The Gallows Pole

by Benjamin Myers

  I meant coin, said James Broadbent. I just meant I wanted more coin for my work.

  I know what you meant said David Hartley. My wife told me so and she does not lie.

  He called over his shoulder: Grace get in here.

  A moment later his wife appeared in the doorway as a silhouette and stood there. The stone dwelling became darker still as shadows crossed James Broadbent’s face.

  David Hartley pressed himself closer in. Between them Isaac Hartley and Thomas Clayton and Thomas Spencer held James Broadbent by his arms and had his neck in a lock while William Hartley stood to one side with a crooked smile on his face. Watching. The dog watched too. Excited, it circled.

  Well, I shall tell you what I’ll do, said David Hartley. I’ll take your piggy little pizzle and keep it as a candle. I’ll stick a wick in the slit and dip it in wax. I’ll light you up and burn it all night long. Your screams will send the crows scattering from the trees.

  Their faces were inches apart now.

  Let’s see what you’ve got that’s so special, said David Hartley as he reached down and grabbed at the front of James Broadbent’s trousers. He yanked at the buttons and one came off and then as Isaac Hartley laughed and Thomas Clayton laughed, David Hartley pulled down first James Broadbent’s trousers and then his drawers. Pulled them all the way down to his ankles. He kicked James Broadbent’s feet further apart.

  The dog yapped and sprang from side to side until David Hartley turfed it with his foot.

  He looked for a moment and then he grabbed James Broadbent down there. Took him in his hand and squeezed. James Broadbent flinched and tried to kick out but David Hartley sidestepped his wayward boot.

  Look at that lads, he laughed. It’s like a normal one but so much smaller. God’s put the poor fucker together all wrong. For such a big lummox I’d have been expecting more than a bairn’s finger.

  The men looked and laughed and leered. Feeling the energy of the pack, the dog barked.

  You could stick it on a hook and go fishing with that, said Thomas Clayton.

  David Hartley turned to his wife and still holding James Broadbent he said: look Grace it’s not as good as mine is it? Neither as thick nor as long. He’s like a donkey born with the prick of a shrew.

  He turned back to James Broadbent.

  Aye a poor man’s pizzle is that, James Broadbent. It’s no wonder the lassies give you a wide berth. You’d not touch the sides with that beard-splitter. Now I’d already warned you and your cunty ways but still you turn up here malted and mouthy. Reckoning on me not being the king. Reckoning on you being something special.

  He squeezed again and James Broadbent flinched, and then he writhed and kicked out again but Isaac Hartley and Thomas Clayton and Thomas Spencer held him fast. Tightened their lock. He tried to look away but an arm squeezed around his neck. Began to choke him out.

  David Hartley laughed again. He laughed in James Broadbent’s face and the dog circled and David Hartley growled get by Moidore, and the dog shrunk backwards.

  I do believe James Broadbent is getting hard lads he said. He looked down and then back at James Broadbent and he smiled.

  Yes, he continued. I can definitely feel this sausage fattening in my fives. Perhaps this dearest member of our merry men is not the tough nut he thinks he is. Perhaps this James Broadbent is a Miss Molly.

  He glanced downwards and then lowered his other hand.

  And look: his tallywags are nothing to sing a song about either though I feel that they too are hardening.

  James Broadbent tried to struggle one more time.

  David Hartley stepped backwards but still had him in hand. He now started to move it back and forward.

  Look brothers – see how it is growing. My, but it’s ugly though. Look, Grace, my dearest wife. Look at the little weapon this man did promise to give you. Granted it grows but it looks like a blind cobbler’s thumb. And does he have the seed to go with it? Does James Broadbent have the seed that makes a baby just as I, King David Hartley of Cragg Vale, have made many?

  A look of panic filled James Broadbent’s eyes as Isaac Hartley and Thomas Clayton and Thomas Spencer leaned over his shoulder to watch as David Hartley tugged back and forward with a greater speed and determination. Without slowing he stepped aside so that Grace Hartley could get a better view and so that James Broadbent too could see the silhouette of his wife standing beneath the wooden stanchion, still framed by the stone doorway.

