The Travellers - 9. Winter Quarters

In which Jamie discovers the first contours of his future and Kyle re-finds a Walhalla of hooves and mane, but in the process ends up with a huge emotional problem and is subjected to the attentions of a desirable young lady as well.

Although their work was finished, they stayed in Inverness for a longer period than they had planned. First of all, Jamie had to recover from his wounds. That on itself was a pretty good reason, but there was a second reason as well, maybe an even better one: winter was coming!

It was almost impossible to find work during that season. In winter Scotland seemed to sink into some state of semi-hibernation. There was no work on the land nor with the sheep farmers or in wood carving. Besides: Scottish winters can be pretty harsh, especially if stuck in the snow-covered wastelands of the Highlands middle of nowhere. So, why should they leave and where should they go? All these considerations made, that Collin decided to stay right where they were, at the meadow just outside Inverness, until spring would come.

Their longer stay yielded an unexpected positive effect. The good citizens of the town were more or less tolerating them. It is not that they were invited to parties, but people tended to find their stay all right and, although some of them continued to treat them gruff or were indifferent to them, most of the city people were quite kind and looked upon them with a certain amount of stand-offish respect. Apparently, they got used to the threesome on the little pasture just outside town.

But the bacon had to be brought home as well, so another time of finding odd jobs started to earn sufficient money to keep the stove burning. Despite the season it went relatively well: it was not the eternal search with a “No” everywhere.

Collin had no problem with rolling from one day job into the other with the many distilleries, but was happy as a king when a local pub owner asked him to build a new counter. He had no limitations imposed on him and could use all his creativity and craftsman qualities and experience. Besides that, the job paid a handsome amount of money as well. When Collin had finished the commission, its fresh owner was a very happy man indeed: he beamed when he saw what he thought to be the most beautiful counter of the whole Inverness-shire.

Kyle’s search for a job was a bull’s eye right away. He could start almost immediately as a stable boy in the private stables of some rich local whisky distillery entrepreneur. He arrived back at the wagon excited and in a rapture of delight and could hardly wait until next day, his first working day, would start.

Both Collin’s and Kyle’s occupations outdoor caused, that the recovering Jamie was on his own all day. His companions left for work early and they often returned late in the evening. It didn’t mean that he was bored, to the contrary.

First the domestic duties had to be done. He considered it to be unfair to leave them for the others after they had returned from a day’s hard work. There weren’t so many chores in a small wagon, so most of the time he had squared that away pretty soon. Then he started exercising again in the difficult craft of wood carving. Day in day out he toiled on the most complicated and filigree patterns. And every evening Collin looked at them with a satisfied smile around his lips. So every now and then he gave a small advice, but that was all.

On one of these short winter days Jamie was working again on a piece of wood. After some time he got the feeling that it didn’t satisfy him any longer. It was not the wood carving on itself. He felt perfectly fine with that. Shortly after Collin had taught him the first steps of it, he noticed he had a talent for it and it had become a challenge, a way of life, maybe even a vocation. There was something else that bothered him. He wasn’t satisfied any longer with making the same patterns and decorations that had existed for ages and which were invented by others a long time ago and made since then over and over again. He wanted more…he wanted to create himself! He wanted to be the one who invented new patterns, who discovered new ways and maybe he wanted to make statues out of wood.

He put the wood aside and took a piece of paper and a pencil. Slowly he started drawing…line by line, aiming at drawing a bird. After a couple of hours of strenuous work, he looked at the result and started to laugh. Either it was the worst construed bird that God had put on earth or it wasn’t a bird at all!

He already drew a lot as a child. It had started with the normal children’s doodling, but his ability developed pretty fast. But it wasn’t made easy for him! Every time his father caught him drawing, he started yelling at his son: it was no good, it looked like rubbish, it wouldn’t bring in one damned dime and he should spend his time on more useful activities. When the man became more and more violent, he gave his son a terrible beating every time he caught him drawing. The smart boy evaded that problem soon enough: he was only drawing when he was one hundred percent sure that his father was not at home. It worked perfectly, until the drunk became unemployed. He was always at home, always drunk and always violent. Jamie had no other choice than to stop drawing, only for the sake of self-preservation.

