’ll hear it, because my brain is swimming with the startling revelation that he’s just given me a few wild minutes ago. My lips are still burning with the scorching kiss he laid on them after we managed to get out of that building alive.
He looks up now, his green eyes locking with mine and I swear he must have heard the way my heart is thundering after all. I’ve known him for almost my entire life, he was once the Boy Next Door in the days before Armageddon, but now we are family, fighting for survival in a world where the Legions of Hell are running riot. Except he’s just gone and torn that all up and left my world reeling, and the way he’s looking at me now isn’t doing anything to help that.
I’m fully aware of the hard stare both of us are getting from the other side of the room, where my younger brother is sitting by the boarded up window. Feeling his eyes on me annoys me for several reasons, but I only lash out with one of them.
“You’re supposed to be watching out of that window, bro,” I hiss in a constrained whisper.
“Right,” he hisses right back, contempt in his tone.
“Cut it out, both of you,” my Boy Next Door turned Big Brother whispers harshly. I bite my tongue, and hope my baby brother bites his tongue too. He barely remembers a time when we weren’t family, so he knows better than I do that our Big Brother is to be obeyed when we are out on a raid together. My baby brother turns his head and looks out of a crack in the wood that boards up the window.
“Cat, check the top floor,” there’s not a single clue in his voice to what he’s thinking, just the usual focused practicality that helps to keep the three of us alive. All the clues are in his eyes though, and I find I have to nod my head quickly and look away. I head towards the door, finger on the trigger of my handgun, eyes darting between the exits presented to me. Everything looks clear, and there’s not a sound to be heard in the house except my own beating heart and his footsteps behind me as he goes to check out the bottom floor.
The first step creaks when I put my weight on it, I hear his intake of breath, but the next step is solid under my doubly careful tread. I move slowly up the stairs, gun ahead of me, senses wide open and alert.
There was a time when I had five, untrained senses. Then this fucking Holy War erupted, and between necessity and the ‘gift’ that was my consolation prize for surviving Day One when my parents didn’t, I ended up with six sharply honed senses. As I creep up those stairs, my ears are picking up every sound within the four walls of the house and much of the village lane beyond that, my eyes are searching every scrap of shadow for anything that might lurk in it, my nose is drawing in every decaying scent in the decrepit mock Tudor mansionnette, my skin tingling with every stirring breath of air, my tongue tasting the rank dampness of the house’s sodden timbers and my sixth sense, the one that lets me feel the presence of evil nearby, is reaching out before me like a blind man’s cane, carefully feeling ahead for anything dark and dangerous. My little brother shares this skill of mine, but his power goes beyond mine, into portentous dreams and the heads of the things we have to share the world with now. It makes him vulnerable, but we always do everything in our power to protect him, just like our Dad did up until he died.
When I say Dad, I don’t mean my real Dad, the one who didn’t survive Day One. I mean Big Brother’s Dad, the one who taught all three of us how to survive, the one who died only a month ago. Shit, I really don’t want to be thinking about Dad just now, I need a clear head and not one that just might well up with crippling guilt any second now.
Reaching the top step, I find myself in a t-shaped corridor, going straight to the front of the house and branching out to my right. My sixth sense sweeps before me, finding nothing except a few creeping Dire Rats that scuttle away from my touch in fear. Damn right they should fear me, I’m known well enough to the other side, as are my brothers, and as was our Dad. We’re Refuge’s most successful raiders, and because of us, humanity stands a fighting chance of surviving in this world. Carefully, meticulously, I check each of the five rooms on this floor of the building, finding nothing except rotting furniture and the detritus of a way of life that finished nearly twenty years ago. There’s no lurkers here, but also no salvage to be had. The whole building is soaked through by the long rains of the storms that boil constantly in the sky above us, so there’s nothing left worth picking up. I creep back down stairs, unsure if I’m ready to face these brothers of mine again quite so soon.
I guess at this point I should introduce us by name. I’m Cat, as you may have noticed. It’s short for Catriona, which was my Grandmother’s name. My little brother is Adair, though in truth he is not so little any more - he’s the tallest of the three of us in fact, even though he is four years younger than me. I try not to feel jealous, even though I did stop growing at 13 myself. My Big Brother, who really isn’t my brother, is Findlay, and he’s two years older than me. Finn lost his mother on Day One. He’s also not actually mentioned Dad since he died, which is bothering me a whole lot more now than it was before he kissed me.
Finn is waiting with Adair in the living room when I get back downstairs, keeping his shotgun in his hands. I manage not to look directly at him when I walk in, although I can feel that he’s looking at me. Adair has his gun trained on the street through a break in the boards on the big windows that dominate this damp and dusty remnant of a room, and from the tension in the air between them, I’d say he’s ignoring Finn pretty pointedly. Finn’s never been good at being ignored. Outside a roll of thunder cracks the sky, and after a heartbeat the bright flash of lightning forces it’s way through every crack in the room.
