I met Harper when I was just a kid.

I was sixteen when I went out west with the kind of hope so many of us had back then. I didn't find the success I dreamed of. Instead times were hard and I found myself drifting from one dusty town to the next, trying to find a living. I did all sorts. I was an odd job kid. A Jack of all trades. Hell, I think that was even my line for a while. I guess I thought it was witty on account of my name actually being Jack.

Eventually, I found my way to Bruton. It was a dust bucket, just like any other town and I had gone there simply because I had got bored of the last dust bucket. I must have been nineteen by then. I rode in. I remember, I had a beaut of a pony at the time, part mustang part thoroughbred (or so I was told by the man who sold her to me). I called her Juanita after a girl I had liked once.

So I rode into Bruton on Juanita and made my way straight to the bar. I ordered myself a whiskey but being low on funds I nursed it for a while and eyed the clientele. Harper was sitting on a stool close by me and after a while he spoke.

'Where you rode in from?' he asked.

'White Sands.'

Harper shrugged and I reckoned he didn't know the place, nor did he care to know of such places.

'Why'd you ride here?'

This time I shrugged in a manner showing I didn't know why, nor did I care to know such things.

Harper laughed and introduced himself.

'Harper,' he said, gruff and loud and he held out his hand for me to shake. I took it and he nodded at me as though he approved. I think I felt kind of flattered. He was old but not frail. Hardened, like wood left out in the desert, turning into stone. He had the look of a survivor. Those kinds of men tend to be dangerous. Those are the kind of men you want on your side when you're looking down that dark tunnel that leads to the end of things.

I said: 'Jack' and we sipped our drinks and settled into silence for a bit. I glanced about the room again, but I wasn’t particularly interested in anyone else anymore. I was waiting to see what Harper was going to say next. See, I'm fairly good at reading people. No poker genius mind, but I've got decent instincts and I had the sense that Harper had something to say. So I waited, delved into my meagre assortment of coins, and I ordered another drink.

Eventually, Harper stood up and gestured to a table away from the general hubbub. I took his drift and followed him to it. It was a rickety affair by the window and I found myself thinking if nothing else I could get myself some carpentering work and help fix up this place a little before I moved on.

We sat down and Harper regarded me. He had those strange sun-bleached eyes – eyes such a pale blue they seem to reflect the clouds. So many coots out west had eyes like that. It unsettled me when first I came out this way. Harper's eyes were cold, but I did what I usually do when I'm feeling kind of squirly; I stared right back at him. He searched me, I know he did. He was rooting around inside of me, trying to find out what I really was. And if he did find out he never told me. To this day I’m none the wiser as to what lies at the heart of me. It bothered me then but it don't bother me none now though. I'm too old. I'll find out when I reach that end I've been aiming towards.

Harper rifled through me and when he was done he grunted. It was an objective grunt. It made no comment on me. It was a grunt that said nothing at all and in saying nothing it marked the beginning of what was to come. And so Harper began his tale. He said:

'People have a helluva lot of stories about unicorns you know. Doubtless you've heard them yourself. They lay their heads in the laps of singing virgins, their horns contain magical properties that can heal any wound, their blood can give eternal life. You know these stories boy?'

I nodded. My family hailed from Europe and they had plenty of these stories to hand. But unicorns? I was beginning to wonder if I had read Harper wrong. I had thought I'd learn something here, but I started to suspect he was just the local crazy. I was already trying to disengage but Harper sensed it and he reached across the table and grabbed my arm. His grip was strong and his eyes said 'heed me'. So I stilled myself and settled in for the ride. I had nowhere else to be, what was the harm? Harper nodded.

'Yep. People have a helluva lot of stories about unicorns. But tell me, boy: have you ever met someone who met one?'

I followed the rules of engagement and said: 'No.'

Harper nodded again, as though I were confirming a suspicion rather than a fact.

'Of course not. You know why?'

I shook my head.

'It's simple, boy. No one's ever lived to tell the tale. See, what they don't tell you in stories – what people seem to miss out on altogether – is one irrefutable fact: a unicorn is a dangerous animal. Of course it is! Hell, a horse is a dangerous animal so it follows a unicorn has to be. And if they were oh-so-gentle? Well, I reckon we would see a whole lot more of them now, wouldn't we?'

