Hills End (16 page)

Frances twice tried to shift Butch, but he was too much for her. However, her efforts, even if they failed, did induce in her a new respect for Adrian. She had never considered Adrian to be particularly strong. Adrian, indeed, must have been much stronger than he looked. She didn't know how far Adrian had dragged Butch, but a single yard was too much for her.

She was worried about Butch. His flesh was so cold, it frightened her to touch him. If he had developed pneumonia how was she to care for him? Oh dear, if he were really sick where was she to begin?

The big door groaned and Adrian croaked, ‘Give it a lift. Help me, you two out there.'

They helped him and they managed to push it open, and despite the rain and the cold the air remained heavy with the smell of honey and ants.

Pale light from the interior spilled over the doorstep, and Frances could see Gussie tossing the bags down and Adrian, almost at the end of his tether, sticking to everything he touched and laboriously lifting his feet like a fly in a glue-pot. That for the moment was all she saw, because suddenly she heard the rifle-shot.

They all heard it, one sharp crack that echoed twice and then was lost in the night.

Gussie froze, wide-eyed, her mouth open, and Adrian, pale already, blanched even more. He hadn't forgotten Paul and the bull, but his own tribulations had pushed other worries into the background.

Maisie, the realist, said, ‘Don't you think we'd better get Butch inside? Paul might have missed.'

‘Yes,' said Frances sharply. ‘Let's. Everyone quickly. We'll all have to help.'

‘Paul missed?' wailed Gussie. ‘No!'

‘Of course he didn't miss,' snapped Frances. ‘Come on, Gussie.'

‘But only one shot—he couldn't be that straight. He couldn't hit it with one shot.'

‘Why not?' said Adrian, to calm his own doubts as much as Gussie's. ‘The bloomin' thing's as big as the side of a barn. Of course he would hit it with one shot. He'd have to be blind in both eyes to miss.'

‘But if he did miss it'd kill him.'

‘Gussie,' said Frances firmly, ‘Paul knows how to look after himself—but at the moment Butch can't!'

At least half of that statement was true. All four of them crowded round Butch and pulled him over the step, shut the door again, and looked at themselves ruefully. Every single one, Butch included, was glued up with honey. It was everywhere, transferred from Adrian and gathered from the floor. The bags afforded no protection because they wouldn't stay in place. They all slipped in honey, they all wallowed in it, and Maisie, to cap their distress, said she could smell burning again.

The second batch of stew was burnt to the bottom of the pot.

 

Paul waited through an eternity that was only twenty seconds long. The bull bellowed and struggled and seemed to shake the earth, a monstrous animal startled to the point of panic and just as blind as Paul to the hazards about him.

The bull scrambled to its feet again and fell again on the treacherous slope. Paul didn't see it, couldn't see it, but he was none the less certain that it had happened. He knew, too, that it slithered down the slope, bellowing with terror. The animal sounded like a tumbling boulder thudding against the earth, smashing or crushing everything before it. Its force, its weight, its strength, struck into Paul a form of horror that was nothing more than a realization of the frailty of his own body. If that beast had come his way his life would have been crushed out in a second. The power of its thrashing limbs and horns, not seen but imagined, reduced him to awful weakness.

He heard the beast go, farther and farther away, battering through the bush or charging blindly through the fallen trees along the road, Paul didn't know exactly where and for the moment didn't care. To be alive at all was enough.

He crawled into the open, still clinging to the rifle, his teeth chattering from reaction, not so much from the shot and what had followed it, but from the nightmarish memory of pulling that trigger again and again when the gun had failed to respond. He was sure Adrian had told him it was ready to fire.

Paul steeled himself and called, ‘Harvey!'

There might have been a reply. Paul's heart leapt but he was left unsure. Buzz's renewed squeals and barks made certain hearing impossible.

‘Shut up, Buzz!'

