Winter's End by Clarissa Cartharn Read Free Book Online Page A

Mrs.
Kinnaird.” Lisa’s word rang through her mind as she breathed in the cold, balmy
air of the early morning.
    She gave a small
chuckle. Why should she? However, was little old Mrs. Kinnaird ever going to be
a threat to her? And as for her famous grandson, he would be far from interested
in a widow with two children in the lonely Isle of Skye.
    “Mrs. Winston,” said
a stern voice, breaking her out of her thoughts.
    “Mrs. Kinnaird,” Emma
answered, surprised on seeing the older woman walking towards her. Not too far
strolling behind her was her trusted butler, Theodore.
    “I see you have taken
advantage of my offer,” said Mrs. Kinnaird.
    “Huh,” Emma said,
blushing guiltily from her thoughts of the woman’s   handsome grandson.
    “I’m glad you decided
to walk through my pastures,” said Mr.s . Kinnaird.
“You had me worried for a moment when I saw you walking up the highway.” She
stepped forward, indicating for Emma to walk with her. “There haven’t been any
gruesome incidences yet for walking on our lonely highways. But it does pay to
be careful. Besides the air in these pastures is different. You can almost feel
it’s purity as you take it into your lungs.” She took a deep breath in and held
it for a while before releasing it. And when she did, the aura around her changed,
exuding a warmth in the cold winter air. She had a smile on her face that lit
up her greying eyes, rising it at the corners. “If you stay still long enough,
you might even spot some of our handsome red stags come down from the
mountains.”
    “Red deer?” Emma
repeated, a tinge of wonder filling her eyes. “Here?”
    Mrs. Kinnaird smiled.
“We let them breed in the hills. And then… we shoot them.”
    Emma stood back
stunned by the abruptness of her final words. “You kill them?”
    Mrs. Kinnaird let out
a small inward chuckle. “Oh, you sure are a city girl, aren’t you? A lass from
Skye wouldn’t have given a second thought to it.”
    She gave Emma her
hand. Emma took it and the old woman wrapped her arm around Emma’s elbow.
Leaning slightly onto the younger woman, they walked together towards the huge
trunk of a leaf-barren tree. Their boots squelched into the ankle deep snow the
night fall left behind in the morning.
    “We don’t call them
killing here, lass. It’s called culling. It is an essential part of the deer
management program. You can say that we’re being cruel to be kind.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    Mrs. Kinnaird dusted
off the white crystals of snow gathered on her white hair. “Deer are like
rabbits. They can breed quickly into high densities. The trouble is this can lead
to a lack of food for them to survive on. If we don’t help control the herds,
they will slowly starve to death. They will even gnaw and chew at shed antlers
if they can’t find enough food. In Skye, we don’t have very many predators to
help cull the deer density. We have eagles and foxes but they’re not enough to
keep the numbers down. So what is best left to do is sport culling.”
    “Sport culling?”
asked Emma.
    “What you may have
heard of as deer stalking,” Mrs. Kinnaird explained. She saw Theodore retreating
towards a rock and nudged at Emma’s elbow to do the same. “Let’s get behind
this tree,” she whispered.
    Emma was startled
slightly but obediently followed without protest.
    “There,” the older
woman said softly, pointing towards a shrub of trees.
    And there Emma
noticed, among the bare brown trunk of trees was a red deer stag. It was
chewing on the stems and buds of blaeberry that stood a little taller than the
snow. It seemed to have heard their voices because it peeked up, its ears and
eyes alert for predators. It was a magnificent animal. It’s dark brown coat was
effectively camouflaged against the bark of the trees.
    “It’s a royal,” Mrs. Kinnaird
whispered again. “See it’s antlers? It has about twelve tines. In March or
April, it'll shed those beauties and in the summer,