Winter Damage (24 page)

Ennor snuggled Trip into a blanket where they were to sleep and he soon fell asleep with the dog as a pillow and Butch settled close by. She guessed that they would be staying the night and thought how short and passing the days had become.

Another jug circled the group and snowflakes became stars on the night air and licked the old snow with a fresh coat of brilliant white.

The strong drink and fresh snow had Ennor thinking of new beginnings and she asked if Christmas had come and gone and nobody could say for sure.

She walked her memory past every day and every night since she’d met Sonny and she confirmed that they had missed it altogether. Everyone laughed and those who had tin mugs raised them towards the fire and a somewhere someplace New Year.

The man in the cap had an eye for Sonny and Ennor hoped his brother didn’t plan to slink her way because she would have to make some kind of a scene and then they’d all be back walking in the black and white.

She watched Sonny and caught her eye with a question in hers and Sonny shook her head a little to stop her worrying but still she wanted to distract the man away from her friend.

Words stuck in her throat and she wanted to say something to smack him back but strong words didn’t belong to her and when his eyes and hands roamed further she got up and sat next to Sonny. There was a green streak cracking inside her that she was not used to. She wanted to tell the man that Sonny belonged to her in some way, but instead she said it was time to get some rest.

‘You her mother?’ asked his brother and both men laughed.

‘More than, actually.’ Ennor stood up and steadied herself against a tree. ‘She’s my best friend.’

They continued to laugh and Sonny thanked them for the drink and said something about an early start. The two girls left the men drunk and laughing by the fire and went to join Butch and Trip.

‘Hell,’ laughed Sonny. ‘Dint know you cared.’

‘I don’t.’

‘So why with the best friend act?’

‘Had to think of somethin to get that sleaze off you. He was probably three times your age.’

They sat rested against a jut of granite and pulled one of the blankets over and up to their chins.

‘I was loosenin him up, makin sure he drank his fill. I got a plan, remember?’

‘What plan? Better be good cus most so far bin otherwise.’

‘You’ll see in the mornin.’

‘You playin complex again?’ asked Ennor.

‘No, just normal.’

They nestled down into the blanket and Ennor said there was nothing normal about her and she agreed. ‘That’s why you like me.’ She smiled. ‘Everyone likes Sonny Pengelly.’

‘OK, you keep dreamin if that’s what makes you happy.’

They listened to the crackle of the fire as it slowed in its tracks and Ennor checked to see if the men were making any moves towards sleep and they looked settled enough where they were.

‘Dint think I was goin off with him, did you?’

‘Guess not.’

‘What you take me for?’

Ennor didn’t know how to say what she was feeling just now. She told Sonny she was worried and asked her friend what she might do once they reached Bude.

‘Just see you right, I guess. Did promise, I think.’

‘Then what?’

‘Dunno, I int thought that far ahead. Just keep walkin. Maybe go back to camp, maybe not.’

‘Sonny.’

‘Yep.’

‘You scared?’

‘Bout what?’

‘Everythin.’

‘Nope. Don’t do scared.’

‘Don’t lie. Everyone gets scared.’

‘Bout what?’

‘You know what, the future and stuff.’

Sonny thought for a minute and Ennor knew talking candid was not one of Sonny’s strong points and was going to tell her to leave it when she said she was scared of being scared.

‘I guess that sounds as stupid as.’

‘No it don’t.’

‘Sure? Cus I can try and make it make sense.’

‘It makes enough sense to me.’

‘Sure?’

Ennor poked her in the back. ‘You can go to sleep now. I’m done quizzin.’

‘You know what you said bout best friends?’ asked Sonny.

‘Yep.’

‘You mean it, kind of?’

‘I mean it proper. Said it, dint I?’

‘That’s funny.’

‘Why?’

‘Cus you’re my best friend too.’

‘I’m glad that’s established,’ wheezed Butch from beneath his blanket.

They laughed and Ennor remarked on what a ragtag family they made and her words brought comfort to the others because that was what they had become. No matter what the future held, they would have that for ever and always stitched between them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Early morning and the fog had returned and had staked the snow thick and heavy to the ground.

Ennor could hear Sonny whispering her name behind her but she stayed drifting in that loose space in time that was the edge of dreams in the hope that she could fall back to sleep.

‘Ennor, wake up. We gotta get goin.’

She opened her eyes to see Sonny squatting in front of her with her boots on.

‘I’m doin my plan. Wake the others but keep it quiet.’

‘What’s goin on, Sonny?’

‘We’re out of here, that’s what.’ Sonny pointed to the two horses she had saddled and coupled to a tree and told her to hurry up.

They crept from the moorland camp with Sonny leading the horses ahead of the others. She watched her whispering to the horses and smiled because she knew her friend was telling them to be quiet. Trip walked with his hand cupped over his mouth because he didn’t trust himself not to blurt out words and Butch coughed into his scarf and his eyes watered with restraint.

The silence of that great place and all its history and tales caught Ennor in the heart and she made a place for it there and the landscape became something majestic and no longer to be feared.

She had slept it and breathed it and drunk it and lived it a lifetime over. She had grown up into ways she thought she had already grown and found some way of being that was the child she had lost. Innocence had returned despite and because of everything and to the moor she would be for ever grateful and grateful too to the great leap into chaos that was Sonny.

When they were safely hidden from the sleeping men’s view Sonny emptied the panniers she’d stolen from the camp of anything not useful and loaded them with their things and lashed the empty rucksacks to one of the saddles and a bundle of roped wood and they rode out into the fog.

‘You sure we’re headin right?’ Butch asked Sonny from his perch behind Ennor.

‘Course I am, we’ll be back on route and flyin in no time.’

