She just look at me. And I forgive her the world.
“She’s worse than a dog, Willo. Hearing me, whore? Dogs don’t bite the hand that feeds them.”
Dorothy move but no words come from her mouth.
Patrick got the back of my neck. Holding it to look at her. He pull back his coat with his free hand. Slide his hand into his belt. Take out a gun.
“Now, Willo. What do you do with an injured dog? You put it out of its misery. That’s the kind thing to do, isn’t it?”
“No!”
“Put it out of its misery.” He push me closer. “You want to be put out of your misery, don’t you, Dorothy?”
She twitch. A broken sound escape her lips.
Patrick take the gun and press it against her head. “This is how you shoot a dog, Willo.”
34
Maybe this been the time for my dying. And I don’t want it to be now. Maybe it been the end. And the end coming up proper slow with the taste of fear in your mouth. It aint quick like you think.
It been like your whole life floating about you, and every sight and sound and person you ever know gonna come knocking and telling and laughing and crying and you gonna be thinking on every thing you said and didn’t do and the things you did do too and all the bad and the good muddled up together like there aint no end or no beginning neither.
Like the stars stretching up in the neverending sky.
They throw me like a sack. Into the back of the truck. I can smell the truck. Hear the truck. Taste it in the dark. My hands tied tight at my back. Another body tossed in beside me.
Maybe it’s Dorothy.
The truck shudder. Engine jump into life. Dad tell me about engines. But he didn’t tell me about the smell. The smell of it. The smoke that come coughing out. Reckon that aint the only thing he aint told me. My dad aint been the man I think he been. But he aint been the man Patrick say.
Got to try and forget the bad things Patrick tell me. Cos everyone gone now. Just me and this body beside me. And it gonna be the bad memories that stick. Patrick been tunneling inside my head like a maggot when it get in a potato. Aint gonna see much change on the outside but inside there aint gonna be nothing left. It only been the things inside your head that count, Willo. Aint nothing can get inside if you don’t let it. You can carry the good around in your head like a ship on the sea. Carry it around in your head where no one gonna touch it.
The truck bump along fast, lurching left and right as it goes. The body roll against me in the dark.
The body trying to talk. Spluttering like it got a mouth full of blood. Talking like talking aint easy.
“Who are you?”
“Willo Blake,” I whisper.
“Willo? It’s me.”
“Callum!” I turn over on my bruised body.
“What did they do with Dorothy?” he say, his voice hoarse.
“They … She’s dead.”
“You know … for sure?”
“I seen her.”
I can hear his breath in my ear. Our heads rattling together on the floor of the truck.
“You need to know something. I didn’t tell you. Your father—”
“I know. Know who he is.”
The truck turn hard to the right. I can feel Callum Gourty’s taut body beside me.
“Where are they taking us?” I say.
“They’ll kill you, Willo … . You’re important to them … . You’ve got to—” He gurgle deep in his throat. The cough come up and I hear it. The blood spluttering out of him.
“You’ve got to get out. Got to—” The coughs wrack his body again. “Got to get to the boat,” he whisper.
“Boat?”
“Inside my shoes there’s a blade.”
I got to get my face close just to hear him. Lying on the cold floor of the truck with my face close to this hurting man.
“What?”
“My shoe. There’s a blade.”
“But what is the boat?”
“The boat. To the Island.”
“What island?”
“Away, Willo—”
“Dorothy talked,” I say.
“Dorothy didn’t know … much.”
“You mean about the boat?”
“Nothing important.”
“What about Jacob?”
“I don’t know anyone called Jacob.” The pain croak out of Callum Gourty with each mouthful of words. “Never heard of Jacob.”
“Where is the boat?”
He cry out. His breath rasping deep and hard.
“The beach under Harlech Castle. They’ll leave before the melt’s over. Something you must do for me. Someone who’s waiting for me … Someone very important to me. You must get to them.”
“But what about you?”
“The boat, Willo. Like your father wanted.”
“I aint got a clue what he wanted.”
“Listen, Willo—”
I got to get nearer cos Callum been talking in tiny whispers now.
“He couldn’t tell you because it was too dangerous. But the boat. It’s ready. You must try and get away. And help her. Please. We need you.”
“Who? Who is it?”
“My daughter. She’s waiting for me … .”
The truck slow down. Outside I hear voices.
We come to a stop.
I can hear boots on the ground. I lie still. Footsteps at the back of the truck.
Is it gonna be now? Is it now—the end? I close my eyes.
“Two prisoners.”
“Where to?”
“Wylfa camp.”
“Move on.”
The footsteps move away.
The truck move off.
“Callum? Callum?”
“Make sure—” The blood bubbling up inside him. I hear it. He cough. His body retching.
“Callum,” I say. “My father—”
His legs scrabble against the floor of the truck. Strange high-pitched sound coming out of him. I try to pull myself upright. Try to sit. The truck take a bend in the road and I fall back.
