The Game of Shepherd and Dawse (22 page)

The original Dawses were sturdy creatures. If fed in the right way they could live for a long time and with the invention of fire there was always a red-hot stick handy with which to keep them in line. By the time they did eventually die, their bodies would be covered from top to toe in burn scars and when the old order died out, they enslaved the weaker members of the community. This was a trend that carried on for centuries.

The original women who Juju enslaved in his fortress and made mothers to his children now lived a better life in some ways, but also a harder one. Their children had no time for their parents, who were by now a different breed from themselves. The Dawsey woman had one purpose, and that was to serve the men. Once they outlived their purpose, they were used as stone target practice.

As the original Dawse breed slowly died out, stone practice became a thing of the past. Well, almost. In some cultures where barbarism was still practiced, stoning would continue to be used as a form of punishment when the community perceived a woman had acted in a Dawsey sort of way. Of course, it was always the men folk who made this decision. The irony of it was that by making the decision to stone a woman, it was they who were being Dawsey.

As the new offspring grew and eventually took over, the whole of Dawsey Dale became more organised. There was still filth in the camp but it was relegated to one area, so there was at least some kind of organisation out of what once had been pure chaos. The eldest original members were put to good use, with the older males being at all times shackled and made to do whatever was expected of them. They were caged at night in wooden pens and beaten first thing in the morning just to remind them who was in charge. They would then be fed and put to work. It was a form of slavery that was to last for many thousands of years.

When the original members eventually died, the new breed headed south and captured other Dawse tribes until the originals from those tribes had either been killed off or bred out of existence. Each new tribe that was set up followed the same pattern, whereby the dominate male would rule and the woman folk would be subservient. The dominant male would then one day be replaced with another dominant male and so on, until something changed completely because being the largest male no longer guaranteed becoming top dog.

A child was born one day who had more intelligence than all of the others and he used this intelligence to dominate not just his own tribe, but many tribes for miles around. The Dawse power structure shifted from toughest to smartest, and in time the smartest of their smart would assemble armies of tough people beneath them and go to war with other armies of tough people.

The ‘winner’ would be the one with the most intelligent leader, after which the most intelligent would then lead both armies. Once an army had conquered a certain area, control systems would be put in place to keep the populace in its place. Fear was the biggest motivator and whole societies came to be built on fear: fear of going hungry, fear of being imprisoned, and fear of dying, and so on. They created a fear for pretty much everything.

For some people, this didn’t really work because fear wasn’t an emotion they feared. This angered those in charge because these people proved harder to control. These difficult folks had gifts the people in charge did not possess, such as the gift of foresight, which meant they could tell when danger was about to menace their lives. These people wanted to live peaceful lives in balance with nature, so they drifted away from their masters and headed for better lands.

Centuries later when more people had learned how to read, books would then be used to control the masses. People were taught that if something was written in a book, it must be the truth. And no one questions the truth. In time, other more sophisticated methods of brainwashing were introduced, including mass media such as newspapers, radio, television, and more recently - schooling.

Many peoples in many lands were controlled by these devices but there would always be the free spirits who couldn’t be controlled. These people generally had a tough time growing up, as they didn’t fit comfortably into society's mould and society made sure each was ridiculed as much as possible for that. It wouldn’t be until they reached maturity that they could come into their own. These people became the artists of the world. They would write and paint and perform and generally question the status quo – much to the annoyance of the controllers. They would become the philanthropists of the world, trying to put right the evils deeds of others.

Every so often these people would make it to the top of their society but most of the time they would be killed off. When these people did become well known though, the effect they would have on the human consciousness would be far reaching, and slowly but surely human nature would once again return to a gentler and more peaceful way of life.

Juju lived for many years and reached the grand old age of 58 summers strong. It would be one of his own sons who would become his nemesis, just as he had become his own father’s. Suddenly one day, one of his children decided that he wanted to be top dog, so the young Dawse slashed his father’s throat – and all because he wanted to sit on the throne in place of his old man. And so it was, the life of Juju came to an end.

“And that, my friend, is the end of the story. Did you like it”? Joe asked as he closed the book and set it on the table next to him.

Charlie went and sat next to Joe. “Yes, it was amazing. Apart from the sad bits”, Charlie replied in a half-dreamy state, as he was still digesting the details of the story.

Joe let him think for a moment as he carefully returned the book to the shelf and sat back down. “Well, sometimes it’s the sad parts that make the happy bits that little bit better, Charlie”.

“In what way, Joe”?

Joe turned and looked Charlie straight in the eye. “Well, if life was all rosy and dandy all the time, how would we know how to appreciate the good times if there were never any bad times”?

Joe paused to let Charlie think about that idea. Then he continued. “Life is full of peaks and troughs, Charlie. One minute you’re up and the next you can be down. You just never know, but that’s what makes life so interesting. It would be kind of boring if everything was the same all the time. Don't you think”? Joe said with a smile.

“Yeah, I guess so”. Charlie's mind turned back to Nettie. “I hope Nettie will be ok”.

“Me too”, Joe replied. “Shall we say a little prayer for her”?

“Yeah, I’d like that”.

Charlie and Joe said a little prayer for their friend, and if nothing else they felt good that they had done everything to help that they could.

It was four days later when the body was found. Sergeant Darryl Dunstable had been out walking his dog, Bess, that evening, in hopes of clearing his head a bit from the strain of Nettie’s case. For days he had thought of little else. He fancied going somewhere he could take his mind off of it, so he headed toward the abandoned quarry. It wasn’t a place he normally went because Bess usually came back covered in mud, but the place was secluded and offered him some mental peace and quiet.

