Pig Iron

by Benjamin Myers

  So I’ve been doing stuff. Putting what little me Dad learnt us as a bairn to good use. Doing old Robinson Crusoe proud.

  I’ve been sharpening sticks. The knife is a good one so it’s not took us long to get a good collection of spears and spikes on the go. Then just as it was getting dark I went and put them around and about. Three I dug in deep on the main path at an angle. The path up from the van to the clearing. Dug in about so high. Knee height.

  Then I went off into the woods and stabbed the rest of them into the soil in a large semi circle ower a hundred yards or more, and stashed the rest up trees and that. I made sure to memorise me steps an all, picking out trees with big knots on their trunks or strange-shaped branches I’d recognise against the night sky. Anything I could see or touch or smell and use as signposts in the dark.

  Nature provides.

  What about them boulders?

  Aye, I was getting to that

  I taught you good. You thought I was hard on you, but I taught you good.

  Did you shite. You taught us nowt but hate and violence.

  After that I went back up the clearing, where me stuff was stashed. Then I walked round to one side and found a route up round the side of the cliff. It was steep and muddy but there were plenty of hand holds and roots to help pull mesel up with. I scrambled up that bank that had not seen human footprints for years.

  From up there you can see across the treetops. It was like being in the whatsit of a sail ship. The crow’s nest. And the tree tops looked like a field or mebbes a sea, and the sea was moving and swaying slightly, and over in the distance, through the haze of the summer’s evening, you could just make out the spires of the cathedral and the ragged edge of the castle next to it.

  The town – out there.

  Life – out there.

  I sat down for a moment and treated mesel to a tab while I looked around us. I saw what I needed. Boulders. A few of them scattered about. Half sunk in the soil like the earth was trying to swallow them whole.

  They were too big to lift, but small enough to roll. One of them took a git thick branch to help jimmy it, but then I was able to roll it close enough to the edge of the rock face. Then I left them there, ten yards apart, ready for toppling, like. Well medieval.

  When I’d done that, I half slid and half fell down the bank and into the clearing, where I washed me hands under the trickling waterfall and had another drink.

  As I scarfed another Mars bar I thought of summat else. Summat important. I went into me kit bag and pulled out one of my T-shirts. One of them green army ones.

  I went downhill through the trees to the van. I rolled up the T-shirt then unlocked the petrol cap and dangled it in there until it were nice and soaked. Then I left it there, with only a tiny bit of cloth sticking out.

  Nee turning back now. Arty’ll be insured. He owes us anyway, trying to stitch us up like that. Dropping us into the Nook mess like that.

  Never go on the back foot.

  Aye. That’s right.

  So I’ve been busy. I’ve been doing stuff.

  And I’m alright, me. I’m alright. I’m not scared, me.

  No.

  Not scared.

  Not a bit.

  I’m tired and a bit wired and a bit sweaty in me army clobber but I’ve not been scared of the trees and the night noises for a long time, not since I turned the woods into a green cathedral when my auld man left us out all night when I was a youngster.

  A valuable lesson that, lad. It all worked out in the end.

  Sherrup did it.

  I’m at home here. I’m in me element. More than in any prison cell or caravan park or povvy council-owned halfway house for halfwits. I’m up the tree and nee-one can touch us here. Only now someone wants to come into me special place and desecrate it with their noise and their mess and their violence. Wants to destroy the last pure thing I’ve got left.

  And I’m not having it.

  No. No way.

  I’m not having that.

  I’m not having them come in here.

  Na.

  No.

  Over my dead body. Or theirs.

  *

  The stump-ended branch of the family tree, was how he called you, may God rest his soul.

  But it wasn’t him talking. You never saw that dark sparkle. You never knew what he was, what he had been. He was a shadow now, a half-mad mystery; a strange stuttering demon doing weird and wild acts. He was a beast to you from the moment you were born.

  I remember how you told me about that night in the woods. You can’t have been more than six.