A sigh come out from his mouth. “Get my daughter on the boat—”
“Wait!” I sit up. Shuffle around. I can feel his body behind me. Feel the rough fabric of his trouser leg. I feel down his leg with my fingers. Feel the damp blood on his knee. The hardness of his shins. I lean back. I got my hands on his feet now. I got to the laces on his shoe. Feel the knots with my swollen fingers. Got to unpick the strings. Like tying a snare in the dark.
His legs stiffen and jerk up. I pull my hands away. The breath gurgle out of him and he’s limp like a rag.
It been his last moment. I hear it. In the dark. I aint never lain so close to someone dead. Like when you snuff out a candle. And the whisping smoke get in your nose. It got a bad smell the last burn of the wax.
I wonder where the last smoke of this big man gone. I can’t see it or feel it.
There been a time before when I been thinking I’m gonna die. Up on the Farngod. In the cave. I got lost in that cave with no light. Lost in the dark tunnels burrowing into the mountain. And no one know where I been. And the mountain breathe so slow and quiet like it only take one breath every thousand years. And there aint no stars. No sky in that blackness. You aint never gonna know how long you been down there. Aint no point in calling out.
But I do call. I call out to the mountain. And the fear got so strong I lose myself. Just like a dead cold stone lying there alone.
And when I wake up, I still been alive and the mountain sighing and whispering to me. I’m only a mountain. I’m only a lump of rock. It’s your thoughts you been scared of.
And the voice of the mountain and the hare and the dog and the people who been in that cave a thousand years before whispering in the dark. And then I aint been scared. And I feel it. Smell the mountain behind me and the living air before me. And I crawl out from the tunnels.
And I aint never been scared of the dark after that. Just the things in my head.
> So I got to do it.
Got to get out of here. They’re gonna kill me or make me talk otherwise. That’s what I know in my head. I seen what they do. That picture of Dorothy—broken—hanging down in that cell. That picture burned behind my eyes.
I got to get his shoe off. Find the blade.
Got to get the shoe off this dead man I don’t know. Don’t know except his name.
I close my eyes. Feel the strings. Follow them. Make a picture in my head of the knot. Tease it out.
I undo it. Loosen the lace. Pull the shoe off his foot. And when I get my hand inside it’s still warm. Still warm and damp. I scuffle about inside it with my fingers and pull up the sole.
Feel a hard piece of metal.
I can hardly feel my fingers. But the blade bite into the fibers of the rope. One cut. One cut at a time. Just got to be patient. Cos I don’t want today to be the day when I get tossed into the blackness like a stone.
I get myself free and blow into my palms. Get the blood back, hack at the rope around my ankles. I put my face down against Callum Gourty and feel his stubble rough against my cheek. There aint no more blood running about his veins cos I put my finger on his neck. It aint pulsing paam paam paam. It been strange feeling that face so close. Can’t remember what it look like even.
I put the shoe back on his foot. Don’t seem right to leave him with no shoes on. I push his eyelids closed in the dark like I seen Magda do before when that woman from the city got dead. “Push them closed so the dead don’t take you with them.”
And every second I think the truck gonna stop. Some faceless man gonna come around and drag me out. Throw me into that pit of bodies in the plantation.
My body been racing so hard it stop the pain. Stop the telling racing through my head. Just got to get out.
I got the blade between my fingers and draw it down across the canvas at the back of the truck. Like scoring leather.
The fabric scratch with every cut. I feel the air on my hand. And I start again. Scratching at the canvas. Scratch, scratch, scratch. Cutting across it.
I can see the roadside flashing past in the dark. The cold wind snatch my breath away. Under the wheels the hardpack of ice still solid and white. The wheels big and fast and the roar from the truck loud. We been among trees. Dark either side of the road.
Aint no time to let the fear shake in my legs. The truck veering to the right. I see the whiteness of a bank of snow in the black night.
And I jump.
I land in the last bit of a drift. Probably save my life cos that truck move along so fast. My body hit the snow. Crashing and tumbling on my back. Down the bank. Down onto the road. Ahead of me the truck clanking and grumbling and roaring away. But I lie still. Flat on my back on the cold ice, watching the lights disappear into the darkness.
I crawl to the bank. Get in among the trees and slump on the cold hard ground. My body feel like it been beaten by a thousand fists. Sleep calling my name. But I got to get up.
The man’s shoe. Warm in my hands. Warm and damp. And the man ask me to do something before he die.
A telling beating behind my eyes.
And I got a choice.
Cos there’s someone I left behind. In the city.
Mary.
Above me the great legs of a pylon straddle the road. The wires humming. I can feel them. Tingling on my skin.
The night sky been so clear and black and the stars twinkling beyond—all those thousands of miles away. Far off.
You. Son of the great John Blovyn. Running about the hills like a wild dog. He never loved you, Willo.
Patrick’s words squirming in my head.
He never loved you, Willo.
The ditch is frozen. Filled with snow. Bare thorny branches rearing up over it. I can smell fox.
I don’t know how far I come after I jump from the truck. But I got myself back from the road. Into the trees.
There aint nothing to cover my tracks. No new snow. The melt coming good and strong. And I know they’re gonna come soon.
I fight through the trees til my body scream out for rest.
It aint sleep come to me though lying in the ditch. Just dreams that been so real they aint dreams. I can feel them. I can hear them and taste them.