I nodded, and in spite of myself I was warming to his topic.

'My granddaddy was good with horses. Hell, he was a damn genius. He was what they call a whisperer. He understood them, see; he understood them better than he understood most things and my granddaddy understood a helluva lot about a helluva lot. Not that you would think it to see him. Not even think it to talk to him. He was a modest man.

'I tell you now, boy – beware the man that thinks he's the smartest corpse in the room. That was not my granddaddy. He had a firm belief in his own ignorance. But when anyone had a question on anything, he was the man we turned to.

'He was self-educated. He collected books, read them cover to cover, memorised the words, internalised the thoughts, learned the ideas and agreed and argued with them all, I think, in his own quiet way. He loved those things, but his love of books and learning was nothing compared to his love of horsekind. The noble beast. He told me that ever since he was a crawler he’d had a hankering to know their language, to understand their culture. And he learned it quick.

'Most of us understood he liked horses better 'n he liked people and most of us were fine with that. Even my grandma had no bones to pick with it. It was my ma who hated him for it. But no matter how hard her hate grew she couldn't keep me from him. I'd follow him around, like I was scared of getting lost, and I would watch him whisper.

'You've never seen nothing quite so quiet. The wildest beast would calm when my granddaddy came near. He could walk into a corral with nothing, just calm as a desert stone, and even a bucking, kicking, squealing, mad beast would settle to a standstill and regard him.

'My granddaddy never said a word. It was as though he was transporting his thoughts to the animal, telling it, without words, what he wanted it to do. I asked him about it and he said he never told a horse. He asked it nicely. He told me politeness goes a long way.

'It happened gradual, most likely due to my ma, but after a time I found I saw him less and less. And then I saw him not at all. And when I finally asked where he was I found out he had disappeared altogether. I suppose you think it strange, that it took so long for me to notice?'

I shook my head but I didn’t speak, not wanting to interrupt Harper's flow.

'Well, I think it’s strange,’ Harper said. ‘I was surprised at myself, a little ashamed even, so naturally, to make up for it, I started to look for him. I asked my grandma but she simply shrugged and kept her silence. I poked and prodded all the people that knew him well and eventually it came to light that my granddaddy had gone off on a quest of sorts. He was looking for the unicorns.

'People chuckled when they mentioned it, but my granddaddy was a respected man so no one felt right making fun of him outright and they generally kept their thoughts to themselves. One thing they all said at one point or another though, was that they thought he would be disappointed because everyone knew there were no unicorns in America.

'People were so certain my granddaddy would fail that I began to believe it too. I forgot everything I knew of the man and I became little better than a sheep, bleating and following the crowd. I thought I knew things. I thought I was careful. I had forgotten to believe in my own ignorance.

'We none of us know anything, boy!' Harper sang. His voice hung in the air, suspended between the grace notes of the piano and the breathy lulls in conversation and I felt all eyes turn toward us. But Harper was a known entity. Perhaps the room saw us and thought 'Harper's wrangled another innocent to listen to his crazy.' Whatever the case, the bar didn't care about us. We were in our own space, our own time, and I belonged to Harper's story just as much as he did. I felt then that I had somehow, without realising it, made a deal: I was taking something from the man. He was shaking himself free of a burden that I had not known I was taking on when I sat down at that old rickety table with him.

'We none of us know anything,' he repeated. He fell to silence for a time. I waited, patient.

When he looked at me again it was with fresh resolve.

'Grandma died and left me her place and though I was young, perhaps your age, I was considered a man, so no one was surprised when I moved out there. I was eager to be rid of the overwatchful eye of my ma. With land to my name it wasn’t long before I was saddled with a wife and bridled with a child. I was domesticated.'

I looked him over and tried to imagine him at nineteen. I tried to imagine him neck-reining at a woman's light touch, but the image didn’t suit.