“Upstairs is clean,” I tell them both, before slumping down with my back to a wall and my gun towards the door I just came through, “Well, it’s clean apart from all the rotten shit,” I add, trying not to think of what I might have been breathing in to my lungs in this house. When I get back to Refuge, I’m going straight to the Sisters for purifying. Maybe they can do something about cleaning up the mess inside my head while they are at it.
“Good, we can hole up here until morning then,” Finn replies. My heart sinks, even though I expected this. It’s just not safe enough to make the run for the car while its still night, the village is crawling with Revenants and the Legions have made a base out of the local church. They also know we’re here after we ran into a couple of low level demons trying to figure out a way into the bookshop we came here to raid. The demons are toast, back in Hell burning where they should be, but we got the rest of the Legions in the village all worked up and barely got away from the bookshop with the books we came for and our lives. The mansionnette was the first place we found with wards on the doors and windows, and thankfully it looks like they’ve held.
“We might as well start looking at these books then,” I say with a sigh, needing the distraction. I reach inside my jacket for a torch, but Adair turns and whispers at me from his vantage point at the window.
“No lights, Cat. We’re not that safe.” I get up to look with him out at the street. Revenants are milling slowly about in the rain, but I don’t worry too much about them because one shot to the head can drop them. It’s the flickering shadows in the hedgerows and the things slinking close to the walls that make me worry. Sneaks, shades and creepers, we call them, and they aren’t so easy to kill. With my sixth sense focused, I can feel them searching for us. We will have to sit tight till morning for sure, because at least the daylight, feeble though it is, will send them scuttling for deeper hiding places until nightfall again.
“Damn them,” I curse mildly, feeling resigned to a cold, awkward night of long silences and little sleep. And too much thinking time.
“Adair, Cat, get some sleep if you can, I’ll take the first watch,” Finn tells us quietly, moving to take Adair’s place by the window.
“Any beds upstairs, Sis?” Adair asks me, but I shake my head.
“Nothing that will take your weight anyway,” I say, trying for something closer to normal even though I’m not feeling it. Adair scowls at me and goes to make himself comfortable in a corner of the room. He folds up his long limbs tidily, but it wont be long before he’s sprawling. I swear he could sleep anywhere. It’s a gift I often wished I had. At least he doesn’t snore.
I tuck myself up with my arms around my knees to keep out the cold and try to get some sleep myself, but it’s no use. Finn isn’t looking at me, but I can feel his presence like a cloud of tangled emotion hanging heavy between us. As I watch Adair melt into sleep, this feeling gets stronger as my brain turns over what happened forensically, trying to figure out what it all means.
See, Finn is certainly no saint when it comes to women. Back at Refuge, he’s been stringing at least half a dozen girls along for years, playing them off each other and avoiding commitments to any of them. Of course it helps that he’s a big hero back there, and it helps that he’s pretty damn good looking with his dark hair, broad shoulders, lean fighter’s body, intense green eyes and that easy nature that rolls out of him when he’s not in the field. I’m going to put my cards on the table here and say I’m far from immune myself, but it’s something I’ve kept buried because he’s family to me. That doesn’t mean I haven’t had bouts of jealousy, but it does mean no-one else knows about it.
I’m not sure exactly how much time passes, but when I look over at Adair and see that he’s sprawled across the floor now, deep asleep, I realise it’s been a fair while. Glancing up at Finn, I see he’s sitting with the shotgun across his lap, still staring hard out onto the street. That tension is still there though, simmering between us. I can feel it as clearly as if my sixth sense was picking it up.
“Finn,” I whisper across the space between us, more nervous than I was back in that damn bookshop surrounded by demons. He glances quickly at Adair’s sprawling form then looks at me.
“Cat?” He replies. I’d say he was being evasive if it wasn’t for what I can see in his eyes. There’s all kinds of nearly every emotion in there, and it’s not sitting well with him. It’s making it hard to feel angry with him. Hard, but not impossible.
“What the hell were you thinking?” I hiss, not wanting to rouse either the Legions in the street nor our sleeping brother. I could really do with not having him hear this discussion.
“I thought you were going to die,” Finn says in response, wincing at the look I can’t help but give him. Well, my, there’s a whole big can of worms right there. I thought I was going to die too, I’d even gone so far as to tell Finn to get Adair out of the place. The fact that he didn’t listen to me didn’t matter when I managed to catch the demon blocking my path off guard and I got away from the bookstore in something close to a miracle. I have never drawn a ward so fucking fast in my whole life. I practically fell into his arms as I came out the front door, but I was running so fast I would have fallen down the steps if he hadn’t caught me.
“So you were pleased to see me then?”
“Hey, it kind of took me by surprise too,” he replies a little testily. Took him by surprise?
“What does that even mean? Were you surprised you kissed me then, or surprised you kissed me at all? I was sure as hell surprised you kissed me!” I want to yell at him and shake him, but instead I have to bark it tightly at him in a savage whisper. He opens his mouth to reply, but Adair stirs in his sleep and he thinks better of it. He signals silently to me that we should leave the room. He crosses to the door and I follow him across the corridor to the dining room. He instantly takes up a position where he can see out onto the street, and I slide in next to him, facing the door and keeping my gun in my hand.

