Grease ran off the reins on to my hands. I couldn’t see the summits of the hills. It was like riding half blindfolded. Most of the time my head was bent against the rain. Supposing I don’t find him, I thought, not ever? What shall I do then? I remembered that Dad had given Angus a number in London to ring, but only in case of acute emergency, he had said. Surely this was just such an occasion?
I stopped again to call “Angus,” but my voice was drowned by the falling rain. I started to hate Ireland. In England there would be a road nearby. I could stop and ask motorists to look for him; I could find people to help. I felt utterly alone. We had reached the summit of the first hill, but there was nothing to be seen beyond but another valley swept by more sheets of rain. Perhaps I should go back and telephone that number, I thought, longing for comforting advice, for someone to say, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll take over. Everything will be all right.’ But where was the number? It could be in Angus’s pocket at this very moment, or hidden somewhere in his room. He could have lost it, learned it by heart; done anything with it … “Angus!” I shouted into the rain. “Angus, where are you?”
I had hated him at breakfast and now he might be dying somewhere with a cracked skull or wandering concussed in the rain. If I had gone with him, everything would have been all right. I could have led him home on Peppermint. I had forgotten to put on my watch, but I reckoned the time must be three o’clock, and he had left soon after nine in the morning. That made seven hours. Seven hours wandering on the hills! I should have started looking hours ago. And why had Peppermint taken so long to come home? I hated myself now. I’ve let everyone down, I thought. How shall I explain my behaviour to our parents? How shall I explain waiting five hours before beginning to search?
At last the rain lightened. I could see the valley below more clearly now, with a track winding through it, and great clumps of gorse and a little herd of donkeys with their backs to the rain.
“Angus!” I shouted. “Angus!”
There were bogs on each side of us and sudden cliffs where turf had been cut. I pushed Phantom into a trot. Phantom tossed his head and neighed but nothing answered. “Angus!” I shouted again, “Angus!” My voice echoed and my cries returned to mock me.
I don’t know how far I rode. At one stage I felt salt on my face and realised I was crying. Phantom did not tire but I could sense time passing, afternoon turning to evening, milking time coming and going. At home in England horses would be coming out from under trees to graze in the cool of the evening. Our cottage would wear the dreamy look of dusk. At this time Dad would normally be returning from London, coming through the door in town clothes. I looked at the hills, hating them, and tried to make up my mind whether to go on or turn back. All the time I could feel panic growing inside me and a terrifying feeling of dread.
I could see a lake below me as empty as the landscape, with dark woods behind. I turned homewards and thought how foolish I would seem if I found Angus waiting for me in the house. I imagined him running out, calling, “Where have you been? I got back hours ago.”
I pushed Phantom into a canter. “We’re going home,” I said, “and if Angus isn’t there, we’ll telephone the police.” And I felt better, simply because at last I had made a decision.
8
But no one greeted me. The house was still deserted. The curtains were drawn in the front of the O’Reagans’ cottage, the priest’s bike propped outside. I was afraid that the sick child was dying. I didn’t want to trouble them, although I was in such dire straits myself. Peppermint was shivering in the stable. He looked well on his way to pneumonia, which made me feel hideously guilty for everything. I had ridden Phantom so fast that his sides were still going in and out like bellows. I fetched hay and rubbed him and Peppermint down, though I knew that really I should be indoors ringing the police. And still Fiona and Cousin Mary had not come home. The dogs greeted me when I went indoors. They looked anxious too, and their ears were perpetually pricked listening for Cousin Mary’s familiar footstep.
“Good doggies,” I said. “She’ll be back soon, I promise.”
The telephone was in the sitting room. I picked it up but the line was dead. I tried again but still there was no dial tone. I started to feel sick suddenly, the whole of Ireland seemed against me – everyone. I imagined enemies in every room. I was afraid to go outside and yet I had to do something. It was then that I saw the envelope lying on the hall mat. I picked it up and read: To the English girl. Open at once. My heart started to race again. I couldn’t stop my hand shaking. I opened the envelope. The note inside said:
If you want your brother to stay alive come to the tower at six o’clock and bring £500. If you tell anyone we will know how to deal with your brother and yourself for that matter. Come at once if you value your brother’s life.