'Don't imagine I was unhappy. My woman was good and true and I loved her. And my boy... I would have trained him up as my granddaddy had trained me. I would have if I had been older.' Harper fixed me with that cold eye of his again.

'We know nothing,' he said.

'Then, one day, my granddaddy walked out of the desert on foot. We thought he was a stranger at first, unrecognisable all burnt and dry. He knocked on the door and it was only when I looked him in the eye that I knew him. I was stunned. Truly. The local quack said he was fine, but he didn’t speak. We asked him all manner of questions. I asked him – half truly, half with a snigger – if he had found his unicorns. The old man said nothing. He wouldn’t talk with anyone.

‘He settled into the background of our lives, living and breathing among us, but little more than a body in the corner. We stopped thinking about him like he was a person. So it floored me when, almost a year after his quiet return, he spoke to me. It was like doll suddenly coming to life.

‘I had come home late after spending the evening getting well oiled in the tonk in town and enjoying the pleasures of the local lady of the night, so by the time I got home I was damn near insensible. But when he spoke it scared the sense into me.

'You’ll never have heard a voice like it. It wasn't his voice no more, not really. There was an echo of the warm old man I’d known, but the voice was cold and distant. And he looked at me like I was little more than an irritant – a scab on his knuckle, hindering his dexterity.

'"What have you become, boy?" he asked me. Well, I was suddenly sober but I was unable to produce an answer for him. He looked at me and it was clear he already knew what I was. He had known for a while. For all that time we were treating him like he was invisible, he was looking at us, watching us, judging us. And there was no doubt in my mind that out of everyone, I was the one most wanting. I had grown into a lost man, too stupid to realise I hadn't the foggiest notion of where I was. So I swallowed dumbly and sat down before the man, waiting for him to pronounce me useless, hoping for him to give me an indication of what was to come next. But he didn’t speak again that night.

'I woke up the next morning on the ground in front of an empty chair. My wife gave me her best sour look; she knew what I spent my evenings at. The child avoided me, worried I would bark or maybe bite. But I was in a daze. I walked out the house and I saw him by the corral. A horse stood before him, squared up and majestic as though it were holding court and my granddaddy was a lowly petitioner. And then I saw him bow.

'I watched him all that day and for days afterwards. I would sit near him, hoping he would speak again, but no words passed his lips. He simply watched. Eventually I stopped shadowing him and went about my daily duties. I applied myself to working the land and the animals and found less time for town and nonsense.

'It may have been a month that passed, it may have been longer, but finally we had a conversation. I was sitting out in the shade one afternoon, oiling a saddle, humming idly to myself, when I heard his footsteps behind me and he cleared his throat. I turned to look at him.

'"May I?" he asked and he took my rag away from me and set to work on the leather himself. I stood and watched. "That tune," he said. "Hum it again." I began to sing, low and soft. I’ve always had a tolerable voice. He sighed as I sang and nodded his head and when the song came to an end he smiled and said, more to himself than to me: "A fine cadence for the noble beast." We were silent while he finished the saddle but when he was done, he put down the rag and turned to me.

'"I did find 'my unicorns'," he said, as though I had asked him the question just then rather than a whole year before. "I found them, though they had no wish to be found. I knew them, though they had no wish to be known. I loved them, though they had no wish to be loved. I suffered by them and they had a great wish to see me suffer more. A unicorn," he said, "is a very dangerous animal."

'"You were just a boy when I went looking for the unicorns. I’m sure everyone must have thought I’d lost my senses but the truth was that I had gained my courage. After all, everyone knows unicorns don’t exist so it takes some courage to try to find them.

'"You were so young but perhaps you remember that I was a bibliophage. I was glad to see that you kept my books. There was a time when I thought you were like to read as much as I did, but I’ve yet to see you crack a spine since I returned. That's by the by though. As you know, I collected books on everything. I gathered information to me, like a cactus gathers water. It was in my books that I found clues, small tidbits of fact and fiction that began to colour in an irresistible picture. These small morsels encouraged me and I did research. I plotted, I routed, I did not do things without consideration or preparation. I followed the stories and the rumours, I followed the sound and the words, I followed my instincts for a time too and – eventually – I made my way through the desert.

