The Village King (2 page)

S
tephen
had pressed
the
muzzle against Phil’s head while the boy raked through the bags. Amongst a load
of crap was a tatty box with half a dozen shotgun shells in it. The woman and
the girl cobbled together some more suitable clothing out of the crap. It was
far too big for the girl, but the woman was pretty tall and broad. They used
the dead men’s boots.

While the girl clumped about,
Stephen shook the box of shells at the woman and pointed at Phil, who was
gathering a bag of his stuff. “Keep an eye on him.” He handed her the box but
kept a hold of the shotgun.

She eyed him up and down. She
seemed to come to a decision inside herself and she nodded assent. He handed
over the weapon. “Who’s going to keep an eye on me?”

Stephen patted his holstered
pistol. “I am.”

“Why don’t we stay here the
night?” She cracked the shotgun open easily and popped the spent shells.

Stephen watched her practiced movements.
“Someone might have heard the noise. We’ve been here too long as it is.”

She nodded, eyeing him again.
“Alana,” she said then peered down the barrels. “I’m Alana. That’s Karen.”

“Your daughter?”

Alana jutted a chin at Phil as
she thumbed two shells into the shotgun. “Your son?” When Stephen didn’t say
anything, Alana shrugged.

“I’m Stephen.”

She shrugged again and lifted the
shotgun’s stock to meet the barrels and clicked the weapon into place.

They headed out to where Stephen had stowed his
gear. The rain had stopped and a cold wind blew in from the sea, attacking the
south east coast. It was dark but their eyes had adjusted. It was going to be
tough going on the damp fields but they moved off anyway.

Stephen had recovered his
backpack. It clanked heavily when he lifted it. Alana had eyed it, guessing at
its contents. Phil led, told to walk “that way” keeping the sea to his right.
Alana rested the shotgun on her arm, showing no sign of strain at the weight.
Karen loped beside Alana while Stephen kept up the rear. The woman never looked
over her shoulder. Stephen kept an eye on them all, inwardly kicking himself
for getting involved. Their steps kicked through surface water as it tried to
soak into the hardened ground.

P
aleness
emerged on
their
right. They could start to make out the Bass Rock sitting in the sea further up
the coast. Stephen remembered mornings like this, getting ready to go to school
as the sun came up; Dad already at work and Mum pouring a bowl of cornflakes.
Back when the world was right. He breathed in the sea air. It smelled good,
fresh.

The rest of his party was looking
knackered. Phil was exhausted and trudged grudgingly along the grass. The going
was a bit easier now but he made it look like hard work. Karen didn’t complain
and she held onto Alana’s arm. The woman looked weary. He himself felt a bit
better now the sun was coming up, but the pack felt heavy. A can was digging in
his ribs.

They were reaching the crest of
the rise when suddenly Phil crouched down. Alana and Karen followed. Stephen
leaned over and he could see what the problem was. A column of riders were
heading out of the village and up the road towards them.

“Morgan.” He fell back a bit.
Maybe they hadn’t been seen. He shouldered off the pack and hunted around
frantically. Everyone looked at him with panicked expressions.

He found what he was looking for.
To his left, a bush covered over a small hollow. He beckoned them and they
scrambled over to him. He tipped his backpack out into the hollow. Cans of food
tumbled out. Alana gaped at the contents then at Stephen. He said, “Those
bastards will take everything we have.”

Alana understood immediately what
he meant and she cracked the shotgun and placed it gently in the hollow next to
the cans. Stephen tossed his pistol and knife in and he and Alana covered it up
as best they could with the bush. Wide eyed, Phil moved into help. Karen kicked
her boots off under the leaves and Stephen motioned them all to follow him.

“Let’s go,” he said. A few cans
clanked inside as he shouldered on his pack.

Alana tried to reach inside.
“There’s a few left.”

“It’s fine. If they search my
bag, they might ignore the rest.” Phil was looking back at the bush but Stephen
knuckled his shoulder to straighten him up. They crested the hill again and
made their way slowly down the hill for a couple of minutes before stopping by
the road.

A few minutes after that, the
first riders drew up just in front of them. Stephen muttered at them not to say
anything. The Colonel, a man Stephen knew as Morgan, raised a hand to halt the
column of twelve men and women. Morgan gestured to Stephen’s party.

One of the soldiers dismounted
and walked towards them. It was the female Sergeant, Stephen saw. Her rifle was
in both hands crossed in front of her, the muzzle pointed at an angle to the
ground. Behind her, two of the Privates clicked their weapons ready, lifted a
foot over the horse’s heads, and slid off to the ground.

