Dark Mountain

Chapter One-3

'Do you think they fell?' I asked.

'They must have,' Mackenzie said. The Ceathramh Garbh, the Rough Quarter is a bad place for a fall, with no roads, no shepherds or even shooting parties. There's nothing out there except rock and bog, nearly perennial mist and the wind.'

'Tell me all you can, please,' Charlie asked.

Mackenzie smiled. 'Now don't go scaring yourselves, ladies, I'm sure you'll be fine. Mahoney had two companions whose names I have forgotten. They stayed here, at this inn, overnight some time at the end of July 1914, crossed over to the peninsula on which the dark mountain, An Cailleach, sits and were never seen again.'

'Has anybody tried to look for them?' Charlie had been scribbling notes in her small leather covered pad.

'Most of the local men were in the war, either in the Army or at sea,' Mackenzie said. 'The few that returned had other things on their minds, anyway by that time it was far too late.'

'Have there not been other climbing parties since the war?' Charlie asked.

Mackenzie shook his head. 'Not for An Cailleach. It's not popular with anybody and not worth the trouble to climb.'

'Why is that?'

Mackenzie nodded his thanks as the barman refilled his glass. 'It's an ugly lump of a hill with a bad reputation. The Mahoney party was only the latest of many attempts that were either beaten back by bad weather or had an accident. The eastern and southeastern face has bogland and mist while the western face is cliff rising sheer from the sea.' Mackenzie lifted his hand as an elderly man entered the room. 'Here's Duncan Og, young Duncan, he knows about the hill more than I do.'

Duncan Og looked about ninety with deep lines seaming his brown face and only the bright twinkle in his eyes revealing the spirit that still lay within. 'Oh, there are plenty stories about An Cailleach,' he confirmed. 'It's a hill better avoided than attempted and I don't know why you young ladies want to go there at all. I could tell you about broken legs and broken heads on that black hill, going back fifty years.'

'Has anybody ever climbed it?' Kate asked. 'I heard it was unconquered.'

'It is a virgin summit,' Duncan Og confirmed. 'Nobody has got to the top and nobody ever shall.'

'We'll be first,' Charlie said. 'An all-woman team will conquer Scotland's last unclimbed hill.'

It was then that I saw her. In a room where our climbing club was the only female presence, I saw another woman. I did not know who she was, or when she had entered. I only knew that she was standing in the midst of the men watching me.

'You may well conquer An Cailleach,' Duncan Og was drinking whisky from what looked to be a half pint tumbler. 'Or you may not. An Cailleach has her own rules and chooses who she allows onto her flanks.'

'Her own rules?' Charlie hooked her claws on the sexuality of the word. 'An Cailleach is a mountain, a lump of rock. It is neither a he nor a she.'

Duncan Og smiled from beyond his glass. 'An Cailleach is more than a lump of rock, Miss Gunn. All mountains have a distinct personality. Some are friendly, and welcome visitors, others are unfriendly and do not wish to be disturbed. These are the hills you must treat with respect and ask their permission before you tread on them. An Cailleach is one of these hills, and she is undoubtedly a woman.'

'Why?' Charlie's voice cracked like a pistol. 'Are you saying An Cailleach is unfriendly so must be a woman?'

Duncan Og's smile did not falter. His eyes were diamond-bright as he examined Charlie. I wondered what sort of man he had been in his prime and thought of the old Highland warriors and mercenaries. 'I am not saying that at all, Miss Gunn. Now listen while I tell you the story of An Cailleach.'

I saw Kate fidget in her chair and guessed that she was about to chase this elderly man away. 'Yes, please Mr Og,' I intervened. 'I do like to hear a good story.' That other woman was gone. I had not seen her move, and nobody had commented on her presence. I wondered if I had imagined seeing her. She had been vaguely familiar, although from where I could not say.

Duncan Og glanced meaningfully at his glass and Mackenzie signalled the barman to have it refilled. 'Have you heard of the Badenoch witches?'

Rather than admit that I had, I solemnly shook my head. Encouraged, Duncan Og sipped at his recharged glass and continued.

'Away back when the world was young, Lord Walter Comyn was a wicked bad man. He owned the lands of Badenoch and had the power of pit and gallows over all the men and women who lived there. One autumn he had the idea that all the young women of Ruthven should be stark naked at the harvest.'

I looked over to Charlie, hiding my smile at her expected frown of disapproval. She shook her head, writing furiously in her notebook.

'I take it he paid for his lust,' I said.

Duncan Og chuckled. 'Oh, he paid all right. Naturally, the mothers of the young women were angry at Lord Walter's choice of entertainment.'

'I should say so,' Charlie said.

'If Lord Walter had known his tenants better, he would have known that the mothers of two of the girls were witches, who did not like their daughters to display their charms for a man, powerful landowner or not. The two mothers turned themselves into eagles and waited for Lord Walter. As he came to the ford over the River Tromie in Badenoch, they swooped on him, knocked him off his horse at Leum na Feinne, and ate him while he was still alive.'

Charlie nodded approval. 'Good. That's what the old lecher deserved.'

'Now,' Duncan Og chuckled and lifted a finger from his glass. 'The story of the Badenoch witches is well known. What happened afterwards is not known at all.'

I followed what was evidently a cue. 'What happened afterwards?'

Duncan Og took his time, as master storytellers do. 'The witches knew that killing Lord Walter would invoke revenge. They had to hide somewhere, so while one witch returned home to Badenoch, the other flew up here. Both became mountains and both were called An Cailleach.' Duncan Og leaned back in his seat.

We were all watching him, trying to reconcile our modern world with this ancient tale of witchcraft and folklore.

'Tell them what An Cailleach means,' Mary had been listening intently. 'And don't pretend it's Dark Mountain, that's just a nickname.'

'An Cailleach is Gaelic for the old woman or the hag,' Duncan Og was smiling over the lip of his glass. 'You may already know that a hag is another word for a witch.' His smile faded, and for a second I saw darkness in his bright old eyes. 'I'd advise you to ask An Cailleach's permission before you try to climb her. When I gave the Mahoney party that same advice, they laughed, and they have not been seen since.'

I heard Kate's sudden intake of breath, and for some reason, a shiver ran through me. Anybody who ventures onto the Scottish hills must be aware of the danger. The weather can change from summer to winter in a heartbeat and a slope that is dry and safe one minute could be a rushing torrent before one can blink. Yet I knew that Duncan Og was not warning us about the weather. That wise, wrinkled old man knew of more profound and darker dangers than mere gales and storms.

That other woman was back, invisible in plain sight as she stood among the unaware men. At her side stooped a white-haired man with a benevolent expression on his face and the most kindly eyes. When he gave me a very old-fashioned bow, I nodded back. Kate said something, I grunted my agreement, and when I turned to the old man, he was gone. Tomorrow we were going to An Cailleach. Tomorrow we were going to shake hands with the Hag. Some inner dread told me that we were not going alone.