Hills End (15 page)

‘Are you coming with me?' said Adrian.

Paul stood up and reached for the rifle. ‘Careful,' Adrian said. ‘It's loaded. Don't touch the safety catch.'

‘Golly! It's heavy, isn't it?'

‘It's a .303. It's a big rifle.'

‘Adrian, I think I'd better go after the bull.'

‘Why?'

‘Don't sound so surprised. It's simple enough. I'm blown. Butch is too heavy for me. Someone's got to get Butch back to the shop. I reckon I've got him halfway. It's your turn now.'

‘I don't know about that. You've never fired a .303.'

‘Neither have you.'

‘I've watched my dad.'

‘I've watched him, too. How many bullets in it, Adrian?'

‘Five, I think.'

‘Golly! Not many.'

‘Dad says if you don't hit your target with the first few you're not going to hit it at all. And I reckon if we don't get the bull in the first couple the bull'll get us, so what's the difference?'

Suddenly, Paul wasn't there. Adrian was talking to the air.

‘Paul!'

Paul didn't answer, and Adrian felt suddenly guilty, suddenly ashamed, because in his heart he was glad that Paul had take the rifle—relieved and ashamed at the same time. He really hadn't known how he was going to face that bull.

He dropped to his knees in the mud beside Butch, and breathed, ‘What's going to happen to us? What are we to do?'

 

The rifle was so heavy Paul wondered how he was going to hold it to his shoulder and aim. Perhaps he would have to get down on the ground and rest it against something, as he had seen marksmen do in shooting competitions. And he had heard people say that a .303 had the kick of a mule. That meant that when he pulled the trigger the recoil from the explosion might injure his shoulder, and might even throw him off his aim.

He stumbled through the darkness, aware for the first time of the discomfort caused by the continual trickle of water from his hair, down his neck, and into his eyes and his mouth. He stumbled over dead power-lines and branches of trees and deep ditches in places where ditches had never been. He tried to be careful because he was afraid the rifle would go off, but again and again he fell or blundered into obstacles, even dropping the rifle itself. Then he would feel carefully for it in the dark, feel along the barrel or up the butt until he found the safety catch, and then every time wonder in fear whether the catch had moved, whether it should be fully forward or fully back, whether the gun was safe, or cocked and ready to fire. By the time he could hear the barking of Harvey's dog he was more muddled and frightened than he had ever been.

He couldn't see Harvey, or the dog, or the house, or the bull. Usually the darkest night in Hills End somewhere showed a glimmer of light, but this was a night of total power failure, of steady rain and of cloud pressing low. Paul was blind. He could have been locked up in a cell a hundred feet underground.

He groped on, knowing now that the hill was going up, that the house could not be far away. He wondered whether his voice would carry to Harvey. He wondered whether Harvey was capable of hearing anything, whether in fact that bright and cheeky little boy had already met his end.

He tried to call, but had no more voice than Buzz the dog. Buzz's tormented barks were breaking into wheezing squeals, but the very fact that Paul could hear them meant that the dog could not have been far distant. Paul panted for more breath, chewed for saliva, and swallowed to ease his raw and burning throat.

‘Harvey,' he croaked, ‘can you hear me?'

Paul listened against the thud of his heart, but heard nothing except rain and water flowing and gurgling, momentarily not even the dog, or Harvey, or the bull.

He should have brought a torch. This was the silliest thing he could have done—to have come without a torch.

He chewed hard for more saliva and swallowed again and this time found voice. ‘Harvey! Answer me!'

Harvey didn't answer, but Buzz squealed and wheezed, and Paul was sure that he could fix the direction. Just what the direction was he didn't know, but he scrambled towards it, waving his left arm in front of him, fully extended, like the antenna of a lobster. Suddenly he realized that his path was barred by the trunk of a fallen tree, a very big tree; he knew that from the size of the butt. The diameter of the trunk was only a few inches less than his own height. That he was close to the dog he certainly knew, but surely this could not have been the tree that had fallen against Harvey's house. The angles were all wrong, or seemed to be. Of only one thing was he certain and that was the slope of the hill. When the tree had stopped him he had been climbing.

‘Harvey!'

The dog again, but not Harvey. Yes, this must be the tree that had fallen against the house, if the dog was still on the chain. The fact that he had walked into the trunk and not the foliage meant that he was probably fifty or sixty feet from the walls of the house.

That put him far closer than he had meant to get. If the bull were still here it might only be a few yards from him. It could be almost breathing down his neck.

Paul shuddered and settled the big rifle into both hands and waited breathlessly, afraid to call again, afraid to move, almost afraid to listen.

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.

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.'

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.