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<h1>27</h1>
<p><em>August 4. 7am.</em></p>
<p>Danny came awake again, swimming up to the surface, this time
pursued by no dreams that he could remember. It felt as if he
hadn't slept at all. The tent was cold and his mouth was gummy and
bitter. Corky was sitting upright, eyes closed and in the thin
light, Danny couldn't tell whether he was awake or not. On the
other side, Doug and Tom were huddled together.</p>
<p>The tent flap was still open on the left side. Danny squirmed,
pulling against the loose loop of baling twine as it rasped against
the skin of his throat, until he could see outside. For a moment he
thought he was looking through a white veil, all colour leached
from the early morning.</p>
<p>The world was dead still.</p>
<p>A ground mist, thick and pearlescent, had crept up from the
stream to the campsite, dense enough to make the striations on the
far side of the valley blurred and indistinct. Danny could see,
through the small triangular space, the edge of the bank and the
thick end of the log Billy had dragged up from the trees. The knife
was still stabbed into the grain and the tendrils of mist grasped
around it like ghostly fingers, creeping almost imperceptibly. The
fire had almost completely burned itself out. In the circle of
stones, the ash was grey and light, showing that the heat had
lasted all night. The smooth boulders themselves would still be
blistering hot, warm enough to cook on, but the embers had died
down and there was now no smoke.</p>
<p>The valley, what he could see of it, had taken on an eerie and
insubstantial quality, as if seen in a dream. Danny knew he was
awake. The tent smelled of sweat, old and new, and mildew from long
unaired days rolled up hiding Phil's stash of tools and stolen
gear. Tom twitched, Doug's nasal breathing snuffled near the
entrance. Corky was completely still.</p>
<p>There was no wind. The day was light, but it was early, in the
shallows of the morning and the sun had not yet risen. It would be
hours yet before it soared, the way the moon had done, over the
eastern lip of the valley. For the moment, viewed through that
triangle flap, the section of the valley looked like something from
a fairy scene. Danny could not see the man, and from where he sat,
Billy too was hidden from view. For all he knew, the man could have
gone, vanished into the shadows of the night. Even as he thought it
he knew that was not true. The crazy stranger would still be
there.</p>
<p>But for the moment, in the strange solitude of the early
morning, the mist smoothed the outlines and harsh edges, making it
a soft and peaceful morning. It brought to mind the story he'd read
in the book they'd swiped from the treasure chest at Overbuck
House. Corky had shown him it on the first day they'd arrived here
(and that seemed a million years ago) the passage about the
legendary battle of the hero Cuchullain at the ford in the
stream.</p>
<p>"Give me a song for a soft morning," he'd told his friends on
the night before he bravely went down to single combat, a real
hero, heedless of personal danger. Danny wished he could be the
same, but the fear that had settled on them all had stayed with
him, even during the fitful and uncomfortable sleep and it clung to
him now.</p>
<p>This stolen minute, however, gave a semblance of tranquillity.
The mist smothered the burbling tumble of the stream, fading it
down to a distant murmur. No birds sang, not even the far-off
cockerel, the little red rooster down at Blackwood farm whose early
morning call sometimes drifted up to this height on the westerly
breeze. Now there was no breeze, hardly a stirring of the air and
for the moment, Danny Gillan was alone. The day seemed to hold its
breath before wakening.</p>
<p>He wished the world would stay asleep. He did not want to think
of the whispered, urgent conversation in the dark</p>
<p><em>You reckon you can make it?</em></p>
<p>I don't know. I don't know.</p>
<p><em>I don't want to.....</em></p>
<p>He didn't want to think about it. The man had come streaking out
of the bushes and kicked Corky and nearly broke his leg. That had
been without the gun. Danny stretched to see if Billy was still
tethered to the barrels, but the string dug into his windpipe and
he had to lean back under the tension before he choked and woke
everybody.</p>
<p><em>If we get a chance, Danny boy...</em></p>
<p>He knew that. He tried not to think about his muscles freezing,
like some kid who didn't want to fight in the yard. In his mind's
eye, in the fitful pictures that had unreeled in his mind last
night, despite how he'd tried to shake them away, he saw himself in
the dreamscape sequences where his limbs locked in a strange and
terrified paralysis, or where no matter how he run and jinked,
every path, every sheep track through the ferns, somehow led him
back to the camp and that black infinity at the end of the
shotgun's muzzle. In the slow light of the morning, he shucked
those images away and tried to breathe easy.</p>
<p>All the could-have-beens and might-have-dones. If. <em>If.</em>
Billy Harrison was fond of the phrase: <em>If</em> is a very small
word with a very big meaning.</p>
<p>Big consequences.</p>
<p>If they hadn't been gathered on the fallen elm tree that day. If
Paulie Degman hadn't fallen into the river in the spring while the
silver sparkle of light flashed from the back of Cairn House into
Danny Gillan's eyes. If they hadn't been talking about the
explosion in the quarry bringing the body to the surface. If they
hadn't argued about the bomb the waterworks men found in the
reservoir up on the Overbuck estate, they wouldn't have talked
about the Dummy Village and if they hadn't conjured up that old
legend they wouldn't be here.</p>
<p><em>If.</em> Might-have-beens and should-have-dones.</p>
<p>"I bet you wouldn't come down here at night," Billy had said and
Tom had agreed with that.</p>
<p>"Not when the mist comes off the river," he'd said vehemently,
because Tom was living with his own ghost. "You never know what's
in there. It creeps like it's alive."</p>
<p>"<em>Gives</em> you the creeps," Billy had said, laughing. Now
he was out there with the man with the gun and he was not laughing.