It wasn’t signed. At first I felt nothing but an overwhelming sense of relief, for at least Angus was still alive. Then I looked at my watch and saw that it was past seven, which meant I was an hour late already and it was miles to the tower. And which tower anyway? And how was I to get there? Then without thinking I was running towards the stable, throwing a saddle on Phantom’s back; but then I remembered the money, so I raced back to the house and found the bundle of notes we had left among Angus’s socks in the drawer. Five hundred pounds! They must be mad, I thought. How can we possibly have that much money with us? And then I thought how funny it was Angus being kidnapped instead of Dad – if only I could laugh. Phantom looked dejected as I led him out of the stable once more. The sun was beginning to go down. The nearest tower stood in the opposite direction to the path I had taken earlier. There was no path that way. It was going to be a hard ride and Phantom was tired already.
He left the yard reluctantly, looking back to neigh to the other horses. I carried the kidnap note and the money in my jodhpurs’ pocket. The dogs watched me leave from one of the windows of the house. An ambulance drew up outside the O’Reagans’ cottage. Fear evaporated as I rode. Riding Phantom, I felt ready to face anything.
But the tower did not seem to grow any nearer. Phantom stumbled over the uneven ground. Several times I dismounted to lead him, all the while I was aware of the approaching night which would soon darken the distant hills. I pushed Phantom on with my legs. It was seven-thirty now and I seemed to have ten miles or more still between me and the tower. I imagined Angus tied up. What was he thinking? Did he know about the note? Would he be pleased when he saw me? I hit Phantom with the reins. Mercy and kindness deserted me. I imagined Angus being led out and shot because I was late. I imagined telling my parents … life without Angus … life going on just the same. Phantom started to gallop, avoiding the boulders by a miracle, stretching his beautiful neck, struggling, sweating, through peaty earth, going on and on with all his courage towards the tower.
Twice he all but fell. Once I found myself on his neck, my legs wrapped round his withers. But we were nearly there now. Darkness had not come yet, the dying day still hovered between dusk and night. I drew rein and let him walk and thought: Supposing the tower’s empty, what then? My heart was thudding against my ribs again and all my courage disappeared. I drew rein and called, “Anyone about? I’ve come for my brother!”
And from somewhere quite near a donkey brayed.
A boy came out from the tower, carrying a gun as carelessly as you might carry a shopping bag.
“So you’ve come, and where would the money be?” he asked, holding out a hand. “It isn’t much we are asking,” he continued, looking me straight in the eye. “And maybe you can have some of it back later if you behave yourselves.” He had a lilt to his voice. He seemed to belong to the dark hills and the rain.
“I want to see my brother first. Where is he?” I demanded, trying not to sound frightened, though now, without warning, my teeth had started to chatter. I rode resolutely towards the tower.
“He isn’t there,” replied the boy. “My friends are guarding him. I will let you have him when I have the money.”
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“But we don’t have five hundred pounds,” I replied, controlling my chattering teeth with difficulty. “We are on holiday.”
“You should have asked someone, then.” His mouth was a thin, determined line. I was afraid of him now. He played with his gun and looked at me sideways.
“You must be mad,” I said.
“You can’t have your brother then,” he replied, turning away. “We need the money, and we need your mouths shut.”
“Please be reasonable,” I pleaded. “Take what I have, and I swear we’ll keep our mouths shut. It will be dark soon and we’ll die on these hills, and Cousin Mary will send the police after you and then you’ll be in trouble.”
The notes were sodden with rain when I took them from my pocket, but he was laughing now. “We don’t care about trouble, we’re always in trouble. We live on trouble, you understand,” he said. “And I’m willing enough to shoot a rich man any time; they are all vermin in my eyes.”
