After the Snow (19 page)
Authors: S. D. Crockett
I crawl out and look over the field. Across the hill patches of ice lie on the ground in heaps. The grass flat and dark in little islands where it start to thaw.
Every bit of my body aching. The damp cold biting. Teeth chattering like they never gonna stop.
Down below the pylons march off to the west.
But I’m still alive.
Over across the fields, high up behind a copse of oak I see the broken roof of an old building.
I get up by the hedge. Duck along beside it. Run along the ditch, across the fields to a stand of trees. I fall down in a patch of grass. I tear it up and stuff it in my mouth like a sick dog.
It feel better in the trees. They’re good trees. Big strong oaks, bare branches spreading up. Ash and sycamore growing tall. Good smell of the earth coming out from the ground. The woods run down over the other side of the rise to the fields and hedges spreading out to the east.
From the edge of the woods a low stone wall snake off across the fields to the house. The low morning light cast long shadows from the trees. I can see the house good now. Made of big stones dug up from the hill and placed one on top of another, proper square around the windows just like home. But the roof fallen in one end. Elder and ash growing right up inside it. Windows boarded and dead. Great pile of snow almost reach the eaves at the back. A broken-down barn and low shed run along two sides making a yard. Maybe find something to eat down there. Somewhere to hide up a while.
A flash of brown from the shed catch my eye. It’s only a small she-fox running toward the hillside. But what’s she running from?
I see them then. Far off like specks in the distance. Coming
out of the trees down below. Men with dogs. The dogs straining on ropes, noses to the ground. They got my scent.
out of the trees down below. Men with dogs. The dogs straining on ropes, noses to the ground. They got my scent.
They’re coming for me.
Now I got to run. Run like I aint never run before. Stumble along the wall. Back through the trees. Up above the house.
I come out of the woods to the south. A small brook running down the hillside above me. Meltwater coursing over the black rocks. I jump in. Follow it upstream. Got to lose my scent. The water is cold as ice. Soaks through my boots. Freezes my toes so they burn with pain.
But I got to keep running. Running for my life like a hare cos the dogs and men gonna come up the hill soon. Higher up I fall down in the tussocky grass. Just fall on the ground beside the water. Drink like an animal. Breath heaving out of me. My legs hurting. My back hurting. Everything hurting. But the wind carry the sound of the dogs. High-pitched baying as they pick up my trail and the fear jump up in my chest.
I pull myself off the ground. Dripping and freezing. Up away from the stream. Up toward the moors.
The heather is tall as my thighs. Thick like a hedge. I pick up a deer track weaving among it. I got to get higher still. Where I can see. Onto the flats where the bald rocks push up out of the ground. Where the cold dead rock been worn by the wind and the snow and the ice and the rain, pushing up out of the ground saying,
This is what I am, boy, cold dead rock mighty beneath your feet. Make no mistake.
This is what I am, boy, cold dead rock mighty beneath your feet. Make no mistake.
That’s where I got to get to.
Why do they want me? Why aint my dad told me who he been? The way people talk about him make him sound like he been Robin Hood.
But he aint. He been my dad.
And he aint never told me about no boat. Or where it’s going. Or none of that stuff.
And he aint here to answer me now.
I push on until the heather get thin, then I crouch down inside it, breathing hard.
I look back down the hill.
I can hear the dogs again. Their baying scare me right down in my guts.
I look up the hillside. The crusting snow lying thin on the ground above the heather. I got to get up somewhere I can see.
There’s a rocky crag on the western shoulder of the rise. In one hard run I been up there. On the edge of the hill. The slopes falling steep below me.
The wind buffeting against my face.
And I can see. Far off across the pale misting of the Afon Eden Valley I see it all.
It grab my heart with both hands.
