Hills End Read online

  He eased the safety catch forward. He was sure that was right. He was sure that meant the gun was ready to fire—if it had been cocked. Was it cocked? He didn’t know, and he didn’t know how to check it. Of course he had watched Mr Fiddler fire it, but he hadn’t been interested in what made the gun work. He had only been interested in the bang and the gush of smoke and the damage to the target.

  He had to take the gun on faith.

  He closed his right forefinger over the trigger and tucked the butt in against his hip and was so frightened, so terribly frightened.

  For a minute he didn’t move. For two minutes he waited, counting the beats of his heart as they thudded in his eardrums. He didn’t know he was counting because he stopped at twenty and went back to one again, over and over again. The gun became heavier until he couldn’t hold it up and it drooped down and down until the muzzle rested on the ground.

  And he counted on, from one to twenty, from one to twenty.

  The bull wasn’t here. A bull wouldn’t stand rock still. A bull wouldn’t be as silent as a cat. Surely it would snort and thump and bellow.

  ‘Harvey!’

  Buzz squealed again and only if Harvey had shouted could he have made himself heard. The shock of the dog’s response startled Paul and perhaps sharpened his hearing, because when the dog lapsed again into silence Paul could hear another sound. Probably it had been there all the time and he had been unable to isolate it from the numerous water noises. It was a heavy breathing sound. Glory, it was! It was a snorting sound.

  Where?

  He panicked and waved the gun in a wide arc and pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened. He squeezed hard on the trigger again and again and the gun wouldn’t work. The beastly thing was as dead as a lump of wood.

  He all but lost the last of his self-control. He had even started whimpering before he remembered that he had to behave like a man, that if he lost his nerve he’d lose his life as well.

  For a few seconds Paul fought a terrible battle with himself. He was only a boy. He wanted to stampede blindly into the night and scream at the top of his voice, but he mustn’t. He mustn’t.

  He sank back against the trunk of the invisible tree, moaning to himself, with a sick feeling inside him, with the sort of pain in his stomach that could have come from a heavy punch. Never had he wanted his father more than he wanted him at this moment, but he was cut off from all help, from everyone, from everything but the help he could summon from within himself.

  It was a service rifle, an old army rifle, surely a good enough weapon to work, dry or wet. It couldn’t have been cocked. He grabbed hold of the bolt and before he knew how or why he was doing it he had flicked it up and slammed it home. Perhaps it was instinctive movement, something that all males were born with; perhaps it was a subconscious memory of the action Ben Fiddler had taken between shots. But there was pressure now on the trigger. He could feel its resistance.

  He was almost on top of himself again, almost in command of himself. His few seconds of panic had come and gone, but he knew in his bones that the bull indeed was standing there and he believed he knew why. It was a terrible thought, but he knew that sometimes a bull would stand over its victim for an hour, for two hours, for even longer. Perhaps he’d read it somewhere. Perhaps he had heard it somewhere, but he knew.

  There was only one thing he could do. He raised the rifle into the air and pulled the trigger.

  There was a flash of flame and a crack of sound and a violent recoil against his collarbone.

  Instantly he threw himself against the base of the tree-trunk and the startled roar of the bull was like the roar of a lion. Paul heard the rending of boughs and felt it through the tree, felt the impact shock as the great beast reared through the foliage and then apparently fell, striking the earth with a tremendous thud and a bellow of fright and pain.

  Paul tried to shrink away to nothing. He wished for the ground to open up and take him into depths of safety, but he couldn’t shrink and the earth wouldn’t swallow him. He had unleashed a demon.

  11

  A New Emergency

  Adrian brought Butch to the gap in the shop window and by then he was almost too weak to stand up. Butch was a dreadful weight. He was as heavy as a sack of potatoes, or maybe heavier. Adrian had shifted a sack of potatoes once and he was sure it had been easier than this.

  He leant against the wall, panting for breath, yearning to slide down the wall and sit in the slush. It was all he could do to stay on his feet. He raised his aching arm and managed to bang on the boards and found enough energy to call for Frances.