  Pheasants, you were after. Fat roosting pheasants that your Dad had staked. He knew all their runs and roosting branches and needed nowt but a fishing line and hook to get them.

  So he took you down there, slipping in the mud and stifling your breathing in case the keeper was close by.

  It was dark as tar pitch in there. Must have been. Too dark to see the ground or your hands in front of their faces.

  Sit down by this tree trunk and sherrup, he’d said.

  Sit down here, he’d said. Don’t say a word. Don’t even breathe.

  He’d be back in a minute.

  So you sat there in the leaves holding your breath. Every sound of the woodland was amplified: the snap of a twig or a rustle in the undergrowth, an owl’s hoot. Something screaming.

  And time passed. More than the minute your father had promised. Much, much more than a minute. Your eyes adjusted to the darkness but all you could see were shapes. Great towering things. Monstrous, they were. And they were looking for you. Waiting for you. Waiting for you to make a noise so they could pounce and tear your young throat out.

  You sat there as still as a statue, shivering, your eyes closed tight with fear, all alone, and you needed to piss really badly, but you couldn’t move so you went right there in your trousers, a warm trickle stinging your crotch. And after a while the piss stain turned cold and you shivered and tried to sniff up the snot that was running from your nose but it made too much noise so you let it hang there suspended. And still your father never came back.

  Gradually the blackness began to change. It lightened, turned blue, then merged into a whole range of blues as a new day started to filter through. The monsters turned into trees and the ghosts became the spaces between them and the fear began to wane.

  When it was light enough to move you stood and stretched and brushed yourself down, then you turned and re-traced your steps back through the woods, then out across the fields, finally returning to the site.

  I can see you now, running across the grass as I pegged out the washing.

  You opened the door and entered and there sat your Dad, laughing as he scooped an egg into his mouth with a fried slice. Yellow from the yolk stained his mouth and he laughed long and hard.

  You said nowt and he said nowt. He just laughed some more and then sighed and carried on eating.

  *

  And then they’re here and the calm of the woods is broken and I’m dropping down from the alder.

  I move through the trees like a will o’ the wisp, light on me silent toes and making sure I know where they are at all times, which isn’t hard given the fuss they’re making. It’s like I’m floating.

  I’m ready for them.

  I’m prepared.

  The only thing that scares us is the possibility that I may actually enjoy this.

  It’s summer-dark again. August dark. I let me ears do the work for us. I can hear car doors and voices, then someone going shhhh dead loud, as if by shushing rather than speaking they think they’ll not be heard. I take a wide arc down the hill keeping me ears peeled. There’s two cars down there, further back on the main track.

  I move quicker now, brushing past branches and leaping ower gnarled roots that stretch out like trip wires. Me senses are guiding us. I feel good. Like I could do all this blindfold. Like summat is watching over us, willing us to win.

  Then I’m at the passing place whe
re me ice cream van is parked, further down the track from them, and I know they’re close.

  I can hear hushed voices but the daft bastards have still got a torch on. There’s plenty of time. I crouch down with the lighter in me hand. I unscrew the petrol cap. Then I wait until the torch beam is closer.

  And still I wait.

  From round the bend of the track the beam slowly sweeps round in my direction, then I hear a voice, raised this time. A voice of acknowledgement, of whatsit. Recognition.

  I pull out the soaking t-shirt, flip open me Zippo, touch the flame to it and by the time it takes I’m already back into the woods heading uphill again. Up the hill to me tree. To me branch.

  It takes longer than I thought it would. I’m just starting to think mebbes the flame’s gone out and I’ve banjaxed it when there’s a flash. There’s nee noise – just a beautiful orange flash. Like, whoooof.

  Then comes the explosion, a short sharp bang as the van and all that’s in it goes up. It is spectacular, but it feels wrong doing this here in the green cathedral. Creating like this. But it’s sink or swim time and if that lot get a hold of us I might not make it out of here alive.

  And I’m not having that.

  Na.

  No way.