I got myself back in that tree with Magda and Dad gathering acorns down below. And I been shouting down to them. “The wolves! The wolves are coming, Dad!” I see them all about under the trees. “Get up!” I shout. “Get up!”
And the wolves come creeping and growling all around with their low-slung heads and sharp teeth and slathering drool. But Dad aint seen them. Magda putting acorns into her bag. “They’re coming! Get up!” I shout so loud, but I can’t hear my voice however hard I try.
Everything fading but the snarling snapping jaws. Then I can’t see Dad no more. And I can’t see Magda. Just hear her screaming out.
And I got to jump down and help them.
A bird call out a warning.
Whit, whit, whit, whit!
I got to help them. “Dad!”
I sit up like a shot.
It only been my dream.
The sky grown light. A blackbird flit off in fright above me in the branches of the hedge.
Whit, whit, whit!
I crawl out and look over the field. Across the hill patches of ice lie on the ground in heaps. The grass flat and dark in little islands where it start to thaw.
Every bit of my body aching. The damp cold biting. Teeth chattering like they never gonna stop.
Down below the pylons march off to the west.
But I’m still alive.
Over across the fields, high up behind a copse of oak I see the broken roof of an old building.
I get up by the hedge. Duck along beside it. Run along the ditch, across the fields to a stand of trees. I fall down in a patch of grass. I tear it up and stuff it in my mouth like a sick dog.
It feel better in the trees. They’re good trees. Big strong oaks, bare branches spreading up. Ash and sycamore growing tall. Good smell of the earth coming out from the ground. The woods run down over the other side of the rise to the fields and hedges spreading out to the east.
From the edge of the woods a low stone wall snake off across the fields to the house. The low morning light cast long shadows from the trees. I can see the house good now. Made of big stones dug up from the hill and placed one on top of another, proper square around the windows just like home. But the roof fallen in one end. Elder and ash growing right up inside it. Windows boarded and dead. Great pile of snow almost reach the eaves at the back. A broken-down barn and low shed run along two sides making a yard. Maybe find something to eat down there. Somewhere to hide up a while.
A flash of brown from the shed catch my eye. It’s only a small she-fox running toward the hillside. But what’s she running from?
I see them then. Far off like specks in the distance. Coming out of the trees down below. Men with dogs. The dogs straining on ropes, noses to the ground. They got my scent.
They’re coming for me.
Now I got to run. Run like I aint never run before. Stumble along the wall. Back through the trees. Up above the house.
I come out of the woods to the south. A small brook running down the hillside above me. Meltwater coursing over the black rocks. I jump in. Follow it upstream. Got to lose my scent. The water is cold as ice. Soaks through my boots. Freezes my toes so they burn with pain.
But I got to keep running. Running for my life like a hare cos the dogs and men gonna come up the hill soon. Higher up I fall down in the tussocky grass. Just fall on the ground beside the water. Drink like an animal. Breath heaving out of me. My legs hurting. My back hurting. Everything hurting. But the wind carry the sound of the dogs. High-pitched baying as they pick up my trail and the fear jump up in my chest.
I pull myself off the ground. Dripping and freezing. Up away from the stream. Up toward the moors.
The heather is tall as my thighs. Thick like a hedge. I
pick up a deer track weaving among it. I got to get higher still. Where I can see. Onto the flats where the bald rocks push up out of the ground. Where the cold dead rock been worn by the wind and the snow and the ice and the rain, pushing up out of the ground saying, This is what I am, boy, cold dead rock mighty beneath your feet. Make no mistake.
That’s where I got to get to.
Why do they want me? Why aint my dad told me who he been? The way people talk about him make him sound like he been Robin Hood.
But he aint. He been my dad.
And he aint never told me about no boat. Or where it’s going. Or none of that stuff.
And he aint here to answer me now.
I push on until the heather get thin, then I crouch down inside it, breathing hard.
I look back down the hill.
I can hear the dogs again. Their baying scare me right down in my guts.
I look up the hillside. The crusting snow lying thin on the ground above the heather. I got to get up somewhere I can see.
There’s a rocky crag on the western shoulder of the rise. In one hard run I been up there. On the edge of the hill. The slopes falling steep below me.
The wind buffeting against my face.
And I can see. Far off across the pale misting of the Afon Eden Valley I see it all.
It grab my heart with both hands.
Trawsfinnid Lake—the flat waters catching the sky like a mirror. The dark green of the plantation around the northern shore so far away it look like moss spreading out onto the plain. And rising like giants. Fach and Fawr. The Rhinog Peaks white with snow. Mountains rolling off behind them to the south. To the north the Farngod crouching bald and bare. All of it rising up gray and purple and mighty and magnificent across the plain, the sky big and blue all about and the banks of clouds playing great shadows across the earth.
I see it all from up here. My home. And over the mountains, the sea.
But down below, the road running back to the city.
I scramble down the slope. The wind bite my ears and the thin snow is cold underfoot. Further down I can see the green and brown of the heather.
I hear the dogs again. They still got my scent. Slathering dogs and big faceless men coming fast.
After the Snow Page 19
