Three Bags Full (18 page)

Zora understood. Her own eyes were moist. The bravest sheep she had ever met stood before her. A sheep who looked down into the abyss all alone, day after day.

“You’ll turn into a cloud sheep,” she whispered quickly. “Just wait, it’ll be easy for you. I’ll soon see you up in the sky.”

Then she couldn’t bear it anymore and galloped away, right across the meadow. Where could she escape to? Her rocky ledge? The abyss dropping to the sea seemed as nothing to her now. She was ashamed before both the strange ram and herself. But then she remembered how he had spoken to her: it was a warning. A message. She must warn her flock.

“He’s crazy,” bleated Heather.

“He said
what
?” asked Cloud.

“He said they were going to die,” repeated Zora impatiently. “He said Gabriel is going to kill them. Soon.”

“He’s crazy,” Heather said again. “Gabriel is a shepherd. He looks after them—better than he looks after us.”

“You said just now he wasn’t a shepherd,” Maude pointed out.

“No, I didn’t,” bleated Heather snippily, and she marched off with her head held high.

“Why would Gabriel kill them?” asked Sara incredulously.

“For their meat.” Zora realized why the strange ram couldn’t make his flock understand about the abyss. Even her own flock wouldn’t believe it—although they were so much cleverer and more intelligent than Gabriel’s sheep. “He gives them grass to fatten them up quickly. And then …well, it all makes sense. They’re a meat breed because they get fat fast. Like Mopple. He’s from a meat breed too. George said so. ‘Under the knife,’ he said back then. Please, just believe me.”

“Is all this what the strange ram told you?” asked Cordelia.

“No,” admitted Zora. “Not straight out. But he was afraid.”

The other sheep said nothing. They felt sorry for the strange ram, but could they believe his story?

Zora saw from their faces that they weren’t convinced. “Please,” she said. “I just know I’m right!”

“Hmm,” said Miss Maple. “That would explain why they’re not very woolly. Do you remember how surprised we were to see Gabriel going around with such unwoolly sheep? If it wasn’t their fleeces at all he wanted …yes, that would explain it.”

Zora gave Miss Maple a grateful look. The others were thinking over Zora’s theory again. If even Maple, the cleverest sheep in all Glennkill and perhaps in the whole world, was interested in the idea, well then, incredible as it sounded, there might be something in it after all.

Then Mopple, of all sheep, attacked Zora.

“I don’t believe a word of it,” he bleated. “That ram is out of his mind. Yesterday they wanted to graze George’s Place, now they’re trying a different way of scaring us. I ought to know. I’m from a meat breed. Did George ever try to make
me
go under the knife?”

“George was different,” objected Zora. “He wanted sheep with plenty of fleece, as woolly as Norwegian sheep.”

But there was no stopping Mopple now. “Being a meat breed means something quite different,” he bleated. “Being a meat breed means…” Head on one side, Mopple sifted through his memories. But nothing came to him. “Something quite different,” he obstinately repeated.

And now he had definitely convinced the others—of the truth of Zora’s theory. If even Mopple the Whale, with his magnificent memory, couldn’t think of any other explanation, then Zora’s story must be right.

Panic broke out.

Maude bleated “Wolf! Wolf!” and raced over the meadow in a zigzag course. Lane and Cordelia buried their heads in each other’s fleeces. The mother ewes, bleating in alarm, called to their lambs.

“We’re his flock now!” wailed Rameses. “We’re done for!”

“He’s going to kill us,” whispered Cloud. “He’s like the butcher. We must get away from here!”

“We can’t get away,” said Sara. “This meadow is our pasture. Where would we go?”

Mopple looked indignantly from one to another. “Do you really believe her?” he bleated. “Do you really believe her? Will I be killed too?”

“You’ll be the first!” snorted Zora, who was still furious that Mopple hadn’t believed her.

Even Miss Maple could think of no way out. She glanced anxiously at the shepherd’s caravan to see if Gabriel was already whetting a knife.

“The rams must know about this,” she whispered.

The sheep looked around for their most experienced rams. Ritchfield and Melmoth were playing a game of catch-the-sheep like two suckling lambs, and Othello was still keeping well out of Melmoth’s way. But when he noticed how upset they were he came trotting over.

