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SON OF HAMISH


Alan Fraser drove the mountain road every second Thursday, when he held a surgery for small animals in the local community hall. He was primarily a large animal vet. Hell, what was the choice up here, where animals were not pets, but necessities. He enjoyed the trip through the pass, especially now in spring, when the new lambs lay on the thin mountain grass, their eyes slitted against the wind, their coats unnaturally white. It was a busy time of year for him, but he still made the journey, every second Thursday.
This time of year reminded him of Hamish, too, and there was a wound that had trouble healing. Six months had passed since the old dog had died, six long, lonely months, without a friendly lick to wake him in the mornings, or a soft head on his lap as he drove through the wild land. Sometimes Alan had stopped the car in a passing place, just like a damn tourist, and he and Hamish would walk down the steep hillside to where the loch was bounded with bright red sand, ground from the mountains themselves, and given reluctantly. Alan would have a seat on a lichen crusted rock while Hamish waded into the clear water and stood there like a black and white rock, gazing at the view.
Alan had always been alone, but for thirteen years, he had not been lonely. The last six months, however, had been the worst of all.
He drove back along the mountain rode that Thursday evening, the sun dropping low in the sky, rusting the bright yellow broom. The sky was as pale blue as an Oystercatcher’s egg, and Alan was not only smiling, but humming a tune under his breath.
Today’s surgery had been eventful. There had been a cat with the worst case of ticks he’d seen in a long time, two collies with leg problems, even a child’s hamster whose hair had begun to fall out. The little girl had looked at him as if he were some kind of messiah, while her mother squirmed with embarrassment; bothering the vet over a damned hamster.
And there had been old Seth.
He’d recognised him straight away, and a warm summer wind seemed to drift through his heart. The old dog’s tail began to thump at the sight of him, and Alan got down on the floor and graciously accepted the dog’s offered paw.
‘Seth, my old pal. How are you doing?’
‘Not so good,’ said Campbell.
Alan looked up into the younger man’s eyes, and saw the worry there. Campbell had bought Seth from Alan more than ten years ago. Seth was the son of Hamish, and Campbell felt a fresh pang of pain. The eyes he saw looking at him now were Hamish’s eyes. He stroked the soft fur and listened to the tail thumping on the tiled floor.
‘What’s the matter Cammy?’
‘He’s right off his food, lost no end of weight, and he just seems, I don’t know, out of sorts.’ He shrugged helplessly.
And Alan had examined the dog, noting the greying muzzle, the cloudy depths of the big brown eyes. As he listened to Seth’s heart, the dog put a gentle paw on his arm, and again, Alan felt that touch of pain, of loss. He looked up slowly.
‘How long has he been like this?’
Campbell shrugged again. ‘Since Tuesday. Is it some kind of bug?’
Alan shook his head. He had already felt the enlarged glands under the dog’s front and rear legs, behind his jaw. He knew what that meant. He continued looking into the wise old eyes, and the dog looked back calmly, as if he knew perfectly well what was wrong with him. Campbell fidgeted, and at last Alan looked up.
He had it in his mouth already, the words he knew he’d have to say, the terrible words, but looking into Campbell’s anxious, hopeful face, he found he couldn’t say them. Instead, he put a rictus of a smile on his face and stood up.
‘His glands are inflamed,’ he said, ‘which could mean any number of things.’
Campbell nodded, not understanding a word.
And then Alan found himself saying words that appeared on his tongue without any prior trip through his brain.
‘I’d better take him back to the surgery, run a few tests on him. The sooner we know what the trouble is, the better.’
Campbell’s face took on a puzzled look, and he looked down at Seth with his sad eyes.
‘I you think that’s best, Alan,’ he said, unconvinced. ‘But I’ll miss the old bugger, and that’s for sure.’
Alan said nothing, just looked down at Seth, who was now glancing from one to the other, his tail wagging slowly.
‘When will you bring him back?’
And that was when Alan realised what he meant to do, and the shock of it made him suddenly cold. He continued to stare at Seth, who looked back, confused now. He found he could not look up at Campbell at all.
‘Um, I’ll ring you, Campbell, let you know what I find.’
He caught sight then of Campbell’s hands. He was rubbing them together hard, as if his fingers were frostbitten. They were knobbly, weatherbeaten, farmer’s hands, and the gesture was more telling than any words he might have found to say. Campbell had been the last patient, and Alan busied himself with tidying up and repacking his bag. When he turned round again, Campbell was kneeling on the ground, stroking Seth’s head slowly, over and over, like a prayer.
Alan drove past loch Osgaig, where the setting sun was reflected in the still water like glass laid over silver. He slowed down to watch a heron take off from the shore.
‘Look at that, boy,’ he said. Beside him, Seth’s tail thumped on the seat. He looked round, and the dog was watching him, his eyes calm.
‘This is a bit of an adventure for you, Seth, I guess.’
Seth’s tail thumped again, and Alan hesitated.
‘I bet you know,’ he said slowly. ‘Don’t you? You know what’s wrong with you.’
He grasped the steering wheel tightly, as his thoughts filled up with memories of Hamish, his last days. The cruelty of the disease that robbed the old dog of all he loved; to run, to work. There was nothing Alan could do for him, except keep the pain away, and in the end, let him go.
Alan was sure it was the hardest thing he had ever done.
