“Yes.” He said to Billy sternly, “But you keep back. Understand?” Billy nodded. “He was wild enough before, and he’s ten times worse now.”
The bullock had gone through into the next field, and by the time they reached the gap there was no sign of it. But the trail was not difficult to follow—great splashes of blood in the grass. The wound was obviously a severe one, and losing blood in this way, the animal was bound to tire fairly quickly. They started after it in high confidence.
The confidence was somewhat diminished as time passed without their coming in sight of the bullock. The trail led through a copse—marked not only by blood but by bushes crushed and branches broken in a blind blundering progress-over open ground and a lane, across a field that was a tangle of untended pea plants, and still on. Twice they lost the trail altogether, and had to cast around to find it again. The second time, in a wood, they were all of ten minutes hunting it. When, at last, Charley cried out in triumph, and Matthew looked where he was pointing, he felt more surprise than anything else at seeing the animal.
This was a very small field, perhaps a paddock—there were ruins of a big house nearby. The bullock was in the center and on its knees. As Charley shouted, it struggled to its feet and ponderously turned about to face them. Blood dripped from a gaping hole below its right eye, and its jawbone glinted white in the sun. It gave a dull, moaning roar, and pawed the ground. It shuddered, and Matthew lifted the gun, ready for another attack. But it shuddered again, dropped back to its knees and, as they advanced cautiously toward it, rolled over on its right side.
They came to it in silence, still wary. But there was no doubt about its being dead; its eye stared lifelessly into the sun.
“Congratulations,” Lawrence said. “The jaw, and then into the neck. He’s done well to keep going so long.”
They all crowded close to look, even Billy. Matthew stood back. Despite all the signs and forms of death to which he had grown accustomed, he felt a little sick. This was his act, not Gods. He turned away, and checked the gun. He had reloaded before they started the pursuit. Everything was all right.
“He’s a big ’un,” George said. “How’re we going to get him back? We’ll never drag him.”
Lawrence was very cheerful. “Don’t worry. I’ve thought of that.”
He had brought tools of his old trade with him, in a small satchel on his back: a lancet and a bone saw. With George, Charley and Billy helping him to maneuver the carcass, he slit the hide and ripped it off. The flesh steamed, and there was the indescribable smell of blood, the rich stink of intestines. Matthew felt calmer and more settled, but not disposed to participate in this part of the proceedings; nor did he seem to be expected to. The successful hunter presumably did not have to be a butcher also. He sat down in the grass, a little way from them, and listened to the chatter of their voices and the sound of the saw grating on bone.
Lawrence saying, “I can see now why the vets did a longer training than we did. These probably won’t be at all the right cuts. Never mind, as long as we get him portable.”
From nausea to calmness, from calmness to a kind of satisfaction. It was something necessary to be done, and he had done it. He felt pride in that, and gratitude to the others for having provided the experience. They were, in April’s words, decent people. A few successes, instead of failures and hardships, might make a lot of difference to their lives, and this, undeniably, was a success. They would feast on fresh meat.
The sun was beginning to be hot. It was a good day. His mind ran back through to its beginning, and the stooping figure by the stream. He wondered again about Lawrence and April. An ant crawled onto his leg, and for a while he watched it, feeling the tickle of its progress over his flesh. He broke off a blade of grass and fished for it. The first time it evaded the probe; then it clung to it and he lifted it and transferred it to the flower of a thistle. He had a wave of confidence and contentment. In the middle of it he thought of Jane. He did so with love and pain, but her image, instead of pressing close, was far away, insubstantial.
There was a cry from George: “That’s got him off!”
Billy’s voice, deeply interested: “It’s terrific the way the joint fits together. Is that what human joints look like, Lawrence?” Lawrence, he thought, but he still calls me Mr. Cotter. Billy was happy with these people. Lawrence was talking to him, explaining something. The sun pressed down, still warmer. Matthew lay back and let it beat against his closed eyelids.