On a day when the clouds are hanging low, the winds are raging high and the post christmas slump is starting to set in, I wrote this.  Not very cheery.

I feel like I should be slipping away

Everything in my world has turned to grey

Smothered beneath a thick, charcoal cloud

That steals my need to speak out loud

The monochrome thoughts in my head

The things I know should be said

Silence is grey, devoid of colour

Red anger gone, bleached by this other

All consuming, paralysing emotion

Freezing my mind, ending any forward motion

That otherwise might lead me out of this place

Where Im penned in by things I can't face

Depression, so horrifyingly bland

How can anyone else understand 

What it feels like to be sunk down so low?

Others smile, laugh and live, how can they know?

I'm alone, my self-absorption a quarantine 

So that this self-loathing can go unseen

Sadness spreads like contagious infection

Growing in long silences and internal refelction

I don't want to be the one to pass it on

That's a lead straight-jacket I cannot don

So it comes again back to this

For as long as these feelings I can't dismiss

I feel like I should be slipping away

Everything in my world has turned to grey

This is a piece I wrote a while back for our local Free Paper, the Glenkens Gazette.  It is a dramatisation of real events that took place in our little Glen in the 1600's, during what is now referred to as "The Killing Times".

The Story of James McMichael

My name is James McMichael, which was also the name of my father, although now they call him "Black" James McMichael. The law says that my father was a murderer, and after he died they put his body in a gibbet and left it to rot where all the Clachan could see it. Yet the people of the Clachan cried to see it, and in secret they whispered behind their hands that my father was a Martyr, not a murderer. It was the Killing Times, and fear stalked the quiet streets and country lanes of the Glenkens, while the law was turned on its head by the anger of the King at what he believed was our insurrection. 