Karen slunk behind Alana, who
stood just behind Stephen’s shoulder, and leaned into her arm. Phil stood off
to Stephen’s left, mouth open at the troops on horseback, their Multi Terrain
Patten fatigues showed signs of wear, but were well maintained. The Sergeant
was as tall as Stephen, and much broader than Alana, bulked out more by her
sandy body armour. She looked out from inside the shade from her helmet. She
never spoke, showing no sign of recognising Stephen. She looked at Karen’s bare
feet, then into Alana’s eyes. She moved over to Phil and gestured with the
rifle for him to move to the side. Two more Privates dismounted and ran up. One
covered Phil, while the other pushed him around, moving him away from the
others, and searched his bag.

The Sergeant kept her attention
on Stephen, who tried his best not to return a provocative gaze. Inside he was
thinking, just a guy travelling through with his family. He wondered if she had
recognised him and was just concealing it.

One of the Privates found
something in Phil’s bag and he stepped back triumphant. “Sergeant! Knife.” He
held up an old kitchen knife. Phil hung his head and sneaked a look at Stephen.

Stephen turned to Alana. A
flicker in her eyes said she thought he was right to have kept an eye on Phil.
He turned back to the Sergeant. “It’s just a knife. He needs it.”

The Sergeant reached out and roughly
turned Stephen around. Alana moved Karen back a couple of paces. Noticing this,
the Sergeant paused, and frowned briefly, before reaching into the back pack. Her
gloved hand reached the cans, stopped and then she took her hand out and pushed
Stephen in the back.

He turned around and glared at
her. She stepped back and fingered the trigger of her rifle. Stephen breathed
and made himself relax. The Sergeant kept walking backwards. She shook her head
at the Private who held the knife. He sneered and tossed the knife and bag to
the ground at Phil’s feet. Phil carefully picked it up and made the short
distance back to Stephen, who put a hand on Phil’s shoulder but kept him at
arm’s length.

The Sergeant turned back to
Morgan. “Nothing worth having, sir.”

Morgan nodded, and kicked his
horse forward. Stephen knew nothing about horses but he watched Morgan sit tall
in the saddle, like some General from ages ago, too superior to look at them.
The dismounted soldiers jumped back on their horses and the column moved out.

The Sergeant was last on and last
in the line. She was the only one to look at Stephen and his party as the unit
rode off down the road. Stephen nodded to her in gratitude at not taking the
cans in his bag, knowing the soldiers had probably taken all they needed from
the village; for now, anyway. He saw canteens on the side of their horses,
bumping on their journey.

Stephen moved the other three off
in the direction of the village and away from the soldiers. When he was sure
they were far enough away, he turned and led everyone back to the hollow.

Nothing had been disturbed. Karen
jumped into her boots. Phil absent-mindedly handed Alana the shotgun. Stephen
fitted his holster back in place. “You should have left the knife here.”

“I forgot,” said Phil, seemingly
genuinely ashamed. He looked off in the direction the soldiers had gone. “Who
are they?”

“I dunno,” said Stephen. He
helped Alana with putting the cans into the pack. “Last of the Dreghorn
barracks? They come into the village and steal everything those poor bastards
have. Mostly they’re there for the whisky.”

“Whisky?” Alana zipped the pack
up.

Stephen threw the pack onto his
shoulders. “Yeah. The village is built round a distillery.”

Alana helped him position the
pack on his back. “I could do with a drink.” She smiled and laid the shotgun
over her left arm like a waiter and his towel.

“It’ll cost you.” He looked at
her dead seriously. She knew what he meant. He was warning her, but not about
himself.

Alana’s face fell. They headed
back to the road.

T
he
village had
been
built like an old highland settlement. Intended as a tourist trap, Scotland’s
most southerly distillery had been constructed with the village around it. Just
like some of the highland and island communities, the children had gone to
school elsewhere, but there had still been a couple of shops, a church, and
some houses.

The village sat nestled at the
end of a broad hollow, Margaretvale, carved out by the river of the same name.
The road in was single-track though its metalled surface had sprouted weeds.
Morgan’s horses were the only traffic now. A cattle-grid marked the start of
the village; its thin strips of steel laid over a shallow hole in the ground.
On the right was the parish church; an old building left over from a much older
settlement. The manse, the minister’s traditional house, sat back from it in
front of the newer village hall.

Further on from that was the
Excise cottage, a throwback to an era when Her Majesty posted men to watch over
the whisky. Behind the Manager’s house next door was a scattering of houses
where most of the people lived. Across the street were the Police Station,
shop, tea room, barbers, and a row of faux wash-houses; as if the women of the
parish still worked their laundry there.

