The Gamekeeper's Burden

The gamekeeper's cottage crouched at the edge of the woodland like a creature caught between two worlds — neither fully part of the cultivated estate nor entirely claimed by the wilderness that pressed close on three sides. Its weathered timber walls had darkened over years of exposure to the harsh colonial elements, and the thatched roof sagged in places where winter storms had taken their toll.

As they approached, Broadmoor studied the building with an assessing eye. It was a modest structure, befitting a man of Gilchrist's station — a single room, most likely, with perhaps a small lean-to for storage. The kind of dwelling that offered shelter and little else, a place to sleep between the long hours of work that defined a gamekeeper's existence. Yet there was something about it that nagged at his attention, some quality he could not immediately identify.

Then he realised what it was. The cottage stood alone. No outbuildings, no neighbouring dwellings, no sign of any other human habitation within sight. It was isolated in a way that went beyond mere rural distance — deliberately set apart, as though its occupant preferred solitude to society. Or as though something about the place discouraged casual visitors.

Gilchrist had fallen silent during the walk from the stables, his earlier reluctant confessions giving way to a withdrawal that seemed almost physical. He moved with the gait of a man walking toward something he dreaded, each step slower than the last, his weathered face set in lines of grim resignation.

Rogers and two other searchers stood near the cottage's entrance, their expressions carrying the particular tension of men who had discovered something significant and were uncertain what to make of it. They parted as Broadmoor approached, revealing the low doorway and the dimness beyond.

"What have you found?" Broadmoor asked, though part of him already sensed he would not welcome the answer.

"It's inside, sir," Rogers replied, his voice pitched low despite the absence of anyone to overhear. "A chest, hidden beneath some pelts in the corner. The lads spotted it when they were checking the cottage for any sign of Mr Jeffries." He glanced at Gilchrist, who stood apart from the group with his arms wrapped around himself as though warding off a chill that had nothing to do with the winter air. "It was locked, sir. Took some doing to get it open."

Broadmoor ducked through the low doorway, his height requiring him to bend nearly double to avoid striking his head on the frame. The interior was dim, the only light filtering through two small windows whose grimy panes admitted more shadow than illumination. The air inside hung thick with competing scents — wood smoke from the small cast-iron stove, the musty odour of animal pelts, and something else beneath it all. Something old and strange that made the hairs on Broadmoor's arms rise despite the relative warmth of the enclosed space.

His eyes adjusted to the dimness, revealing the cottage's sparse furnishings. A rough-hewn table with mismatched chairs. A cot shoved against one wall, piled with furs and woollen blankets. A few cooking implements hanging near the stove. Everything bore the particular patina of a bachelor's existence — functional rather than comfortable, maintained rather than cherished.

In the far corner, where the shadows gathered thickest, a large wooden chest sat with its lid thrown open. The searchers had pulled it away from the wall, disturbing the pile of pelts that had concealed it. Even from across the room, Broadmoor could see that whatever lay within had unsettled the men who had discovered it.

He crossed the packed-earth floor with careful steps, aware of Gilchrist following reluctantly behind him. The gamekeeper's breathing had grown audible — shallow, rapid, the respiration of a man facing something he had hoped would remain hidden.

The chest itself was unremarkable — sturdy construction, the kind of thing a man might use to store tools or spare equipment. But the objects within were anything but ordinary.

Broadmoor knelt beside the chest, his knees pressing into the cold earth as he examined its contents. Wrapped carefully in faded fabric, as though whoever had placed them here understood their significance, lay several items that seemed utterly out of place in a colonial gamekeeper's humble dwelling.

He reached in and removed the first bundle, unwrapping it slowly. The fabric fell away to reveal a spearhead of polished stone, its edges worked to a sharpness that spoke of considerable skill. The craftsmanship was extraordinary — not the crude implement of a savage, as colonial prejudice might assume, but a weapon of genuine artistry. The stone itself seemed to hold the light strangely, its surface carrying a lustre that ordinary rock should not possess.

Beneath the spearhead lay a wooden totem, perhaps eight inches in height, carved with designs that Broadmoor did not recognise. Ochre paint — red and yellow and white — had been applied to certain portions of the carving, the colours still vivid despite what appeared to be considerable age. The figure depicted was humanoid but not quite human, its proportions subtly wrong in ways that disturbed the eye without quite explaining why.