My father was a man of conviction and my mother always said that none but God himself could change my fathers mind once he had made it up. It was certainly the case when he joined the Solemn League, and he declared that no Royal proclamation was going to make him give it up. 

Then the King set out the fines and punishments for not attending the Kirk, and still Father would not change his mind. He refused to let us go, saying he would never bow his head in prayer to the King when Jesus alone deserved our praise. 

So strong was his belief, that when I was but a small child, Father marched with many other Covenanter's to fight against the King's men, unafraid of what might happen as he believed he was in Gods' hands. They were defeated, horribly, for they were armed with not much more than farm tools and handmade weapons, but defeat did not dent my Father's belief one bit either. He simply came back home and bided his time. 

It was in the year 1684, when I was 14 years old, that things became very black indeed. The King sent Graham of Claverhouse and his Dragoons to hunt down the Covenanter's and force us back to the Kirk. Violence and death followed in his wake as he ruthlessly went about weeding out the Covenanters from the local folk. 

Soon, because of the fear that Claverhouse brought amongst us, once trusted men became informers and there were spies among our ranks. Father became suspicious of all but a few of his fellows. Often, I would lie awake to listen as Father sat up late at night with his closest friends, Robert Stewart, John Grierson and Robert Ferguson, talking in soft voices. I knew in my heart they were plotting. 

The day that my father earned the name "Black" James is burned deeply into my memory, and I can think of nothing that will remove it so long as I live. The Curate of Carsphairn, Peter Pierson, had been giving away the names of Covenanters freely, buying the favour of Grierson of Lag, who was stationed within a stones throw of the Kirk at Carsphairn. Father had me drive him and the other men to Carsphairn, where they planned to plead the Covenanters case with the Curate, hoping to silence him with reason. It was December and dark already as we trundled slowly up the road. Frost was in the air, for Winters' bite was hard upon us. Father told me to wait outside when we came to the Manse and to be prepared to leave as fast as I could should anything go wrong. 

I waited, shivering in the cold outside, sick to the stomach with a sense of foreboding. Then, with a crack as deafening as thunder, a shot resounded from within the Manse. Forgetting my fathers instructions I rushed inside, to hear my Fathers voice booming in the parlour. Before him, lying in a pool of crimson, was the Curate, clutching feebly at his chest. The stench of gunpowder was in the air and I felt bile rise in my throat when I saw that  my Father held a Musket in his hands which he pointed still at the Curate as he spoke. 

"Let the Lord judge you now, for you have sinned against him. You adhere to the King's blasphemy, and I have given you justice for it!" 

My father stood surrounded by his friends, all of whom wore grim expressions that spoke of their solidarity. My heart was thumping and my knees turned to water, for I was afraid of the soldiers I was sure would come at the sound of the shot. Then, as I had dreaded, the thunder of horses hooves came echoing through the night, rousing me from my stupor.  My father would be killed if he were caught as he was. 

"Flee Father! The Dragoons are coming!" I cried. 

Stewart and Grierson turned at once to go, Ferguson made to follow them but stopped and put a hand to my fathers shoulder when it seemed he would not move. 

"Wait," I heard my father say, and he walked to where the Curate lay, his lifeblood ebbing away onto the floor of the Manse. There, my father stood and waited until the last light of life had disappeared from Curate's eyes.  He whispered a soft prayer under his breath before finally reaching down to gently draw the Curates eyelids closed. 

"Please Father!" I cried, for I could see the Dragoons leaping from their horses in the yard outside. My father looked up at me and nodded, then he and Ferguson fled out of the Kirk by the back door. The Dragoons came pouring in the front door, yelling in the Kings name. I threw myself behind a curtain, praying to God that they would not see me. They rushed passed the Curates body, giving it not a single glance, and poured out again by the same door my father had taken. At that moment, I was afraid that I would never see my father alive again. 