Trawsfinnid Lake—the flat waters catching the sky like a mirror. The dark green of the plantation around the northern shore so far away it look like moss spreading out onto the plain. And rising like giants. Fach and Fawr. The Rhinog Peaks white with snow. Mountains rolling off behind them to the south. To the north the
Farngod crouching bald and bare. All of it rising up gray and purple and mighty and magnificent across the plain, the sky big and blue all about and the banks of clouds playing great shadows across the earth.
Farngod crouching bald and bare. All of it rising up gray and purple and mighty and magnificent across the plain, the sky big and blue all about and the banks of clouds playing great shadows across the earth.
I see it all from up here. My home. And over the mountains, the sea.
But down below, the road running back to the city.
I scramble down the slope. The wind bite my ears and the thin snow is cold underfoot. Further down I can see the green and brown of the heather.
I hear the dogs again. They still got my scent. Slathering dogs and big faceless men coming fast.
I got to find a track. Get myself thick inside the scrub. My feet fall down the hillside. I look up to the top of the hill. Dark shapes on the snowline moving among the rocks.
I gain cover under some scrubby hawthorn. Little spring running down in among them. The men with dogs picking up my scent on the hillside. I can hear them.
I thrash through the trees, splashing in the waters. Down to the flats of the Afon Eden Valley, thankful for the firm grass springing up fresh and strong under my wet boots.
The sun come up strong now. It’s a good warm sun. The stone chats and blackbirds twitter in the bushes. Insects come alive in the long grasses, hovering over the damp ground.
An old stone wall worm its way west, disappearing behind overgrown hedgerows.
And then I feel a shudder in the earth. A great noise coming up under my feet.
The noise grow louder. Thundering on the ground. A pair of gray heron flap their wide wings into the air from the slow waters winding across the plain. There’s a beating like a thousand feet stamping in the valley. The thuddering shuddering sound building like a quake from the north.
My legs feel like blocks of stone. Hurting hurting hurting. The dogs howl. They still got a strong smell of me. I scramble down to the flats. Toward the wall of noise and the earth shaking like some terrible storm coming hard across the valley.
Along the wall. Into the bushes. I look through the twisted trunks of the scrub onto the grassland.
A horse gallop past. Then another.
Great herd of horses galloping onto the pastures of the Afon Eden. Like the pictures in the cave. The plain alive with animals. Ponymen bringing their herds from the city to graze the rich melt pastures of the valley.
“Heeyup!”
A rider skirting the herd, his sheepskin saddle hanging with bags, his bedding rolled up behind him. He’s standing in the stirrups, ponyskin coat flapping in the wind, one arm in the air cracking a leather whip, concentration on his dark weathered face.
“Heeyup! Heeyup!”
The calling of the horsemen ringing out over the plain, the sound of hooves beating the earth.
In front of me a small group of ponies break free into the
clearing and drop their noses to the ground, tearing at the grass, drinking from the stream.
clearing and drop their noses to the ground, tearing at the grass, drinking from the stream.
I get up and come in among them. They start up. Eyes wide. Their bodies rising and falling with the run. The sweat foaming and white on their necks. I can smell them. Good smell of pony.
I push ahead to a stand of hawthorn. Crouch down. Ponymen still wheeling and shouting and cracking their whips. And the horses fly past, mud spraying from their hooves, mud coated on their flanks. Thousands of horses and the young foals galloping across the valley, and that stamping, sweating-smelling herd of animals gonna be just what I need.
Gonna cover my tracks and hide my scent for sure.
The moon is full. Glancing icy on the rocks. The good warm day turn into a frosty night with that big clear sky up above. Down below I can see the light of a fire.
I can smell meat roasting on it.
A group of ponymen got their camp set up beside an old stone shed sitting lonesome in a stand of trees. All about the plain the horses and cattle from the city make a gentle bellowing and whinnying in the dark.
I been lying up in the rocks since I cross the valley. Run right in with the animals—limping from hedge to ditch—right to the foothills of the Rhinogs. Too washed out to think. The herd trampling my tracks, masking my scent. I aint heard no more dogs then and rest up a bit.