And at the bottom of the chest, wadded into a bundle as though thrust there in haste, was something that made Broadmoor's breath catch in his throat.

A pelt. Soft fur, tawny brown, marked with distinctive dark stripes that ran across the lower back and hindquarters. Even folded and compressed, there was no mistaking what creature had once worn this skin. The thylacine — the striped wolf that haunted Van Diemen's Land's wilderness — was known to every colonist, though few had seen one alive. The animals were secretive, emerging mainly at night, and the settlers' sheep and dogs had already begun to drive them from the more populated areas.

But this pelt was different from the hunting trophies Broadmoor had occasionally seen displayed in colonial homes. It had been preserved with evident care, the fur still supple, the stripes still sharp and clear. And someone had wrapped it in the same faded fabric as the other items, treating it not as a trophy but as something... sacred.

A low whistle escaped Rogers, who had followed Broadmoor inside and now peered over his shoulder at the chest's contents. "That's not what I was expecting to find," the young deputy murmured. "What is all this, sir?"

Broadmoor did not answer immediately. His gaze had fixed upon the spearhead, turning it slowly in his hands to examine the workmanship. The stone was cool against his palms, smooth where it had been polished and sharp where it had been worked to an edge. A weapon made with purpose and skill, by hands that knew their craft intimately.

Behind him, Gilchrist made a sound — half sigh, half groan — that spoke of surrender. Broadmoor turned to find the gamekeeper slumped against the doorframe, his weathered face grey in the dim light, his earlier resistance crumbled into something like defeat.

"Explain this," Broadmoor said, keeping his voice level despite the questions crowding his mind. "All of it."

Gilchrist's throat worked as he swallowed, his eyes fixed upon the contents of the chest with an expression that mixed fear with something almost like reverence. When he spoke, his voice emerged rough and low, barely more than a whisper.

"The master brought them here. Said he found them near the boundary stone, not long before..." He trailed off, seeming unable to complete the thought.

"Before what?" Broadmoor pressed.

"Before that man started coming around." The words tumbled out now, as though a dam had broken and Gilchrist could no longer hold back the flood. "The stranger. The one Jonathan described. The master found these things and brought them to me, told me to keep them safe and hidden. He said they were..." Another pause, another struggle to find words adequate to explain. "He said they were a warning. That we'd angered the clans somehow. That taking these things had set something in motion that couldn't be undone."

Rogers shifted uneasily, his earlier curiosity giving way to visible discomfort. "A warning? From the natives?" He glanced at the spearhead in Broadmoor's hands. "Seems more like primitive trinkets to me. Doesn't mean anything."

Broadmoor silenced him with a look, then returned his attention to the gamekeeper. "And the pelt? The thylacine? What of that?"

Gilchrist's face seemed to age ten years in the space of a breath. "The master said we'd killed something sacred. Not just an animal to them — something more. A guardian, maybe, or a messenger, or..." He shook his head helplessly. "I don't know the proper words for it, sir. The master tried to explain, but it made little sense to my ears. He said only that we'd taken something that wasn't ours to take, disturbed something that should have been left alone. And that they would come for recompense."

"They?" Broadmoor kept his voice carefully neutral, though his mind raced with implications. "Who are 'they,' Mr Gilchrist?"

The gamekeeper's gaze dropped to the floor, unable or unwilling to meet Broadmoor's eyes. "I don't rightly know, sir. The clans, I assumed at first. But the master... he spoke of them differently. Like they were something older than the natives themselves. Something that had been here since before any human foot walked this land." His voice dropped even lower. "Something that didn't appreciate us newcomers and our ways."

A heavy silence fell over the cottage, broken only by the soft crackle of the fire in the stove and the distant call of a bird somewhere in the gathering dusk. The objects in the chest seemed to draw the eye, their presence filling the small space with a weight that went beyond their physical mass.

Broadmoor turned the spearhead over once more, studying the way light played across its polished surface. Whatever the truth behind Gilchrist's halting explanation — whether genuine supernatural warning or the product of a guilty conscience and overwrought imagination — these items were significant. Someone had made them with care and purpose. Someone had left them where William Jeffries would find them. And William had been frightened enough by their discovery to hide them away and swear his gamekeeper to secrecy.

"You said Mr Jeffries was acting strangely after finding these," Broadmoor said. "Strange how?"