'"The desert is an unforgiving place. It tests us. It shows us the darkest visions of ourselves and asks us if we can accept this. And if you have the sand, you might just scrape by. The desert might open a path and take you to its bosom. The heart of the desert is a place few can come back from. It is the end of all things, so it's no wonder that the unicorns made their home there many ages past.

'"I’m sure these sound like the ravings of a madman but this is all true. I made my way through an invisible labyrinth to find them and when I found them... well a creature that hides does not wish to be found.

'"Before that first encounter, I thought I was dying. I had been in the desert for so long it felt as though time had run its course and come to a stop. I knew that I would not return home; it was too far behind me and I was too weak. I made my peace. I thought I was ready for death. So, with the last of my energy, I climbed the hill I found before me thinking to see the sun set on the desert as it set upon my life, and when I reached the summit I was transfixed by that great fire on the horizon and I wept into the darkness and finally fell to sleep. And then, quite unprepared, I woke at dawn.

‘“I woke to the piercing sound of a stallion crying warning to his herd. I looked down into a valley, not quite touched by daylight, shrouded in mist – a phenomenon I had not seen in many ages (or so it felt) – and I saw the shapes of paradise moving below me.

'"They are, as man has always told it, like horses. But they are different too. That first sight of them, they were merely shadows in the gloom. I watched them run with liquid grace, and I longed to get closer, but I was loath to frighten them. I learned later that unicorns are not easily frightened.

'"When I eventually made my way down into their domain I was challenged. I tried to whisper to them but they did not hear me. They did not speak the language. Unicorns are not horses.

'"They were beasts of many colours – all the shades and hues of the desert. They looked and moved like horses but they were not creatures of flight. They were all fight; they stepped in a martial manner. Their eyes seemed full of fire and they tossed their heads and brandished their horns, never once ceasing to threaten me. I looked at them more critically. Their coats were not glossy, but dust covered and dirty. Their manes were tangled, weed and thistles snagged and caught in coat, hair, tails. They had hardy hooves. I looked at their horns – that sign, the signal, the aspect of mystery, the source of magic. Older unicorns had darker horns. All of them were gnarled and twisted, most were chipped and worn with use. Their horns were their battle weapons and all of the unicorns were part of an affray.

'"I believe they wanted to kill me when they saw me, but something stayed them. An instinct perhaps, that I – like them – was a creature apart from the rest of the world. So they threatened but did not kill me and eventually, when they found they could not drive me away, they permitted me to stay. I made a space in the valley for myself. I studied them, hoping to understand at last that magic of the unicorn that men had told about.

'"Gradually, I began to break out of my stubborn mindset – I kept trying to impose equine qualities on them but they were far more complex than any horse. They were argumentative, contrary creatures. They were quick to make bonds and quick to break them. They were clever and yet they displayed indescribable stupidity at times. They were extraordinarily loveable; their idiosyncrasies, their intelligence, their foolishness making them more beautiful than any other creature I had come across. I learned their language. I learned who each of them was and I made my own ties and fought my own battles. I became half wild with unicornisms. I began to forget that I was not one of them and I began to believe they saw me as one of them too. I felt as though I belonged, part of the herd, full of my own magic.

'"But nothing lasts. I woke one day surrounded by unicorns. Without a word the oldest lowered her head and threatened me. I asked her why. She did not answer. I pleaded with them, tried to get them to explain what was going on but they refused to communicate. They acted as though they couldn’t hear me. They brandished their horns at me and herded me out of their valley. Then with a last flourish, one of them cut me. And they were gone, and I was alone near the heart of the desert, and I knew nothing of what had happened, where I was or who I had become.