  It wasn’t Frances who came. It was Maisie who stuck her head out very cautiously.

  ‘Has the bull gone?’

  ‘I’ve got Butch,’ panted Adrian. ‘Get the others. Give me a hand.’

  ‘Butch?’ Maisie said. ‘What are you talking about? This is another of your dreams, Adrian Fiddler.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I can read you like a book, Adrian Fiddler.’

  He blinked. ‘What’s eating you, you silly girl? I’ve got Butch, I tell you. Look for yourself.’

  Maisie leant out a little farther and suddenly gaped. ‘Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness!’ She yelled then at the top of her voice, ‘Frances! Quickly!’

  Maisie dropped from the sill and fluttered round Butch like a broody hen, peered closely at him through the darkness, and said to Adrian, ‘Forgive me. I’m sorry. Butch is sick, isn’t he?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say he was fightin’ fit, if that’s what you mean.’

  Adrian was really very annoyed with Maisie and wouldn’t have answered her at all if she hadn’t put a question to him.

  Frances poked her head through the gap. ‘Paul’s all right, is he?’

  ‘It’s nothing to do with Paul. I’ve got Butch here. He’s unconscious and somehow or other we’ve got to get him through this window.’

  There were a lot of questions that Frances wanted to ask, but they’d have to wait. From his breathlessness she knew that Adrian was upset and almost exhausted. It was up to her to handle the emergency as best as she could.

  ‘Gussie,’ she said, ‘are you there?’

  Gussie was there, crowding in behind her.

  ‘Get the broom, Gussie, quickly, and sweep away all this broken glass, and bring one of the lamps to the end of the counter.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Gussie wanted to know.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s very much better than we thought. Butch has come home. Do hurry, Gussie. Everyone’s getting so wet.’

  Frances dropped to the ground and touched Butch on the shoulder, perhaps to make sure that he was real, and said to Maisie, ‘Feel around carefully, Maisie, for glass close to the wall. We could so easily do him a dreadful injury…I do wish this rain would stop.’

  Adrian was breathing heavily. ‘Not tonight, I don’t think. What are we going to do with him, Frances? How can we get him in?’

  ‘You’re sure he can’t help himself?’

  Adrian shrugged. ‘He could be dead, only he’s breathing. I’ve had to drag him. I’m worn out. Honest, he’s as heavy as a man. I don’t think we can get him in.’

  ‘Well, he can’t stop here. Has he said anything to you? Has he told you anything about Miss Godwin?’

  ‘Gee whiz, Frances! I said he was unconscious. And he’s so limp. That’s what’s going to make it harder. He sort of slips through your hands. I’m telling you straight, Frances, we haven’t got a hope.’

  ‘All right. We’ll have to take him through the door.’

  Adrian almost sneered. ‘Through the honey?’

  ‘It’s to be the honey,’ said Frances, ‘or pneumonia—if it isn’t pneumonia already.’

  Adrian groaned. Really, the girl was so right. He couldn’t argue with her. Trying to argue with Frances was like trying to argue with a grown-up woman.

  ‘Righto. I’ll shift the honey barrel. I’ll throw down a few bags.’

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nbsp; He crawled over the sill, past Maisie and the industrious Gussie, and reeled into the shop.

  ‘Gussie,’ he said, ‘get some sugar bags from the storeroom. As many as you can find.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your own legs? I’ve got this glass to do.’

  ‘Forget the glass. Butch is half dead, like me. We’re dragging him through the door.’

  Gussie tossed her head. ‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place? And if you want me to do things for you ask me nicely. Don’t snap.’

  Adrian didn’t even bother to answer. He pulled off his sodden shoes and socks, rolled up the tattered bottoms of his trousers, and stepped on the bags that Paul had put down earlier. In a few seconds he was clawing through the honey, dragging the barrel and its overturned stand away from the door. Most of the bags could not go down until the door was open. He wondered, too, how he was going to lift the door from the latch and swing it from the broken hinge. He was wondering how he was going to do anything. He was so gummed up with honey.