The mist was crawling like it did own at the river, the one Corky
said hid the ghost of lonesome Paulie Degman.</p>
<p>Danny closed his eyes, half hoping that when he opened them
again he'd wake up from a dream and find that he'd imagined it all.
When he opened them again, the triangle of grey pearly light was
still there at the front of the tent and thin tendrils of mist were
inching around the wooden pole. He was still here.</p>
<p>And <em>he</em> was still <em>there.</em></p>
<p>The brooding presence of the man with the black and twitching
eyes, unseen, but somehow sensed, was still there on the other side
of the circle of stones. All was silent until Doug snorted softly.
Danny turned his head towards the sound, slowly swung back to look
through the entrance.</p>
<p>A red squirrel stood four square on the short grass. Its stubby
little legs were planted far apart on its four corners and its tail
curled right over its back like a rich feather plume. Its head was
up, nose sniffing the air in little twitches. At his movement in
the shadow of the tent, its coal eye fastened on Danny's. It moved
in rapid little jerks, halting to sniff then twisting in a flick of
russet to examine something on the grass. It picked up something
that looked like a baked bean, tested it quickly, then sat up on
its hunkers, tail still curled in a cloak against the cool of the
morning, and quickly ate it in a series of tiny, gnawing bites.
Danny watched the whole process, unable to move in case he scared
it. For a brief heartbeat, his fear was forgotten. The little
squirrel, half the size of the big greys which ruled in the beeches
and oaks further down the valley, searched around for more morsels,
constantly on edge, alert for danger. It froze, spun in a blur at
some motion beyond the camp and then disappeared in a silent, red
russet streak.</p>
<p>Danny's heart kicked. Had the man moved? Was he awake now and
coming for them?</p>
<p>He stretched against the loop, heedless of the pressure on his
throat, trying to see what was happening out there. The mist was
just beginning to lessen, thinning a little as the dawn slowly
changed into a still day.</p>
<p>Something moved and his heart lurched again and that was when he
saw it. He'd been staring right at it, unaware because it had been
still as a statue, but when it moved, just at the edge of vision,
stalking through the mist which was thicker down there at the
water, he recognised the heron. It took one step, slow and graceful
and silent, the head motionless at first and then slowly getting
into position, its eye a piercing bright yellow, the only colour
for the moment in the grey and white of the morning. It stepped
again on its long, elegant leg, dipping the toes into the water
with not a splash of sound. It stopped still, and for an instant,
Danny thought the eye was looking straight at him, the way the
squirrel had done, the way the dead eye up at Billy's altar of
skulls had done before the flies settled upon it. The eye was round
and almost fierce, full of life. The head came forward, very
slowly. The tall, grey bird froze. The beak pointed at the water,
then lanced down, quick as a blink, still with no sound, and came
rising back up with a small trout flapping uselessly. The bird
jerked, opening its beak so the fish was head-on, swallowed it with
a second twitch and the beak closed with a soft <em>snick</em>.</p>
<p>"Move on," Danny urged silently. The bird would be the female
whose lonely call had echoed down the valley from the dark in the
night. It was the mate of the one he'd brought down. Now it crept
upstream, hunting alone, only yards from the man with the shotgun.
"Go," he mouthed. "Get out of here."</p>
<p>He wanted to see it gone, to get some of the luck back. No
matter what Corky said, he could still feel the weight of
prescience. The motion, no matter how stealthy, could catch the
man's attention. He'd blast it out of the air in a puff of feathers
and there would be no more herons on the stream. They only hunted
in pairs in the summer and it would be a long time before a new
pair of the fishing birds would come hunting on the Blackwood
Burn.</p>
<p>"Go on," he whispered. "Skedaddle."</p>
<p>"What's that?" Doug said, not quite aloud, not quite awake. The
bird turned round, cocking its head to the side, the eye now fixed
on the tent. Danny nudged Doug with his foot. The bird watched for
a drawn-out moment, then satisfied itself there was no danger. It
took two more elegant and silent steps, a grey ghost in a white
mist, and then was gone from view. Doug had come fully awake and
watched it from where he sat, closer to the flap and with more of a
view.</p>
<p>"It's the other one," he mouthed. Danny nodded slowly. He jerked
his head, raising his eyebrows in question and Doug leaned as far
as he could, eyes wide. Danny saw the recognition and sudden defeat
in his posture. The man was still there. Doug's nod was
redundant.</p>
<p>"Billy?" Danny asked. The other boy nodded.</p>
<p>"Still tied," he whispered. Tom stirred, blearily opened his
eyes and looked around timidly then closed them again as if he
would rather not stay.</p>
<p>"Is he sleeping?" Corky asked softly, surprising Danny who'd
been completely unaware he had been awake all this time.
"<em>Him.</em>"</p>
<p>Doug leaned again, pilling on the twine that connected him to
Tom. He inclined his head. "I think so. I can't see his eyes. Looks
like it. Wait a minute."</p>
<p>Very slowly, big teeth clenched on his bottom lip for
concentration, he reached with his foot and raised the flap up
further, letting more light into the tent, widening the opening.
