Gods Own Country

by Ross Raisin

  I stalked half a mile behind, chewing on a sarnie. She’d not ate or drank anything since the day before, far as I knew, I was capped she had the strength for it, the speed she was keeping. Most folk would be done for by now, not an inch of wick left in them, lagged out on the heather with the worms gathering round waiting for the end. Not far now, she was thinking. She’d be home by night at this crack, the banners fluttering above the gate – welcome home! now let’s get that bastard, lankenstein! – Lionel barking himself daft, Chickenhead crying buckets. We’ve been so worried about you, darling, we were expecting the worst, she says, the eyes gleaming with tears, watching as the wriggling head of a maggot pokes its way out the mushroom. Ey up, lads, I’m through! Follow me. Chickenhead bluthering away. Butch up, would you, what do you think it’s going to do – bite you? It’s a mention of protein, is all, you daft trull, you’re lucky I didn’t do anything worse, injected them with blowfly vaccine, then you’d be crying, right enough. There was a droning noise far off, a fighter jet, taken off from the base at Leeming Bar, out on a practice flight. A grey plume showed its path as it began a circuit of the Moors, waking all the idlebacks still slumbering in bed. She’d stopped to watch it too, and I started into a jog. The jet was tearing across the sky – there’s the Dales look, glossy green hillocks rolling to the west, and the farm down there, Sal working the flock glancing up to check if Father’s about to belt her. She was running, I had to laugh at that. Did she think she could outleg me? No food since yesterday and she thought she could outleg me. The rucksack was bobbing up, down, she kept looking round every while, glegged me gaining on her, but she kept straight on, like an animal running in front of a vehicle, fixed on its course. It wasn’t long until she started flagging, and I clasped an arm round her, pulling her toward me with the rucksack buffering against my front. It’s all right now, it’s all right, but she was flailing her arms behind her, scratching at my face, the hot scorch of a nail dragging across my cheek. Hush up, I told her, hush up. She wouldn’t listen, though, they could hear her in Whitby, she was beldering that loud, hush up, I had to clout her round the jaw to make her stop. She lay on the ground a time, curled in a ball with the lip wibbling. I looked about, making sure no one had seen us, then I rooted in my bag for a decent-looking sarnie. She’d feel better when she’d ate something, I told her.

  ∨ Gods Own Country ∧

  23

  She’d finished struggling, so we sat on us bags nice and peaceable with a prawn sarnie and a pork pie on the ground between us. She looked tired. All the dander had gone out of her – I told her she should have a kip, get her strength up. She wasn’t listening, mind. She sat, sluffened, not touching the food I’d gave her. Now, I said, lively as I could, you can’t goat around any more, things are serious now. Then I learnt her the sightlier parts of the newspaper article, and she lifted her head up, seemed I’d snared her attention at last. They know about us robbing the shop in Garside, I explained, there’s police all over looking for us, so we have to tread careful, you can’t go taking off like that any more. Do you understand me? It was like chiding a puppy for being naughty – she looked up at me with big eyes brimful with guilt and nodded. I smiled at her. Don’t worry, I’m not angry at you, I’m glad I found you, is all, we can get back on track now. Thinking caps on, eh – we need a plan. She smiled back, and I thought she’d forgave me for hitting her, but it was all a show, I found out then. I turned round to scan the land, and next I knew she was fetching me a sharp kick in the knackers and legging it away. I watched, crumpled on the floor, pain firing through my nethers, as she bolted off.

  She only got a couple hundred yards before I caught her up and tackled her to the ground. I held her down, our faces close together, as she hissed and floundered like a bust tyre. What’d I told you? What’d I told you, eh? I had to be firm with her, it was the only way, she had to stop behaving daft. I kept her pinned, waiting to see if she’d say anything, but she had her head turned sideways, she wouldn’t look on me.