  Frances twice tried to shift Butch, but he was too much for her. However, her efforts, even if they failed, did induce in her a new respect for Adrian. She had never considered Adrian to be particularly strong. Adrian, indeed, must have been much stronger than he looked. She didn’t know how far Adrian had dragged Butch, but a single yard was too much for her.

  She was worried about Butch. His flesh was so cold, it frightened her to touch him. If he had developed pneumonia how was she to care for him? Oh dear, if he were really sick where was she to begin?

  The big door groaned and Adrian croaked, ‘Give it a lift. Help me, you two out there.’

  They helped him and they managed to push it open, and despite the rain and the cold the air remained heavy with the smell of honey and ants.

  Pale light from the interior spilled over the doorstep, and Frances could see Gussie tossing the bags down and Adrian, almost at the end of his tether, sticking to everything he touched and laboriously lifting his feet like a fly in a glue-pot. That for the moment was all she saw, because suddenly she heard the rifle-shot.

  They all heard it, one sharp crack that echoed twice and then was lost in the night.

  Gussie froze, wide-eyed, her mouth open, and Adrian, pale already, blanched even more. He hadn’t forgotten Paul and the bull, but his own tribulations had pushed other worries into the background.

  Maisie, the realist, said, ‘Don’t you think we’d better get Butch inside? Paul might have missed.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Frances sharply. ‘Let’s. Everyone quickly. We’ll all have to help.’

  ‘Paul missed?’ wailed Gussie. ‘No!’

  ‘Of course he didn’t miss,’ snapped Frances. ‘Come on, Gussie.’

  ‘But only one shot—he couldn’t be that straight. He couldn’t hit it with one shot.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Adrian, to calm his own doubts as much as Gussie’s. ‘The bloomin’ thing’s as big as the side of a barn. Of course he would hit it with one shot. He’d have to be blind in both eyes to miss.’

  ‘But if he did miss it’d kill him.’

  ‘Gussie,’ said Frances firmly, ‘Paul knows how to look after himself—but at the moment Butch can’t!’

  At least half of that statement was true. All four of them crowded round Butch and pulled him over the step, shut the door again, and looked at themselves ruefully. Every single one, Butch included, was glued up with honey. It was everywhere, transferred from Adrian and gathered from the floor. The bags afforded no protection because they wouldn’t stay in place. They all slipped in honey, they all wallowed in it, and Maisie, to cap their distress, said she could smell burning again.

  The second batch of stew was burnt to the bottom of the pot.

  Paul waited through an eternity that was only twenty seconds long. The bull bellowed and struggled and seemed to shake the earth, a monstrous animal startled to the point of panic and just as blind as Paul to the hazards about him.

  The bull scrambled to its feet again and fell again on the treacherous slope. Paul didn’t see it, couldn’t see it, but he was none the less certain that it had happened. He knew, too, that it slithered down the slope, bellowing with terror. The animal sounded like a tumbling boulder thudding against the earth, smashing or crushing everything before it. Its force, its weight, its strength, struck into Paul a form of horror that was nothing more than a realization of the frailty of his own body. If that beast had come his way his life would have been crushed out in a second. The power of its thrashing limbs and horns, not seen but imagined, reduced him to awful weakness.

  He heard the beast go, farther and farther away, battering through the bush or charging blindly through the fallen trees along the road, Paul didn’t know exactly where and for the moment didn’t care. To be alive at all was enough.

  He crawled into the open, still clinging to the rifle, his teeth chattering from reaction, not so much from the shot and what had followed it, but from the nightmarish memory of pulling that trigger again and again when the gun had failed to respond. He was sure Adrian had told him it was ready to fire.

  Paul steeled himself and called, ‘Harvey!’

  There might have been a reply. Paul’s heart leapt but he was left unsure. Buzz’s renewed squeals and barks made certain hearing impossible.

  ‘Shut up, Buzz!’

  That was a command that Buzz refused to understand. He squealed and yelped and left Paul without a choice. The girls had told him the tree had fallen across the kennel. He would have to push into the tree towards the kennel and take his chance on injury. He was sure the kennel had always been close to the back door and that at least should help him to establish his bearings. Perhaps he could break into the house and find a torch or a dry box of matches. That might be the thing to do. Once he had some form of light his most difficult problem was solved.