The smell of cooking food drift up from the fire. I been so hungry and deadbeat it aint true. My body don’t want to go no more. I been so stiff that even breathing hurts. And the night frost aint helping much.
I been on this side of the Rhinogs with my dad and Magda once. He take us down the mountain to show us the valley and hunt for eggs. I been pretty small then. It been summer. A cold summer. We
still got the pony. I ride on it clinging around Alice all the way. Dad leading the pony by the head. “Look at that, children,” he say, pointing out at the Afon Eden. “One day it will be green and warm and the sun will shine all summer long. Remember that. One day we’ll be able to come off the mountain and have a farm down there.”
still got the pony. I ride on it clinging around Alice all the way. Dad leading the pony by the head. “Look at that, children,” he say, pointing out at the Afon Eden. “One day it will be green and warm and the sun will shine all summer long. Remember that. One day we’ll be able to come off the mountain and have a farm down there.”
“Don’t fill their heads with dreams, Robin,” Magda say.
“They’re not dreams. They’re hopes—”
But I get down off the pony when he been talking cos I see a nest in the heather. A grouse whir up as I come close. It glide across the moorland scrieking.
“Dad, look! Eggs!” Alice shout from the pony.
It been a good nestful.
But Dad aint here now. If he been standing next to me he gonna be good and pleased seeing all those horses grazing down on the plain so early in the year and the grass so green already. He gonna talk on it til it bore you half to death I reckon.
But now all I got in my head is getting across the mountain safe. Getting to the boat that people been talking on so keen. The boat my dad aint told me about. Seem to me like the mountain just the same as it always been. It’s me who’s different. And change coming. I seen it up close. I seen the dirt and the smoke and the trucks and the fear of it. Dad just been sitting up on the mountain like that bird on its nest all these years. Aint seen things coming til they been right on top of him.
And everyone thinking he been some sort of Robin Hood with
his book. Patrick talking about the people who all got Dad’s book. People looking west not east. People plotting and planning.
his book. Patrick talking about the people who all got Dad’s book. People looking west not east. People plotting and planning.
Plotting and planning what? Dad aint never told me about no plotting and planning. He just show me how to tie snares and plant oats and give me lessons about everything. And all the time I been thinking these mountains been my home.
Maybe Dad did know. He musta known. Musta known about the boat. He musta known he been in trouble if the government find him cos he change his name and hide up on the hill. It start to make a kind of sense in my head. The Meet with all the graybeards quiet and serious every summer at Barmuth. The way he always talk like he been preparing you for something. Always talking about how things gonna change. How the snow gonna melt and everything gonna go back like it was before.
But why is he gonna want to sail away on some boat if the snow gonna melt? Where’s that boat gonna sail anyway?
Patrick say everyone looking west when they should be looking east. But west is just that great big sea. Dad draw me a map once. Big sea and he draw whales spouting water and squirly lines to show the waves. Thinking on that big empty sea make me want to plant my feet deep down in the earth, it really do.
I watch the woman and children come slow across the plain. They got their ponies loaded up with pots and pans and canvas tents and all the children squished up or slung on their backs. Peeling off in small groups—they must know the places where their man camp cos they find them bit by bit. Little fires start burning across the
valley. The ponymen slump by the fire. Their hard ride over for the day.
valley. The ponymen slump by the fire. Their hard ride over for the day.
Down in the camp I watch the woman unsaddle the ponies and rub their sweaty flanks with twists of grass. Laying blankets over their backs to keep off with the cold night air. Their ragged kids sit on the ground squabbling and playing with sticks.
I see it all from the rocks. And no one following me yet.
Mary’s dad been a ponyman. That’s what she tell me. Guess he just got the idea one day to head off into the hills at the end of the summer ’stead of back to the tents of the shanties. It seem like Mary been a thousand miles away though. It seem like everything I ever know been trailing so far behind me I can’t see it no more. Like I just been cut loose from it all somehow. And the pain and the fear and the hunger filling up my head with their noises. Aint no room for much else.
