Siân Shipley: Season by Season - a Jinny Christmas short story (eBook)

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She didn’t bother tacking up.

“Hardly worth it. Be there and back before you know it,” she said, haltering Shantih at the gate and peeling back the New Zealand rug. Leaving it draped over the fence, she sprang onto the mare’s back, sword heavy against her thigh as Shantih tittupped down the drive, tail kinked over her quarters. Ears pricked, the red flames of her mane flickering in the morning’s grey gloom, she danced her way along the rutted, curving track towards Mr McKenzie’s farmyard, a being of light and air, brisk, bright and alert. Jinny, loving her with every fibre, felt herself exhale, relax. Begin to breathe again.

“You take your life in your hands,” Mr McKenzie, back from church and still in his Sunday best, pronounced dourly, as they passed his door, “riding that beast in no but a wee bit rope.”

“Merry Christmas to you, too.”

“And yourself.” He observed her through a narrowed, ice-blue eye for a long moment. “It was the bad night you had of it, I’m hearing.”

“You hear everything.”

“It was your wee friend Tam after telling me,” he jerked his head towards the silent, smokeless bothy, “as they were all leaving this morning.”

“They’ve gone already?”

“Aye. Not a one of them left. Up and about nearly as early as myself. But they’ll be back again, I’ve no doubt.”

“Do you know where they went?”

“I do not. Their business is their own.”

“Rubbish,” Jinny said, feeling a grin tug at her mouth in spite of everything. “Everybody’s business is your business.”

“Is that so?” the old farmer grunted, giving her a flat, appraising look.

“’Course. Nothing gets by you.”

“That it does not. Not even Jamie Quinlan, driving past in yon panda car at the crack of dawn this morning,” he said, changing the subject abruptly.

“Laser-beams. You must have laser-beams for eyes. It was still dark when he arrived.”

“If you’d told me ten years ago that sandy-haired wee vandal was for a career in law enforcement, I’d no have believed you.”

“Just goes to show. That skelping you gave him must’ve been the making of him. Set him on the straight and narrow. Bet his backside’s never been the same since.”

Mr McKenzie grunted again.

“It’s a sad state of affairs when a hooligan like that enters the local constabulary.”

“He was very nice about everything.”

Another grunt.

“What word was it?” she asked, gathering up Shantih’s lead-rope, for she was starting to fidget. “That he painted on your byre?”

“Och, away with you. I’ll no be repeating it.”

“Spoilsport.”

Humans
Jinny, Mike and Petra Manders. Mr and Mrs Manders, Ken
PC Quinlan
Mr McKenzie

Horses
Shantih, Bramble