Winter Wood (38 page)

‘That'll have to do,' said George. He stood up and walked over to the doorway, stuck his head out and quickly pulled it back in again. ‘The builders are still there,' he said, ‘but they'll be too busy yakking to take any notice of us.'

The toboggan looked a bit odd. Small he might be, but Little-Marten still made a sizeable lump with the pillow on top of him. He couldn't actually be seen, though, and that was the main thing.

‘Come on, then,' said Midge. ‘In for a penny. You pull the sledge, George, and I'll walk behind just to keep it a bit more hidden.' She crouched down again and patted the pillow. ‘Can you hear me? Hang on tight, then. Just keep as still as you can, and don't you make a sound what
ever
happens. All right? We're off.'

They left the Stick House and turned right, moving diagonally away from the builders. The toboggan made a horrible grinding noise as George dragged it across the tarmac, and from the corner of her eye Midge saw that the men were idly grinning at them. There was so little snow around, that was the trouble. If the toboggan had been a canoe it could hardly have appeared a more optimistic enterprise. But there. What business was it of anybody else's?

Once they were through the back gate and heading across the fields, Midge felt able to breathe again – although now there was a new problem. The toboggan was bouncing around so much on the rough grass that Little-Marten must be struggling to stay aboard. Midge
hurried forward a few steps, so that she was walking beside George.

‘Better slow down a bit,' she said.

George looked behind him. ‘Huh? Oh, right. OK. I felt like a right idiot, with those three blokes watching us. Think they suspected anything?'

‘What are they going to suspect – that we're smuggling little people around?'

‘Ha. No, s'pose not. God, this feels weird though.'

They managed to cross the first couple of fields without mishap, but at the gateway to the third field it was clear that they would have to stop and think. The ground was all churned-up and muddy – great furrows across it where tractors had been in and out – so that there was no chance of dragging the toboggan through without it overturning.

‘We'd better get him off,' said George, ‘and risk him walking this bit.' He glanced around him. ‘Can't see anyone about.'

‘No, let's just pick the whole thing up and carry it.'

‘Do you reckon? All right, then. We can give it a go, anyway.'

The toboggan was easy enough to lift, but not so easy to keep level. With George at one end and Midge at the other, they staggered and stumbled their way across the deep muddy channels, and more than once there was a nasty lurch that threatened to tip Little-Marten into the mire. But they got through in the end, carried the toboggan onto firmer ground and laid it down.

Midge crouched beside the toboggan and lifted a corner of the pillow.

‘Are you all right under there?' she whispered.

‘Aye.' A muffled little sound.

‘We need to go that way.' George pointed towards a line of willows. ‘Then follow that rhyne along till we get to the weir . . . oh—'

He stopped talking, and Midge straightened up to see what was the matter. At the far end of the field a group of men were working. It looked as though they were stacking wood onto a tractor and trailer. One man was standing on the trailer itself, and the others were heaving logs and branches up to him.

Midge and George watched for a few moments.

‘It's OK,' said George. ‘We'll just keep going. They won't bother us.'

‘Do you want me to pull the toboggan for a bit?' said Midge. She stood up.

‘Yeah, if you like.'

George put his hands in his pockets, and the two of them walked side by side. Midge tried to keep to the smoothest ground she could find, continually looking over her shoulder to check that Little-Marten was still with them.

‘Tell you what, though,' said George. ‘I wish I'd brought a knife or a hatchet or something. How stupid is that? We haven't got a clue what we're going to find, or what we might need—'

‘Oh no!' Midge stopped pulling the toboggan. ‘I've just realized – the Orbis! I've left it behind!'

‘What?'

‘I must have put it down for a moment . . . in the Stick House . . . ohhhh . . .' Midge groaned and looked back the way they had come. ‘I can't believe it! We're going to have to turn round.'

‘Well, hang on a minute.' George was staring over her shoulder, giving this some thought. ‘It's not as though we're going to
need
it for the moment, and anyway it'll be safe enough for an hour or—' George paused, and Midge saw his eyes widen. ‘Oh hell,' he muttered. ‘Here's something we
don't
need.'

Midge spun round. There was a dog – a big black-and-white thing – bounding up the field towards them. A man's voice cut sharply through the still air. ‘Ginny! Gin! Come 'ere!'

One of the workers down by the trailer had separated from the group, and was hurrying after the dog.

‘Ginny!' The man shouted again, but it was clear that the dog wasn't going to stop. Midge took a couple of steps sideways, so that she was in front of the toboggan and bracing herself for trouble. In another few moments the dog was upon them, a flurry of black and white, barking and scampering wildly about, mad with excitement.

‘Get away!' George shouted and waved his arms around, trying to head the dog off in another direction, but already the creature was snuffling at the toboggan. There was a squawk of alarm from beneath the pillow, a wriggle of movement, and this set the dog off into an absolute frenzy of barking. Midge was terrified that Little-Marten would simply jump up and
make a run for it. She screamed at the dog and tried to grab its collar – a stupid thing to do with a strange animal, but she didn't care. The dog danced away from her, still barking, then rushed in again, desperate to get at whatever was beneath the pillow.

‘It's all right! It's all right – she won't hurt you!' The man came running up, red faced and pouring sweat. ‘Ginny!
Ginny!
Come
here
!' He chased after the dog and managed to get hold of its collar. ‘Phew! Sorry about that. Blimey . . .' The man was young, but quite overweight, and he had to pause for breath, running the sleeve of his thick checked shirt across his brow.

‘Now just calm down, whoa-whoa-whoa. Shush!' The idiot dog was still barking and trying to get at the toboggan. It was clear that the man had very little control over it and Midge was furious.