It was dark still when I was shaken roughly from sleep. I let out a cry of fear, my dream sodden mind telling me this was Claverhouse come to drag me away for my part in Piersons murder. A hand smothered the noise, making me snap my eyes open and struggle to sit upright. 

"Whisht lad, it is only I," came a voice I instantly recognised as Robert Stewarts, "We don't want to wake your brothers and sisters," he added, taking his hand away from my mouth. 

"My father?" I asked, hoping that he would be near, and safe. 

"He is in hiding, son. He cannot return here now," Stewart told me, "Now come with me, I need your assistance lad, but I can't explain here," 

I scrambled out of bed, full of relief to hear that my father was safe, yet apprehension was gnawing at me. What was it that Stewart wanted me to do? I followed him into the kitchen, pulling a shirt over my vest as I went. 

Mother was sitting at the kitchen table, her face only partly lit by the single, guttering candle that stood in its centre. Her expression was like stone, unreadable and firmly set. The only other light in the kitchen was the feeble glow of the dying embers of the fire. 

I sat down opposite her, while Stewart crouched down by the fire and started to stir it in the hopes of kindling it to a brighter flame. Mother pushed a plate of oat bannocks across the table, so I buttered them and ate them in silence. As the silence grew, so did my feeling of apprehension, but then finally, Mother broke it. 

"Your father wants you to help Master Stewart in his stead. Never have I argued with your father, and never shall I, but I must ask you to take great care, James. There is a great deal of danger in this task," 

I nodded dutifully at her, after what had happened five days ago in Carsphairn I understood her fears. Then I turned to look at Stewart as he stood in the gloom by the fire. 

"What is it that you want me to do?" 

"We need transport for several men to Kirkcudbright, and we need a watchful pair of eyes," Stewart began, looking directly at me, "Your father offered us the use of his cart. Will you drive it for us, lad?" 

Robert Stewart was a fugitive from the law, but providing did not seem so dangerous. There must be more to it, I thought. 

"Why do you want to go to Kircudbright?" 

"We mean to go to the Tolbooth, to free the prisoners there. We need the cart to hide our weapons and intentions," 

My mind raced. This was a blatant act of insurrection. No wonder mother had warned me so. And yet, as I had grown I had taken my fathers cause as my own. I had known many folk who had been imprisoned, and killed, over the short years of my life, and that made my mind up for me. 

"I will do it," I said quietly. 

"There is a market today. If we leave within the hour we can use that as cover. We can find a place to wait and attack the Tolbooth tonight," Stewart explained, obviously pleased by my willingness. 

And so it was that I came to be standing in the shadows on the opposite side of the street from the Tolbooth, watching intently as a patrol disapeared off into the night. I let out a shrill whistle as soon as they were out of sight and from dark doorways and alleyways the men emerged. I followed them to stand in the gloom beside the Tolbooths doors. 

"Follow me lad," Grierson called to me as Stewart began to pound on the heavy doors with his fists. 

"I am to keep watch," I answered, bewildered. 

"No time for that now. You must steal the keys from the guard room and let loose the prisoners," he replied, leaning close tom me and speaking in a harsh whisper. Before I had time to consider this the doors swung open and Stewart threw himself at the unsuspecting guard who had opened them. The men poured in behind them, with Grierson grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me after him. 

The corridor beyond was jammed with fighting men, their yelling and the ring of their blades almost deafening in th confined space. Grierson pointed me towards a side door and joined the melee, leaving me no choice but to obey. I had to duck and twist and weave my way around the men, aware of the clamour coming from the cells beyond as the prisoners shouted encouragements and pleas. 

Almost at the door, I had to throw myself to the ground to avoid the swipe of a guardsman's blade. He advanced on me where I lay until Stewart appeared behind him and cut him down with a lethal thrust. I had to scrabble to avoid him toppling on me. 

