After the Snow

by Crockett, S. D.

  The peaks of the Rhinogs just grow out of the valleys, rising up from the sea. One minute you been lost in the snow-covered heather in the lee of a crag and the next you get up on high and see the sea stretching away, far off from Harlech to Barmuth. It’s a mighty big place.

  So it’s good when I tuck down among the craggy rocks at the bottom of the pass and follow the hill. I stop when I round the bluff.

  There it is. That ragged little house. I pick my way a bit careful down toward it, remembering those black toes sticking up out of the rags. I wonder how that body got there and who put it there and all that gruesome kind of stuff that make me want to turn back. But everything good and quiet. I go down through the pass and stand out in front.

  I got a funny feeling. I don’t like this place. Really. I’m glad I aint those two kids been left here all on my own. They sure gonna be pleased to see me.

  I bang on the door.

  “It’s me,” I shout. “I come back with some food.”

  I wait there for what feel like a pretty long time but nothing happen. No sound come from in the house or nothing.

  I bang again. Feel like someone watching me which don’t feel good.

  “It’s me who came with the sled,” I say. “Said I gonna come back with some food for you and your brother. I aint lying see. I aint gonna just leave you.”

  Right by the door is a small boarded window and I step up to it. Maybe I’m gonna be able to get a look inside cos I still don’t hear nothing.

  But right when I lean forward to look through a crack in the boards something catch my eye. Down in the snow. I stare down and my eyes follow the footprints. Down to the end of the house. Down where the shed is.

  And as I follow those tracks, I raise my head up and I see him.

  His head coming out from round the end of the house. Like he just heard me. He aint pleased to see me here cos I can see he’s been busy. His mouth all dirty and red.

  That hungry dog will kill you, boy!

  Good dog calling me loud.

  “Let me in!” I shout at the door.

  The blooded dog aint moving yet but he’s gonna. He’s growling low down in his throat. He’s big and thick in the shoulders—black turning to brindle gray.

  He come right out from around the end of the house and stand foursquare straight at me, head and shoulders flat and low. He aint scared of me—I see it then.

  Big hungry dog with manblood on his mouth.

  “Hey, girl. It’s me. Let me in or the dog gonna get me!”

  The growling dog step forward. Our eyes meet. For that moment everything been hanging in a dark tunnel between us. His spit splatter out across the snow as he rage deep down in his hungry guts. His jaws snap. Mouth open. Teeth bared. Eyes full of fearsome anger.

  He’s gonna get me down in two seconds.

  There’s a crunch in the snow—she-dog slinking along the front of the house behind me—

  “Let me in!”

  Her shackles are high. Growl make my blood turn cold. Those two dogs kind of talking to each other now about how they gonna bring me down and the fear burst open inside me flooding down my legs.

  Then, like a miracle, the door of that house open.

  I don’t think nothing. Just fall inside. And big dog bound forward angry and dump down in the snow where I been standing.

  But the door bang shut at my back.

  The dog jump up—his heavy feet shudder against the door—and I can hear his slobbering rasps of anger behind the wood. My chest heave up and down so fast with breathing I think I’m gonna fall.

  “You aren’t going to hurt us, are you?”

  It’s so dark I can’t even see the girl.

  There’s a nasty smell in here.

  The girl witter on. My heart been beating so fast I think I’m gonna faint in this cold dank dark place, and I been mighty pleased I can’t see that thin pale face for a minute or two. But pretty soon she stop talking.

  I kind of pull myself together then cos I got to think this thing out good, what with that mean dog slathering just a board’s width behind me with the taste of manflesh on his lips cos he been feeding on that dead body in the barn for sure.

  “Here I am,” say the girl, all quiet now, and I feel a light hand clamp on the arm of my coat. “The dogs are outside, aren’t they?”

  “You got a candle in here?” I ask.

  “I don’t know how to light it. Only me da know how to do that.” The girl pulling my arm and I stumble after her. It feel like I got under a frozen rock in this house it’s so cold and dark.

  “Where’s your brother?”

  “Sleeping.”

  She’s fumbling in the dark. “Here.” I feel her hand running down my sleeve, and she put something in my hand. It’s a candle. I kneel down on that cold floor and pull my strike out from my pack. I light a bit of tinder and get the candle lit.

  The light from the candle draw out the room slow and flickery around me. It’s a small room, and the window been stuffed with grass and branches behind the boards to keep the cold out. But it aint a good job and there’s sticks and stuff fallen all over the floor. I been kneeling in front of a small chimney. The stones all black where there been a fire sometime, but it aint been recent cos the soot’s all damp. There’s a leather saddle on the floor and an old wooden chair in the corner facing the wall.

  My breath mist the cold air.

  Beside the chimney been some mean shelves with nothing on them except a big book. Underneath the shelf I see a pile of rags and old grass and under a blanket a small shape. It’s the brother, for sure.

  But he aint moving. I see that right away. His head face the wall. It been thrown back like a dead fish floating on the water all stiff and aint the right way up somehow.

  The girl still looking at me. She can’t see her brother dead and stiff behind her cos she’s blinking in the glow of the candle.

