The Night Walker

I pull myself up onto the cart next to the driver. You can’t make much out at this time of day. Dawn’s a couple of hours away; there isn’t even the faintest hint of it on the horizon. I nod towards the driver, just as I do every morning, and once I’m seated on the old smooth board that serves as a seat, we get underway.

There’s the faintest hint of a slender whip cracking. It doesn’t connect with the old bullocks out the front. There’s no need; they know the way better than the driver or me. The last new bull added to this team came in over ten years ago. They’ve negotiated every inch of the route every day since then. I’m sure they can do it in their sleep. And why not? Some days I do too. The whip-crack is purely ceremonial, the flag dropping to start the race. The long slow race to dawn.

The heavy thud of their giant hooves reverberates off the stone wall that marks the boundary of the marshlands with the old town. If you could see it, it’d be an ordinary stone wall, stout, solid, and unremarkable. But you can’t see it in this light, so we just carry on past, into the town proper.

Only half a dozen houses in, we make our first stop. I never know where we’ll stop, and at this hour of morning, I can’t see who we’re stopping for, but the driver, or more likely the bullocks, get it right every time. I jump down, straight into a freezing cold puddle of the foul-smelling sludge that passes for a street in this town and head to the back of the cart. That’s my job, to help our passengers up onto the back of the cart. I try to help them keep their feet dry too, but I don’t always succeed.

The old lady I help up seems confused. She has icy hands. I suppose she can’t afford gloves, they’re expensive unless you make them yourself, and you can’t make them if you don’t have wool. Most people living in town don’t have any sheep to make wool from, so their hands are often cold, even in summer. To tell the truth, gloves wouldn’t really help her anymore; she’s been dead a couple of hours already, and the warmth is the first thing to leave you. Our passenger settled; I pull myself back up onto the cart. The driver makes a clicking sound in the back of their throat, and the bullocks do the rest. We roll on.

There are half a dozen more stops in town. I get off at every one and help the passengers up onto the back of the cart. That’s a lot, even for this time of year. People who are close tend to give up on nights like these. There’s a point where you just can’t hold on to the warmth anymore, or that’s what they say.

As we leave town, I see the first sign of the new day on the horizon. The stars are still bright, but their time is running out, for this night at least. We stop unexpectedly, just short of the crest of the hill outside town. If you turn around, you can see a few lights burning in the windows back there. At this hour of day, they’ll belong to the bakers. This is the countryside. Not as many people live outside the town anymore, that’s where all the jobs are, so that’s where the people have gone, but today, we have another passenger.

I slide down off the cart. There’s enough light for me to miss the puddles now, a small mercy. Walking to the back of the cart, I drop the tailgate. The passenger doesn’t move. Sometimes they don’t. As I walk over to help them, I see why.

She’s young, probably around sixteen. When you get to my age, your sense of these things gets a little less reliable. Regardless, she’s young, clothing torn, covered in mud, and she’s clutching a bundle to her chest. She’s terrified. She knows I’m there, and she tries to speak. Speaking never works. I know that, and right now, I wish more than anything that she did too. The baby is crying as well. I can’t hear it, but she can. She turns all her attention back to it, and I help her onto the back of the cart. I can’t cry for the mothers and babies anymore, but I take some peace from knowing that they’re making the journey together.

My wife and daughter made the journey too.

It was many years ago now, not long after we first arrived at the cottage. At the time, I had no idea why we came there or what the cottage was doing, tucked away in its field, looking for all the world as though the rightful owner had walked out that morning. But we found it. Or it found us.

I still remember my surprise. Just hours after lying down in the stranger’s bed, we had decided we’d sleep in ‘just for one night. I woke up and walked to the town in the dead of night. There I met the cart for the first time. It appeared, as it has every night since, from a low, misty, hollow in the marshlands. There was never any question as to what part was mine to play, so I played it, riding with the driver and helping those who needed passage onto the cart.

I returned safely to the cottage in the morning. My wife lay peaceful and still, asleep in our bed. It was our bed now. I knew that, although I didn’t know how I knew. The cottage gives life to the aides of the dead.

We were happy in the cottage; its rooms were bright and airy, its gardens were fertile. It somehow always missed the worst of the weather. It had everything we needed. We lived a quiet life, undisturbed by anything except the rhythm of the seasons and the routine of the cart. At least for a time.

The birth of our daughter took days. I wanted more than anything to stay, to be with them at the moment. But the cart called to me, and I had no choice but to obey. It was a quiet night; we only picked up two passengers in town, but still, we took too long.

The sun was almost up when I saw her, waiting by the side of the road, cradling a bundle close to her chest. As the cart came to a halt next to her, she looked at me and smiled.

Then, as now, I stepped down off the cart, walked slowly to the back, and dropped the tailgate.

I helped them up, my wife and my daughter, who slept so peacefully at her mother’s breast. And I climbed up with them, into the back of the cart.

It has been six-score years since then, and I have faithfully served every last day of those long, lonely years. I am far older than I have any right to be. Today, I climb into the back of the cart myself. It is my time, and at last, I can cry.