I got to eat. I want to sit among people. Hear their talk. Feel the warmth of a good fire.
I guess I been creeping down the bank with it all cos I lose my footing on the scree. Tumble and slide on the icy rocks. The loose stones roll and bounce down the hillside.
“Da! Da! Dogs!” a kid shout out.
The men jump up around the fire. A woman shriek.
“I aint a dog.” I shout it out. Lie still on the ground. My body hurting. “Aint a dog.”
Dark-haired man with a gun cocked at his side come up the slope toward me.
“Da. Da. Is it a stealer?”
The bearded ponyman peer down at me.
“I lost my way. Can’t find my camp,” I say.
“Lost your camp?”
“I been looking for eggs. With my sister. Up on the hill. And now it’s dark I can’t find my way. I aint a stealer.”
A stout woman come forward with a child on her hip. “It’s just a boy, for heaven’s sake. Not a stealer. He’s hurt himself. Look at his face all black and blue. You’d better come and lie with us tonight, child. You’ll freeze out here otherwise. Get him a blanket, Huw, and put that gun down.”
“Is it a stealer, Ma?”
“No it isn’t. Just a boy. Now pipe down and fetch a blanket.”
The woman come to me. Help me down to the fire. She put a good hunk of hot roasted meat in my hands.
“Eat if you’re hungry,” she say.
The meat taste good. The children sit back staring and whispering with open mouths.
I see the men looking at me in the flickering light of the fire.
“Pretty big bird you had to fight off the nest by the look of it.” It’s the man with the gun. “Where’s your sister then?”
“I … she run off before me. I—”
“Hungry, aint you? Good coat you got there too. Straggler work by the looks of it. Find that up on the mountain?”
“Let him be, Huw.”
I stop tearing at the meat. Men staring at me around the fire. “Don’t worry. You’re all right here, boyo,” the man say. “Just don’t steal anything and be gone by the morning. Better get back and find
your sister, eh?” He throw the remains of his drink on the fire. The logs hiss. “No trouble. That’s all.” He put his gun across his knees. He gesture over the fire to the children. “Get the boy a drink, Talf.”
your sister, eh?” He throw the remains of his drink on the fire. The logs hiss. “No trouble. That’s all.” He put his gun across his knees. He gesture over the fire to the children. “Get the boy a drink, Talf.”
A dirty-faced boy come over and hand me a cup of grog. I can smell it strong and bitter.
“Drink that and you’ll sleep quiet. No trouble, look you.”
I nod. Mouth full with hot food. I tip back the cup.
I musta fallen asleep right off with the grog cos when the cold dawn scrabble at my back, I see my boots upturned on sticks by the embers of the fire. Mud cleaned off and a bundle of food tied up beside them. I sit up. All around the whisping fire, the men snore in their blankets. The women and children too, huddled up close under the rugs. A little girl open her eyes, smile sleepily, turn back to her mother. Their hobbled ponies stand about with heads hung low. I look back behind me up the slopes of the Rhinogs.
A bearded ponyman keeping silent lookout sitting up on a rock with a gun in his hands.
I put on my boots. Good and warm and dry. I pick up the bundle of food. The man beckon me up.
I clamber up the shale where he been sitting.
“I saw soldiers and dogs sniffing up the valley in the night, boyo,” he say. “I’d get back up into the mountains if I was you.” He pass me a leather water sack. “Keep it. You’ll need it.”
He point up to the flat pass between the peaks.
“That’s the best way. Up the pack trail, the old Roman Steps.
Hope you find what you’re looking for, straggler boy.” He pick at his teeth with a stick. “Better get a move on though. They’ll be back.”
Hope you find what you’re looking for, straggler boy.” He pick at his teeth with a stick. “Better get a move on though. They’ll be back.”