  He worked round the side of the tree, until he bumped into the house. That was one thing found, anyway. The tree had reached the house and from the feel of things might even have penetrated the wall. He scrambled through the branches and Buzz had yelped himself hoarse again.

  ‘Harvey!’

  The indomitable Buzz found his voice once more and wheezed excitedly, but there was no mistaking it this time, there was a reply and a sudden beam of light splashed through the tangle of boughs and twigs and leaves.

  ‘Harvey!’ screamed Paul. ‘Is that you?’

  ‘Of course it is. What are you gettin’ worked up about?’

  Paul still couldn’t see him, but the source of the light was on a level above him. He struggled towards it, clawing leaves aside and wriggling through the branches. Then he realized that he had reached the kennel and the steps of the house, and Harvey was apparently still somewhere above him. Buzz, however, was right at his feet, hopelessly tangled in his lead, trussed like a fowl prepared for the spit, so tangled that he couldn’t even stand. Far from being able to attack the bull, Buzz was even unable to deliver his customary nip at Paul’s ankles.

  ‘Did you fire the gun?’ Harvey called.

  ‘It certainly didn’t fire itself. Are you all right?’

  ‘Me? Of course I’m all right.’

  ‘The girls said they thought you’d be killed.’

  ‘Girls!’ snorted Harvey.

  ‘How about taking that light out of my eyes? Better still, pass me the torch and then come down.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ said Harvey, ‘but it took me all my time to get in. I don’t know how I’m going to get out.’

  ‘I thought I said that no one was to go into a damaged house.’

  ‘Fair go,’ said Harvey. ‘I had a bull chasin’ me.’

  ‘You weren’t doing too much running when the girls saw you. They said you were frozen stiff with fright.’

  Harvey sniffed. ‘You shouldn’t take any notice of girls. I was waitin’ for it to get dark, see.’

  ‘Were you?’ queried Paul. ‘Why didn’t you answer me, then, when I called?’

  ‘You c
ouldn’t have called too loud. I was only in the house lookin’ for me torch to untangle Buzz. I nearly died when the bloomin’ gun went off. I nearly choked on me pie.’

  ‘Pie?’ Paul shrieked. ‘Is that what you’re doing? Eating your blessed pie?’

  ‘Strike me pink!’ squealed Harvey. ‘And what’s wrong with that? That’s what pies are for, isn’t it?’

  Paul didn’t frog-march the bright young man back to the shop, but it would have given him a great deal of pleasure to do so. There were times when Harvey was an extremely exasperating fellow.

  Paul was compelled to forget his feelings and even his anxiety for the state of Harvey’s stomach. They had still to make their way back to the shop and that demanded all his attention. He didn’t tell Harvey, but he was thankful that Buzz was with them. Buzz mightn’t have been very large, but he was the most ferocious little type, bar none, in Hills End. If any dog could put a bull to flight, Buzz was the boy. He was the one dog in town whose bite was worse than his bark, and he seemed to be the only dog in town, anyway. That was nice for Harvey, but hard on everyone else, in more ways than one.

  Somewhere between Harvey’s house and the shop Rickard’s bull was still on the loose, and Paul was sure that it would be close to the road. The animal could not venture far below the road because the flats were flooded, and could not climb far above the road because the slope and the debris would have prevented it. Only one thing was in Paul’s favour—the bull could no more see than he could—and it was for that reason that he did not switch on the torch. He carried his gun at the ready and Harvey held on hard to the dog, but they groped every inch of the way in total darkness, despite Harvey’s frequent assertions that no bull could scare him.

  ‘I don’t scare easy,’ said Harvey, ‘like some people I know.’

  ‘Garn,’ said Harvey, ‘switch on the light. Don’t be a scaredy-cat.’

  ‘It’s only a big cow,’ said Harvey. ‘Cows can’t hurt you.’

  ‘You’ve got a gun,’ said Harvey, ‘but I fought him with my bare hands.’