That was a command that Buzz refused to understand. He squealed and yelped and left Paul without a choice. The girls had told him the tree had fallen across the kennel. He would have to push into the tree towards the kennel and take his chance on injury. He was sure the kennel had always been close to the back door and that at least should help him to establish his bearings. Perhaps he could break into the house and find a torch or a dry box of matches. That might be the thing to do. Once he had some form of light his most difficult problem was solved.

He worked round the side of the tree, until he bumped into the house. That was one thing found, anyway. The tree had reached the house and from the feel of things might even have penetrated the wall. He scrambled through the branches and Buzz had yelped himself hoarse again.

‘Harvey!'

The indomitable Buzz found his voice once more and wheezed excitedly, but there was no mistaking it this time, there was a reply and a sudden beam of light splashed through the tangle of boughs and twigs and leaves.

‘Harvey!' screamed Paul. ‘Is that you?'

‘Of course it is. What are you gettin' worked up about?'

Paul still couldn't see him, but the source of the light was on a level above him. He struggled towards it, clawing leaves aside and wriggling through the branches. Then he realized that he had reached the kennel and the steps of the house, and Harvey was apparently still somewhere above him. Buzz, however, was right at his feet, hopelessly tangled in his lead, trussed like a fowl prepared for the spit, so tangled that he couldn't even stand. Far from being able to attack the bull, Buzz was even unable to deliver his customary nip at Paul's ankles.

‘Did you fire the gun?' Harvey called.

‘It certainly didn't fire itself. Are you all right?'

‘Me? Of course I'm all right.'

‘The girls said they thought you'd be killed.'

‘Girls!' snorted Harvey.

‘How about taking that light out of my eyes? Better still, pass me the torch and then come down.'

‘I'll try,' said Harvey, ‘but it took me all my time to get in. I don't know how I'm going to get out.'

‘I thought I said that no one was to go into a damaged house.'

‘Fair go,' said Harvey. ‘I had a bull chasin' me.'

‘You weren't doing too much running when the girls saw you. They said you were frozen stiff with fright.'

Harvey sniffed. ‘You shouldn't take any notice of girls. I was waitin' for it to get dark, see.'

‘Were you?' queried Paul. ‘Why didn't you answer me, then, when I called?'

‘You couldn't have called too loud. I was only in the house lookin' for me torch to untangle Buzz. I nearly died when the bloomin' gun went off. I nearly choked on me pie.'

‘Pie?' Paul shrieked. ‘Is that what you're doing? Eating your blessed pie?'

‘Strike me pink!' squealed Harvey. ‘And what's wrong with that? That's what pies are for, isn't it?'

 

Paul didn't frog-march the bright young man back to the shop, but it would have given him a great deal of pleasure to do so. There were times when Harvey was an extremely exasperating fellow.

Paul was compelled to forget his feelings and even his anxiety for the state of Harvey's stomach. They had still to make their way back to the shop and that demanded all his attention. He didn't tell Harvey, but he was thankful that Buzz was with them. Buzz mightn't have been very large, but he was the most ferocious little type, bar none, in Hills End. If any dog could put a bull to flight, Buzz was the boy. He was the one dog in town whose bite was worse than his bark, and he seemed to be the only dog in town, anyway. That was nice for Harvey, but hard on everyone else, in more ways than one.

Somewhere between Harvey's house and the shop Rickard's bull was still on the loose, and Paul was sure that it would be close to the road. The animal could not venture far below the road because the flats were flooded, and could not climb far above the road because the slope and the debris would have prevented it. Only one thing was in Paul's favour—the bull could no more see than he could—and it was for that reason that he did not switch on the torch. He carried his gun at the ready and Harvey held on hard to the dog, but they groped every inch of the way in total darkness, despite Harvey's frequent assertions that no bull could scare him.

‘I don't scare easy,' said Harvey, ‘like some people I know.'

‘Garn,' said Harvey, ‘switch on the light. Don't be a scaredy-cat.'

‘It's only a big cow,' said Harvey. ‘Cows can't hurt you.'

‘You've got a gun,' said Harvey, ‘but I fought him with my bare hands.'

‘If you don't pipe down,' Paul growled at last, ‘I'll fight
you
with my bare hands.'