Finally I found myself in the guardroom, spying the keys hanging on a hook. I dashed for them, afraid of being followed, and ducked out of the room, the heavy keys jangling noisily in my fist. 

My heart was thumping so and the din of the battle was such that I barely noticed the words of gratitude uttered to me as I unlocked the cell doors. I was not immune, however, to a wave of anger and revulsion that hit me as I looked on at the pitiful state of the prisoners. Many of them were not men like my father, or Stewart and Grierson, but old bent men, women and boys even younger than myself. So thin and weak were some of them that it seemed to take all of their strength just to reach the cell door. 

An ancient lady staggered and practically fell on me, so I supported her, turning back to try and lead her through the fighting men to the exit beyond. Grierson and Stewart were pressing hard and forcing the guards back into the guardroom with their men, leaving a much clearer path back for me. Even so, I could not help but wonder what we were going to do with these poor, feeble folk who had done no greater wrong than to worship God in the way they had always done. 

Grierson answered my fears with a shout. 

"Get them to the cart lad, we will make our own way out of here!" 

Having no clearer clue what to do, I lead the prisoners out onto the dark streets of the town, taking them straight down an alley and away from any likely patrols. As we scurried along, I could hear them muttering prayers. Somewhere in the distance I heard the Dragoons, their horses hooves clattering noisily along the cobbled streets towards the Tolbooth. In fear, I practically lifted the woman I was helping off her feet and carried her to where we had hidden the cart. Shots rang out in the air, and the clash of steel became more pronounced. Desperately I urged everyone on faster, finding a reserve of strength in me that I never knew that I had. Finally, we reached the cart, and without a sinlge glance back to see what might have become of Grierson and Stewart and the other men, I urged my horses to a canter and fled Kirkcudbright.

I woke long before dawn, and determined not to disturb Mother or my siblings, I slipped as quietly from the bed room as possible. Since the raid in Kirkcudbright two nights before, I had been jumping at shadows, terrified that Claverhouse would know that I had been involved and bring
his wrath down on my family. I could stand it no longer, so last night I determined that I would take a bag of supplies and disappear off into the hills after my father. One of the men involved in the raid had let it slip that father was hiding out at Auchenloy, by the Black Water of Dee.