  I knelt up, letting go, and she quieted, lying with her eyes open staring out across the heather. Come on, then, I said, and after a moment she got up and walked over to the bags with me, at heel, I didn’t have to hold on to her. Course, she couldn’t be trusted yet, though, not while she was in this mood. I was right, being firm with her. That was why I had to keep her penned secure. I unfastened one of the longer straps from my rucksack and tied her hands together behind her back, careful not to hurt her wrist in case it was still sore. Then we set off walking, and I was glad she’d learnt she was best keeping peaceful, she didn’t try bolting or anything stupid, though I could mark her fidgeting at the strap whenever I glegged away, and the waterworks came on a couple times, no matter she pretended otherwise when I turned to look on her.

  She wanted to know where we were going. Best hiding place on the Moors, I said – the Hole of Horcum. She asked me what the fuck was that. Likely she thought I was taking her to some giant well, the way the name sounded, we were going to hide out with the frogs, bats flackering about us faces in the dark. The Hole of Horcum, I told her, is a dip in the land – a crater a mile wide full of ditches and crags and patches of forest. She kept quiet. I tried making talk a couple of times afterward – looks like we’re in for a champion summer, and the like – but she was on conversation strike, she didn’t speak a word the next hour as we traipsed south, over Rosedale and Wheeldale Moors, past Cropton Forest, toward the Hole. The only thing she spoke was that she wasn’t hungry, when I asked her if she’d have a bite to eat. Course not, I said, joking with her, you only ate recent, didn’t you, what was it, a day ago? She didn’t answer. She’d have to eat soon, I knew, else she’d pass out, but I wasn’t going to argue with her, because it’d just make her worse.

  We’d both have a proper feed soon anyhow, when we got to Whitby. Fish and chips on the seafront, claggy with vinegar, and a mighty dollop of steaming mushy peas. That’d sort the job. And just as I was thinking it, she started talking again. It was the queerest yet, it all came out in a rush so fast I could hardly mark what she was saying, she was like a tree branch snagged on a riverbank, sudden broke free into the current. Yes, the lambs would be all born by now, I answered her, no, they had a while yet before they were ready for selling. She quickened her pace as we nattered on.

  I thought, this is what it’ll be like, us pair chattering away like budgerigars, not bothering about anybody but usselves. I felt so bruff, thinking about it, I could’ve leapt a drystone wall.

  She was still on about the lambs and I was so flowtered listening she near escaped me, breaking sudden into a run as I noticed there were people up ahead. I caught hold her arm and pulled her toward me, she shouted the start of something so I clamped a hand quick over her mouth and pushed her to the ground, dropping down aside her. They fortunate hadn’t marked us, they were too far off, facing otherways, bent down examining the heather. I took my hand off her mouth, but she started to shout again so I quieted her up, I had to be firm. She couldn’t free herself with her hands tied behind her, but that wasn’t going to stop her struggling, I had to keep my hand pressed hard on her back, she was squirming like a fresh-caught fish. They were studying the heather, they must’ve seen a rabbit, or a grouse, they were looking where it’d gone. They gave up before long, walking off away from us, and it wasn’t until I glegged the four-by-four with its yellow and blue squares that I understood it wasn’t ramblers, it was police. I clamped tighter over her mouth, my palm hot and sluthery with spittle as I watched them get in the vehicle and drive off east along a bridleway, the direction of Goathland, and Garside. Gawbys. We’d have no trouble keeping hid, if they thought we were around them places still.

  It was late afternoon by the time we reached the Hole. It’d been slow going, as she kept needing to stop and rest and I didn’t want to risk getting her twined by hurrying her. We halted up at the lip of the Hole and viewed out over it. Even she must’ve been impressed, a sight like that. It was shaped in a bowl, l
ike a giant football stadium, the great sloping sides coloured different either end. The Gorse against the Bracken. The south-facing half was a semicircle of bright yellow, still blaring in the afternoon sun; the other half was in shade, grim brown with smears of green. We made our way toward the bracken end, and I undid her hands so she could step easier down the steep bank. I didn’t need to worry, for she was too tired to try codding me. She went down before me slipping and stumbling, gripping hold the stiff stalks of the bracken to balance herself. It reached thick up to our chests, blocking sight of the ground so we couldn’t tell where we were stepping. I kept us moving toward a crag of rock halfway down, the bracken thinning, growing through the cracks of stones and boulders. We settled usselves in the gap between two mighty stones, where it was wide enough she could lie down to sleep while I sat keeping watch, busying myself cutting another strap off my rucksack with a sharp piece of rock. When I’d done, I stored the bags together in the gap and moved quiet off the stone for a walk down the bottom. There was a pool of water I washed my face in, checking regular uphill there wasn’t a ruffle in the bracken and a small, escaping body. She was asleep when I got back, her eyes were shut anyhow, but I could see my bag had been shifted, and when I looked in later I was gradely pleased marking she’d drank some water and ate a sarnie.