‘Forever optimistic.’

‘That’s right and we’ll be in Bude in a matter of hours cus of me.’

‘Cus of the horses.’

‘Cus of the horses, cus of me.’

‘Buddy horse!’ shouted an excited Trip and Sonny had to tell him once more to hold on to her waist.

Ennor watched him pat the horse’s rump with delight and she realised how thin he had become, shrunken down to a size way younger than his years. ‘At least he’s enjoyin himself,’ she said.

‘He’ll be on the ground in a minute if he don’t hold on,’ said Sonny.

They rode at a slow pace and the dog danced between them, barking with excitement.

‘You don’t think the men will come after us, do you?’ asked Ennor.

‘What on, them old nags?’ asked Sonny.

‘They long gone,’ giggled Trip. ‘Don’t you worry bout them. I let um go just before.’

‘That’s my boy,’ laughed Sonny and she reached around to pat him on the arm. ‘Followin in Aunty Sonny’s footsteps, int you?’

Ennor couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment the bit of wind that skirted the horses legs and the bit of snow that caught in her eyelashes became blizzard weather. They’d been engaged in the usual favourite meal conversation and the thought of food had risen to hallucination status. She’d been deciding between pasty and chips and egg and chips as her all time favourite when she looked back at Sonny and Trip and was startled to see they were no longer there.

‘Sonny?’ she shouted, standing the horse in the snow.

‘Over here!’ Sonny replied. ‘Where you at?’

‘It’s snowin again,’ said Trip as they emerged from the heavy falling white, ‘and the horses don’t like it.’

This was true. The animals had become skittish, unresponsive mules.

‘You gotta be hard on um,’ wheezed Butch. ‘If you’re afraid, they’re afraid.’

‘I int afraid,’ said Ennor. ‘Just can’t see nothin. Where’s the compass?’

‘Here,’ said Sonny and she led her horse up next to Ennor’s. ‘We just gotta keep headin straight. We int far. Don’t think anyway.’

Ennor closed her eyes to help her think. She didn’t like sitting on a horse in these conditions, she felt vulnerable, easily pushed. Butch was coughing up his own storm behind her. She could feel the tightness in his chest against her back, his fingers gripped around her waist to keep him upright. ‘We gotta find shelter,’ she shouted. ‘Sit out the storm.’

‘We gotta keep goin is what,’ shouted Sonny. ‘Where you think we’re gonna find shelter? We can’t even see each other.’

‘I can see sister,’ said Trip.

Sonny told Trip to zip it and Ennor told her to do the same. ‘We keep goin and if we find shelter we take it.’

Sonny nodded towards Butch. ‘He looks bad.’

Ennor looked over her shoulder and saw that he had fallen into a half-sleep. ‘I know.’

‘What we gonna do?’ asked Sonny.

‘Make it to Bude and go get a doctor.’

‘Wherebouts?’

‘Mum will know.’

Sonny nodded and she looked into the blizzard.

‘What you lookin at? There int nothin to see.’

‘That hawthorn bush.’ She pointed to a charcoal sketch of tree so faint it was as if it had been pencilled on to tracing paper. ‘The comb-over, it’s aimin north-east.’

‘How’d you know?’

‘The wind, mostly a sou’wester, int it?’

‘Not these days.’

‘But general, so if that’s north-east and that’s sou’west then that’s north-west.’

Sonny held her horse steady with one hand as she pointed around them. ‘Come on, we gotta keep movin.’

‘Before we freeze to death,’ shouted Trip.

Ennor watched Sonny and Trip move on and she told Butch they’d soon find a doctor and she patted his hand a little and there was nothing of the living about it. They would find their way at some point, or find someplace fit enough to wait out the storm. She was getting tired and weak enough that her bones felt like magnets drawn downwards. It was something just to keep her head steady on her neck, her eyes peeled and stuck on the horse up ahead with the raping wind the only thing to occupy her mind. She listened for the familiar warmth of Trip and Sonny’s chatter but there was none. Nothing but the fingering worm of winter, its damage done.

Ennor wished she’d cut some bits of rag to poke in her ears. Another ‘just in case’ thing she should have had stuffed in her pocket. If she’d thought things through, she would have packed earmuffs, she had some somewhere in the trailer back home. But everything was an afterthought now, an afterthought and a ‘never mind’ and a ‘too bloody late’. She turned her face to look at Butch and she asked him if he was OK and he nodded yes but she knew he meant no. He was sick and worse and it was her fault.

‘Sonny!’ she shouted. ‘Sonny, stop!’

‘What?’

‘We gotta find someplace fast.’

Sonny led her horse up alongside and Ennor waited for her to complain but when she looked at Butch she just nodded.

They pushed forward, scanning the white for anything that resembled colour or shape with the hours pulling and passing them by.

What Ennor would have given for a hole in the ground, a gully to lie down in with the tarp turned over, anything. She kicked the horse and rode up beside the others, smiling at Trip when he looked out at her from his snug behind Sonny.

‘You OK, buddy?’ she shouted downwind.

Trip shook his head.

‘What’s up?’

‘I’m cold and more.’

‘What else?’

‘Hungry too.’

‘You ever eaten bark crisps?’ asked Sonny.

Trip shook his head.

‘Well you’re in for a treat, that’s all I’ll say.’

Ennor smiled and in her mind she told herself Sonny was a good friend because she was. She was more than a good friend; she really was her best friend, perhaps more than Butch. The kind of friend you hear about but don’t believe exists, with good sense and calm and a mind for things same as yourself.

‘What’s up with you?’ Sonny shouted.

‘Why?’

‘You got a face on. Misery’s sittin close I spose.’

‘I got a lot to be miserable bout.’