The Outlander by Gil Adamson

Author:Gil Adamson [Adamson, Gil]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: General Fiction, FIC019000
ISBN: 9780061491344
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

THEY RODE WHEN they could, and when the trees became too thick the tracker made them dismount and walk on in a line, man, horse, man, horse, leading the animals by the reins through impassable areas. Dry branches caught at their sleeves, knees, and stirrups, and the animals staggered and slid on exposed roots. Eventually, the tracker stopped with a stamp of his foot and a frustrated bellow: “This is bullshit!” His horse jerked its head in surprise.

The tracker turned to his clients with a scrunched face and sputtered, “Just . . . just wait here. I’ll find where she came out.” He hiked up his trousers and went off at a bow-legged trot, stepping around tree trunks, his dark oilskin congealing into the forest.

A second later, his voice came echoing, “Don’t make a fire, boys. It’s too thick in here. You’ll barbecue us.”

The two men stood uncertainly, reins in hand, alone in the huge silence. A few tiny birds blew past them and settled on trees, hopping in spirals up the trunks, stabbing at insects. Then one by one they blew away again.

“She came through here?” said one, disbelieving.

The other shrugged.

“Does he know what he’s doing?”

His brother thought a minute, then said, “Yes.”

Half a day later they were on their way in a different direction. The old man had explained that it was one of only two possible ways she could have gone. He had simply guessed. And almost right away, he picked up her trail again.

At dusk he called to them and pointed into the trees, and together they walked their horses toward a dark, lumpen thing that hung among the branches. It was an English saddle — bizarre relic, now rain-soaked and speckled with fallen leaves. The tracker dismounted and approached the object, hefted it and brushed the debris from it, smelled the underside for mould and checked under the flaps. He brought it back to his horse.

“Mind if I keep this?” he said amiably, already strapping it behind his own saddle.

“For God’s sake, man. Is she here?”

“She was.”

The old man continued to pack the awkward object properly, and the brothers waited, for he had a habit of lecturing on the finicky ways of pack horses and the rituals of constructing a fair and balanced burden. In fact, it was the only subject on which he ever strung together more than a few words, and he could be as dull as a schoolmarm on it.

“That’s a fine saddle,” he said, stroking the tooling along its edges. The brothers glanced at each other, helpless.

Finally, he set to work reading the signs the widow had left. He wandered cautiously through the fiddleheads and found what he was looking for. The evidence of a little fire, grease deposits in its charred centre. Even the brothers could see it. A few formerly green twigs she had used in some way to cook meat. The underbrush beaten down and many footprints . . . some of them leading uphill. In fact, that path had been used several times, perhaps ferrying goods to some drier, better spot uphill.

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