The second chance came a few days later. Purely by chance he looked out of the window over the white countryside and saw a raven sitting on a branch. The bird seemed stiff with cold. His head was stuck between his feathers and he had lifted his wings a bit up to provide extra protection against the frosty wind. Jamie looked at the animal carefully. Then he took another piece of paper and his pencil and started drawing.

Again, line by line was put on the paper. He checked them constantly with what his eyes saw. He looked at the bird with a hawk’s eye, he observed him meticulously…no, he studied him in every detail. If the animal was so cold that it didn’t care or because it was gifted with an enormous patience was not clear to Jamie. But it finally flew off after more than an hour. It didn’t matter: Jamie had studied the sight so intensively that he could fill in the lacking details from memory. After some more work there was a two-dimensional raven on the paper at last. He looked at it with a satisfied smile and said to himself:

“That is what I call a bird! Now let’s start with the second part”.

He rolled up the paper and stacked it away in a secret hiding. Then he went on with his wood carving as if he hadn’t stopped with it in the first place.

The second part of his plan was the toughest. First, he had to find a suitable block of wood. It took a couple of days of wandering around in the cold winter air, but finally he found what he had been looking for. It was a tree trunk, which was not in but on the ground. Since the block was very heavy, it took a lot of effort to get it to the wagon, but once this was done he started working on it. Every evening, just before Collin and Kyle got back home again, he stowed it away very carefully. It was his secret, at least until the time came that he had finished the project.

The weeks passed and each and every day he was cutting and carving on the block of wood. It wasn’t easy: he had selected it on the dimensions of the block, but forgot to check the hardness of the material. But the sharp chisels and knifes managed to chip away piece after piece into the desired forms. All along he kept the drawing of the raven, which he had made before, on the table to remind him of all the details. And what wasn’t on the paper was added from the detailed memories, that were engraved in his mind. Slowly the raven developed again from two-dimensional to three-dimensional.

It was only after weeks that he was satisfied with the results. There remained a few days of final touch and polishing, but the time came that the unveiling could take place.

The three of them sat at the table after dinner, just chatting. Outside it was cold and dark, but the stove radiated a pleasant warmth. Jamie got up and walked to his secret storage, where he had put the bird away. Proudly he took the statue, went back in and put it on the table. Collin and Kyle looked at it in utter surprise.

“That is really beautiful”, Collin muttered full of admiration, “Where did you get that?”

“I made it myself”, the shy answer came.

“But when did you do that?” Collin wanted to know.

“When you both were out on your jobs I was here alone all day, so I had plenty of time to do it”, Jamie replied.

“Does it have a name?” Collin inquired.

It was Jamie’s turn to look surprised. Why should it have a name in the first place? It was clearly recognizable as a bird, even as a raven.

“Most artists give their work a name”, Collin explained with a smile, “That is why I asked”

Jamie looked at the statue and thought about the original picture of the raven on that branch on that cold, inclement winter day.

““Winter Raven” seems like a good name to me”, he said pensively.

“Very beautiful name for an equally beautiful piece of art”, both concurred.

At that moment the dime in Jamie’s mind finally fell. He knew what he wanted to do in the future…he wanted to be an artist!

Kyle felt absolutely great in his new job. He smelled horses, hay and dung again. He felt the warmth coming from the horse’s bodies again. His working place might be considered as very large stables, more than he was used to at home. Mr. MacKintosh, the owner, had to be an immensely rich man that he could afford all of this. There was a separate department for the racing horses, the passionately purchased hobby of the owner, there was a part with drawing horses for the family’s couches and carriages and there was a part for the normal horses, those that were used for a ride in the country and for the hunt.

He was not the only stable boy, there were eight of them and the stables even had a stable master, an elderly man with kind eyes who went by the name of Mr. Forbes and of whom it was said that on the subject of horses, there wasn’t a thing he didn’t know.