“Wolf!” bleated Maude.

“The strange ram,” breathed Cordelia.

“He’s going to kill us all,” bleated Mopple in resigned tones. “Me first!”

It was some time before Othello had the story straight. He too was alarmed. Othello knew the world and the zoo, but he didn’t know any sheep from a meat breed.

“We ought to tell Melmoth,” he said. “Melmoth knows his way around.”

They glanced at Melmoth. He and Ritchfield had gone on to fight a play duel. Just for fun, Melmoth had let Ritchfield defeat him, and was rolling about in the grass like a puppy.

“Are you sure?” asked Cloud.

With his heart thudding and a queasy feeling in his stomach, Othello trotted over to the hill. The moment of truth. In a way he was relieved. For days now he’d been looking for a reason to face Melmoth at last.

In another way, the idea of looking into the big gray ram’s eyes again after so long embarrassed him. Melmoth knew him better than his own shadow. He had seen all the mistakes of Othello’s youth, all the stupid things he’d done—and he had criticized them mercilessly. Othello’s own embarrassment annoyed him. After all,
he
wasn’t the one who had stolen secretly off by night from the cruel clown’s animal trailer, without a word of good-bye except for that single, silly remark.

“Sometimes being alone is an advantage,” snorted Othello angrily. It had
not
been an advantage. Being alone had hurt—a single sheep along with four dogs, two ferrets, and a white goose. Sheep weren’t made to be alone. Sadness spread between Othello’s horns, and something like pity for Melmoth, who had spent his whole life trotting through loneliness, in his heart of hearts alone in every flock. Now something that had always seemed unimaginable to Othello had happened: Melmoth had grown old.

He bore his old age as Othello had never seen any other sheep bear it, but all the same it was unmistakably the weight of the world that made the gray ram’s beard grow so long now. Othello wondered how a duel between the two of them would turn out these days, and was horrified. It was an idea he had never before dared to entertain. When they met for the first time, Melmoth seemed to know nothing of the stony weight of life. His hooves hardly touched the ground, every one of his movements was a picture of controlled power.

And there was he, Othello, with his four ridiculously young horns and bewilderment in his heart. Fight?
He
, a sheep? Fight
dogs
? “I don’t know how to fight,” he had bleated in his defiant young voice.

“No,” Melmoth had replied, “but that doesn’t matter. Fighting isn’t something you know how to do. Fighting is something you
want
to do.”

A question of wanting, like everything in a sheep’s life. Admiration for Melmoth rose now from Othello’s horns, admiration for the will and wisdom that had carried him through loneliness so long. Othello stopped abruptly, feeling awkward again.

Melmoth was lying in the grass right in front of his hooves, still acting the part of pathetic loser in the play duel. Amber goblin eyes twinkled up at Othello as if from very far away.

“Shadow caster,” said Melmoth. “Better to cast a shadow than stand in the shade. But being in the shade isn’t to be despised either, not on a hot day like this.”

Melmoth turned his head to Ritchfield, who was standing a few feet away, still surprised by his victory in the play duel.

“I know a new game,” said Melmoth. “Who’s afraid of the big black sheep?” Gracefully, Melmoth sprang back to stand on all four hooves, and turned to Othello again.

“Who’s afraid of the big black sheep?” he asked Othello. His eyes looked serious; it seemed impossible that only a few seconds ago they had been twinkling mischievously. “A great many dogs are, if you ask me, and several sheep if they’re clever. And of course the man in black. Not me, certainly.” Melmoth looked hard at Othello. “But the black sheep himself—what is he afraid of?”

So that was their reunion. A familiar sense of bewilderment spread through Othello. He explained what Zora had found out about Gabriel.

“We ought to escape,” he said. “If you lead us we can make it.”

“All of you? So many?” Melmoth’s eyes skimmed the sheep like the flight of a crow. They were standing expectantly, looking up at the hill. “Sometimes being alone is an advantage.”

“They won’t go alone,” said Othello. “Not one of them.”

“Then they’ll have to stay here,” said Melmoth briefly.

“But…”

“Better that way,” Melmoth went on. “Escape? From the blue-eyed shepherd? From the grim reaper? Not worth the effort.” He glanced at the sheep again. “They just have to learn a few things, learn to teach the blue-eyed shepherd how to dance—and how to feel afraid.”