I make my way slow from the camp up into the pass. Away from the fires smoking across the plain. The sun coming up clear and strong again this morning. A mist hovering low over the wet grassland. The animals like dots on the patchwork green of the valley.
It feel good to have that parcel of food and water pouch over my shoulder. But I can smell the mountain now. The mountain calling me.
I pick my way up through the low heather and damp bracken. The pass lead to the old pack trail. Broken slabs of stone winding up the mountain like an ancient staircase. Leading down to the lake at Cym Bachan on the western side. From there I’m gonna pick up the gullies and woods tumbling to the sea.
A buzzard wheel overhead in the wind. I look up. The great crags towering to my left. Heaps of unmelted snow in the cold shadows. I rest a while by the side of the pathway. Take a drink of water. Wriggle my toes in my good dry boots. Thinking on it all I guess.
On the ground I see a hoofprint. I glance up the pass. Look like more than one horse. Tracks tumbled together. Heading up into the hills. But there aint no pastures up there.
One thing I aint seen is small hoofprints. Aint no foals with these horses. Must be men on horseback. Men coming up the mountain on horses. Ponymen maybe. What they gonna be doing up here?
I follow the hoof marks. The tracks lead to the start of the old
stone steps, falling in the mud here and there either side of the path. The steps ford a running stream, a small stone bridge arching over it. Lonely thorn tree growing up gnarled and windswept on the other side. Seem like old-time people always getting busy building things, even up here on the Rhinogs.
stone steps, falling in the mud here and there either side of the path. The steps ford a running stream, a small stone bridge arching over it. Lonely thorn tree growing up gnarled and windswept on the other side. Seem like old-time people always getting busy building things, even up here on the Rhinogs.
I follow the tracks. A mean wind cut over the flat icy stones. The higher I go, the colder it get. Thin drifts of snow still lying on the ground. The melt never come to the top of the mountains.
It’s always winter up here.
It been a long cold walk up into the hills. I lose the hoof marks in the bracken and heather. They just disappear. Reckon I musta got myself over the pass by now though.
I stand up on a crag of rocks. I can see the waters of Cym Bachan still below me. Just a thin layer of soft-looking ice on the surface.
It’s all down now. Down down. Far below, far off, is the sea. The Barmuth estuary away off south and the abandoned houses of Harlech to the north. Only that big old castle standing over the beach like a squat toad at the water’s edge. That’s where I got to get to.
I aint seen no horses yet. But it don’t feel bad being up here with the wind and the rock and the mountain roundside about. Feel like the good clean mountain gonna wash me clean if I let it. It’s just I aint too keen on being all alone and Number One no more. Time like this you’re gonna want to say your words. Time like this the words start singing to you. Even if the bad been swirling like a whirlpool trying to suck you under.
I get down off the rocks. At the far end of the waters the trees grow thick in the gully at the head of the dam.
Down at the water’s edge, I wash my face. Fill the water pouch. Everything feel tired and beaten. I pull up my coat and see the blackblue bruises seep across my ribs. Wish I been close to my place on the Farngod. Gonna crawl up in the tunnels and light a candle up there. Say my words. Hear the spirit of the mountain. Rest a bit.
Cos there been a great big bank of black clouds gathering inside me. All the things that happen. Dad and Magda and Mary and the twins. Dorothy swinging in that room. The storm inside those black clouds gonna break like a fury if I let it.
I pick up the water sack and make my way toward the shaded gully. It aint my spirit putting one foot in front of the other. Aint no dog telling me what to do. Just a great big emptiness that drive me on.
I clamber down the boulders at the mouth of the lake. The river a trickle below, seeping out from the frozen stones.
It’s gloomy under the mossy trees. But the weak sun that shine through the branches play on the banks of frosted ferns and catch the wet black rocks of the riverbed. Time been I woulda seen something magic in it all.
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