Wild Wings: Prologue–Chapter 10

The cold north wind carries the remembered scent of pine and heather.

Late March snow still clung to the mountain gullies.

His face was dark and grim.

Its body had lost its bright sheen, and its eyes were dull and glassy.

Euan and Rob were waiting for me by the old quarry.

Streams of water ran through the deep ruts.

She swept her matted hair away from her eyes.

“If it’s any comfort,” Flint went on so Mum and Dad could hear, “Auntie Sal gave Rob an earful when he got home. He was soaking wet; looked like a drowned rat. He went to bed without any supper.”

“I need someone to look after those two lambs. The foster ewe wasn’t interested in them last night. We’ll need to bottle feed them until we can find another ewe.”

The two lambs were already bleating hungrily for milk when I went in, and it wasn't long before they finished the milk and started trying to suck on the tags of my coat.

Iona stopped at the edge of a clearing. A ring of large boulders lay in a wide circle in the sunlit space.

She threw me a biscuit and stifled a laugh.

“Has he finished his nest?” I said.
“Don’t think so,” said Iona. “It keeps getting bigger and bigger. Anyway, it’s called an aerie, not a nest. Ospreys go to Africa in the winter.”

The air was warm now, and wisps of steam rose up from the damp earth.

I followed her to the river’s edge, where eddies of fast water swirled into a still pool.

The rocks merged into the brownish riverbed. It was all moving and shifting. Reed, mud, and silt-stirred leaves.

Two trout, facing the current, their green- speckled bodies perfectly still except for the ripple of their tails.

I stripped the end of a sprig of heather and watched the small pieces scatter in the breeze.

I shook the bits of heather from my sweater and set off down the hill kicking hummocks of dry grass.

It had turned and disappeared into the undergrowth, showing a last view of its bushy tail.

The village lay sprawled out like a map beneath us, the bright green of the playing field dotted with a few sheep, the village hall and the shop and the stone cottages.

Front and rear disk brakes, Shimano gears, front suspension forks—it’s got the lot.

Rob was wiping the mud off his alloy wheels and talking to Euan when I reached the bike shed.

“She’s always watching you,” said Rob. “I reckon she fancies you!”

In winter it had been a torrent of water from the hills, but now it was a vertical drop of mud and stone.

“Death Drop.” Rob grinned. “Wipe-Out Alley.” He pushed the buttons on the tiny panel of his bike computer. “It’ll record it all,” he said, “gradient, speed, cadence...everything.”

“Death Drop.” Rob grinned. “Wipe-Out Alley.” He pushed the buttons on the tiny panel of his bike computer. “It’ll record it all,” he said, “gradient, speed, cadence...everything.”

I stared into the abyss below me.

I hit ground, grit and stone spraying from my back wheel where it jammed and jarred into the deep running grooves of the gulley, twisting metal spokes as my front wheel slammed onto a hummock of grass and lurched me forward, flying through the air.

I hit ground, grit and stone spraying from my back wheel where it jammed and jarred into the deep running grooves of the gulley, twisting metal spokes as my front wheel slammed onto a hummock of grass and lurched me forward, flying through the air.

I hobbled up the bank to see Rob and Euan sprawling in the shallows of the river.

I looked at my bike, at the deep scratches in the paint and bent wheel spokes.

We’d been so engrossed looking at the fish that we hadn’t seen Iona on the bank above us.

“I reckon she’s tangled in fishing line.”

“You need the proper tree climbing stuff,” I said. “Harnesses and rappel ropes and things.”