Dark Mountain by Helen Susan Swift

Author:Helen Susan Swift [Swift, Helen Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Creativia
Published: 2018-07-08T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

'Where's Kate?'

As so often happens in Scotland, a night of heavy rain was followed by a bright, sharp morning where the air was so brisk that one's skin tingled.

'Where's Kate?' Lorna woke us up, one by one. Christine had moved during the night and was nearest to the entrance, lying in a foetal ball. I shook her.

'Christine, have you seen Kate?'

'No.' Christine yawned and scratched her head, looking like a disgruntled spaniel puppy. 'She might be answering a call of nature.'

We allowed Kate ten minutes before we began to search, shouting her name as we scoured the hillside. Sunlight sparkled on a score of new rivulets that gushed toward Poll nan Ban while whaups bubbled in the distance.

'Kate!'

'She might have slipped and fallen,' I said.

Lorna organised the search, so we moved in ever larger circles from the Shelter Stone, following every possibility, looking in every nook and cranny, poking our sticks into the peat holes and checking behind the scattered rocks. Remembering my visitor of the previous night, I worked with a heavy heart, dreading what I might find.

'Over here! Over here!' When Mary shouted the words, we hurried to her side. 'Down there!' She pointed down the slope to the sparkling waters of Poll nan ban. 'What's that in the water?'

I knew without looking.

Face down and entirely naked, Kathleen Gordon floated in Poll nan Ban. Her black hair spread like a fan, her arms were extended and her legs apart.

'Oh, dear God in heaven,' Lorna muttered. 'Please no.'

We scrambled down the shallow slope to the lochan, each of us hoping that she might still be alive.

'Kate!' I shouted as my feet dislodged a mini avalanche of stones that rippled down the hill to splash into the clear water. Kate floated about twenty feet offshore, bobbing gently. A pair of black-headed gulls swam nearby.

We stood at the water's edge for only a moment before Mary threw off her clothes and plunged in. I followed a few seconds' later. The pool was far deeper than it appeared from above and so cold that I gasped with shock.

Mary reached Kate first and dragged her to me. Between the two of us, we pulled her ashore where Lorna was waiting.

'Give her here,' Lorna felt for a pulse and a heartbeat. 'She's dead. I'll try anyway. Help me turn her over.' We pushed Kate onto her front and Lorna tried to pump the water out of her lungs and revive her.

We watched in hope as the Great War ambulance driver tried to bring life back into the landowner's daughter. Lorna gasped and strove, trying all the skill she had learned in the war with her wounded soldiers. Nothing worked. Kate, our flawed, magnificent leader, lay still beside the clear waters of the lochan. I heard the call of an eagle and saw the massive birds circling above.

Eventually, Lorna looked up. 'It's no good,' she said. 'Kate's dead.'

I felt sick. 'Can you tell how she died?'

'I think she drowned,' Lorna said. 'She must have fallen down the hill into the lochan.

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