The swirl of air that came in was damp and morning cold. Both Danny
and Corky stretched as far as they could. Tom huddled closer to
Doug, his head twisted to see.</p>
<p>The man was still hunched on the little ridge of turf close to
the fire. He was like a black scarecrow against the white of the
<em>haar</em> mist and the light grey of the tall gravel bank on
the far side. He'd draped a blanket around his shoulders, Tom's old
red tartan one which had been left out since the previous night
when they'd all slept around the fire after the big fight. For a
moment, despite what Doug had said, Tom thought Billy had gone,
escaped. He was no longer sitting on the pine log. His heart
flipped in hope, a flutter against his ribs, and then dropped like
a stone into the pit of his belly when he saw Billy huddled against
the man's bulk. The gun was still looped against his neck, but it
had loosened somehow, so that the barrels were pointing not under
the chin, but past it. Billy's dark hair was tousled and his face
pressed up against the man's chest. His eyes were closed. The
stranger's arm was clamped around his shoulder, holding him close.
In any other scene, they could have been taken for father and son.
The heavy blanket was draped around them both.</p>
<p>Danny remembered the biblical quotations of the day before and
shuddered. He'd made Billy sit vigil with him holding him close,
like an affectionate parent protecting a child, like a shepherd
with his sheep. Like Abraham with his son before the sacrifice of
the morning.</p>
<p><em>Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the
hour.</em></p>
<p>Dougie brought him back to the here and now with a tap of his
foot. His other long leg was still holding the flap up and he
motioned outside. They all leaned as far as they could again.
Nothing had changed. The heron was gone and Danny hadn't heard the
whoop of its wings in the air, so it must have stalked off upstream
and around the corner.</p>
<p>"What is it?" Corky wanted to know.</p>
<p>"The gun," Doug whispered. His eyes were wide and suddenly
bright. "Look at it."</p>
<p>They looked. Corky started to ask again, then Danny stopped him
with a dig of his elbow. He had seen it and his heart leapt in a
surge of sudden and fearful excitement. The gun was broken open. He
could see the dark curves at the stock-end of the barrels where it
hadn't been closed properly. He strained to see, wishing now there
was more light. He focused as hard as he could, trying to see if
the shells had been taken out of the chambers. Sometime during the
night the man, <em>Twitchy Eyes,</em> had moved Billy closer to
him, taken him under his arm. He must have moved the gun, opened it
to make sure it didn't go off accidentally and blow his hostage to
kingdom come. Even with the safety on, that could be knocked out by
a nudge.</p>
<p>Were the shells still in there? Could he simply snap the gun
closed and fire the thing? Danny's heart was pounding furiously,
somewhere up near his throat. He was now completely awake, and he
could feel himself, his consciousness, begin to drift higher into
those slow motion chilly heights of the adrenaline surge.</p>
<p><em>If we get a chance, Danny boy, we have to take it.</em></p>
<p>A chance. A possibility. He turned to Corky, eyebrows raised and
Corky misread the question. He shrugged leaving it up to him. What
Danny wanted to know, to his shame, in is fear, was whether Corky's
leg was good enough this morning. He was about to ask, bit it back
in a dry gulp.</p>
<p>"Look," Doug hissed again. He nodded once more and they all
looked, the motion of the four of them making the tent poles
quiver. The hunched figure was completely motionless. The gun was
laid across the man's knee, with a big, horny hand resting on the
stock. In at his side, Billy's face was pale and bloodless. "On the
rock," Doug said insistently. Danny's eyes trailed away from the
gun to the flat stone close to the ridge where the man sat. One
shotgun cartridge sat in a small dip in its surface. The other one
had rolled to the grass below and lay there, bright red against the
grey green of the dew-damp grass.</p>
<p>Danny recognised it immediately. It was twelve-bore birdshot,
going by the colour. Even from here he could read the lettering on
the side. <em>Hy-max</em>. He couldn't make out the number, but he
didn't have to. The colour was enough. His Uncle Mick, his mother's
brother whom his father disliked because he cursed now and again
and drank whisky, he used them all and the bright red ones were
ideal for pigeons or woodcock. It was packed with light shot with a
good spread for fast moving birds, not the heavy-grain for shelduck
on the firth tidal banks or the ball-shot which could knock a
Greylag goose out of the air, or put a hole through a mountain hare
or even a roebuck. Birdshot would scatter wide, useless for big
animals, great for fast birds. Up close though, you couldn't miss
with that kind of filling. Up close it could easily cut a grown man
in half.</p>
<p>Danny's heart was up there, bobbing and hopping, filling his
throat and making it hard to breathe.</p>
<p>Corky swivelled to look at him and Danny knew Corky's leg was
still hurting pretty bad. He gulped, made a little clicking noise
that sounded like the heron's beak closing, managed to nod and saw
the acceptance and maybe even a glint of admiration in Corky's
eye.</p>
<p>"Can you get loose?"</p>
<p>Danny shook his head. "Who's got a knife?"</p>
<p>"What are you going to..." Tom started to say but stopped when
Danny nudged him.</p>
<p>"Where's your knife?"</p>
<p>"In my pocket."</p>
<p>"Can you reach?" All of this in dry little shivery whispers. Tom
shook his head. Corky looked at Doug.</p>
<p>Doug nodded that he'd try. He dropped his foot and let the flap
fall, suddenly making the inside of the tent much darker despite
the lightening of the sky over the valley. Somewhere beyond them,
close to the place where Billy had hung the skulls, something
rustled and Danny hoped it was the squirrel and not one of the big
hill cattle lumbering down to drink from the stream. He wished it
to silence, wished it away from here in case the sound woke up the
gaunt man.</p>
<p>Doug was squirming to the left and Tom was stretching to the
right, both of their hands wound round with the hairy baling twine.