16

Mopple Looks Sinister

A little later Othello had assembled the flock around the hill. It was the first time they had seen the black ram putting his heart into something like that. All the same, they still weren’t sure. It was one thing to get used slowly to Melmoth’s strange scent, admiring him for his adventures and his courage. Letting him teach them things was something else again. After all, Melmoth talked almost like a goat, and every suckling lamb knows that goats are crazy.

Melmoth had placed himself on top of the hill, where they could all see him. A hot wind was blowing through his shaggy fleece, making the wool ripple like trembling gray flames. His horns shone in the sunlight.

“Who is your worst enemy?” asked Melmoth.

“The butcher!”—“Gabriel!”—“The master hunter!”—“The wolf!” bleated the sheep in chorus. There had been so many enemies recently that they hardly knew how to choose among them.

“The abyss,” said Zora philosophically.

“Wrong,” said Melmoth. “
You
are your own worst enemy! Stout and lazy, cowardly and scared, thoughtless and simpleminded—that’s you!”

Well, now it was out at last: Melmoth was definitely crazy. A waste of time to listen to him while Gabriel was whetting the knife. And yet—none of them dared turn their backs on him.

“Disbelief,” said Melmoth. “That’ll do to start with. You shouldn’t believe what you don’t understand. You should understand what you believe. My friend Othello, the four-horned, black, bold-eyed Othello, will help you to understand.”

Othello trotted up the hill to join Melmoth, who signaled to him with his eyes. Othello began to graze. The sheep watched him for a while impatiently, because they weren’t supposed to be grazing themselves.

“What you see is a sheep grazing,” said Melmoth after some time. “Lost in thought as he hunts the green grass down, dreamily roaming the meadow. And now”—here Melmoth signaled to Othello again—“you see a sheep paying attention to his grazing, tense as a cat about to spring, all his senses spying through the grass, feelers out in all directions, all the way up to the sky.”

Othello grazed with fervor. The sheep looked at him enviously.

“What’s the difference?” Melmoth suddenly asked.

They thought about it.

“His ears,” said Zora. “They twitched more often.”

“He’s lowered his horns further,” bleated Lane.

“He’s not wagging his tail as much,” said Heather.

“His scent,” bleated Maude vaguely. You could seldom go wrong with scent.

“Wrong,” said Melmoth. “Wrong, wrong, and wrong again.”

“His nostrils?” said Sara. “His nostrils are distended.”

“Wrong,” said Melmoth.

“His fodder,” bleated Mopple. “He’s eating different things. More clover. Less oat grass.”

“Wrong!”

“There isn’t any difference,” said Maple.

“Wro—right,” said Melmoth, looking at the sheep with sparkling eyes. “You’re learning that the sheep who pays attention sees but is not seen. The only ones who can make sure you pay attention are yourselves. If you forget about it, you’re your own worst enemies. Because there is a difference after all. When he pays attention, Othello survives.”

“But Gabriel—” Sara began, but Melmoth interrupted her.

“Paying attention will help you to track down the Two Legs’ hairless thoughts. Noisy hypocrites, scent deceivers, but there’s nothing they can do if you pay attention.”

Melmoth studied the sheep’s faces to see if they had understood him. Thanks to George’s explanations, however, the sheep had had plenty of practice in looking intelligent, and Melmoth realized that he couldn’t find out what they were thinking so easily.

When most of the sheep had given up hope, the practical part of the lesson began. The first exercise was to glare at a large round stone with as much attention as they could.

“But stones aren’t dangerous!” Heather objected.

“Don’t fool yourself!” growled Melmoth. “If a stone flies at your head it can kill you.” Melmoth chuckled, as if at a very good joke. Heather jumped away from the stone in alarm.

“The whole point is that we think the stone isn’t dangerous,” Melmoth explained. “Every lamb pays attention once it realizes its own skin is at risk.”

The sheep stared at the stone with concentrated attention, and if the stone hadn’t been a stone it would surely have melted under their piercing gaze like a patch of snow in spring. While the sheep were paying attention to the stone, the heat of the day broke in a mighty storm above them. The stone was wet with rain and shone in the lightning flashes. Thunder rolled, and the sheep were drenched.