Lawrence managed to cut up the carcass into manageable sections. There was more than they could reasonably carry back—Lawrence calculated that they were three or four miles from their starting point—so they picked out the best sections and shared the load. The rest, on Matthew’s suggestion, they wedged in the branches of a tree. They would come back for them as soon as they could, but the dog they had seen, or other dogs, would be likely to get here first.
Matthew had the shotgun in one hand, and one of the bullock’s legs balanced on the other shoulder. The flesh was soft and sticky against his palm, and blood dripped down, staining the side of his shirt. They walked through fields and sunlit glades, a happy and gory procession. A butcher’s outing, he thought. No, something simpler and more primitive than that. The hunters going back to the kraal. It was their clothes that were wrong. Ill-fitting and ill-assorted as they were, they yet belonged to the days of hygienic cold stores and steaks wrapped in Cellophane. They should be breechcloths in the summer, furs and hides in the winter.
It was a long way back, and the burdens grew heavier, but their excitement and cheerfulness sustained them. They talked and laughed a lot.
They were laughing at some joke Lawrence had made, when Charley said, “What was that?”
Matthew had heard it, too. He had thought it was an animal, a rabbit somewhere near, perhaps, screaming at the sight of a stoat. But the second time he realized that it came from farther off, and that the cry was human. They stopped, falling quiet.
Matthew said, “Were nearly there, aren’t we? Could it… ?”
“Yes,” Lawrence said softly, “it could.” He put his hand up in a restraining gesture. “There’s no sense in rushing things. We need to see what’s happening.”
The advice was good. Matthew nodded. “You know the best line of approach.”
They put the bloody chunks of carcass in a thorn hedge, and Lawrence led them, as silently as possible, toward the garden and the grotto. They heard another scream, and Matthew was almost sure it came from a man. There was no sound from the women or the girl. As they got nearer, though, they could hear other male voices, one laughing, another, perhaps two others, indistinguishably shouting. Matthew checked the shotgun, as he had already done twice or three times. It was ready. The safety catch was off.
They came through the bushes and took their final cover behind a hedge of hydrangea. Lawrence looked through first and turned away, sickened. Matthew moved forward and peered through the gap between two plants. The grotto was in front of him and about twenty yards away.
There seemed to be a lot of men there, but when he counted them there were only five. Five, and Archie. They had tied his hands and feet and he was lying on the ground on his back. He still had his shirt on, but his trousers had been pulled down. His body looked small and pathetic, very white against the sunburned arms of the men bending over him. One had what looked like a pair of pliers, the other a lighted taper. Nausea rose in Matthew’s throat. From sadistic schoolboys to savages, the objectives were the same. The eyes and the genitals, especially the genitals.
He looked for the women, and Cathie. They were huddled against the rock face with two of the other men standing near them. The fifth stood roughly between the two groups. He was a big fellow, well muscled, with long blond hair and a straw-colored beard. He was wearing sandals, flannel trousers cut down to make shorts, and nothing above the waist. His skin, despite the fairness of his hair, was deeply bronzed. He said, in a loud cockney voice, “Let’s stop piddle-arsing
about. You’ve got stuff here. You know bloody well you have. Even if there’s only the four of you, you’re bound to have some. And if you really have some boy friends round the corner, like you say, then you’ve probably got a lot of it. Don’t think I’m soddin’ stupid. You’ve been living here for weeks. There’s a trail over there like the bleedin’ M.l, and the ashes of a couple of dozen fires at least. So you’ve obviously got stuff. All we want to know is where it is.”
He stopped, waiting for an answer. Matthew could hear Cathie sobbing and, nearer at hand, Archie moaning softly. Nothing else.
The man said, “Right! Warm him up a bit, Stanny boy. See how long it takes a redhead to catch light.”
