After the Snow

by Crockett, S. D.

  I take my knife out my belt then, real slow and steady. The wind blow up eddies of snow and whip them around the front of the house. I’m gonna talk to the girl like I don’t know nothing.

  “I aint got no food,” I say. Then I step along the front of the house to where the shed is. It’s all broken down but I can see that one time it probably been a good strong little barn. But that was a long time ago and now the walls are all pitted where the stones fallen out and the roof aint been fixed up too good either.

  At the front is a low opening musta been a window. The ledge is deep in snow. I got my back to the wall and the knife in my hand. That knife that Geraint got me, it got a good long blade that go right up in the handle and it’s made of proper Chinese metal so I can sharpen it easy. Which I done a lot, which make me feel better standing here like this, not knowing what gonna be in that shed. Maybe that girl aint really on her own and her dad or someone waiting to get me. Cos hungry cold people aint the nicest. That’s true for sure cos I seen it with my own eyes.

  But I got to look inside now and my mind racing all over the place, and I feel like I got myself in a Broogle picture where everything got a reason to be in it.

  “Have you got any food for me and our kid?”

  I can hear the girl’s voice shouting through the cracks in the door back there but I don’t say nothing, just lean around into the shed and look through the window. It’s dark inside, and the floor is covered in ridges of snow that blown through the open door at the end. Cold and dark.

  Then I see something. In the corner. And I see it’s a person. A pair of bony feet sticking out from under a pile of rags, the toes all black.

  And the feet aint alone. They been attached to a body covered in rags.

  On the floor of the shed.

  All twisted.

  There’s an arm upright, the fingers sticking out from under the rags too. Dead body just thrown down on the floor by the looks of it.

  I pull my head back and lean against the wall.

  I tell you my heart beating like a drum now.

  The girl’s voice come from the house. “Have you got any food? Just a tiny bit of food.”

  I’m still leaning against the wall. “Where’s your dad?”

  “He went out after the woman to get some wood, but that was two days ago. I’m waiting for him to come back and make it warm and get some food. Have you got a bit of food? It’s just me and our kid Tommy who wants a tiny bit of food. Please.”

  I hear the door open, and her head peek out, staring along the front of the house at me leaning back against the wall. And hanging around her legs is a little kid. A boy. He aint no more than about five and he got the same white face and green under his eyes and he got his little bony hand sticking out the door at me as the snow blow up around the girl’s legs.

  “Want food.” He say it all quiet.

  And I know then they alone, and they got the same color skin like the dead body behind me in the end of the house and I know their dad aint coming back.

  These two kids just gonna die out here.

  “Want food,” say the little boy.

  But I can’t stand it no more. This place is wrong. I know it.

  You may as well throw your food to the storm. You don’t want someone else’s sickly pups suckling at your dugs. You’ve got to get up to your place on the Farngod before nighttime.

  The dog talking to me good and slow. And the dog talking sense.

  “Want food,” say the little kid.

  “I’m gonna come back later,” I say.

  “Don’t go,” say the girl.

  “I’m gonna come back later.” I pick up the rope from the sled.

  Those starving kids calling after me with their hollow eyes and thin voices, but I don’t look cos I know I aint coming back, and I just got to go away from this place.

  An eye for an eye.

  Just pull myself away from that rotten body lying in the snow and those starving kids begging for food and lean forward into the rope and pull my sled out of there as quick as it gonna go.

  8

  I got proper angry with that sled bashing my ankles—the sweat starting to soak right through me which aint good out on the side of the mountain like this. Once the sweat wet you through, you’re gonna end up like an icicle.

  I shout at the snow quite a bit. The shouting aint helping me I know. It probably make me sweat more and my face got red I can feel it. But sometimes when you’re gonna be that angry it aint something you can stop just by saying it gonna be a good thing to stop.

  It’s like a mad dog got inside me, just jumping around under my skin like he’s walking on a fire and frothing at the mouth and barking, and nothing gonna stop him except going back for those kids.

