When the last of the Field Rabbit issues were settled, it was past tea and an hour until dinner. I had just enough time to squeeze in a visit to Carter, the gamekeeper, to see about the poaching.  

The sun was low, edging the new leaves with sunlight as I walked down the wide, beaten-earth path to his cabin. A gentle breeze, still a bit cool, swayed the branches further up in the trees and I breathed in the sweet, musty smell of the forest awaking to a new spring. 

I knew the less-wooded areas of the estate forest intimately, as I used to jog my pony along the paths that criss-crossed them pretending I was Joan of Arc or a medieval princess searching for Merlin in the Tree. 

The thickly forested areas, however, were still blank spots on my mental map and with good reason. Father had done a excellent job of etching indelibly into my mind  the scene of a little Olivia with a gunshot wound to the stomach laying dead on the forest floor next to her cruelly indifferent, grazing pony.

After that, I had cheerfully left those areas to the animals and the Carters. I had no wish to be confused with a bear or a stag and laid low. 

Desmond Carter was there, smoking a pipe on the bench that fronted the small, rough-log cabin. He was comparatively young, in his late 30s, with broad-shoulders and a light-brown beard. He looked the spitting image of old John Carter, who had been the gamekeeper when I was a child. Father had made sure to get Des and his brother Billy an exemption from military service before scampering off to India, claiming we couldn't do without our Carters as short-staffed as we were. 

"Miss Altringham! I'll show you what I've found." He rose to his feet and picked up a canvas bag which he strapped to his back. "About a ten-minute walk north-west."

I hesitated and looked down at my buckled shoes. I had not foreseen that I'd be asked to trek through the forest and they were utterly inappropriate. 

"Is that completely necessary?"

"It is. Unfortunately."

A few minutes later, I was trailing behind him in Wellingtons stuffed with rags and paper to make them fit. Carter was not a man of many words, but he was not as much of a taciturn recluse as his father had been. He informed me of what animals he'd made note of and that the most common birds seemed to have made it through the winter well. We'd have a dearth of rabbits and pheasants for the stew pot he assured me. 

That was always reassuring to hear. 

"How is Montgomery holding up? He gave us quite a fright the other night."

Carter said nothing as he bent back branches for us to pass and told me to mind my step when the ground became uneven or overly soggy. We turned off the main path and moved along a thin, barely-visible trail that I hadn't known existed. 

I was about to change the subject and ask after his family when he suddenly spoke. 

"That'd be the reason you need to see this."

"What, Montgomery?"

Silence again. I was hard pressed to see the connection between Montgomery and villagers poaching in my forest, but as we walked in silence I began to grow increasingly uneasy and the hairs on the back of my neck began to rise. What was so important that I had to see it? What new problems were about the rise on the horizon? 

"Here." 

Carter suddenly crouched down and pointed to a flat space on the ground. I didn't see anything but earth, some pebbles and twigs and a few dried leaves left over from autumn. "See how big it is?" he said.

"How big what is? I'm not sure I know what I'm looking at."

Carter looked up at me, his deep brown eyes showing a bit of surprise. Then he swivelled on his heels and pulled a decent-sized branch lying on the ground towards himself.

"Watch." With a quick movement, he stabbed the branch into the middle of the space. 

From out of nowhere, a loop of dark wire shot up from the ground, locking itself around the branch and jerking it up into the air. I took a step back in surprise.

"A rabbit snare," explained Carter. "But far too big and far too strong. Whoever laid this wasn't out for little rabbits."

I stared at the branch bobbing up and down at my eye-level. Carter stood up, clapping the earth off his hands.

"Were they out for?  Deer or badger?"

Carter shook his head. "Montgomery."

"I'm sorry, Montgomery set this snare?"

"No, Miss Altringham. Whoever set this snare was out to catch a Montgomery."

"Catch a Mont-- " My mind instantly flew to James and his threat to harm the poor man. But, that made no sense. How would James have made his way out this far into the forest to a place even I didn't know existed? I had no idea what Carter was talking about. It sounded like gibberish.

"I'm sorry, I'm not following. What --"

"The Devil in the Forest."

"What?"

"Doesn't ring any bells?"

I must have looked utterly perplexed, as Carter sighed and shook his head. "There's been a right idiotic story making the rounds about a ghost or a devil that lives in the western part of the estate's forest. When the villagers get drinking at the pub at night, some imbecile always brings it up for a bit of a cheap tingle while dipping his whiskers in the froth."

Carter took a pair of dangerous-looking pliers out of the bag he'd strapped to his back and set about cutting the sling into pieces and dismantling the trap. 

"Some says it's the ghost of an injured soldier what died in the Infirmary out for a bit of a  haunt. Others say it's some sort of evil magic conjured up by the violent memories of the men who live here. Me, I say some poacher what crept in here of a moonlit night got a glimpse of our Montgomery between the trees and scared himself shrieking green. This is Montgomery's part of the forest. The stories didn't start until he moved out here."

I was speechless. I'd had no idea the local opinion of Cloud Hill went that far. Suspicious of me, yes. Not terribly well disposed towards the men, yes. But to the point of harming one of us? No. That was certainly news to me.  

"Was. . .has he been caught in one of these snares? Is that how you found out about them?"

"I don't know if he's tripped any of them or not. All I know is that he showed up at my cabin and said he thought someone was after him. About a fortnight ago. Right off, I thought it was his problems flaring up again -- you know, the war damage what gives them the crazy ideas. But no. Once he showed me one of these, I believed him. Someone is after him." 

"How many have you found so far?" 

Carter put away the pliers and began coiling up the wire. "Four."

The time frame exonerated James, but that didn't improve the situation one whit. This was clearly what had triggered the poor man's episode in the kitchen. Had he come to the house in a state of agitation to report that there were trespassers in the forest, and then seen the flames? Had that combination brought on the memory of the flame thrower and being burned? 

"If I understand you correctly, you're saying that you think someone is trying to catch this devil -- who is really Montgomery -- to prove or disprove the story about it?"

"I am." Carter stowed the wire in his bag which he then strapped to his back once again. "The poor blighter's sensitive about how he looks, Miss." Carter gestured to his face. "He don't like showing himself to people. Don't want to frighten nobody. Out here in the forest, well, animals don't care what you look like, do they? But mean-spirited imbeciles with too much time on their hands do."

"You're perfectly right, unfortunately. But if he doesn't know about the story then how did he connect the snares with himself? I mean --"

"He knows."

I stared at Carter and he gave me a small smile. "I thought it best to tell him about it a while ago. Just in case anything," he pointed to where the trap had been, "like this happened. I didn't think it ever would, in all honestly. I was warning him in case he ever went into the villages. I'm damned sorry to have been proven wrong."

"What can be done?"

"Not much. Keep an eye out and destroy the snares, that's all. I can let it be know around the pubs that the police have been notified, although I don't see a reason to actually include the police in this yet. "

I sighed. "Yes, please do that."  I stuffed my hands into my pockets and crossed my fingers that Carter's words would be enough. 

"If I may offer a suggestion, Miss?" Carter said, as we reached the main path again and began to make our way back towards the cabin.  "He might be safest in the main house for a bit. A week or two. He won't like it, but he'll at least be safe and they won't be able to reach him there."

"Yes. Yes, that's an excellent idea. Thank you, Carter. I think that's exactly what we shall do."

And the sooner the better.