Bruar's Rest

he’s alright.’
    ‘Oh, sit where you are, I’ll check him.’ Bruar stretched a woollen balaclava over his head, slipped one foot outside the tent-flap, but before he took another breath he felt something slump against the tent and slide down the canvas.
    ‘What, in God’s name, is that? Hell, I’m staying put. That must be a ghost, for no living thing could survive this night!’
    Rory buttoned up his jacket. ‘Stupid lad, there’s no such things. Now get out of my way. I’m more concerned that a bough of that creaking oak that hangs over us has just dropped its load of snow, and maybe the whole bloody tree will be next to come down! Or have you considered that it might be a lame deer; one that could feed us for a month.’
    Before another word left his mouth there was another thump against the tent; a weight dented the canvas, then rolled down. All three now darted outside. Snow, powered by a high northerly wind, blinded them. Hands groped in the pitch dark and soon found, not a broken branch, but a body! In a flash it was dragged inside. Bruar quickly brushed clogged snow from the blue nostrils of the small figure, while Jimmy removed frozen, ice-matted gloves, and began rubbing life back into thin hands. The three of them pulled off a sodden wool coat to see that their intruder was a young female. Instinctively, Bruar began rubbing furiously at her shivering flesh with warm hands. ‘Come on, lassie, open your eyes. No, don’t sleep, there’s a brave lass, tell us your name.’ Over and over he rubbed, and kept prompting: ‘Good lass, what was that you said? Speak now... tell us who are you are...’
    With sudden jerks of her body, followed by fists thumping the air, the lassie’s small frame jumped back to life. Her frightened head turned to her rescuer; eyes staring wide, her hands found his warm face. ‘Mammy and Rachel, where, where is Mammy and Rachel?’ she screamed.
    They stared at each other in horror. Somewhere out there, where the murderous storm ruled the night, were two others. The young woman fell back into Bruar’s arms and slipped back into unconsciousness; instinctively he tore off his clothes and covered her with his warm body, while Rory and Jimmy donned every article of warm clothing they had and set out to find the girl’s family.
    Each footstep sank helplessly into drifts as they called out to the strangers, who by now were probably frozen solid by the stone dyke, which was their only guide. Rory’s hunger for drink was striking and gnawing into his cold innards, which helped convince him their rescue was a futile bid. He was about to signal that they should turn back when a voice, weak and shivering, gasped out the words, ‘Over here!’
    Jimmy pushed his father towards some gale-lashed trees, ‘There they are, come on!’
    Sinking into deep drifts of snow, panting with the effort, they dragged themselves and struggled until they found the two small winter travellers huddled together. Whoever the girl was who’d braved the storm to find help, she was certainly endowed with the bravery and heart of a wolf. Before setting off, she’d built around her mother and sister a house of snow. The rescuers, their determination renewed, gathered the frozen pair and made for home quickly.
    It took a lot of rubbing frozen limbs and the devouring of gallons of hot tea before a new dawn brought an end to the storm. Thanks to the brave efforts of the rescuers through a long night, a mother, Annie, and her two daughters, Megan and Rachel, had survived.
    That morning, once the initial shock at being among strangers had subsided, and thankful to be alive, Annie began to tell the sad tale of why she and her daughters had left a good wintering ground and were forced on the road.
    Rory declared that it was a stupid act, heading out onto the roads with winter coming, but he soon discovered it wasn’t through their choice. Annie’s man, John Macdonald, the head of the family, had suffered a fatal back injury while leading a string of horses off the mountain. It had been a successful day of deer shooting and the ponies were heavily laden with deer when one horse reared. John tried to stop the beast, but it bolted, dragging him from the narrow path. Both man and horse plummeted down, striking a rocky outcrop below before tumbling another hundred feet. No one could have survived such a fall—it was a terrible death. His employer, a stern, hard-hearted man, reacted to the accident without