‘What's the
matter
with the stupid thing?' she shouted. ‘Get him away from us!'

‘Hey-hey-hey! She's only playing. Just curious, that's all.' The man was looking at the toboggan, very obviously curious himself.

‘I don't care!' Midge yelled. ‘You should keep it on a lead if you can't . . . if you can't . . .' She felt like giving the dog a good kick; the man too.

‘It's OK, Midge.' George stepped in, and put a hand on her arm. ‘It's all right. There's no harm done.'

‘That's right,' said the man, and he was beginning to look angry himself now. ‘No harm done. But what are you kids hanging round here for anyway – looking for free firewood? This is private property. And what have you got under there, eh?' He nodded at the
toboggan. ‘Not an axe is it, by any chance? Or a saw?'

‘What? No, we're just . . . we're just going on a picnic, that's all,' said George. ‘We've got some sandwiches. Chicken,' he added. ‘She probably smelled it.'

It sounded very lame, and the man said, ‘A
picnic
? In February?' But the dog was wriggling around and whining, still trying to get free, and the effort of holding her back must have been tiring on the arm. At any rate the man said, ‘Well rather you than me – and you don't exactly look like log rustlers, I must say. But go and do whatever you're doing somewhere else, OK? We're trying to work here. Come on then, Ginny. Back to it, eh? Come on, gal.' He dragged the dog away and started to walk her down the field. After a few yards he stooped and picked up a stick, let the dog sniff it, and then hurled it in the direction of the tractor and trailer. The dog went careering after the stick, overshot by a mile, and had to double back in order to retrieve it.

‘Ruddy thing,' George muttered. ‘I thought we'd had it then.'

Midge watched as the dog brought the stick back to the man in the checked shirt. Her heart was banging in her chest and she couldn't say anything for the moment. The man threw the stick for a second time, and away went the dog. Once she felt sure that the wretched beast had forgotten them, Midge sank down onto her heels and rested her hand on the toboggan. Another glance down the field and she risked a quick peek beneath the pillow.

She could actually feel the material quivering.
Little-Marten squinted up at her, plainly scared out of his wits. He was shaking, huddled into a ball, his hands clasped together. His face looked very white beneath the streaks of dirt.

‘I casn't . . . I casn't . . .' he mumbled, his voice tiny and breathless.

‘It's all right,' Midge whispered. ‘They've gone. We'll be OK now – promise. Just hold on a bit longer, and we'll soon be there.'

How soon, though? Midge stood up and looked back the way they had come. Should they turn round?

George said, as though he'd been reading her thoughts, ‘We're about halfway. We might as well keep going.'

Midge shook her head and sighed. ‘OK.' She stooped and grabbed hold of the toboggan rope. ‘You were great, though. Brilliant, actually. I'd never have thought of saying that about a picnic.'

‘Don't think he believed me. Come on, then. Over there, by those willows.'

They reached the bank of the rhyne at last, hauled the toboggan up it, and walked parallel to the broadening stream. The grass on top of the bank had been trodden down by the feet of fishermen, so that there was a fairly smooth pathway leading towards the weir.

Long before they got there, they could hear the roar of water, and George said, ‘It's up pretty high, I reckon.'

And so it turned out to be. Midge and George stood on the banks of the weir for a while, gazing at the
pounding arc of water, hypnotized by the gouts of froth that endlessly circled the dark pool below.

‘Too risky to drag the toboggan across the planks,' said George. ‘Or carry it. He's going to
have
to walk this bit.'

‘Yes. How far's the barn, then?' said Midge.

‘It's just over there.' George pointed to a belt of trees beyond the weir, and Midge followed the direction of his hand.

‘Oh, yeah.' She could see a reddish-coloured roof, curving above the treetops. Not far.

They took a good look about them, made sure that there was nobody in sight, and then Midge knelt down to gently lift the pillow from Little-Marten. He was still huddled in a ball, and looking more vulnerable than ever.

Midge reached out and touched the small hands, gently enfolding them in her own. ‘Don't worry,' she said. ‘We're at the weir. It's really not far to go now, but you're going to have to walk across the planks, Little-Marten? Can you do that?'

As Midge brought Little-Marten's hands away from his face, she was horrified to see that there was a great red welt around his throat. The skin was raw and bruised, little pinpricks of blood showing beneath the exposed flesh. In the darkness of the Stick House she hadn't noticed it, but out here in open sunlight it was unmissable. Something, or somebody, had very nearly strangled him. Was this how Henty was caught? Snared?

‘What . . . what's happened to your neck?' Midge sat
back on her heels as Little-Marten hauled himself upright. He got painfully to his feet and stumbled from the toboggan, looking wildly about him, pushing back his long brown hair with trembling fingers. His breathing was fast, and his dark eyes looked distracted.

‘No. No. I casn't do this . . . casn't do it. 'Tain't right.'

‘What? You mean the water? No . . . don't worry. We'll make sure you're safe.' Midge was aware of George standing beside her. ‘Tell him, George. We'll look after him, won't we?'

But George said, ‘What're all those marks on his neck? What's happened to him? Did the dog get him?'

The dog? That hadn't occurred to Midge. It didn't look much like a dog bite, though.

‘Little-Marten . . . Little-Marten . . . listen.' Midge reached out and caught hold of Little-Marten's wrist. ‘You have to tell us what's going on. What happened to your neck? Is that . . . is that what's happened to Henty too?'

Little-Marten's eyes met hers. He stared at her for a moment, and nodded. ‘Aye . . . aye . . . to Henty. She'm tied . . .' But then he was pulling away, struggling to escape her grasp.