  ♦

  The moon was half showing, yellowish, and her skin glowed pale and cold in its weak light. She didn’t look uncomfortable, mind, her lips and her eyelids closed soft. She always slept peaceable like that. I sat silent, watching, while the Moors whispered and rustled and sighed above us, and I thought, what the bugger was it so noisy for, it was the middle of the bleeding night?

  ♦

  It was black when I woke her, the moon clouded over. She didn’t look much pleased about it, her eyes two reluctant slits and the skin underneath all crozzled with drowsiness. Time to go, I said, getting the straps ready.

  We made steady progress over the open moor, no matter I was carrying both bags and I only had a dim-shaped idea of the route. I looked behind at her. She had her eyes down toward her hands, tied in front her body now. I’d made a leash and attached it on to her, and I thought she might’ve took badly to it, but she wasn’t playing up, she was keeping a decent pace, it was only a few times the strap pulled taut, and then I just had to give a couple of tugs and she sped up. She had her strength back, certain, after eating something. I felt easier now – we’d be in Whitby by morning if we kept like this. Everything was fettling up like I’d hoped, and I thought, right, what can we talk about, I’m mooded for a good old natter. I couldn’t find the proper-fitting subject, mind, so we trod on, silent.

  We were on the right path, because I could see the great walls of the military installation at Fylingdales off one side, two red dots marking the radar discs. What did they think – there was going to be a war? The Battle of the Farmers and the Off-comed-ones. Colonel, come quickly, I’ve picked up something on the radar, it appears to be advancing this way. I think it’s the onslaught of the giant tomatoes. A short way on from there, a dull shape came into view ahead, upright, still, man-sized. We paused up and waited to see what it would do. She was sudden all nerves, I could hear the slight shaking in her breath. I tried to take hold her hand but she moved away. Whatever it was, it was alone, I was sure, I’d looked all round but there was nothing else except for this bleary shape in front. We couldn’t wait there all night, so we moved forward, slow and watchful. And did we laugh when we saw what it was? We near fell over usselves, we’d been that daft, worrying it was a policeman or the like. It was a tumulus stone. I should’ve known when it didn’t shift for five minutes – we’d reached Lila’s Cross. A fair old time we’d have been, waiting for that to move, it’d been there a thousand years already, seven foot tall and rooted in the ground straight-backed as a Barwick maypole.

  Then it came to me, here was a subject we could talk about, and I explained her the whole history of the cross – how the minister Lila took an arrow in the eye for his master, King Edwin, and Edwin had been so heart-sluffened at his death he buried him under the very spot, his flesh by now passed into the turf, the worms sheltering in his bones.

  I was fain pleased at myself, remembering the story, and I told her about a couple of others – Ralph’s Cross; the Bride Stones – near enough reading them off my memory from years before when Mrs Pocklington had gave us the lesson of the history of the Moors and the Angles and the Vikings, and I’d been glued to my seat hearing it. I dropped back level with her, smiling, and looked at her face. She seemed she was crying again – she was all puffy-eyed, and I tried to touch her cheek to wipe off the dampness, but she wouldn’t let me. She was near undone with tiredness.

  And here’s the best story of all, I said, but she wasn’t going to look at me. The Fat Betty – do you know what that is? Not a pub, not rightly. It’s a mighty great stone on the Moors. I fancy them lot in town don’t know that, eh? The story goes, there was a farmer round these parts whose wife was named Fat Betty, owing to her size. The two of them had been to market one day, and the farmer was riding their horse and cart back home that night, through a thick fog, Betty sat in the cart with all the goods they’d bought, and the ones they couldn’t sell, when Betty fell out. Problem was, the farmer didn’t mark she’d gone until he got home and looked in the cart. He went straight back looking for her, searching all along the track they’d come, but she wasn’t anyplace to be sighted. She was lost to the Moors – no one ever saw her again. But the queer thing was, along the track, halfway across, a lumping great white stone had appeared. No person knew what it was, or where it came from, except that it’d never been there before that night.