The hand moved the burning taper. Archie screamed again, and Matthew heard April’s voice shouting something. He did not hear what it was. He was possessed by a blind hot fury, which admitted nothing to his senses but the squirming screaming body on the ground and the figures of the men around it. Lawrence said something and touched his shoulder, but he brushed him off. He burst into the open, yelling, the shotgun under his arm. They looked up from their victim, more in surprise than alarm. As the man with the taper started to rise to his feet. Matthew fired the first barrel. He saw one of the two stagger, the other spin to the ground. Then he swung round toward the blond leader.
The movement caught him off balance. He felt his ankle turn under him, knew himself to be falling. The man was moving toward him, beginning to run. Matthew pulled the trigger as he fell, with only the sketchiest attempt at aiming. But the man had run forward, almost onto the muzzle of the gun. The force lifted him up, and slammed him backwards; Matthew saw him fall, out of the corner of his eye, as his own body hit the ground. He lay there winded, gasping for breath, watching blood gout up from the body only a few feet from his eyes.
12
THE REMAINING TWO had gone crashing away and disappeared beyond the rhododendrons. Of those he had hit with his first barrel, one was sitting up, clutching his aim, the other lay on his face, showing a raw jagged wound down his shoulder and back. Matthew started to get up. It was easy until he put his weight on his right foot, and then pain jabbed sharply up his leg. He transferred his balance, and hobbled over to Archie.
Archie said, “I didn’t tell them anything. I didn’t tell them where it was …”
His face was very white, dripping with tears and sweat.
Matthew said, “I know. Take it easy.”
He found his knife, and began cutting the cords. The others were coming up, Lawrence leading. There were angry burn marks on Archie’s flesh and some livid bruises.
Matthew said to Lawrence, “I think he’s all right.”
Lawrence said, “Yes.” He produced a jar of antiseptic cream from his satchel, scooped a little out, and put it on Archie’s fingers. “That will ease things. You rub it in. You know where it’s tender.”
Archie turned his back, and rubbed the cream in. Then he hitched up his trousers. April had come to join them, with Cathie at her heels. Sybil, Matthew saw, had run to George, and they stood hugging one another.
April said, “Did they hurt him badly?”
“Painfully,” Lawrence said, ‘“but not badly.”
She was drained of color, her skin had a sallow look, but she was quite controlled. Her jersey, Matthew saw, was torn at the neck, showing her collarbone on that side.
She jerked her head. ‘What about that lot?”
The one who had been hit in the arm was standing up. He clutched one elbow with the other hand, and blood dripped over it and puddled in the dust. Charley was standing guard over him. He had picked up the shotgun and was pointing it. The wounded man looked scared. Neither of them, probably, realized that the gun was not loaded. The spare cartridges were in Matthew’s pocket.
Lawrence said, “I suppose I’d better look at them.”
Cathie still hung behind April, but Matthew had the sensation that they were alone together.
April looked at him, her gaze direct and serious. “You did that very well, Matthew,” she said.
He said, “I did it like a fool. It was a fluke that I hit him with that second barrel. If I’d missed, he would have had the gun. Three of them, against Lawrence, George and Charley. And Billy. I should have had more sense.”
“No, you did it well.” She smiled. “I was proud of you.”
The jersey was torn, but the slacks she was wearing buttoned up the side, and none of the buttons was missing.
He said, “You were all right, anyway, you and Sybil.”
“Yes,” she said. Her voice was dry. “We were all right. What happened on the hunt? You didn’t find it?”
“Found it and killed it, and brought most of it back. We dropped it when we heard Archie yelling.”
“Poor Archie.”
Lawrence came back to them. “The one you hit at close range is a bit of a mess, Matthew. The other two represent the problem.”
“Problem?”
“Only for me. Some kind of oath I took once, a long time ago. Not that it will make a lot of difference, probably. The one with the arm will live, providing he doesn’t get too bad an infection. The other, I should think, will die anyway, since we have no facilities for the kind of nursing he needs.”
April said bitterly, “I should have thought the only problem was whether we could afford to waste another couple of cartridges.” She looked at Matthew. “Or whether Matthew could.”