  Aye. Smash em son. Smash their cunts in. Do it for the Wisdoms.

  After the git big bang and the roar of the fireball that lights the sky up for a second there’s a yell, a howl of pain, and there’s voices echoing about the trees and shouts of shock and panic and confusion, like what the fuck and he’s here, the pikey’s here, then someone else shouting get the dirty little inbred fucking bastard, and the beams of torches are flicking this way and that like the eyes of deranged robots. I hear more branches snapping, the sound of stumbling. Chaos. They don’t know what’s going on, the sackless, feckless, fugless twats.

  What are you waiting for? Get down there, get your top off and fight them like a bloody man.

  Aye, but it doesn’t work like that any more, does it Dad.

  It sounds like there’s bloody loads of them running this way and that. Like a small army or summat. And you don’t send that many people just to pop by and say hello. I can hear voices of lasses too, more than one, and the sound of bodies crashing through twigs and branches and that.

  Then through the dark I can hear someone coming close. It’s a lad and he’s breathing heavy and I can see he has summat in his hand. It’s a sword. A bloody martial arts sword with a big fug-off blade gleaming in the moonlight, its edge the thinnest line of silver.

  He’s run up the hill, and there’s panic in his breathing, and he’s even closer to me now, so close I can smell him – a mixture of tabs and sweat – and the sword is dangling by his side, and it’s meant for me, and that’s when I drop down on him, just like I did on that doss twat in the alley; down from above like a toppled angel.

  I’m right onto him, feet first, cracking his back, mebbes even breaking summat by the sound it makes – like a series of clicks. It’s like jumping on a rotten xylophone or summat.

  There’s nee noise from him at all except for the air vacating his body as he flops forward like a ragdoll.

  He groans then goes to make a move but I bend down and pick up the sword and in one quick move slam it down on his arm and it must be sharp because I damn near chop his hand off at the wrist. It feels like nowt. Like a warm knife cutting through a pat of butter.

  Fucking get in. Now stamp on his head. Stamp on his bollocks.

  And then he’s making a noise. Oh, he’s kicking up a right stink now, screaming like a bloody banshee, and there’s shouts from around me in the wood, but they’re not close. Even I’m surprised by what’s just happened – and it was me that bloody did it.

  I bend down and between his hand and the rest of him I can see a gap. I can see dirt. There’s a moment where everything goes still, the wood falls silent and even the lad says nowt for a moment, and I say nowt, and then the gap fills up with blood that spreads and seeps into the mud and I boot the hand and it tears that last inch of flesh that’s joining his hand to his wrist, and the hand lolls off into the darkness like an injured animal, and the lad screams some more, and then I’m gone.

  *

  Another incident.

  Later, when you were seven or eight, your father placed a bet on a horse. Remember?

  Do you remember that?

  He reckoned he could knock it out with one punch – the famous Mackie bullhammer.

  He was back drinking again. The lads were round again. Round the fire after closing time at The Bluebell, ruddy-faced and grubby-handed.

  That’s how I knew he was on the mend. Because in the drink Mac was back to being his boastful self. But he was older now, different. As I said: re-wired wrong.

  Simey Samways was there and Jim Brazil was there and others too, like Kenny Cutmore, a non-traveller. And once the boast was made there was no going back – not among betting men like these.

  “No way you can knock out a hoss,” said Simey Samways.

  “Knock it out? One of my uppercuts’ll turn it into a bloody giraffe. I’d bet a ton on it.”

  “You’re on.”

  “What about you, Ken?”

  “Why not. But where are we going to get a hoss from?”

  “I know of one,” said Eddie. “A nasty little colt up at Rogergate estate. Fucker bit me a month back. Took a chunk right out me arm.”

  “I’ll fetch the little un,” your Dad said. “He needs to learn how to throw a punch. Howay.”

  “What – now?” said Simey.

  “No time like the present.”

  You were under the blankets when Mac bundled you into the front of Simey’s pick-up. I tried to stop him. I tried to tell him. But he pushed me aside.