'"I don't know how long I stayed there, dumbfounded, waiting for one of them to appear again and lead me back home to the valley. I sat in the heat and I was cold. I was full of a fear more profound than anything I’d known before. I’d been cut loose from my people, torn from my home. I felt abandoned and desolate. I felt alone. And finally I knew that I would remain that way. No unicorn was coming to readmit me into the herd. I realised I would have to move or I would die. And so I began to walk. I let fate guide me and some dormant memory must have directed my feet because I did not choose my path and yet when I finally made my way out of the desert I emerged here. In this place that had once been mine. And so I came to know myself again and to understand my journey. And when I had put all the pieces together, made the picture that belongs on the box of my life, I came out here to tell you what I know." My granddaddy gave me a very heavy look then and asked me: "Do you understand what I’m telling you?" I shook my head. I couldn't lie to the man. His story was fantastic and I felt there was a message somewhere in it but I wasn’t sharp enough to glean it. He seemed disappointed but all he said was:  "no, I don't suppose you do." And then he walked into the house.

'My granddaddy passed away that night. I felt him pass; I woke up in the darkness and I just knew he was gone. We found him in his room, a book splayed open in his lap. The funeral was arranged quickly and few attended. I made the eulogy. And when all was said and done I came back home and sat before the book shelves and I began cracking spines. I looked for those clues he talked about, I found his path. And then I sat on it for many years, too afraid to follow in his footsteps.

'I did eventually though. Of course I did. I had to. I left everything behind to chase his ghost I guess...'

Harper sighed and took a sip of whiskey. It was only as he drank that I realised how dry my own mouth was. I knocked back my glass only to discover it was empty. I couldn’t afford another. Harper didn’t seem to notice my predicament, he just took up his yarn again.

'It was all exactly as he had said; the desert drew me into its bosom and tested me. And when I faced it I was brought to the heart and there I found them. Or rather I should say they found me. They knew I was coming. When I approached their valley an emissary was sent to meet me. An emissary was sent to hurt me.

'I heard her before I saw her; her hooves clattering and echoing against the rocky valley walls. When I looked up I saw her galloping towards me, strong, fast, a free and noble beast it seemed. She galloped towards me and I saw her horn, I saw what she was, and all my remaining doubts were cast aside. Everything my granddaddy had told me was true.  I was too stunned to move. This beast galloped towards me and I just stood in her path, dumbfounded. I deserved a killing, but she didn't wish to kill me. As she drew closer I heard her squeal: a battle cry, a cry of outrage, and she lowered her head and charged. I did not move, I let her come on and so she slowed, not wanting to kill me. She slowed and kept her head low and she went in to gore me and so she did. Her horn sank through me like I was little more than butter; it sank through the flesh of my side, and I stared at her as she bore me to the ground. She pulled her horn from my flesh and bared her teeth at me, grunting outrage. She rolled an eye and I saw it then – what my granddaddy was telling me all those years ago. She had man's eyes. And she was a very dangerous animal.

'When she was finished with me she vanished, and I lay upon the desert and bled into the sand. The wound hurt but it was survivable. I waited there, in that patch of desert, hoping I might catch another glimpse of a unicorn, but nothing stirred. I waited a good long while. Eventually I got up and made my way back to the world I’d left behind.

'When I got home I found life had moved on without me and it was not happy to see me again, so I made myself scarce, left my town, and I tried to make something of the life I had left. I don't believe I made much. Eventually I made my way here to Bruton, and as it was as good a place as any and I had somehow grown old, I came to a standstill.'

Harper held his drink up to me then. I raised my empty glass. He smiled and poured half his own whisky in my glass. We drank.

'I've not told that story before,' Harper said. I nodded. 'You know why I told it to you?' I nodded again though if I'm honest, I had no clue at the time. Harper laughed. He knew I was lying. 'Yep,' he said. 'You know.' Or maybe he said: 'you'll know', but that's by the by. What I realise now is that he wanted to leave something behind, a legacy of sorts. He wanted me to follow his footsteps. In a way I think I did. I mean look at us – me and you – sitting in this bar. People come and go and every so often someone glances our way, but I’m a known entity in these parts. Perhaps the room sees us and thinks 'Jack's wrangled another innocent to listen to his crazy,' but they don't really care one way or another. You and I are in our own space, in our own time. And you’ve taken a burden from me, whether you wanted to or not. So it's your turn. You can follow the path I’ve set you on, but know that you don't have to. And when you come to the end of the path you choose, find someone else. Warn them. We live in a world full of dangerous animals.