Kyle started his duties with the normal horses, but pretty soon Mr. Forbes noticed, that he had hired an extraordinary stable boy. He wondered about this new boy’s ability to get everything done from the animals and about the way he treated them, which earned him a promotion to the racing horses in a short span of time. It was the department, that Mr. Forbes only entrusted to the best of the best stable boys. And if not much work was to be done there and the stables of the actual distillery in town were a hand short, then he was borrowed to these stables to do his work there.

Kyle got it done that good, old Rover was allowed to spend the winter in an empty horse box in the MacKintosh stables on the condition that they would pay for the fodder themselves and that he took care of the horse. For the first time in his life Rover had a warm and cozy box during the cold winter months with first-class hay and fodder.

In the distillery stables Kyle met the majestic Clydesdale-horses, a breed he was unfamiliar with. They were the real work horses that hauled the heavy carriages with barrels of whisky and sacks of grains. They were big strong animals, who looked as if they could crush a grown-up man by sheer inattention and who radiated pure power. But they had a mild character as well.

It was on one of these days that he worked at the distillery stables when he was subjected to what seemed to be his test of competence. The stable master came to him and asked:

“Can ye drive horses, lad?”

“Aye, sir”, the self-confident reply came back without even a second of hesitation.

“Even two Clydesdales?” the man asked with a teasing smile.

“They’re horses as well, sir, so I think I can. I guess I’ll get that done as well”.

Two of these huge, black horses were hitched to a carriage. Kyle whispered something in the ears of both of them and patted them lightly on their blazes. Then he climbed up the stand. The horses snorted and started to pull.

“Ye should have told them that they had to start pulling, lad”, the stable master said.

“I already did so, sir”, Kyle replied with a broad smile.

The man looked at him in utter disbelief, but during their trip through the city his amazement grew and grew until the moment came that he didn’t believe what his own eyes were seeing.

It looked as if the boy had a symbiotic relationship with the horses. He had the reins in his hands, but he didn’t use them. It was like if he was communicating with the huge beasts in an inaudible and invisible supernatural way with so every now and then a soft, incomprehensible whisper. The city noises around them didn’t seem to bother the boy or the horses. After a long round through the town, they returned to the stables. The stable master made no effort to disguise his astonishment and admiration.

“Where did ye learn that, lad?” he asked with disbelief on his face.

“What, sir?” Kyle asked somewhat shy, not understanding what the man meant.

“The way ye handle them horses, son”, the man said, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Me father taught me to do it that way, sir”.

“In all me forty years working with horses I have never seen anything like that. It is absolutely remarkable!” the man spoke, continuously shaking his head. He turned around and walked away, still shaking it.

“It seems I passed the test”, Kyle whispered to himself.

Then he unhitched the horses, rubbed them dry, brushed them and went on with the rest of his work as if nothing had happened.

With all these horses around him, which re-opened and re-warmed his heart, he didn’t think of wood carving any longer.

He was working in the private stables when Mr. Forbes called him:

“Kyle, get Miss Virginia’s horse and saddle it. It is Isabella, the white mare in box sixteen”.

“Aye sir”, he simply replied.

He got the skittish thoroughbred out, calmed her down with his customary whispers in the ear and saddled it. Then he took it by the reigns and brought it out.

Standing beside Mr. Forbes was a young girl of about eighteen years old. He couldn’t deny she was beautiful. She had a frail body and a face that looked almost sculptured. It was bordered by long blond-reddish hair, that fell on her back and in her face where two clear blue eyes, that shone like diamonds. She casted a broad smile when she saw him coming out with the mare.

“Ye need any help getting up, miss?” he asked politely.

“Oh no”, she said with a voice sweet like honey, again showing an enchanting smile.

Kyle had registered the smiles, but innocent as he was, he thought that it was because she was seeing the horse again and that she was pleased with the thought of a nice ride. And even then, yes, he considered her attractive, but he was also one of the “other kind of men” and there was no interest in her, especially not in that one specific field.