  But I don’t reckon it’s my dog making me feel like that cos my dog’s a clever dog and he don’t get the frothing-mouth disease and go all mad on the mountain. No, he’s the sort of dog who gonna curl up tight with his back into the weather like a sensible dog.

  And my dog been good and sensible. He told me right when he make me go quick away from those kids just standing all frozen and starving with their dark eyes begging me. They’re just gonna be deadweights.

  It got to be a mad dog inside me now telling me to go back. The mad dog that go dancing around making me shout at the sky and the ground and the sled and get that hot wild feeling.

  I got to get to my place up on the Farngod but I can hear a telling beating through my skull. The telling spit at me with every snowflake stinging in my eyes. The telling dancing about on hot coals shouting like a lunatic but I don’t want to hear it.

  My sled heavy enough. I been hungry enough. But all the mad dog see is that little girl and her red lips.

  You don’t want sickly pups suckling at your dugs. Might as well throw your food to the storm.

  I been proper pleased to hear my good clever dog talking all calm to me. I aint gonna hear him if I shout all angry at the sky like that. Good clever dog gonna make it all right. He gonna tell me what to do. Maybe he gonna bite that mad dog on the tail and make him roll over on his back all cowering like dogs do when a bigger stronger dog jump on them. Dogs sensible like that.

  If you been wondering how I know so much about the dogs—well I got it mostly from watching them. Cos sometimes in the summer after the melt, I just lie down behind a rise on the hill and watch if a pack of dogs make a summer camp up there. I got to be upwind of them and quiet and still and the rest of it. But once I got myself all tight behind some rock, I’m gonna watch those dogs all day if I can. You got to know about dogs cos trapping one gonna be proper difficult if you don’t know how they move about and how they do their being-a-dog stuff.

  Sometimes when I been watching them I wish I been a dog. But in a pack there’s always one dog who get bitten and scuffed and only get the worst bits of the kill to eat and I wouldn’t want to be that runty dog unless he turn around one day and grow big and strong and clever and stick it to the other dogs. Then I’m not gonna mind being the runty dog. Cos sometimes the runty dog got a pretty interesting character. Runty dog looking out for mean tricks all the time so he’s gonna be pretty clever too.

  I never try and trap a runty dog, not just cos he probably got dog-bitten fur—that aint the reason even though it’s a good reason. No, I aint gonna try and trap the runty dog cos I reckon he need every chance he can get if he want to jump up big and show the pack what to do one day.

  I say I want a gun so I can get a dog real easy. When Geraint let me and Alice hold his gun I got a big strong feeling that I’m gonna shoot at anything that move if it been mine. I’m gonna be able to shoot all of them if I want. Just like that. Bam. Bam. Bam. Get plenty of dog fur then.

  I ask my dad about that feeling and he laugh pretty loud and tell Patrick what I been saying. Patrick laugh good and proper too so it’s obviously a pretty funny thing I say even though I can’t see it.

  My dad tell me a story then about the old days. He say, Let this
be a lesson. But it was quite a good story not like a lesson at all. The story was from the time long before the sea stop working. Back then you’re gonna be able to sail across the sea to America cos the cold aint come then. Now near half America got snow like us but no one don’t care much about America anymore, Patrick say, everyone just looking east these days.

  Anyway, back in the days before all that, lots of people sail across the sea to America, cos America got lots of beautiful hills and rivers and forests and hardly any people living there. And they got all these grassy plains covered in big animals with thick warm fur, and these animals been called bison. Anyway, the people who live in America before everyone come across the sea—they called the Indians—they gonna be sitting up behind a rock with a spear or bow and arrow, watching the bison. The Indians got funny names like Chief Touch the Clouds and Chief He Dog, so I got pretty interested in that. And those Indians follow the bison cos they got tent houses they can move called teepees. And they follow the bison across the plains and kill one every now and then. And that bison make all the clothes and tents and food their family gonna need, which is pretty lucky for the Indians being surrounded by so many of them.