‘Gettin' rattled, are you?' squeaked Harvey. ‘That's what my dad says—the bigger they are, the harder they fall.'

What was the use? It would take more than words to squash Harvey and while they were talking they weren't listening. That they must have passed within a few yards of the beast Paul knew, but where or when he didn't know. He realized then that he could see a glimmer of light that shimmered in the rain. He had never imagined that a little band of light could mean so much.

‘We're home,' he said. ‘There's the shop.'

The barricade across the entrance was up and Paul knocked on the boards. He didn't knock loudly because he knew that the bull, too, had ears, and he didn't call for the same reason. He certainly had no premonition of danger because he thought he had passed it, yet he was so cautious that his knock wasn't heard above the sound of rain on the roof.

‘Give 'em a yell,' declared Harvey.

‘Don't you dare!'

Paul knocked again and felt the sudden, clawlike grip of Harvey's fingers on his arm.

‘Paul…' Harvey could scarcely frame the word. He sounded as though someone were trying to choke the life out of him. ‘The bull…'

Paul's fright took his breath away. He could see it, too. The pale light that had been the beacon to welcome them home from danger was just strong enough, and reached just far enough, to pick up the white markings on the bull's flanks. The bull, too, had been drawn towards the light and it was still drawing him, because he was moving, and he was so close they could have touched him with a clothes prop.

Paul, in his instant of fright, didn't know whether to run or yell or try to fire the gun or drop dead. He knew the rifle wasn't cocked and even if it had been he wouldn't have been able to take the animal's life in cold blood. Or would he? Only one thing he knew for certain and that was the total collapse of Harvey's cheeky brand of courage.

The window entrance clattered behind him and the narrow beam of light suddenly widened and Maisie's voice shouted, ‘Is that you, Paul? It's Paul.
Paul's back!
'

Paul could have died. Maisie's clamour and the sudden increase of light had given everything away. He screeched, ‘Harvey! Get inside!' and slammed the gun-bolt home. The bull, for an instant of surprise, was still, and Paul fired the rifle from his hip into the ground.

The bull bellowed and reared and Harvey hadn't moved. Paul's head rang with the shot, but he found strength he didn't know he had. He picked Harvey up like a doll and bundled him through the window and leapt after him. He was scrambling over the top of Harvey and Maisie to crack the barricade back into position before he realized he had dropped the gun and left it outside. When he picked up Harvey he had dropped the gun. What a fool thing to do! He might as well have dropped it on the mountain-side; it was just as far from his reach.

He leant against the barricade, panting, unaware of the babble of voices, not fully appreciative of the danger from which he had escaped, only abusing himself for his folly. He hadn't stopped to think. It was useless trying to tell himself that he hadn't panicked, because he had. He had left their only means of defence outside. All that stood between them and this beast, which terrified even its owner, were a few boards stripped from a packing case, and a strong man could have knocked them down with his fist.

Didn't have the gun. Didn't even have the dog. Buzz hadn't come through the window with them, because Paul could hear him snarling and snapping like a wild thing. He was sure he could hear, as well, the smashing of breaking timbers and the clattering of sheets of iron. The bull must have been mixed up in the ruins of the hall and Buzz, in his usual style, must have been savaging him at ground level. Or was it the shop that the bull was breaking down?

No, the bull couldn't get through here, not through the window. He wouldn't climb over the sill. If he came through anywhere it would be through the door. The door was already split from slamming back and forth in the gale. Barricade the door!

Paul heaved himself away from the window, still unaware of the excitement all around him, still obsessed by the fear that the bull was attacking the shop, but then he saw that the door was barricaded already, that cases of canned food had been pushed against it and that Adrian, obviously Adrian, had nailed several battens across the top of it.

It would never stop the bull. Nothing short of a brick wall would stop the bull. But he was thinking foolishly. The bull couldn't have been attacking the shop or the building would have been shaking from top or bottom.

Paul's awful tension began to unwind. He could feel his fear and anxiety easing out of him, a feeling as soothing as a cool bath on a hot day.