"He started spending more time in the woods," Gilchrist replied, some of his colour returning as he settled into the familiar territory of observation and report. "Walking the boundaries, checking the old trails. I thought at first he was just being careful, what with the convict troubles and the unrest among the natives in other districts. But it was more than that." The gamekeeper's brow furrowed with the effort of recollection. "He'd come back from those walks looking... haunted, I suppose is the word. Like he'd seen something that troubled him deep. And then he started meeting that stranger, having those arguments I told you about. And now..."

He gestured helplessly toward the chest, the motion encompassing not just its contents but everything they represented — the mysteries that had accumulated around Jeffries Manor like storm clouds gathering before a tempest.

"Now your master is missing," Broadmoor finished for him, "and these objects remain. Hidden in your cottage, known only to you and a man who may be dead or fled or taken."

Gilchrist flinched at the blunt assessment but did not argue. His silence was admission enough.

Broadmoor rose to his feet, his knees protesting the cold and the cramped position. His mind sorted through the day's revelations, seeking patterns amidst the chaos of evidence and testimony. The blood in the garden. The concealed glove. The stranger with the wrong face. These artefacts with their aura of age and purpose. Each piece suggested a story, but the pieces did not yet fit together into any coherent whole.

"Rogers," he said, "these items are evidence now. Have them wrapped carefully and brought to the manor house. I want them examined properly, in good light, by someone who might know their origin and significance." He turned to Gilchrist. "And you, Mr Gilchrist, will accompany us back. I have more questions, and I suspect the night ahead will be long."

The stream revealed itself through the trees like a ribbon of darker shadow, its burbling voice preceding its visibility in the deepening dusk. The search party had spread out along its banks, their calls to one another growing more frequent as the light failed and the risk of missing something significant increased with every passing minute.

Broadmoor made his way to where a cluster of men had gathered near a bend in the watercourse. The stream here ran shallow over a bed of rounded stones, its clear waters reflecting the last amber light of the dying day. Normally, such a scene would have struck him as peaceful — a pastoral moment in an otherwise harsh colonial landscape. But there was nothing peaceful about the expressions on the searchers' faces as he approached.

"What have you found?" he asked, though the tension in their postures had already told him it was nothing good.

One of the men — Hardwick, a farmer from the neighbouring property who had joined the search an hour past — pointed toward the far bank. "Fabric, sir. Caught on that thornbush there, just above the waterline."

Broadmoor waded into the stream without hesitation, the cold water soaking through his boots and numbing his feet within seconds. The current tugged at his legs as he crossed, stronger than it appeared from the bank. When he reached the indicated bush — a tangle of thorny branches overhanging the water from the far side — he saw what had drawn the searchers' attention.

A scrap of silk, perhaps two inches square, caught upon the thorns. The fabric was fine and expensive, its pattern still visible despite exposure to the elements — a design he recognised from the cravats favoured by colonial gentlemen of means. The kind of thing William Jeffries might wear.

With careful fingers, Broadmoor extracted the fabric from its thorny prison. He examined it closely, turning it toward the fading light to better assess its condition. His initial excitement dimmed as the details became clear.

The edges were frayed rather than torn, the fibres separated by weathering rather than violence. And the colour had faded in a way that spoke not of days but of weeks, perhaps longer. This scrap had been here for some time — blown from a washing line, perhaps, or carried by some previous flood and deposited upon the bush long before William Jeffries had vanished.

A false lead. Another raised hope dashed against the rocks of evidence.

Yet something about the placement nagged at him. The bush grew on the far side of the stream — someone would have had to cross the water to leave it there, or else it would have had to travel upstream against the current. And despite the fabric's aged appearance, the thorns that held it were fresh growth, green and supple rather than the brown of older wood.

"Sir!" Another shout from upstream, carrying the particular urgency of significant discovery. "There's something else. Boot prints in the mud here, leading into the water."

Broadmoor made his way along the bank, his sodden boots squelching with each step. The light had faded to the point where he had to squint to make out details, but what he saw when he reached the indicated spot made his blood run cold despite the physical chill.

Boot prints. Clear and distinct in the soft mud of the bank. The same expensive boots they had found evidence of in the garden, the same distinctive pattern that Philip Pyke had identified as London craftsmanship. The prints led directly to the water's edge, each step perfectly preserved in the yielding earth.

And then they stopped.

"Check both banks," Broadmoor ordered, keeping his voice steady despite the implications that crowded his mind. "A quarter mile in each direction, at least. Look for any sign of where he emerged."