I felt very cold. Too cold to speak.
“It is easy enough,” he continued. “If you have so little money, I will take your horse. He is a beautiful animal, but you must keep your mouth shut about what you have seen in the attic, or we will kill him. But if you keep quiet, I may let you have him back some time, you understand.”
I wanted to scream at him, but no words came. My legs were like jelly. Inside I was frozen. I looked at Phantom’s beautiful head, now soaked in sweat and rain; his eyes still full of courage; his heart still ready to go on till he dropped. And I could find no words for the misery and horror I was feeling.
“I can shoot anything,” said the boy with a laugh in his voice, pointing his gun at Phantom’s head. “I never miss. Now give him to me before I get angry.”
“No. I will go back and call London for money.”
The boy whistled and two men came over the hill. One of them said, “We’ve put the explosives under the hut. We can blow it up – the boy too – at a moment’s notice. It only needs a detonator.”
They stood staring at Phantom. They were true Irishmen, for they couldn’t stop looking at him. “He is a winner, truly he is,” one said in admiration.
I was crying without knowing. I knew already what I had to do. You can’t really match a horse against a person, not when it’s your own brother. I had to say, “Take him,” but the words wouldn’t come; they stuck in my throat while I remembered the past – bringing Phantom down sick from the Blue Ridge Mountains, nursing him back to health, bringing him back to England. It had always seemed like a dream – too good to be true, too wonderful to last. And now the end had come on a brown, peaty hillside in a remote part of Ireland with the darkness coming down and nothing there but the sheep and us, and all because Angus had had to look in Cousin Mary’s attic. It had started like a dream, and now it was ending in an equally crazy way.
I looked at the boy and the two men. If only this could be a nightmare, I thought, if only I could wake up at home and know it had never really happened – that we were all still in England, that Phantom was outside grazing under the trees. I dismounted. “Do you want the tack as well?” It wasn’t me who spoke. It was like someone else speaking a long way off.
He nodded and vaulted on. He wrenched Phantom’s head round and cantered away beyond the tower. My tears ran down on to the damp earth.
“We will take you to him. But I advise you not to mention what you found in the attic, if only for your little cousin’s sake.”
I followed them without speaking. I felt numb, like a beaten animal. They took me to a turf-cutter’s hut with a corrugated iron roof.
They unlocked a heavy padlock and one of them said, “There you are, miss. You’ll find your brother in there.”
I wanted to shout, “I hate you,” but the words wouldn’t come. I could only see Phantom going away into the dusk, going away and never coming back.
The hut was dark inside. I untied Angus’s hands and he said, “I thought you were never coming. Am I glad to see you. How much did you pay? I hope you didn’t give them anything! You didn’t, did you? And did you ring the London number?” His hands were all red and he was covered with mud. His face looked pale and immature after the Irishmen’s faces.
“I paid them everything,” I said. “I paid them Phantom.”
He didn’t understand at first. “What do you mean? Explain. Hurry up.”
“I traded him for you,” I answered. “And there’s nothing more to say, nothing at all.” There was a silence while Angus took in my words.
Then he said, “We’ll get him back, I promise you.” And we left the hut with the door open.
“They said they might send him back if we didn’t mention what was in the attic, but if we do they will kill him,” I said, following Angus, and I imagined Phantom lying dead. “It’s so funny,” I continued. “We were afraid Mum and Dad would be kidnapped and it was you in the end – you were kidnapped.”
I started to laugh hysterically, half crying, until Angus said, “Shut up, let me think. And where are we going, for pity’s sake? We should have found a road. We’ll be completely lost in a minute.”
“I don’t mind if we are, I don’t mind dying,” I cried. “I don’t want to go on living without Phantom! Don’t you understand?”
“You should never have traded him then, you should have called their bluff,” replied my brother.