The wash-houses faced the church
and brought you back to the cattle grid. Turn right and you go down a steep
hill to the whisky distillery which sits right above the shore. The road leads
past long tall warehouses on either side. The sea facing walls had been painted
with the name of the distillery, Glen Craobhmore; pronounced Krav-more. It
means valley of the big tree and refers to the forestry commission planted
trees which covered the hills beyond the broad hollow. Like most of the
village, the name is a construct of the imagination.

Past the warehouses is the
Distillery itself, separated from the warehouses by the road to the broad pier.
Jutting out into the sea, the pier was to evoke the past when grain boats used
to visit distilleries but it functioned really as a tourist harbour for
visiting yachts.

Boats no longer come to the
village, but before things went bust, you could moor up, visit the distillery
and take a stroll up the path from the plant to the shop and tea room.

S
tephen
and his
group
approached the village. He had waved on their approach, knowing Gareth would
have been watching through his binoculars and recognises him.

Sure enough, Gareth was on duty atop
the gate, ten metres up from the cattle grid. He looked down at them from the
tangle of wire and bricks. “Not more mouths, Stephen. You can feed them if you
like.”

“Just open the gate.” Stephen was
weary from the travelling and the stress. The others stood nervously around
him. He looked around. The gate only stopped things coming down the road. The
countryside was wide open, and they could have just walked round it if they
liked, but Stephen indulged Gareth on this issue. He saw Alana looking at the
hoof prints of Morgan’s unit which churned up the ground around the gate.

Gareth turned away and jumped
down, disappearing from view. They heard a scraping sound and a small opening
appeared as some of the structure was swung back. Stephen ducked down and went
under. Alana pulled Karen by the hand and Phil followed.

Straightening, Stephen greeted
Gareth’s wife, Bet, with a nod. Broad and stern-faced, she held a baseball bat
and eyed the shotgun crooked over Alana’s arm. She softened when she saw Karen,
all skinny with clothes draped over her.

Gareth and his son, Derek, pushed
the gate back into place, plugging the gap. Phil stood in wonder at the gate,
like he’d seen nothing like it. Gareth said, his tone exasperated, “Suzanne
will want to know you’ve brought new folk in.”

Stephen sighed. “Look Gareth. I
know you’re pissed off ‘cause Morgan’s just been and rode round your poxy gate,
but don’t tell me what to do.” He pulled Alana’s shoulder and they walked
through a small open gate next to the cattle gird. Metal bars strapped over a
shallow hole in the ground kept the few grazing cows inside the village now
instead of out.

Stephen’s billet was in the
wash-houses just to the left. They walked round the building. A young man, with
close-cropped hair, sat on a folding lawn-chair, facing out to sea. He grinned
when he saw Stephen then baulked when he saw the others. He jumped to his feet
and bounded over. He wore green camouflage trousers, and a khaki shirt, both of
which had originally been from a fashion store. Karen stared at dog tags round
his neck. He shook Stephen’s hand. “Good to see you back. You alright?” He
looked at the people with Stephen. His accent was like Alana’s, Stephen
suddenly realised, unlike his own Dumfries and Galloway tones.

“It’s a long story, Gary,” said Stephen,
referring to the people he had brought in. He unhooked his backpack. Gary
admired its heaviness, knowing what was in it. Stephen introduced everyone.
Phil was wary of Gary, but he shook his hand. Karen hid behind Alana’s legs.

When Gary shook Alana’s hand, he
said, “Nice shotgun.”

“Yeah, sorry Gaz,” said
Stephen.”It’s hers.” He jerked a thumb at Alana. “Any trouble?”

Gary shrugged and smiled openly
with white teeth. “Rory came sniffing about, but I handled him.”

“Good.” Stephen thought for a
moment. He nodded for Gary to move off with him, leaving the others behind.
They leaned on the wall which separated the wash-houses from a drop to the
warehouses below. “Can you billet, Phil?”

Gary breathed in, and rubbed his
arm. He looked over at the group who waited quietly. “Sure. You looking for
some quiet time with the woman?”

Stephen sniggered. “I think she
would take that shotgun and blow my head off.” They fell silent for a moment,
and looked out at the blank horizon, until Stephen asked, “Morgan?”

Another shrug. “That lady
Sergeant poked around. They spent a day in the warehouse, mostly. And they
killed another one of the cows.”

Stephen sighed and shook his
head. “These poor bastards’ll have nothing if this keeps up.”

Gary leaned in closer, glancing
at Stephen’s group. “Three more mouths, Stephen.”

Stephen nodded, conceding the
point. “Just keep an eye on Phil. He’s got a knife. I’ll tell you the whole
story later.”

“You need a kip?”

“I think we all do.” Stephen made
it sound like a question.

“Me too,” yawned Gary,
stretching. “I’ve been up for a least a couple of hours.”