Virginia MacKintosh had totally different ideas about that. Immediately after she returned from her riding tour, she went to her father’s library where the man sat reading a book. She stood behind his chair, laid her arms on his shoulders and kissed him gently on the cheek.

“Hello, daddy,” she cooed excited, “Now, be a sweet daddy and tell me: who is that delicious new stable boy?”

“I have no idea in the world”, he replied quietly, “You better ask Mr. Forbes. I know he has hired a new stable boy some weeks ago but I really wouldn’t know what he looks like”.

“I know what he looks like”, Virginia giggled, “He is absolutely adorable, lovely and sooo cute”.

“Sweetheart, not that again,” her father spoke thoughtful, “We’ve been over this more often. Think about it. You speak four languages fluent and you are about to leave for University. He is a stable boy and I would be surprised if he had more than a couple of years of grammar school. And he was probably born in low circles. So, what do you have in mind? It wouldn’t work, would it? So, adorable or not…you better forget about him”.

Hot-tempered his daughter started stamping one foot on the parquet:

“You always start talking about class difference. There’s always these low circles you object to!”, she said angry.

Then she stopped talking and thought for a short while.

“Funny thing is, daddy,“ she continued, “he didn’t look very interested in me, as if he didn’t care”.

Her father smiled triumphantly:

“Then it appears to me, that he has more common sense about class difference than you have”.

Enraged Virginia looked at him and left the library, the heels of her riding boots ticking in an annoyed way on the wooden floor.

The man sighed, rolled his eyes in mock despair and said to himself:

“Oh me God…why did Ye punish me by giving me a lassie?”

When he was in bed at night, feeling bone tired after a long day, his thoughts went over a number of practical things: which horse needed extra attention? Which one needed more fodder? Where there any small injuries?

But so every now and then his mind wandered farther away, like on this night. He couldn’t catch sleep. His thoughts swirled through his mind like a hurricane. He was torn between two worlds and he realized it more and more. On one hand he had re-found his life with horses and he loved every second of it. But on the other hand: by choosing for “his” horses he might take the risk of losing both Collin and Jamie as a consequence and he wasn’t prepared to do that. If he was honest: especially not Jamie!

“But I’m also fed up with wood carving”, he thought, “I have no talent for it. I’m absolutely horrendous in that craft and I will never learn it, whatever Collin will try”

He had to admit that Collin was a very patient teacher, who never used a hard word of criticism. But he perceived some despondency if he made the same mistake time and again. Why did he start with it then in the first place?

“Because of Jamie!” a little voice in his head said, “and because wood carving is their main source of income. You only wanted to contribute to that. And there is nothing wrong with it!”

Yes, there was something wrong with it: he had totally forgotten about himself. He had forgotten the horses. But it was an extremely difficult matter: he knew if he chose to remain in the MacKintosh stables, he would lose Collin and more important Jamie. Was it worth that price? Would he be capable of exchanging the love of his life for the horses? Or were these horses the love of his life? It was a choice between two bad things: choose for the passionate love for Jamie without horses or choose for the all-encompassing love for his horses without Jamie!

It was a Gordian knot and he had no possibilities available to him to unravel it. He needn’t to, at least not now, not this night. Because finally sleep grabbed him so he could postpone the searching for the answer until an undetermined time. But it was an uneasy sleep!

There are problems that need no thinking about a solution, because they disappear by themselves in a certain span of time. But it was clear that Kyle’s problem was not one of these. It became very persistent, it gnawed at him from the inside and the search for an answer began to control and govern him. On several evenings, when they sat at the table after dinner, the “We need to talk” was on the tip of his tongue but he swallowed it time and again. He had no intention to hurt the others and the last thing he wanted was to lose Jamie as rapid as he had found him. That was his problem in a nutshell: his fear of losing Jamie worked as a brake on his decision. As long as he had no real answers there was no other choice than to adapt to both worlds: to his little kingdom of the horses during daytime, at night to the darned wood carving exercises.