Tom lifted his skinny backside off the flattened grass and Doug's
fingers found the lip of his front pocket, groped inside. Tom
grunted with the effort of holding the position while the string
tightened on his neck. They could see his arms quivering with the
strain. Doug's eyes were closed and he was biting down on his lip
again, his head across Tom's thin shoulder. He fumbled in the tight
pocket, twisting his wrists hard enough to make the binding dig
into the skin, then tensed. He torqued back and the knife came
flipping right out, a black whirling shape. It landed with a dull
little thump close to the door flap.</p>
<p>Everybody froze.</p>
<p>Doug's mouth was open, lips curled back from his big teeth, a
picture of tension and dismay. Tom was still leaning back, holding
his balance. The knife lay there by the edge while the all
listened, wondering if the noise had woken the man. From out there,
no sound came except the muted burbling of the stream. After a
moment, Tom eased himself back up to a sitting position. Doug
stretched his foot outwards, his old black and scuffed baseball
boot missing one of its rubber ankle-guards. He tried to hook the
army knife back towards him, almost got purchase by pressing it
down into the ground to get his boot beyond it, but succeeded only
in pushing it further away.</p>
<p>Danny's heart flipped again, in hope and in dismay, each tugging
from a different direction.</p>
<p>"Careful," Corky snapped, more loudly than he meant. Doug shot
him a look, tried for the heavy knife again, sent it another inch
closer to the flap. Tom's breath let out in a long sigh. The knife
sat there, almost out of reach.</p>
<p>"Anybody got another knife?" Corky demanded, eyes blazing.
Billy's blade was still stuck in the grain of the log. Doug had
lost his sometime between the day at the river and now.</p>
<p>"Hold it," he said, managing a quick grin. He drew his foot
back, pulled his other up and shoved the heel with his toe. The
tattered baseball boot squeaked and the old laces groaned as he
stretched them. He pushed harder and they all watched the boot
loosen off, pulling down past his heel. Doug applied more pressure,
shoving really hard now and suddenly his boot came flipping off
with a hollow sucking sound. Triumphantly he held his foot up
again. His grey sock had a wide hole at the end, through which
poked three skinny white toes.</p>
<p>"Watch this," he told them, stretched forward to his fullest
extent, twisted to the side, and his two largest toes spread like
fingers. He dipped them down on to the knife, curled them tightly
and gripped it. Danny felt the bubble of hysteria ripple up again
and he swallowed it down. A part of him was hoping Doug might drop
it out of reach and that would mean he'd have no burden to bear.
Corky was unconsciously easing his leg up and down, as if trying to
loosen a cramp in his thigh. It was clear his injured leg had
stiffened badly in the night.</p>
<p>Doug's prehensile toes gripped the knife, like a miniature
grab-crane, swung it over and flipped it, with surprising
expertise, towards the other two. It landed at Danny's side only
inches from his fingers. He found it and worked it closer until he
could grip it tight with one hand while his fingers worked on the
awkwardly tight blade until he eased it open, almost splitting his
thumbnail in the process. The big blade next to the spike for
taking things out of horses hooves snapped back with a metallic
click that was muffled between them. He managed to twist it
upwards, felt the sharp edge against the skin of his wrist,
manoeuvred it back and sawed it against the binding twine.</p>
<p>"Got it?" Corky wanted to know. Danny concentrated. Everybody
waited.</p>
<p>The string snapped with the sound of a bowshot, not loud, but
definite. Doug heaved a long sigh and managed a grin. Tom just
looked worried. The blade cut quickly through the rest of the
twine, each one parting with the same little tug and in less than a
minute, Danny's hands were free. His wrists looked as if he wore
scarlet bangles and the little ridges where the bonds had bit
immediately started to itch. He rubbed them briskly, chafing the
blood back, trying to loosen the stiff numbness from his wrists</p>
<p>"Good man," Corky said under his breath. He motioned to Doug,
using head and eyebrows. Doug lifted the flap just a little, leaned
to peer out, came back and winked an affirmative.</p>
<p><em>Okay.</em></p>
<p>Danny's heart was now tripping fast. He brought his hands
forward and changed position, crawled forward just a bit, only to
be brought up by the loop at his neck. With an almost vicious
swipe, more in panic than in anger, he raised the knife and sliced
the noose. Without hesitation he turned and cut Corky free, quick
as he was able. Corky took the knife and started to move towards
Tom and Doug, wincing hard as he did so. Danny read it. Corky
looked at him and his expression did not change.</p>
<p><em>You reckon you can make it?</em></p>
<p>Danny felt a sweat trickle down his back, remembered the new
testament quotation from the Garden of Gethsemane. He could have
used an extract of his own, from the many that had been diligently
and religiously drummed in.</p>
<p><em>Let this chalice pass.</em></p>
<p>The knife cut the others free. Danny moved to the front, peering
out from the shadow. The man was motionless, his eyes closed. The
gun hadn't moved, but some of the mist had thinned. The cartridge
on the stone was still there, and the other one a few inches away
on the grass. The air was now clearer and he could see the empty
chambers of the barrels. The gun was not loaded. He breathed out
slowly.</p>
<p>"What's happening?" Tom asked. Corky put a finger up to his
lips. Danny moved to the back of the tent, into the shadows where
their old haversacks were stored in a pile. At the far side,
opposite to where they'd set the fire, opposite the man who held
Billy close, he gripped the bottom edge of the tent with both hands
and pulled hard. Nothing happened. He tried again, but the base
stayed pegged and he remembered how they'd used the ballpeen hammer
to set the old wooden pegs. They were driven down a foot into
hardpack. It would take more than a few tugs to pull them out.</p>
<p>"Cut it," Doug whispered, realising what the problem was. He
leaned out to make sure the man was still asleep, or at least, not
rousing. He held his hand up, thumb perpendicular.