  The others climbed on the back and they did break the seal on another bottle of whisky as they drove down darkened country roads.

  They parked down a lane and then vaulted a wall. Eddie went on ahead to the paddock where he knew the horse would be. He found it there on a short tether, snorting in the dark, framed by the night. It was a skewbald cob; white, with only the smallest patch of brown on its flank.

  He whistled for the others to follow.

  “Right, watch and learn,” said Mac, taking his coat off and passing it to Jim. “One punch.”

  You were stood next to your uncle, tugging at his sleeve.

  “He’s not going to hit the hoss is he Uncle Eddie?”

  “A bet’s a bet, lad. And anyway he’s Mac Wisdom. He’s hardly going to back out now, is he.”

  Mac rolled his neck and swung his arms and felt the old adrenaline surge come back again; that need to punch his way through flesh and blood. He walked up to the cob, which snorted back at him. The men could tell it was rattled by this unexpected nocturnal intrusion. All it could see were shapes, but it sensed the tension.

  “Reet,” said Mac. “Watch and learn. Watch and learn. Bullhammer time.”

  “Don’t Da,” you said. “Don’t hit the hoss.”

  Mac ignored you, stepped toward it and threw a big, loping overhand right onto the smooth convex slope of the horse’s nose. The sound was an unforgettable crunch of bone on bone.

  The shock caused the horse’s eyes to widen with fear. They looked like headlamps in the dark. It reared up onto its hind legs like a creature rising from the deep, and went to bolt. The noise it made was like nowt any of them had heard before. It was a scream of pure pain and a cry of shock rolled into one. Its howl cut through the night: why me?

  Mac stepped back as it made to run off into the night, a rearing, snorting hysterical blur clawing at the air.

  But the tether was too short and the tether was too tight.

  The rope pulled it sideways and the horses legs went from under it. It fell crashing to the ground. Its heavy torso flopped in the mud.

  The horse screamed like a child. Like a baby. Its legs thrashed in the air.

  And you, John-John. You screamed too.

&n
bsp; “Help it,” you said through tears. “Somebody help it.”

  “Christ almighty,” said one of the men.

  The horse writhed and kicked some more and the men jumped back out of harm’s way, and then it was kicking no more. It was still, its legs sticking upwards like a crude pastiche of death. The horse’s heart had stopped and you were crying uncontrollably.

  “Right,” said your Dad. “That’s a ton each of you cunts owes us.”

  *

  The sword’s in me hand and I’m feeling sickly and sweaty. Me stomach’s lurching so much I feel like I might gip at any moment and there’s droplets of sweat turning to tiny ice cubes on me spine.

  I stop and look at the weapon. The blade edge has been hammered and honed and sharpened right down, forged so sharp it cut right through that lad’s wrist so swiftly and so silently that there’s hardly even a trace of blood on it. It’s scary how quickly it happened; my potential scarier still.

  The screaming tells us this is all too real. Screams like an animal backed into a corner, coming from down where I did the lad. Screams like an animal caught in a trap. Then there’s voices. Shouting. Branches breaking towards the screams.

  It’s best I keep moving.

  It’s good this, isn’t it.

  No. It’s not bloody good. It’s bloody survival.

  I run quickly, pausing every thirty seconds or so to check the bearings of Banny and his lot. So long as I keep moving there’s nee way they can catch us in here. I was born for this. They’re just a bunch of povs and slags and druggies who belong on the estate where all they’ve got is the weeds pushing through the paving slabs.

  But the green cathedral is my natural habitat. The woods were my education, the hoot of the owl and the scratching of rodents my vocabulary.

  I’ve got me night eyes on now. Turned on and tuned in. Me ears are cocked and me nostrils are proper flared.

  As I move I think about that hand lying back there somewhere in the leaves, a solitary hand without a body, all alone in the dark, and the gip rises up into me throat, and I can taste it all bitter, bilious and sicky, but I swallow hard and keep moving.