Heather was the first to lose patience. “I don’t want to pay attention anymore,” she grumbled. “I want to learn to herd sheep like you. I want to learn to be dangerous.”

“You won’t be able to herd anyone until you can herd yourself,” said Melmoth. “And you’re dangerous already—a danger to yourself. Once you’ve learned not to be a danger to yourself, you’ll be a danger to everyone else. Simple, isn’t it?”

That afternoon not all the sheep learned what Melmoth described as “the art of paying attention, nostril broad, wide as the sky,” but all the sheep learned something. Maude learned that she could sleep with her eyes open in broad daylight, Mopple learned that it was possible to go a whole afternoon without grazing, Sara learned how to shoo flies away by twitching and jerking various muscles without moving her ears, and Heather learned to keep quiet. Melmoth was pleased with that for a start.

Later, in the fragrant air washed clean by the storm, he began setting them practical exercises. They were to walk right along the cliff tops, paying attention to every step. Melmoth supervised this exercise from Zora’s ledge. Later, he sent the sheep to steal Gabriel’s dripping-wet shepherd’s hat from the steps of the caravan, where he had left it when he ran into the hay barn for shelter from the cloudburst.

The sheep learned faster than they understood. They realized that if they watched everything with the amount of attention required by Melmoth, they had very little time to feel afraid.

Of course not everything worked. During one of Melmoth’s mock attacks, Mopple was paying attention so hard that he forgot to swerve aside and was run down. Heather choked while grazing because she was paying so much attention that she swallowed the wrong way.

As evening came on, Melmoth taught them something very unsheeplike. He taught them not to let themselves be herded.

“But that’s impossible,” bleated Lane. “It just happens. It’s in your legs.”

“It happens because you let it happen,” said Melmoth. “They can herd you only because you can’t herd yourselves. Forget the flock. Forget the dogs. Herd yourselves.”

The sheep practiced not letting themselves be herded until twilight fell. Melmoth had taken over the role of sheepdog and galloped around them, bleating frantically, a whirlwind of mock attacks, feints, and sudden withdrawals. Their job was simply to stand still.

They felt exhausted, some from instinctively running away, others from heroically standing still.

“Will we soon be finished?” asked Maude.

“Finished with what?” Melmoth looked guilelessly at Maude.

“Finished with all this learning stuff,” bleated Sara.

“No!” said Melmoth.

“Then when
will
we be finished?” groaned Mopple. His sinews were aching and his back was stiff. Oddly, he didn’t feel hungry.

“Well-rounded ram,” said Melmoth, “look at Melmoth who has traveled the world in search of the knack of paying attention, and believe him when he tells you there hasn’t been a day in his life when he didn’t learn something—or a night either.”

Mopple groaned. Now they could forget about their usual good night’s rest too! He prepared for another set of stressful lessons. But Melmoth hadn’t finished yet.

“On the other hand,” he said, “you can learn while you’re grazing. And even in your sleep. You’d better go on learning while you graze now.”

The sheep were quick to agree that grazing in the evening twilight was an excellent method of learning. Later, they trotted off to the hay barn to go on learning in their sleep. But although they were tired as they had seldom been before, they found it difficult to drop off. A drizzle was rustling through the leaves of the hedges in the darkness. They stood there exhausted, thinking about strange rams and wandering sheep, stones and shepherd’s hats, meat breeds and wire fences, all mixed up together. An owl hooted, and even that made them nervous. Then something crunched near the door. The sheep crowded together in a corner, but it was only Melmoth appearing like a black shadow in the doorway of the barn.

“You’re not learning,” he said. “You’re not asleep. What’s wrong?”

“Fear,” said Maude.

“Fear,” bleated the other sheep.

“Fear,” said Melmoth. “It’s not in here. It’s there outside, isn’t it?”

He was right. Somewhere outside were Gabriel, the butcher, and all the world’s meat eaters.

“You must drive it away,” said Melmoth. “It’s an exercise. You’ll find out how useful paying attention is.”

And once again Melmoth gave them exercises to do.