The searchers spread out along the stream, their movements increasingly hampered by the failing light. Broadmoor remained at the spot where the prints ended, staring down at the evidence with a growing sense of unease that went beyond professional concern.

The prints went in. They did not come out. A man had walked to this stream, stepped into the water, and then... what? Drowned? Escaped downstream? Been carried away by some force unknown?

Or simply vanished, as the stranger in the woods had vanished — like morning mist, leaving no trace of passage or destination?

The search continued as darkness gathered, lanterns now appearing among the party as the last of the daylight faded. But the banks yielded nothing — no sign of emergence on either side, no indication of which direction William Jeffries might have gone after entering the water. The stream kept its secrets, burbling cheerfully past as though it held no knowledge of the man who had walked into its embrace and not walked out again.

Exhaustion had begun to settle over the searchers. Their movements grew slower, their calls less frequent. The shadows beneath the trees had deepened to impenetrable black, the kind of darkness that colonial wilderness could produce — absolute, patient, indifferent to human concerns.

Broadmoor called a halt at last, gathering the weary men around him with a voice grown hoarse from a day of commands and questions. "We've done what we can for tonight. Any more searching in this darkness will only confuse the evidence and risk injury."

The relief in their faces was evident, though none gave voice to it. They were good men, willing workers, but the strangeness of the day's discoveries had taken its toll. Even the most practical among them had begun to cast nervous glances toward the surrounding woods, as though expecting something to emerge from the shadows.

It was then that the cry came.

High and thin, it cut through the evening air with a quality that seemed to bypass the ears entirely and settle directly into the bones. Not the call of any bird Broadmoor knew, nor the howl of any animal he could name. It rose and fell in a pattern that suggested intention — that almost suggested words, though words in no language any of them recognised.

The men froze, hands moving to weapons and crosses in equal measure. Even Gilchrist, who had grown up in Highland Scotland where tales of the uncanny were mother's milk, went pale at the sound.

"What in God's name was that?" Rogers whispered, his young face taut with fear he was trying desperately to conceal.

No one answered. The cry came again, closer this time, seeming to echo off the dark waters of the stream. It was a sound of mourning, perhaps, or of warning — a voice from somewhere beyond the boundaries of the known world, calling out across the gathering night.

And beneath it, almost too faint to perceive, another sound. A name, perhaps. Syllables that might have been "William" if one strained to hear them through the distortion of distance and darkness.

Or perhaps it was merely imagination, the mind's desperate attempt to impose meaning upon the meaningless. Broadmoor could not say with certainty, and he suspected none of the others could either.

"We return to the manor," he announced, his voice cutting through the paralysis that had gripped the group. "Now. All of us together, and no one falls behind."

They needed no further encouragement. The search party reformed into a tight cluster, lanterns held high to push back the pressing darkness, and began the trek back toward the lights of Jeffries Manor. No one spoke as they walked, each man wrapped in his own thoughts, his own fears.

The cry did not come again, but its absence provided no comfort. Something had called out in the darkness — something that knew, perhaps, what had befallen William Jeffries. Something that waited in the woods and the wild places, patient and ancient and utterly unconcerned with the small dramas of colonial men.

As the lights of the manor house appeared through the trees, Broadmoor made his decision. "Mr Gilchrist," he said, his tone brooking no argument, "you'll spend the night in town, where I can keep an eye on you. Whatever you know — whatever you think you know — about these matters, I intend to have the full truth before morning."

The gamekeeper nodded wearily, too exhausted to protest. "Aye, sir. The full truth, such as it is. Though I warn you..." He paused, his face haggard in the lantern light. "The truth of this place runs deeper than any of us understand. Deeper than the master understood, for all his cleverness. And I fear..." Another pause, another struggle for words. "I fear it may be too late for understanding to do any good."

They emerged from the tree line onto the manicured grounds of the estate, the contrast between wilderness and cultivation as stark as ever. Behind them, the woods stood silent and watchful, keeping their secrets close. Above, the first stars had begun to appear in the darkening sky, cold and distant as the judgment of angels.

The mysteries of Jeffries Manor would wait for morning. But as Broadmoor cast one final glance toward the dark mass of the forest, he suspected that few among them would find true rest this night. Too many questions remained unanswered. Too many shadows lurked at the edges of understanding.

And somewhere in the darkness, something waited. Something that perhaps had already found what they were still seeking.