<em>Okay.</em></p>
<p>The canvas slit straight down, parting with a soft scraping
buzz, leaving a gash two feet long and dead straight. The tension
of the fabric pulled the edges apart, letting in more daylight. An
earwig fell through the hole and scuttled for shelter.</p>
<p>Doug's thumb was still up. Danny couldn't speak. His heart now
felt as if it was kicking somewhere up around his ears, drowning
out all other sound. He was convinced the whole valley must be able
to hear it. He imagined flocks of woodpigeons clattering from the
trees in alarm, crows rising in accusing squadrons, attracting
attention, disturbed by the sudden noise. He swallowed hard, was
distantly surprised that he was able to.</p>
<p>"Go," Corky whispered, feather soft. "Best of....."</p>
<p>Danny's head was outside, through the gap, and he did not hear
Corky's blessing. Immediately the green, clean smell of morning
suffused him. In the open, the sound of the stream was louder than
it had seemed from inside the tent. There was still some mist,
quite a lot of it pooled in the hollows and runnels further
downstream. For a moment he was almost frozen with fear and
apprehension. He turned back, eyes searching them all, and they
were all fixed on him, none of them seeming to breathe. The moment
stretched out, brittle as glass. A nerve in the back of his leg
started to twitch and the sinews on is arms felt as tense as
bowstrings. Corky's green eyes, now grey in this dim light, were on
him, sharp and hard and full of anger and full of life. Danny
locked with them and it did not make his fear go away, but it gave
him enough impetus to swivel round without a word.</p>
<p>He crawled out, carefully lifting one knee then the other over
the splintered tent-peg, making sure he didn't catch his feet on
the shredded canvas. He turned his head, just able to make out the
edge of the forest way downstream. There the mist was still thick
and opaque, an almost solid wall, rising half way up the tall
trunks. Down there would be shelter, but that was where the man was
facing. There was little or no cover down to the second bend where
Corky had been felled. Danny sat still, telling himself to calm
down, forcing his brain to function.</p>
<p><em>It'd be quicker to go up the top and down the moor. Quicker
to get home.</em></p>
<p>He felt that slow-motion treacle-time sensation begin to
overtake him again, the almost dreamy clarity of unbearably high
tension. Corky had put his finger on it. Over the top and down the
hill, if he could get to the canyon lip without being seen. Danny
knew he could walk quietly when he had to. Now he really had to. He
swallowed down again on the pounding of his heart, found it was
going slower than he thought, found he could make his legs move. He
went round the back of the tent, keeping low, crawling silently on
all fours, making sure he missed all the guy ropes which would have
thrummed like bass-strings if he tripped over any of them. Beyond
the farthest peg, still out of view from the ridge at the fire
there were some low ferns close to a small clump of cow-parsley. He
reached that, staying low now, until he got close to the wall where
Billy had hung his skulls. The flies were slow and lethargic,
waiting for the heat of the day, but they still clustered thickly,
and this close to the deer's head, the smell was pretty fierce.
Danny did not look up to see if the dead heron's eye was still
fixed on him, He had seen its mate, fishing alone, its eye gleaming
with bright life. He imagined he could feel the black twitching
eyes of the mad stranger on his back, told himself he <em>was</em>
imagining it before a tide of panic swamped him. Just beyond edge
of the hollow, where there was a narrow cleft between two boulders
that led up slope to the next level of the stream, he stood on a
dead twig which snapped underfoot, loud in his ears as a
cannon-shot. He froze, turned round slowly, every hair standing to
attention on the back of his neck.</p>
<p>The stranger did not move. Danny could just make him out,
hunched beside the ring of stones, like some Indian shaman, like a
scarecrow waiting for the day. Billy was hugged in tight, both of
his legs flopped lifelessly, jutting out in front of him. Danny got
a sudden chill suspicion that Billy might be dead, that the man
with the twitchy eyes had strangled him in the night. A sick
feeling of nausea welled up and he choked it down, for he couldn't
afford the noise of retching. After a moment, he unfroze, managed
to get his limbs moving, and made it through the crevice.</p>
<p>For the next three or four yards, he was hidden from view, but
to his left, another stone face, maybe a dozen feet high, stretched
on towards a clump of moraine boulders that had been rolled down
here by some distant spring flood. He couldn't scale it quietly,
even though there were a few scraggly rowan roots hanging downwards
to offer handholds. He kept low, still scuttering like a spider,
trying to avoid the dried twigs and hollow saxifrage stems closer
to the stream. He got to the end of the slope cover, came to the
edge of the water, held his breath and raised his head slowly as he
was able. Finally his eyes were above the low stone ridge. Down
there, back where he'd come from, he could see the slit in the side
of the tent. None of the others had followed, which was as well,
because that would only increase the risk of attracting attention.