  But then the people come from across the sea and they got guns. And when the men with the guns see the bison all standing around eating grass in the sun, they got proper excited. They don’t need to sit behind a rock and live in a teepee to catch one. They just shoot them. They shoot and shoot and shoot, and the shooting got to be just a game my dad say.

  And then one day, everyone wake up and the plains just covered in dead bison rotting in the sun. And that been the end of that. No more meat and fur and leather. No more bison.

  Bet the Americans wish they had all those bison now, Patrick say.

  Anyway, that was the story my dad tell me. And my dad tell me, That’s the truth about guns.

  I guess that been the lesson cos lessons are always about things you want to do that been wrong things in the end. But I still want a gun. Just now I know you got to watch out and not go mad if you got one.

  I reckon if that mad dog in my head got a gun he gonna shoot just about anything. Even the snow and the wind, maybe even himself. But I think the mad dog sleeping now.

  I got to be quite close to the Farngod. I come up on the west side of the mountain and I reckon soon enough I’m gonna find the ring of stones. Magda say the ring of stones look like a crown of thorns. But no one gonna make a crown out of thorns. Girls especially. They gonna make a crown of flowers in the summer maybe. That’s the kind of thing they do at the Barmuth Meet anyway. Magda say some funny things sometimes.

  My dad tell me the stones been as old as old can be. Older than writing and books—and crowns. Big stones all sticking out of the ground like teeth. All in a circle. He said it been made so long ago the people who did it probably didn’t even have names back then.

  The sky grow pretty dark in the east. I got to find some place to bed down and get a fire going. Got to get a brew on or my sweat gonna be ice before I know it. Gonna be colder than those kids down in the pass.

  I always been lucky though. Cos right now when I reckon I been proper lost and night coming down and the rest of it, I see a shape on the slope above me.

  Arcing off the ridge—a broken wincone with half a blade still on. I stop and pull the rope off my shoulder and stand up straight. The snow pelting down around and it been hard to see for sure but I reckon I turned up right in the middle of the winfarm without even knowing it. I can see the busted towers over to the north and up on the ridge that broken wincone lying on the ground.

  A wincone, especially one with a blade still on, is a pretty impressive looking thing I tell you. Big and smooth and lying on the ridge like a great broken bird just fall out of the sky.

  The last haul up to the ridge been the hardest part of the day. The hill so steep and the snow got proper deep here.

  The wincone aint got nothing left inside it—stealers probably got that right off a long time ago. But that been a good thing for me cos I’m gonna be able to get inside. That’s what I mean about lucky. The wincone big enough even for my sled, and I use the last light of the day to fix up a good entrance tunnel in the snow and get the firebox going. Nearly as good as a house in here.

  I feel good and snug. I aint got to worry about the wincone blowing down or dogs getting in or nothing. Tonight gonna be a good night for thinking about Plan B a bit more. I make myself a warm bed and get myself tucked in tight. I can just about make out the writing on the inside of the wincone above my head. I been studying it as the fire go out. It say NEW VISTA ENERGY in black letters.

  It gets me thinking of the old-time stuff my dad and the other grown-ups always talk about. They say the winfarm been made to make power back in the old days, but the old-time people find they don’t work too good in the cold cos the blades can’t turn. Everyone been thinking the government done a good thing building the winfarms, but it aint worked, and now they all broken on the hilltops. Patrick say the government shoulda been making more nuclear plants like the one at Wylfa, which is strange cos he run away from there. Maybe you’re right, says my dad, cos then it wouldn’t be ANPEC who got all the money and power. But my dad don’t hold too much with any of it really. Say we got to look after ourselves. I really wish my dad been here so I can ask him more about all that stuff. My dad usually got an answer for everything.

  I got a nasty feeling then like I been a stone just tossed into the middle of Trawsfinnid Lake sinking slowly down into the black water and no one aint gonna know I’m there cos once that stone go under the surface it’s gone forever.

