A Stone's Throw

2

2

“Hello, Mr Stone, what can I get you?”

Nathan scanned the array of drinks behind the barmaid, a move that was done more out of habit than out of interest since he already knew what he wanted. “I’ll have a cider, please,” he said finally.

“You can tell you’ve been out in the sun,” Jennifer Pierson, the daughter of the couple who ran The Moor’s Edge hotel remarked as she set the glass of cider in front of Nathan. “You’ve gone red. If you’re not careful, you’ll be peeling before you know it.”

Nathan’s smile held a touch of grimace for she was right, he had been burned by the sun. He had put cream on after his shower, but his skin was still tight and sore. “I got caught by surprise. I had sun cream on but didn’t expect it to be as bad as it was. Plus, I ended up going further than I planned.”

Now that he had stopped walking his muscles were beginning to stiffen up. He was sure he would barely be able to walk by morning, which only reminded him of how long it had been since he was last in decent shape. It wasn’t that he was completely out of shape, but he couldn’t remember when he had last walked for longer than half an hour at a stretch, and that done over flat terrain and usually at a casual pace. His hike to the waterfall and back had proved to be exercise he was unprepared for.

“Where did you go?” Jennifer, whom Nathan had got to know reasonably well over the past few days, asked.

“The waterfall from that picture in reception,” Nathan told her. “I didn’t intend going that far. I didn’t realise how far it was to be honest. I just went for a walk in the woods and ended up following the path that runs alongside the river. Before I knew it, I’d been walking for over an hour and was at the waterfall. It was worth it, though, it’s even more beautiful than the picture suggests, but I’m going to suffer for it tomorrow.”

He might not have agreed with his sister or his friends when they all but bullied him into taking a holiday, but he couldn’t deny that he felt better for it, even if he was stiff and sore. The first day of his holiday had been spent travelling down to Devon and settling into the hotel, and the second occupied with finding his way around the small community of Donningford. The past two days, though, when he considered his holiday to have really begun, he had felt himself relaxing as the weather improved and he began to put behind him, at least for a while, the loss of his family and the difficulties that had followed.

“You’d be surprised how often that happens,” Jennifer remarked. “People intend only to go for a short walk and find that they’ve been out for hours and have done miles.”

“It’s so easy to lose track of time when surrounded by such beautiful scenery,” Nathan said. “I’ve seen TV programs about the area, but they don’t really show just how beautiful it is.”

“Beautiful, yes, but it can also be dangerous to someone who doesn’t know the area well. I hope you had the sense to stick to the paths.”

“No worries there, the furthest I went from the path was about ten feet to get a better angle for a picture, and I made sure to keep the path in sight when I did.”

“I’m glad to hear it. You wouldn’t believe how many of our guests don’t have enough sense to stick to the paths, even though we tell them to. So many of them have no appreciation of how easy it is to get lost, both in the woods and out on the moor, or how difficult it is to find the path again when they do get lost. It’s worse on the moor. Even on a clear day like today you can get lost in a heartbeat. The moment you lose sight of the trail you’re in trouble. There are few real landmarks out there and even an experienced hiker can get in trouble if they stray.

“Of course, being lost is only half the problem. People don’t seem to realise how quickly they can be overcome by dehydration or heatstroke. Then there’s the risk of them injuring themselves. A twisted ankle might not seem like a serious injury, but out on the moor it can cost you your life. Sorry, I’m not trying to scare you,” Jennifer apologised. “But I’ve got a friend who volunteers with the local search and rescue, and he’s got so many stories of people who’ve got themselves into trouble in the stupidest of ways, like trying to get close enough to a horse or deer to pet it.

“Would you like a refill?”

The sudden change in the conversation’s direction surprised Nathan, though not as much as looking down and discovering that his glass was all but empty. “Please.” He lifted the glass to his lips, so he could drain the remains of his cider, and then slid it across the bar to be refilled. He hadn’t realised how thirsty he was.

“So,” Jennifer took up the conversation again as she set the replenished drink in front of her sole customer, “did you see much of our local wildlife during your walk?”

“I did, as it happens,” Nathan said. He forced himself to sip at his second cider, rather than gulping it like the first, as his still dry throat wanted him to. “I saw a few horses in the distance before I got into the woods, a deer, plenty of rabbits and a bunch of birds, even a couple of foxes. I might even have seen a wildcat,” he said after a pause. “Do you get them in this area? Other than the supposed big cat sightings, I mean.”

Jennifer didn’t answer straightaway, instead she looked thoughtfully at Nathan as though trying to decide how best to respond to the question. “What did it look like?” she asked finally.

Nathan was quiet for a moment as he thought back to what he had seen. “It was bigger than a domestic cat, getting on for a metre-long including the tail, tawny coloured with black markings. It looked like a little leopard. I tried to take a picture of it, but it took off like it knew what I was doing and didn’t want to be photographed. All I managed to get was a yellow blur that no-one’s going to believe is a wildcat.”

“That sounds like a wildcat,” Jennifer agreed. “Don’t ask me what species it is, though, or how common they are, I don’t have a clue.”

“No problem,” Nathan said unconcernedly. “I was just after reassurance that I hadn’t imagined it out of heat exhaustion or something.”

“Well, I can’t say for sure that isn’t the case,” Jennifer said teasingly. “But you’re not the only person to say they’ve seen wildcats in the area, and everyone who says they’ve seen one has described it the same as you. One or two of them even have pictures that can almost be recognised as being of felines. If you’re interested in them, you need to speak to my friend, I’ll point him in your direction when he comes in later. When he’s not volunteering with search and rescue, he’s studying zoology and training to be a vet, so he knows as much about the local wildlife as anyone.

“If anyone can tell you about the cats, it’s Floyd.”

Nathan was tempted to tell her not to bother, not to put herself or her friend to any trouble. He couldn’t deny that he was curious about the creature he had seen, however. If he could find out more about it, maybe even see it again, or, better yet, get a photograph that showed it for what it was, being ‘encouraged’ to take a holiday would have been worth it.