He slowly swivelled his eyes until he could see the man sitting
there, still as a rock. He looked ghostly and ghastly and even his
motionless posture radiated awesome threat. Billy's arm hung down
to the short grass, as if he was caught in a killer head-lock. From
where he peered, Danny could not see the gun.</p>
<p>At this part of the stream, just up from the four feathers on
the low falls which dropped down into deep the pool at the camp,
there was a shallower pool which was maybe ten feet wide. It had
some large quartz rocks in its centre, white as the morning mist,
but no fish. Danny crawled down to the edge, to a margin of small
flat stones, and began to cross, taking one step at a time,
breathing shallowly as possible, mouth wide open so he couldn't
snuffle and cough. There was some summer algae on the smooth bottom
where a lip of mudstone protruded, and it was slick as spilled oil.
Danny stayed on all fours, even when the water came up to his chin,
to prevent himself from falling, and made it to the other side. He
got to the bank and made his way upstream for about twenty yards
before he realised that there was no cover for the next hundred.
From where he sat, the man could see down to the second bend, and
upstream along a relatively straight section of the valley to the
runnel where Doug had almost made the decision to run. There was no
cover and Danny was not sure he'd be able to get as far as that
along the shingle and shale without making some sort of sound.</p>
<p>Corky's words came back. It would be quicker to go up the
top.</p>
<p>Danny paused, feet squelching quietly. His jeans were wringing
wet. For a few breaths he waited, unable to take his eyes off the
figure sitting by the ring of stones. Up to his left, a shoulder of
the ridge that separated the two narrow tributaries, shaped like
the upside down prow of a ship, came down at a steep angle. The
upstream tributary was the larger of the two and led to the natural
dam which had plugged the basalt crevice at Lonesome Lake. The
right side was shallower, but got steep a hundred feet back.
Between them, on the ridge of the shoulder, there was a worn path
where sheep had come down to drink at the stream. They'd used this
before when they'd found the backed up lake, and again when they'd
gone to find the Dummy Village. There was no choice now. Danny's
legs locked for a panicked moment and then he started to climb.
When he reached the top, he'd be out of sight, and then he'd have a
run down the moor, just a few miles to the barwoods, down past the
pylons, through the blackened gorse and down to the town and help
from Sergeant Fallon.</p>
<p><em>And I'm never coming back here again,</em> he swore to
himself.</p>
<p>He went up the path, hand over hand, moving as quickly as
possible, as silently as he could and the more he climbed, the more
muted came the sound of the stream below. The daylight was
brightening fast and the mist seemed to be sneaking away from the
light, oozing into the shadows of the edge of the trees which
crowded further down the valley. Danny moved upwards, trying not to
pant, but it was hard going, twenty feet, forty, fifty. The hill
seemed to go on forever, up a compacted shale incline, over a ledge
of mudstone, round to the bare face to miss out a steeper climb
where he could slip. A couple of times he did slide backwards,
losing two yards, but he gained them back fast as he could.</p>
<p>He got to the first level of the shoulder. From here it got
steeper, maybe seventy feet up from the floor, no more than that.
He risked a glance down and it looked further. The tent was a dark
green oblong against the lighter green. The circle of smooth stones
was as clear as a clock face, with the dark shadow of the man
sitting at eight o'clock. Danny's breath started to thump. He was
getting there, getting close to the high edge. Once over he had one
feeder valley to traverse, a slide down and a scramble up and then
he'd be away, well out of sight, running hell for leather down to
safety.</p>
<p>He was getting there, only forty feet or so from the top. He
edged round the corner away from a thin layer of white mudstone,
edging into the second tributary, when something moved, caught in
peripheral vision. Danny's head whipped round in a panicked jerk
just in time to see the grey heron take of, as the first one had
done, in a powerful sweep of wings. The sudden motion itself had
made him take a step back.</p>
<p><em>Kaark!</em> The bird called out loudly, and its cry was
funnelled by the tight confines of the narrow chasm and amplified
in a hollow and accusing double echo.</p>
<p>"Oh, no," Danny said aloud, still moving, trying foolishly to
get the bird to hush. Its head was drawn back, beak pointed to the
sky, its left wing close enough to the gully side to sweep of some
fine grains of shale. Danny's foot slid on a piece of stone,
lifted, shuffled for balance, and found a ledge. He reached to grab
a firmer handhold when the flat ledge he'd stepped on crumbled
under his foot. There was a muffled click, like wet wood breaking,
and the piece of mudstone simply sprung away, a piece about a foot
square. Danny quickly grabbed for it, got half a grip, but the fine
dust on the smooth surface slipped through his fingers and the rock
rolled out, slid down the soft shale slope for five feet or so and
hit the other line of rock with a harsh clunk.</p>
<p>"Hell!" Danny huissed. His foot was still slipping from lack of
purchase and for a moment he had to ignore the fallen stone. The
heron was a blur to his right now, pinioning its way into the sky.
