booksnew/source/darkvalley-source/027.txt

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<h2>27</h2>
<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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