Darryl threw the tennis ball a few times for Bess to fetch, but on the third throw Bess was interested in something else and didn’t seem to fancy playing ball anymore. Intrigued, Darryl picked up the tennis ball and made his way over to his dog, who was sniffing around a pile of rubbish. Darryl quickened his pace as he didn’t want Bess ending up with some dead rat in her mouth and all the associated germs that went with it. As Darryl got closer, he could see what looked like a rag doll’s leg slightly sticking out from under a sheet of canvas. The doll had one shoe and a sock on. But as Darryl drew even closer, he realized this was no doll.

“Oh God, no! Oh please, no”, he heard himself saying out loud. “Oh, Jesus Christ! No! No! No”!

He slumped to the ground and sat there a good five minutes before he braved lifting the canvas. With his hand trembling, he lifted the cloth that was draped carelessly over the body and there was Nettie’s pale little face looking, lifelessly up at him.

The sergeant had seen a few dead bodies in his time, but never a child and nothing that could have prepared him for this. He broke down and sobbed. All he wanted to do was to wrap her up warmly in the red and blue tartan blanket he had in his car. He wanted to take her home and put her to bed, so she could wake up the next morning. He wanted to comfort her and make her feel safe. Instead, he sobbed, knowing he couldn’t so much as touch the body until the forensics team had come and done their work. Darryl had never before felt such an urge to stroke a child’s hair and tell her everything was going to be all right.

Looking back on the incident, the sergeant was certain that something had guided him to the quarry that evening, as he usually avoided the place, though being the one to find Nettie would give the good sergeant nightmares for some years to come.

Once the forensics had done their work it didn’t take long for the police to find the culprit. Ross Len (aka: Dickie Duckley) had been released early. Much earlier than the original 10 years that had been handed down to him by Judge Kemp, a thoroughly decent man through and through. The judge who upheld the appeal put forth by Ross Len’s solicitors (under the argument that the original sentence was unduly harsh) was anything but decent. To the contrary, Judge Bellwood made a habit of being pro-peadaphile and to the more experienced onlookers, one could easily see which side of the Shepherd and Dawse game this particular judge was in league with. They of the damned pulled out every stop to get their little foot soldier back on the streets to fight their cause, and the cause in mention was that of Mr Dawse.

A few weeks had gone by since Nettie’s funeral. Charlie and his Mum had spent the afternoon at Joe’s which was unusual as it was a Saturday. They had planned to make their visit brief – just to drop off seeds for Joe’s vegetable patch – but then they all got to nattering and before anyone realized it, the threesome had spent the entire afternoon together. They left around 6 pm, as Joe had some things he needed to tend to and Angela needed to get dinner ready for herself and Charlie.

Joe was now alone with his thoughts. He recalled the many things he had seen over his life, both good and bad. He thought about how society had changed and how misery was spread now on a daily basis, but in a totally different way than before. He thought about young Nettie and what kind of monster would do something like that. He thought about how old people were no longer respected and how children weren’t very well disciplined and he wondered where it all would end? He thought to himself that it was all enough to make anyone have a sad soul, which put a smile back on his face after realising his mild joke about himself.

After Joe had fixed his own dinner, he nodded off in his chair and had a very vivid dream about the dog he used to have named Doopey. In the dream, Doopey had come bounding up a grass path to greet him and then kept running back and forth, as though he wanted to show Joe something. When he woke, Joe ran the dream through his head a few times so he wouldn’t forget it. It had been a long time since he'd last seen his old friend. Looking up at the clock, Joe realised it was getting late. He went in the direction of the bathroom to wash and shave, as he did every night before he retired. He was just dabbing his face with a towel when his legs gave way. He hit the floor with a mighty thump and heard something crack on his way down. When Joe came to, he knew that he'd broken his hip. The pain told him so. For the next half hour Joe slipped in and out of consciousness while his body struggled to come to grips with the pain.

What Joe went through next would be the biggest struggle that life had ever thrown at him. Joe had only one thing on his mind and there was only one place he needed to get to – and it wasn’t the hospital.

The back door to Joe’s house was only two meters from the bathroom, but with a broken hip, two meters could feel like two miles. Every inch that Joe pulled and shuffled would feel like a bolt of lightning going through his aged body. He somehow managed to crawl to the back door, lift his arm to undo the lock and drag himself outside. He passed out twice more but eventually reached the wall where the disused coal bunker sat. It was here he propped himself up, half against the wall and half against the coal bunker. He probably would have crossed his legs had the pain not been so excruciating. As Joe sat against the wall he took in some deep breaths of the now-chilled night air. The wall and coal bunker felt cold to his skin, his heart racing with the pain from his hip, now flowing through his whole body.

It had been a typical British summer’s day, overcast with average temperatures during the afternoon. Later the clouds had dissipated, leaving the night sky clear which had made the temperature drop and left a chill in the air.

The only thing on Joe's mind was if it would be cold enough. As the adrenaline that had been running rampant through his body began to subside, it made Joe feel colder and the colder he felt, the more the pain in his hip started to increase. The pain he could deal with. It was the cold that bothered Joe. He didn’t fancy spending a whole night freezing and in pain only to still be there when the sun rose the next morning. Joe had always had a good relationship with Spirit and had on occasions in his life even had a few chats and asked for a few favours. In return, Joe had offered his lifelong services.