Sara, Cloud, and Maude were to stand in the dark black shadows under the crows’ tree, listening to the birds thinking their night thoughts. Rameses, Lane, and Cordelia must go to the hole under the pine tree and listen to the cold sea in the depths below muttering threats to the cliffs. Zora was to stare at the sky and imagine it didn’t go up and up, but down into a sky-wide abyss. Heather was to stay in the hay barn by herself and pick up the scent of silence in the nooks and crannies.

And Othello, Maple, and Mopple were to go into the village, find the butcher, and watch him until they weren’t afraid of him anymore.

It was still drizzling. Raindrops ran like beads down the windowpane. Caught inside each drop was a trembling spark of light from the room on the other side of the pane.

Miss Maple, Mopple, and Othello peered through the raindrops. Inside, God and the butcher were sitting at a table together. Between them stood a brown bottle and two glasses of golden liquid.

Ham had propped his chin on his huge butcher’s paws and was staring at God.

God dipped his nose into his glass of liquid.

“All just vanity,” he said, “
female
vanity. They dye their hair, they wear those tight-fitting clothes, and we’re not supposed to notice. It’s not right, so it isn’t.”

“Kate doesn’t dye her hair,” said Ham. “All natural, and what a color too!”

“Not right,” said God. “And it makes me feel so bad. It torments my soul. It makes me feel so
bad
, understand?”

“Listen here,” said the butcher. “If I’m drinking with
you
, just imagine the bad state
I
must be in.”

God nodded understandingly. “You don’t think I like you, do you? You’ve made my life hell for years, you have, and all because of that…” He shook his head sadly.

“But I have to tell someone, see?” said the butcher. “Or I’ll go crazy.” His voice sounded oddly thick and slurred. Perhaps it was just because of the glass pane between them. “If George was still alive, I’d have gone to him. George could keep his mouth shut, you have to give him that. Not that it did him much good in the end, poor devil. And you’ll keep your mouth shut too, old friend, you
will
keep your mouth shut, whether you like it or not.”

The long-nosed man smiled wryly. “Frailty of the flesh. D’you know what it’s like telling folk about heaven day after day, knowing all the time you’re expected down in hell? Expected, did I say? I get visits from the folk down there
in person
.”

“You think I fell off those cliffs all by myself, do you? Just like that? You think old Ham is getting shaky on his feet?” Ham glared angrily at God.

This was not the reaction that the other man expected. For a moment he fixed his eyes on the butcher. Then he nodded his head several times with great emphasis, looking like a huge turkey as he did so.

“Straight from hell they come. Terrible, they are. Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth for all eternity, and all because of the sins of the flesh. We have to repent of them. It’s meet and right and our bounden duty.”

Maple and Mopple looked at each other. It seemed as if the long-nosed man had understood what was wrong with the butcher’s job. Meat, and right? The butcher himself, naturally, remained unimpressed.

“I mean, they was only sheep,” he said. “I’d never have slaughtered a horse. Nor a donkey neither. Donkeys, well, they have a cross on their backs. In their coats. Carried the Lord on Palm Sunday, a donkey did.
That’s
a sign. But sheep? That’s what they’re for. Bred for it and all that. You don’t need to have a guilty conscience, I told myself. A nice clean death, and off into the shop window. Simple as that. But then, then…” And Ham’s sausage fingers drummed a wild rhythm on the table.

God said nothing. A small, clear drop was hanging from his nose, quivering like dew in the wind. Ham’s fingers stopped drumming. For a moment it was so quiet that the sheep could hear the rain on the windowsill, fine and nervous like scurrying mice. Then Ham reached for the bottle and filled his glass to the brim with golden liquid. The bottle glugged. Ham shook his head.

“George,” he said, “now he was different. Gave ’em names. Funny names. Talked to ’em. Never got on properly with no one else. Once he comes to me and he says, ‘Melmoth’s gone. Three days ago. That’s long enough, we’ll take your dogs and track him down.’ I thought at first he meant some kid or other…” The butcher shook his head, laughing. “Crazy. But he was all right, was George, better ’n the rest of ’em put together.”

“George?” The long-nosed man had grabbed the brown bottle jealously and was staring at the butcher. “You don’t believe that, do you? We’ll never know for sure what he got up to in that caravan, but I can tell you one thing: it wasn’t only sheep he dealt in, right? Huh!”

God rolled his eyes. He took a deep draft from his golden glass, and coughed. His eyes popped out from between their lids, all moist.