  I tell you I got a big panicky feeling lying in the dark in that wincone all alone thinking I been a stone sinking in the lake.

  9

  The mad dog slip right back inside my head.

  It must be about four o’clock in the morning. That time when everything look worse the more you think on it.

  I stir up the fire. I got to talk to the dog, but the stones in his gray eyes staring at me flat and cold. I stroke his bony skull. Why aint you biting that mad dog on the tail? I ask him. Why aint you getting him quiet?

  I’m tired, boy. Let me rest.

  But I need you dog.

  I said, let me rest.

  The mad dog been proper excited finding me awake at this bad time of day. He’s practically dancing for joy.

  Tell me dog, what am I gonna do?

  But my good dog just close his eyes and sleep.

  The mad dog gonna kill me I know.

  He got me thinking about those two starving kids again. He’s standing there barking cos he don’t want to leave them all cold and starving with no mum or dad or nothing. Mad dog live like he permanently in summertime with plenty of food, and he won’t stop barking and tugging on my sleeve with his telling. He just won’t stop. He say, Remember the leveret.

  Once I come back to a snare I set and found a leveret under the hare. It was young but it got its eyes open and everything. Just sitting there helpless with its ears pinned back all soft and silky and a bit pink. Sitting there and its mother all strangled in the noose. Just a bit of blood dropping out her nose onto the snow. That’s what that little girl with her red lips remind me of. The blood on the snow and the young hare lying all scared and flat when I go to pick it up.

  I never lay my snares so early again after that.

  Course I put the leveret up in my place on the Farngod but it been too small so it die anyway. I didn’t keep that tiny skull on a stick. I just bury it up there. I didn’t tell no one. I been sorry about it—I really am.

  Maybe the mad dog aint been a mad dog at all. Maybe it been that mother hare. I got to go back for the kids see, cos if I don’t then the hare and the mad dog gonna come back to me night after night til it been too late and I’m gonna go mad if it do that.

  Reckon I just get those two kids and take them down to the power lines soon as the weather clears. Leave them on the road. A government truck gonna come by
cos they keep the roads pretty clear underneath the pylons, even this time of year. Then I reckon the government truck gonna take the kids to the city—that’s where I reckon they come from—cos they’re only kids after all, aint done nothing wrong. And it aint far off my way.

  First light come up. My dad aint gonna be too pleased knowing I left the tent and the firebox and all the stuff up in the wincone but I aint hauling my sled up and down the mountain heavy like a boulder. I reckon I’m gonna need to take the sled cos those kids aint ready for a long walk in the snow. No way. It been a dangerous tactic I know cos you never know when the weather gonna come down. But really I aint got no choice. And Dad, you aint here now.

  I put some oatcakes in my pocket. Got my tinder and strike too.

  Outside the wind look manageable but I got to tread careful over that deep snow, even in snowshoes. Back down the mountain, back down into the pass, back to that house stinking of death and the thin girl with the red lips. And I got to be quick so I can drag those hopeless kids back up to my camp in the wincone before night come again or I’m gonna be as starved and frozen as they been. Another thing I got to be careful of is losing my way cos snow’s like a blanket that make everything look the same.

  You see what I mean about the mad dog trying to kill me.

  But my feet just fall down the ridge in the deep snow and it aint too hard to see. The wind stop bluffing around my ears when I get down off the hill. It really tire you out when the wind don’t know what it’s doing, cos one minute it gonna take your hood off and the next it lie so still there aint gonna be a ripple on water.

  All across the hills the snow fold down into the crags and glens. The gray sky touch the hilltops so you can’t see where the hills stop and the sky starts. But that gray sky take the sting out of the cold which is one good thing.

  I struggle and heave and make my way back down into the pass best I can. I got a feeling pretty tired and washed out. Aint really been too warm or full in my stomach these last few days. And something jittering about inside me. I aint used to being Number One; that’s the truth.