So it was that half an hour later I was on the road with a backpack of food, heading in that general direction. The first rays of sunlight were peaking over the hills, but all around there was a thick, icy fog which crept up the river basin on tendril fingers. I could only barely see where I was going or what lay ahead of me. I nearly jumped clean out of my skin when I heard a sudden whisper in my ear.
"You should be careful out here lad, Claverhouse is upon the roads with his men,"
I turned, afraid of what I might find and saw that it was Robert Ferguson who stooped down to speak in my ear.
"I was going to my father," I told him in my defence.
"And ye could have led a dragoon to him unknowing walking is such a dwam along these roads,"
My mouth dropped open and I stuttered, trying in vain to explain myself, but Ferguson simply smiled and shook his head. He took me by the arm and lead me off the road and into the field.
"I'll guide you there boy," he began "By a safer road, although you must stay close to me in this fog,"
How thankful I was that he found me, for less than two minutes later we heard the sound of many horses hooves upon the road and looked to see soldiers on it, their shadowy shapes picked out in the fog by the lamps they carried to see by.
We walked the many miles to the Black Water, the icy fog lifting slowly under the sluggish winter sun. We crossed bogs and burns and followed deer tracks through the forests, always wary that we might be followed or seen by Claverhouse's men as they combed the countryside.
Finally, with the fog still roiling about the feet of the trees though the day was almost half gone, we came to Auchenloy, where my father and his companions had made camp. Though they were hardy men, the bitter cold and privation seemed to be beginning to take their toll. Wariness of being
found prevented them from lighting a fire that might have otherwise improved their lot. They fell gratefully on the bannocks, cheese and cold meat that I had brought and my father praised me highly for my thoughtfulness.
To see him alive when I had feared him dead until 2 days before cheered me greatly, and for a while I forgot my fears and sat and listened to the chatter of the men as I had done many times throughout my childhood.
That it would be the last time I would do this, the last time I would speak with them, the last time I would see my father alive and without care I did not realise at the time. Now the laughter rings hollow in my mind for it was that sound that brought the dragoons down upon us.
They came on foot, silent as foxes, hidden by the fog and caught us all by surprise. A shot rang out and Ferguson fell dead to the ground. I felt my feet rooted to the ground in shock as I stared at the corpse of a man who had been alive bare seconds before.
“Run lad!” my father bellowed, tearing me from my frozen state. He leaped to his feet, pistol and sword drawn already. I needed no second telling and flew headlong for the tree-line, but there I stopped, not wanting to leave my father again. Now, in some ways, I wish I had not.
Graham of Claverhouse and his bloody band of Dragoons stepped out of the fog, muskets trained on my father and his cronies.
“James Mc Michael!” he roared and I saw my father step forward, his head held high.
“That is I” he told the sheriff.
With a wave of his hand, Claverhouse halted his men and strode forward to face my father, giving no heed to the weapons my father had drawn.
“You are under arrest for the murder of Pierson of Carsphairn and treason against his majesty, Charles II. I advise you to come quietly,” he said in a voice as cold as the fog.
“You know I will not,” my father replied.
Claverhouse turned to his men and pointed at where my fathers friends stood behind him.
“Shoot them,” he ordered.
Gunshot tore the air like a thunderstorm broken right overhead. Robert Stewart and John Grierson fell dead. In the forest I stood aghast, unable to tear my eyes away.
“I'll not be your trophy catch, Claverhouse. You'll either have to kill me or be killed trying to take me,” My father told him, without a waver in his voice.
“You think you're a match for me Mc Michael?” Claverhouse asked, his voice coloured with scorn. He drew his sword, “Let's see how much of a fool you are,”
My father tossed his pistol to the ground and grinned. “Single combat, Sheriff,” he said, issuing the challenge.
Claverhouse replied by crossing swords with my father and the ring of steel echoed in the frigid air. Father roared like an angered bull and rained blows on Claverhouse, forcing him backwards. But Claverhouse's skill with the blade was not small and after his initial surprise at Father's fury he fought back. They went to and fro several times and Claverhouse began to be frustrated as my fathers skill was more than he had imagined. Again father fought him back with a furious volley of blows and Claverhouse missed his footing on the wet ground. Father lunged and there was a dull clang as his sword met the metal of Claverhouse's helm. Claverhouse staggered back, his pride as stung as his crown.
“Had your helmet been like mine,” my father snarled, pointing to the soft bonnet on his head,”Your carcass had now found a bed upon the heath!”
There was triumph in fathers voice, but alas, it was to be short lived! For as he they fought I had spied that one of Claverhouse's dragoons had moved away from the rest and he stooped to take a large stone. I was frozen and made dumb with fear, something of which I am not proud to this day, and I could not find my voice when I saw the dragoon slip silently up behind my father as he spoke. I saw him raise the rock up high, and still the cry I longed to utter remained caught within my throat. Then the dragoon dashed it down up on my fathers skull, cleaving it open.
In my horror my knees went from under me, bile rising fast in my gullet. I was aware of more shots ringing through the air and somehow a sense of self-preservation took over and I stumbled back to my feet and fled.
In life, as well as death my father was a man of indomitable spirit and somewhat reckless character, yet not a day goes by that I do not mourn his loss or wish that I had a little more of his strength of will. The Killing Times are long behind us, and graves erected for many of the Martyrs who died in those days. Often I sit by the stone that marks the final rest of Robert Stewart and John Grierson and ponder their cruel fate. But never far from my mind is the martyr who isn't buried there, the Martyr who knows no true rest. My father, James Mc Michael.

The End