  “Food. You said you had food for me and our kid.” That’s when she turn to the shape under the blanket on the floor. “Tommy. He’s come back. Tommy.”

  She move all funny like you do when you been so cold you can’t hardly walk. She go down on her knees and slowly she reach out to shake him, but I see her stop then.

  She sit staring like that with her fingers resting on his body for quite a bit but I can’t see her face.

  Then she turn to me, her hair long and tangled, thin hand sticking out from her ragged sleeve and there aint nothing much in her eyes.

  “You said you’ve brought some food,” she say.

  And she put open her palm.

  I got a bit of oatcake in my pocket and I give it to her just to see what she’s gonna do, and she take it and shuffle back to her dead brother under the shelf and then she just get under the blanket with him, her face to the wall.

  “What’s your name?” I say.

  But she don’t say nothing back.

  Right then there been a great noise outside, snarling and shrieking and growling like the dogs been fighting over that dead body in the end of the house. That’s what hungry dogs do. I reckon there been a runty dog just got a good cuffing.

  But I aint a runty dog and I got a problem good and proper, cos I got to get out of this place of death and cold so I can get back to my camp but I been surrounded by a pack of hungry dogs who got a taste for manflesh and I got a girl too. A girl curled up next to her dead-smelling brother eating my food and not talking. I wish I know what Magda gonna do cos she been good with the kids and know what to say and all that kind of thing. I reckon my charity drying up pretty quick.

  I got a feeling—kind of angry and sad at the same time. It aint my fault her brother’s dead. I aint gonna be able to take him with me yesterday cos I near didn’t get the sled up the hill on my own. Couple of kids aint gonna make it easier. All the same, that feeling been a bit like when the baby hare got dead in my place on the Farngod and I don’t like it.

  10

  The dog pack musta smell out that rotten body in the
end of the house cos they been hungry dogs. One thing I know about dogs, they aint gonna eat something that been dead awhile unless they been proper hungry. What they want is something that start off alive, weak and ill maybe cos that’s gonna be easy to bring down, but alive.

  And the dogs seen me now and smelt the girl and most likely her brother too, so they aint gonna leave this place in a hurry. Dogs pretty patient if they get hungry. I mean one dog gonna be easy cos one dog on its own gonna remember something about a man and behave. But more than one, and the dog got its own pack and you just gonna be the same as any bit of meat if you let the dog get wind of it.

  They just gonna wait.

  But waiting aint gonna be any good for me. I got to think a way out of this. Beside the door been that little boarded window. Aint big enough for no dog to get in and high up. I stretch up to take a look out.

  There been two dogs I can see in front of the house. One lying down all curled up; the other cleaning itself. And they got a hand. It’s just lying in the snow.

  I drop down from my toes all cold. You see half a person’s hand all bloody in the snow and you gonna get cold right down in the bottom of your stomach too.

  I reckon this pack been half wolf by the look of the Number One dog who try to get me earlier. The wolf-dog aint so fond of people as the dog is. If they get hungry or got a taste for manflesh you got to hope you don’t meet a pack of them on the mountain.

  Well I aint got no choice about that now but I aint gonna sit in here blubbing about it either. That’s the kind of thing Alice do when she got pregnant. Just sit upstairs blubbing like she got to think the whole thing roundside about or something.

  Aint nothing to think out, Alice, I shout through the door. You only fourteen. But she don’t come out even though Magda say she gonna brew up a tea and see what she can do to sort it out. But Alice don’t want to think on that—she don’t want to sort it out—so now she got the baby and gone to live with Geraint.

  Well I got to sort this out. I got to think hard and fast and good. Longer the dogs sit there, sharper and faster and hungrier they gonna be, that’s for sure.

  I look out the hole. It aint a big pack, just a dog and a bitch and last summer’s pups grown-up I reckon. The only thing I can do to keep those dogs off my back is make a bit of fire. Dogs pretty scared of fire.

  “We got to get out of here,” I say to the girl.

  She don’t move or say nothing but she can hear me I know. I break up that old chair, and with all that brushwood and grass behind the boarding on the windows, I make some torches by tying the brushwood bundles on the end of the chair legs. It warm me up and stop me thinking about the girl and her brother.

  I go to the door and look out the window again. Big dog hear me this time and he bound over and I hear his feet thump against the wall outside which make me pull back proper fast. I hear him snarling. The others got a bit interested too I can hear.

  My sled. It’s sitting out in front of the house. I aint gonna get my sled when I got to fight for my life with a whole pack of dogs and get that girl and me out of the pass. No way.

  That get me down.

  What am I gonna do with no sled? I kind of slump down by the door then. The whole thing gone wrong. Dog tell me. He say, Don’t need no one else’s sickly pups suckling at your dugs. He tell me enough times, but I didn’t listen cos the mad dog or the mother hare or whatever it was got me in the night and make me come down here thinking about the girl and her brother all cold and hungry on their own.

  The girl say something.

  “Tom,” she say. “Tommy? The boy’s come back. We’ve got to go wi’ him.”

  It been good and useful she’s acting alive again cos she’s gonna have to help me. But she’s gone a bit funny in her head talking to the brother cos she know he been dead.