  She’d lost interest, though, digging her heels refusing to move, but the walk had sapped her and I hauled her onward. Nothing like a story to pass the time on a journey. The Tumulus Tales. Forty-odd burial stones stood on the Moors, and each its story. I told her all the ones I knew, guiding her through the dark a couple of steps behind, pulling her along like a dog on a lead. We were like Herriot and his faithful companion, come by, there’s a good lass, now, I’ve a warm fire and a plate of liver for you when we get home, how does that sound?

  ♦

  A change in the light was the first sign of Whitby. It was black still when we got near, so the dull fug of orange sat over the town showed us the way. We didn’t head straight there, though – we angled toward the coast just south of it. It was too parlous yet, staying in the town. We had to hide out a while longer, fettle up our plans, figure out how we’d manage stowing on a ship, bide a time until our faces weren’t so fresh in folks’ minds – until they were half-forgot, crumpled up at the bottom of the dustbin, sogged with gravy leavings and budgerigar shite.

  There were fields now, cut into the moor, and paths, walls, a road. There was one wall I couldn’t find a gate for, and she wouldn’t go over the stile, so I had a job hoisting her up by the armpits, my fingers pressing into the fleshy tops of her breasts. She wasn’t mighty chuffed about it, but I ignored her, it was her fault anyhow, not going over by herself. We were on a path, moving downhill, hedgerows either side and sand dusted over the floor, the sound of cold, foamy waves crashing against the cliff, and the path opening out on to a great rocky beach. And then the sea, the lull of the sea, a salty mist stinging up our nostrils as we ran on to the beach. Dark, brooding cliff stretched both directions unbroken, except for one small pip of light nicked into the coastline – Whitby. We moved otherways from it, toward the dark. I was as good as dragging her along now, she was that tired. She was weak as a bandy-legged lamb, she’d have laid down right there, on the high jagged rocks climbing out the swirl, if I hadn’t towed her on. I’m looking for the right spot, I told her loud over the spray. I wasn’t worried about finding one. This stretch of coast was riddled with caves and tunnels and boggle-holes worn into the cliff, I knew – I’d spent hours and hours here before, playing at smugglers with Jess. We’d hide out in the boggle-holes, riling Mum an
d Janet right up for disappearing the whole afternoon, searching for forgotten smuggler hoards, ancient stashes of tobacco or jewellery untouched for a hundred years. Bracelets? I’ll show you bracelets – gold, silver, studded with diamonds and rubies stolen from the Orient, you don’t get those in a Christmas cracker, do you?

  We tried a couple of likely gaps that turned out to be flood-caves, before we found the champion spot. It wasn’t mighty large, but it was snugly hid. In the crook between the cliff and a jetty of rock was a boggle-hole with a low, pooled entrance you had to slide in lengthways so your backside was sopping, but then it opened into a small cavern high enough you could kneel inside. I’d need to get a light, or some matches, as I couldn’t see hardly anything, but it was perfect. It had a dry, sandy floor and enough space the both of us could lie down. No smuggled booty, mind. She rested down, her body juddering sobs and a quiet whimper coming from her. The journey had took a toll, she wasn’t in the best shape. She’d be fine, though, after a rest. I was thinking to untie her, but I knew she might sneak off when I was asleep, so I felt round the walls at all the stalactite formings hanging down over us heads, and I found one that curled from the ceiling in a ring on to the wall. It was the best luck yet. I knotted the wrist leash to it and then I set about making another, ripping the last strap off my rucksack by rubbing it up, down over a rock, and leashing that one to her ankle. Afterward, I lay down next her, rolled on my side, the sound of spray outdoors and the damp heat of her body and flutterbugs of excitement skittering in my belly, thinking what I’d do in the morning.