Danny got a grip, pushed himself upwards onto the steeper part of
the slope, moving round the spur to the steep gravelly slope they'd
slid down when they first came over the rise and down into the
valley. Below him the tumbling rock hit another, bounced out into
the air. He turned, saw that it had dislodged the other stone. The
two of them bounded, whirling together out from the slope, landed
one after the other on the soft shale like dull footsteps, digging
twin furrows, rebounded again over a ledge and fell twenty feet in
tandem. Danny watched them go, unable to move. His whole attention
was focused on the tumbling rocks as they hurtled down the side.
Way down at the bottom, in the curve of the stream there was a
mound of soft sediment which had trickled down the steep side of
the valley and piled up in a hollow. If the stones landed there,
they might stop with hardly a sound. Danny knew he should keep
going, but the stones held his attention and would not let him
go.</p>
<p>Some distance up from the valley floor, the mudstone boulders
flipped out over the shale, now spinning in the air. They seemed to
fall in slow motion. For a moment Danny thought they were dropping
straight for the soft gravel pile, but from where he clung to the
spur, the angle was deceptive. The rocks plunged down and smashed
on to a hard stone ledge with two harsh cracks. The sound was like
gunfire in the valley.</p>
<p>The hammer blows ricocheted from one side to the other, so loud
that Danny almost lost his grip. He twisted to look down at the
camp. For a brief moment there was complete stillness.</p>
<p>Then the man moved. His head turned towards where the rocks had
smashed on the ledge, while the echoes of the impact were still
reverberating along the curves of the canyon. The rocks had smashed
on the harder stone and scattered like shrapnel on the smooth
surface of the shallow pool he'd crawled across. For a second, no
more, he looked at the water, then his head angled up. Danny saw
the pale oval of the man's face as it turned towards him.</p>
<p>They stared at each other across the distance, one looking up,
the other staring down.</p>
<p>Then the man was moving. Danny turned, panicking, started
scrambling up the scree. He reached the next level, feet slipping
and sliding on the crumbly surface, whimpering in fear and
desperation, and clawed for the top up the almost vertical incline.
He got to the nearest level of strata, managed to get over it,
feeling as if his whole body was shivering violently enough to
throw him backwards, but miraculously keeping his grip.</p>
<p>Down below somebody screamed and somebody else shouted. The
man's hoarse voice bawled out and Danny could not prevent him head
from turning, even as his feet tried to find purchase on the
crumbling shale.</p>
<p>Down at the camp, the man was on his feet, standing dead still.
Beside him, on the short cropped grass beside the ring of stones,
Billy was on his knees, body arched back. somebody else was
sprawled and motionless on the grass. Close by two of the others
were waving their hands and yelling frantically. Danny turned back,
managed to get another two feet higher, stopped, swung back again
as his brain registered what his eyes had seen.</p>
<p>The man had the gun in his hands. It was swinging round towards
the slope.</p>
<p>Hot panic exploded inside him. Danny scrabbled at the slope,
nails digging into the surface. He had only a dozen feet to go
before he reached the top edge and safety. Only a dozen feet. It
could have been so many miles. He sobbed in sudden fury and fear
and bitter disappointment, eyes fixed on the skyline above.</p>
<p>Up and over. <em>Up and over.</em> His internal voice was
bleating it out, a jittery litany. Behind him, other voices were
screaming, high and urgent and fearful.</p>
<p>"Go Danny! <em>Go</em>!"</p>
<p>He sensed the gun swinging upwards, his back completely exposed.
A dreadful cold shudder rippled down his spine. And he forced
himself another step, another.</p>
<p><em>Up and over. Oh please.</em></p>
<p>Ahead of him, in the morning sky, the heron was just a distant
shadow.</p>
<hr />
<p>Doug and Corky had been watching for him from the dark inside
the tent, knowing that he would not try a downstream run this time.
Danny had slipped out through the slit and although he'd moved as
silently as he could, they could hear the occasional rustle and
scuffle as he made his way towards the hollow and the cleft between
the stones that would take him up to the next level. Doug was
holding his breath, listening for more sound, but once Danny had
gone through the cleft, there was nothing more to be heard, except
for the muttering of the water. They slowly crawled to the front of
the tent again, while Tom held back in the shadows trying to calm
his breathing. The day was already lightening perceptibly, though
it was still early and the smell of the dew was thick and damp. The
mist was thinning quickly.</p>
<p>Doug caught the motion first, on the far side, just up from the
low falls. Danny was on the sheep track, heading up the spur. He
seemed very small against the grey mass of the jutting ridge. Doug
pointed and Corky peered out.</p>
<p>"I see him," he whispered. "Go man, go."</p>
<p>Tom came up alongside them but did not look out. He just hoped
Danny would make it out. That left only four of them and there was
no guarantee that when the stranger discovered one of them had
escaped, that he would not go into a frenzy and hurt them all.</p>
<p><em>Or worse.</em></p>
<p>But there was nothing else to do. If they all tried to make a
run for it now, they couldn't stay silent and that would wake the
man up and then all hell would erupt.</p>
<p>The other two followed Danny's progress, higher and higher.