“There wasn’t any bluff. They were going to shoot you or blow up the hut. They are mad, quite mad. Can’t you understand?” I wanted to add, “Do you think I wanted to trade Phantom for you? You who are always so selfish?” But I couldn’t because it wasn’t true. Angus was as much part of my life as Phantom, and we had shared more together.
“It’s nearly dark,” said Angus. “We had better run; if we get to the top of that hill we will probably see lights below.”
But my legs would not run any more. My knees ached, I felt limp all over and I was still seeing Phantom disappearing out of my life for ever. In the circumstances I did not mind what happened to me, not any more.
“You’re not trying,” shouted Angus. “Run!”
“I can’t,” I shouted back into the gathering darkness. “I’m finished – spent. I’ve got nothing left. You ate all the breakfast – remember? And I was too worried to eat much lunch.”
There was a humming noise in my ears and my head ached unbearably. I sat down on a boulder. For a moment everything went black. “It’s all right, I must have fainted,” I called, but Angus was now far ahead shouting:
“Come on, do come on. It will be pitch black in a minute. We won’t see anything. Cousin Mary will send out a search party.”
I thought of policemen coming: tall strong men who would carry me gently home to my bed where I could lie and sleep and forget, if even for a few hours, that I had lost Phantom. I wondered where he was now, where the boy was going with him. Would he be hidden away somewhere? Suddenly Angus was beside me, shaking me. “Move, Jean!” he shouted. “Please move!”
“I am,” I said, telling my legs to move and standing up. “I’m trying.” I felt drunk with exhaustion but I walked on, up and up towards the summit, putting one leg in front of the other in dreary repetition, stumbling over boulders, banging my knees – all in the deepening darkness.
I shouted, “I’m only doing this for you, Angus, not for myself, because personally I don’t want to go on living, not without Phantom, not any more!”
He shouted back, “We’ll find Phantom, I promise!”
I struggled on, praying for a moon. A rabbit vanished in front of me, its white tail bobbing. Three or four sheep got up hurriedly at my approach and scuttled away baaing into the darkness. Far away a car hooted its horn. We couldn’t see the tower any more. We had reached the top of the hill, but there were no lights on the other side, just more wiry grass, boulders, soggy earth and the dark, empty sky overhead.
My legs moved mechanically, my mind wandered. I tried to imagine the future without Phantom. What would I do? Ho
w would I spend my weekends? I had no close friends. We had moved around so often in our lives that my local friends had disappeared, or made other friends, so I had been alone in that sense for some time. But it had not mattered because I had had Phantom.
I tried to run down the hill to another valley and another hill on the other side, but suddenly I seemed to be falling into space; then I hit dark earth with my right foot buckled under me against a boulder. I saw stars and then my foot started to hurt. I shouted, “Wait for me, Angus. Angus, wait!”
And it seemed ages before he came back and cried, “Oh no, you didn’t fall into the turf cuttings? How could you?”
“It’s my foot,” I answered, trying to stand. “I think I’ve done something to it.” I put some weight on it and I wanted to scream with pain.
“Lie back,” Angus said. “I’ll go on and bring back help.”
“Suppose those men find me?” I said plaintively.
“They won’t, they’ve gone,” replied Angus, setting off down the hill, whistling to keep his spirits up. “I’ll bring a Land Rover, don’t worry,” he called back over his shoulder and, for a second, I could hear his hurrying feet. Then I was completely alone and the only sound was that of running water. I leaned my head back against some peat and tried to move my foot, but it hurt too much.
The sky was full of stars now and at last the moon had risen, a small, faint, new moon which cast only a shadowy light on the desolate moors. I tried to stay awake; but the day seemed to have lasted for ever, so that breakfast seemed like last week, lunch like yesterday. It seemed impossible that so much could happen in one day. Then I started to think about Phantom and tears cascaded down my cheeks in an unstoppable flood.
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Phantom Horse 3: Phantom Horse Disappears Page 6