  “Tom aint gonna go nowhere. Tom got dead the same as you and me gonna be if we don’t think sharp and get out of here. But I got a plan—so we can get out of here. You’re the only one left, and I come a long way to get you against what the dog in my head tell me. I done it, so you got to get up and help me too. Or you gonna be just as cold and dead as your brother.”

  I reckon I said that pretty kind. Patrick say I talk good and straight. He tell me stuff like that when we been out together on the mountain. He talk a bit more when you got him on his own but most people just don’t give him a quiet space to start. But he say he can trust me cos I can’t lie too good.

  Anyway I reckon I told the girl straight all the stuff she need to know. Just want her to get up from under that blanket.

  But the girl aint moving. Even after my little talk she’s still lying there. So I grab her up by her arm—feel like it gonna snap if I pull too hard. But now I got her standing up she gone all stiff with those dark eyes all screwed up so tight I got to push her eyelids open with my thumbs.

  “If you aint gonna come now, then you can stay with your dead brother,” I tell her. “I aint gonna stop you.”

  I got fire in my belly growing ready for the fight we gonna have with the dogs, so I aint got much charity in me if she aint gonna hurry up. Stupid girl still aint realizing what I got to do to get her out of here.

  “I’m gonna lose my sled cos of you!” I shout that out pretty loud and angry in her face.

  Outside the dogs hear me, and they scuffle about a bit. It aint bad they hear me angry.

  “I’M GONNA LOSE MY SLED COS OF YOU!”

  I shake her hard.

  The girl open her eyes proper then.

  “What about Tommy?”

  But I aint gonna answer stupid questions like that.

  “You gonna have to get on my back. There’s a big pack of hungry dogs out there and they aint friendly either so we got to scare them with fire to get out of the pass.”

  She look at me good and proper now.

  “You got to be on my back nice and tight and looking behind us too. You see a dog come up mean behind me you wave this at him.”

  I show her the torch I make and wave it about a bit so she know what I mean.

  “Mary.”

  “What?”

  “Mary. My name.”

  “Well we got to go, Mary. You hear all that stuff I tell you about clinging on my back and keeping the dogs off with fire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  I get down by the chimney, get that big book down off the shelf, and tear the pages out of it to start a fire. The pages all thin and crinkly.

  This is the book of the generations of Adam.

  That’s what it say on the first one I tear out—it sound like a good story coming up. Magda aint gonna like me tearing pages out of a book cos she get pretty angry at anything like that and you gonna have to watch it if she get angry with you, I tell you.

  But I reckon this been different cos I got to make a bit of fire, Magda. I aint got no choice. I reckon if it gonna be STAYING ALIVE against BURNING A BOOK TO STAY ALIVE, then anyone gonna burn the book. Cos the book’s just an idea—Patrick tell me that. An idea’s fine but it aint the same as staying alive. I mean Dad go on about doing my reading and stuff cos it make me more human than talking to the dog skull and he say I got to choose sometime—but choose what though? We all got to keep living aint we?

  Patrick say some people die for their ideas and he tell me, he say, “Willo, I’m not one of those people who gonna die for an idea, and the reason why is because men are bad and all their ideas too. You never know what they’re really thinking—give them an inch of rope and they’ll be making a noose for your neck with it before you turn your back.”

  That’s exactly what he tell me cos I remember it pretty good. Patrick aint gonna mind me tearing up this book. It’s me or the dogs. And it aint gonna be me, I tell you that right off. Dogs do dog things and man do man things, and they aint supposed to get muddled up cos when they do it aint gonna be good for no one. Each got to respect the other. Same way with books and ideas and all that kind of thing the grown-ups
talk about—aint good if it all get muddled up with staying alive I reckon.

  “How many dogs are there?” It’s the girl asking me.

  “Bout six.”

  She stand all quiet, but she lean down and pick up one of my torches.

  “That’s right,” I say. “Hold it tight like that and if a dog come near poke it in his face. Don’t get too scared. They only dogs after all—you got to think like that cos they can smell fear and that makes them really good and hungry.”

  She give a small nod.

  The little fire of paper blaze up for a second and it give out a warm glow that make a good feeling in that dingy dread room. Girl sense that too I reckon and she stand near it to soak up some heat like it been the first warm day or something. Probably one day long ago people sit in front of that fire reading that big book about Adam, all happy and calm, and the house aint got boarded windows or dogs outside then either. It kind of make you sad knowing that.

  I got to light the torches quick though before that little fire go out. Time like this you just got to go, aint no good thinking on it too long and letting all that fear in your stomach get your legs weak and useless.

  “Get on my back,” I tell the girl.

  I bend over and she climb on light as a feather. She’s coughing cos the room near filled with smoke by now.

  Got to face the pack.

  “Are you ready?” I say.

  “Yes.”

  11

  The light outside blind me for a second.

  Big dog jump up from the snow. He been mighty surprised cos I start shouting to the sky and waving those torches around. I got to get really big and loud and mean cos dogs sense it. The just-grown pups turn and hide their tails at the god of fire and anger I become right then, so the Number One dog got to show them why he been Number One, and he curl his lip real nasty.