Doug's eyes kept flicking to the dark hunched shape by the
fireside, watching for signs of stirring. If Danny moved fast, he
could be down in the town in an hour, and have help up here before
the sun had really risen. There was a chance that he'd be back
before the crazy man woke up. A chance.</p>
<p>Then the heron had sent out its shrill cry and Danny had
dislodged the rock. The pair of them had stared up, unable to
believe the bad luck of it. The stone had knocked the other out and
they'd both come bounding downwards and the double crack of thunder
when they hit was deafening in the morning silence.</p>
<p>"Oh fuck," Doug said, stupidly.</p>
<p>By the fire, the man jerked awake. Twisting left then right,
trying to get a bearing on the sound which echoed back now from all
the sides and curves of the slopes. He spun to the pool where the
shards of broken stone were falling like hailstones and then he
looked up.</p>
<p>Danny was pinioned to the steep slope, hands spread wide for
purchase, his head almost turned round completely. He seemed only a
short distance from the valley edge.</p>
<p><em>Go man go!</em> Corky silently urged.</p>
<p>The man roared wordlessly. He jerked to his feet, snatching the
gun up as he did so. Billy squawked, only half awake. The noose
tightened around his neck as the stranger hauled at the gun,
forgetting how he'd tied it the night before. Billy was hauled to
his feet, flipped like a rat caught by an angry terrier, but hands
up at his neck. A strangled sound blurted out.</p>
<p>"He'll kill him," Corky bawled, aghast. Without thinking about
it, he pushed his way out of the tent, Doug was right behind him.
Over on the short grass, Billy had stumbled to the ground, his
hands still trying to force themselves between the twine and the
skin of his neck where the loop had tightened ferociously. He had
fallen over the log where he'd sat for some of the night, his
backside landing with an audible thump.</p>
<p>The stranger growled savagely, jerking at the gun. Billy
flopped, hauled this way and that, and the man seemed not to be
aware of his presence except as a weight hindering his use of the
gun. The boy gagged, making a strange and somehow deadly rattling
sound in the back of his throat, but the man ignored that. Without
any hesitation he brought his foot down onto Billy's shoulder,
pressed hard, while he dried to drag the gun away.</p>
<p>"Leave him alone," Corky bawled, trying to overcome the
stiffness in his thigh and get to his feet. He tripped over a guy
rope, rolled and crawled for two yards. Doug was jabbering
incoherently just behind him.</p>
<p>Billy's breath was cut off completely and his face suddenly went
purple. The man pulled again and for a moment, Corky was convinced
the twine would cut right through his neck like a cheese wire. In
his mind's eye he saw Billy's head come tumbling off his shoulders
to roll on the grass.</p>
<p>Then the man saw the old knife jammed into the grain of the log.
He dropped Billy to the ground, reached for the sheath knife and
pulled it from the wood with one quick wrench. He twisted it and
swung the blade in against Billy's neck. The string parted and
Billy went rolling away, still making those deathly sounds in his
throat. Corky was bawling at the stranger but Doug was crawling
past him, trying to get to his feet, stumbling towards the flat
stone. The man was just turning away from where Billy writhed. He
raised the gun up the slope. Doug reached the stone and grabbed the
red cartridge which sat in the little hollow on its surface. He
swung round and threw it, hard as he could, away from them. It
whirled in the air, like a miniature red stick of dynamite and
plopped into the pool below the feathers on the falls. He was
turning for the other one which had fallen onto the grass when the
man spun, realising the gun was unloaded, saw what the boy had done
and crossed the flat in a few strides, he lifted the shotgun and in
a smooth and brutal jabbing motion, smashed the butt end against
Doug's head. It made a sound like wood on stone.</p>
<p>Doug stumbled away. Corky was crossing the flat towards him. Tom
veered across to where Billy was rolling about, face purple, hands
scrabbling at the string still twisted around his throat. Doug took
two faltering steps to the left, as if he'd lost all sense of
direction. He fell down on his backside, got a hand to the ground,
raised himself up, head turning, and halfway to his feet again. The
man had hit and walked past him, now slotting the one cartridge
into the chamber. The barrels snapped closed with metallic
finality. He was raising the gun.</p>
<p>At the edge of the campsite Doug got halfway to his feet, tied
to say something, then pitched forward heavily onto his face. Tom
snatched up the knife and was straddling Billy, trying to get him
to stay still while Billy, almost twice his weight, bucked in blind
and desperate panic, almost throwing the small boy off. Tom got the
blade under the twine and worked it back and forth. The sharp tip
scored two small punctures in Billy's neck, not deep, but bleeding
freely. The string parted with a twang and Billy's breath instantly
howled inward. Corky was running towards the man, yelling
frantically. He hadn't even thought about it. All he saw was the
gun swinging up towards Danny who was pinioned on the steep slope,
completely exposed. He was moving past Doug who lay spread-eagled
on the grass, beyond Tom and Billy, running to try to snatch the
gun, to give Danny one chance.</p>
<p>The gun thundered.</p>
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