He looked over at the dog, and swallowed. Well, there was something he could do for Seth all right. He could make his last days as full of joy as possible, something that wouldn’t happen if he had left him with Campbell. Och the man was kind and good, right enough, but he didn’t love the dog, not like Alan would.
But the vision of Campbell kneeling over his dog had stuck in Alan’s mind. He was having difficulty moving it.
‘We’ll have a great time, Seth,’ he said brightly. ‘We’ll have a trek up Ben More one day, and then I’ll take you to loch Assynt for a good swim. Hamish loved that. And I’ll get some good meat in, now I’ve someone else to take care of. We’ll have a fine time, the two of us.’
Seth’s tail thumped softly on the seat.
Alan put the nagging guilt behind him, and drove on towards the main road. The sun had already disappeared behind the mountains, and the road was dipped in shadow, a dark ribbon between the rock and gorse. Seth sat quietly, gazing out ahead as Alan drove, watching his world passing by. Abruptly he turned and looked at Alan, and, sensing the dog’s gaze, the vet looked round.
‘What’s the matter, Seth?’
Seth gave one soft woof, and got up stiffly, putting both front paws on the dashboard.
‘What’s up? Oh. Do you need out, is that it?’
Alan pulled over into a passing place and stopped. Seth’s tail was wagging again, as Alan got out and opened the door for him. It was a poor place to stop, with an overhanging bluff to their left, and a concave, boulder-strewn drop on the right. Seth got out and wandered across the tarmac to a stray patch of grass to relieve himself. Alan waited patiently, walking across the road to look back at the pass they’d just negotiated. It was then he saw the car coming up behind him, lights blazing, horn blaring.
At first, his guilty heart told him it was Campbell, come to reclaim his stolen dog, but as the car came nearer, he could see two people in the car, one of them a woman.
Seth wandered over and sat at his feet as the car drew near. Alan looked down at him, and the dog looked back. In the dim and shadowy light, Alan had the bizarre impression the dog was smiling.
‘Mister Fraser!’ the cry came as the car crunched to a halt behind his own. ‘Thank God we caught you. Will you help us?’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘It’s our Ben. He’s choking!’
He recognised them now; Roy and Gemma, he didn’t know their last name. Their dog he remembered though, and as he ran to the car, he could see Gemma cradling the dog’s head in her arms, tears coursing down her face. The dog was a rough collie, unusual in these parts, and he did seem to be choking. He was opening and closing his mouth like a fish, and Alan got down on his knees and examined him. The dog’s eyes were filled with panic, the whites reddened with the effort to get air into his lungs.
‘There’s something trapped there,’ Alan said to himself, opening the dog’s mouth and trying to look in. ‘I need a torch. There’s one in the glove compartment.’
Roy appeared a moment later with the torch, and Alan instructed him to hold it while he looked for the blockage. Ben was getting weaker, and put up little resistance, but there was nothing to see. Alan was perplexed.
‘There’s nothing in there.’ He said. ‘It must be trapped further down-‘
‘Oh please help him Mister Fraser,’ Gemma cried suddenly. She was a pretty blonde woman in her early thirties, but her face was puffy and red with grief. ‘I couldn’t bear it if-‘
She broke off, as if saying the terrible thing might make it happen. Alan glanced behind him at Roy, who stood in the road like a small lonely rockfall. His eyes were drawn to the man’s hands, which were rolling over and over each other, the knuckles bone-white in the gathering gloom.
Alan looked again into the dog’s eyes, and saw a lot of things, all at once.
He put his hands round the dog’s neck, under the line of his jaw, and pushed. Ben coughed roughly, but continued to struggle for breath.
‘Get your arms round his ribs and squeeze.’ He ordered. Gemma did as he said, and again Ben coughed. Alan put his hands behind the dog’s jaws again and pushed once more, and a tiny red ball shot out of the dog’s mouth and disappeared into the gloom. Ben coughed and hacked a few times, racking in huge breaths and shaking his head.
‘Oh Ben!’ Gemma said, holding him, her eyes tightly shut. After a moment, the dog recovered, and his tail wagged uncertainly. He looked at Alan, tongue lolling, and Alan stroked the soft head. Then he felt a hand on his shoulder.
‘Thank you,’ Roy said. ‘I can’t thank you enough.’
The man’s face was all lines and shadows in the dusk, but Alan did not need to see it.
‘We despaired of catching you, but Cammy said you were late of leaving, because you took his Seth.’
‘We just had to hope,’ Gemma said, looking at him with eyes so filled with gratitude he felt embarrassed.
No, it was more than embarrassment.
‘Well, he’s fine now, but don’t give him such a small ball to play with again. That was damn close.’ He stood up, and the young couple looked down, chastened.
‘Let me pay you,’ Roy said.
Alan shook his head. ‘No, you’re all right. Go on, take him off home and give him a treat.’
They drove away, thanking him again and again from the open windows of their car. After a moment, the lights disappeared round the curve of the mountain, and Alan remembered poor Seth. He looked round, and spotted him sitting quietly at the roadside, looking back towards the Osgaig pass, and home.
He looked up at the sky, still blue, but darker now, and barely troubled by strips of grey cloud. Outside the mountains, it would still be light, but in here, the mountains made their own time, their own rules. Alan sighed. Seth looked back at him, his tail sweeping the dark road, waiting.
‘Come on then, boy,’ Alan said softly. ‘Let’s take you back home.’