He was surprised by her hardness, but, of course, it made sense. They could not keep the men here, even if they had the means of nursing them.
He said, “The two that ran away—do you think there’s any chance of their coming back?”
Lawrence shook his head. “I don’t think so. April?”
“If they were part of a bigger gang, they probably would. But I gather they weren’t. From the way they were talking, there were just the five of them. Blondie was the one with initiative.” She looked at his body. Blood still flowed from the hole in the chest but more slowly; flies were beginning to settle on it. “I don’t think those two will stop running much before they reach the coast.”
Lawrence stared at the two men Charley was guarding with the empty gun. The second of them had struggled into a halfsitting position, resting on his elbow. He was beginning to moan with pain.
“So what does one do?” Lawrence asked. He looked at April in helpless appeal. “What do you think?”
She did not answer him but went over to Charley. She put her hand out, and he surrendered the shotgun. The man who was holding his arm started saying something, but she cut him short.
“I’m not going to shoot you,” she said. “We’ve got plenty of ammunition, but it’s not worth using it on you. Get moving. You may catch up with your pals if you’re lucky.”
He opened his mouth again, and moving forward quickly, she slammed the barrel of the gun against his wounded arm. He cried out with pain, recoiled and started walking away. After a few yards, he looked back over his shoulder. She jerked the gun up, and he began to run awkwardly.
April stood over the other man. He was moaning more loudly and bleeding fast. She said, “You too. Get going.”
He looked up at her. His face was rigid with pain. “I can’t,” he said. “I’m hurt bad. I can’t move.”
She said with grim satisfaction, “You’re going to die. But not here. We shall have enough to do burying one.”
The man groaned, but did not stir. She kicked him hard with her sandaled foot, not far below the wound, and he cried out.
“You can move,” she said. “Or would you like us to drag you out?”
He braced his arm and levered himself up into a standing position. He was sweating, his lips set in a grin of pain. April stood back from him. There was blood, Matthew noticed, on her sandal.
“Bon voyage,” she said. “Get as far as you can before you drop.”
Lawrence looked at Matthew’s ankle. His fingers felt round it carefully. “Just a sprain,” he said.
“It means you’re going to have to lie up for a couple of days.”
“Cold compress?” April asked.
“I think so.”
She nodded. “I’ll see to it.” She went off in the direction of the stream.
Lawrence said, “So you’ll have to continue to be our guest for a while.” He smiled, and then paused. “Were very much in your debt, Matthew.”
“A gun is useful,” Matthew said, “as long as the ammunition lasts.”
“Not only the gun.” He looked as though he were about to say something else, but thought better of it. “April will fix you a bandage which should ease things. I’d better see about tidying the place up. I think we’ll just drag him out of the way for the time being, and bury him later. Getting the meat back has a higher priority.”
George and Charley took an arm each and hauled the corpse away to the shrubbery, Lawrence following and directing them. Matthew lay back in the grass. His ankle throbbed and ached, but as long as he did not attempt to move his foot there was discomfort rather than actual pain. Cathie was crying and Sybil was comforting her and talking to her in a low soothing voice. Archie stood staring vacantly after the body that was being removed.
Billy crept up beside Matthew. He said, “Your leg isn’t broken, is it, Mr. Cotter?”
“No. It’s only a sprain. But I shan’t be able to walk very easily for a day or two.”
“Are we staying here?”
“Till my foot’s better.” Billy nodded. “Would you like to stay on after that?”
“I wouldn’t mind.” He added quickly, “If you do, that is.”
He was saved from saying anything by Aprils return. She had brought water in a saucepan, and she soaked a bandage in this before tying it round the joint. She had good firm hands and she fixed it deftly. Matthew looked down at her brown hair as she bent over his foot. It had a slight wave in it and was soft and glossy, but with a few gray hairs. He thought of what her life would have been, but for the breakdown. A house to run, a family to look after, a social round to attend to.
A Wrinkle in the Skin Page 16