  Look Grace he’s fain for it, said David Hartley. He knows a good woman when he sees one – he has taste, does this one. I’ll give him that.

  Grace Hartley said nothing. She just watched. In the half-light the men could not see the expression on her face. The dog was close by again. It paced the room with its tail wagging and ears pricked.

  Go on then, said David Hartley to James Broadbent. Take a good look at what you could have had. What I get to have any time I like.

  He tugged more vigorously. The man was completely erect now and the brace put on him by the men held him even tighter. One hand was clamped over his mouth. The men muttered words of approval and encouragement.

  You’re going to snap it off brother, laughed Isaac Hartley.

  David Hartley stopped and spat on the palm of hand and then grabbed James Broadbent and went at him even harder.

  The others fell silent. All eyes were on David Hartley’s hand now as it became a blur and James Broadbent’s breathing became heavier and deeper.

  Look at that Grace, said David Hartley. It’s getting bigger but it’s still not as big as mine though but, is it?

  Still not as big as mine he said again.

  James Broadbent groaned.

  Look Gracie, said David Hartley. It’s like a blood pudding.

  Look Gracie, he said. Picture this big lump on top of you.

  Look, Gracie. Gracie, look.

  James Broadbent tried to pull away one last time but he was held fast and he drew a long inward breath as he spurted two white strings onto the damp blackened floor of the stone room.

  The men loosened their grip on James Broadbent then. He dared not meet the eyes of David Hartley and there was a moment of icy silence. He bent to pull up his trousers. The dog came forward and sniffed at the ground with interest. It extended a pink tongue and lapped.

  You’ve all seen it now lads, said David Hartley. It turns out this man is as bent as a drunken weaver’s spindle. He is a quean. He is not a real man; he can never be one of us.

  What do you think to that then Gracie? he continued, but when he turned his wife had left and in her place was nothing but the moor beyond stretching for miles and the tightening of the sky and the screeching of birds somewhere down in the valley below.

  Thers men no berra than beests here in ole York castle Men thall think naut of taken anutha man an taken him for a ride like his wifey and fillen him up with all what hes got until the otha man wud feel its his wont to were a dress and grow dugs on his chesst and cry hisself to sleep at nite But with these words I rite the truth to you that wot ever is said abaht King Daevid Hartley he was not wan of them kinds Not one of them sorts Yess he was hard and feers and crool but he was not the wan to do them things that they do at nite here in the sells No King Daevid is a King and when yoos king you still live bah reules and you stick to them reules.

  So now you see somewan is twisten the trooth for I never did tug that Rat Jaymes Brordbend’s parsnip I have never seen it never tuched it If it happund I was not there that day in the Alcemmyists clippin bildin up near my pallas Bell Howse And it maybe that sum of the boys ruffed the man up but it was surely nothen that the Rat Brordbent did not deserve as you will sea And in fact if I new then what it was he was going on to do I wud have taken his pizzel and I wud not have tugged it litely for fun No I would have twisted it and taken the burdizzo and the hot tongs and tar to his nackers like a herd
sman does his bull and kept on skweezing till his screams split the sky and they popped off and then Id have stuffed them down his gullit and nipped his nose and made him dance a merry jig ower hot coles.

  And that’s the teruth of it is that The Godshonest teruth I swearit on my chilluns heads.

  In the gloaming of the shrinking day David Hartley left Bell House where the smell of hops and oats and a weighted mouldy dampness sat heavy over everything, and he tramped across the moor.

  He went beyond the top dip and round the bog patch that never dried, a place in which he had seen half a dozen sheep die over the years. It had simply taken them – their legs thrashing at the heavy sky and their bleats of panic turning into death wails as the soil swallowed them up. A horse or two also. A rope was always too far away to rescue the sinking creatures. The last one to get sucked under had belonged to a stocksman who lived at Norland by the name of George Wharton and it was a known fact that this George Wharton had on more than one occasion refused to donate currency when pressed about it, and had now found his herd diminishing ever since. Another of his flock was spotted garrotted, one found twisted and drowned at the bottom of a foss and a third split cleanly from scut to teeth.

  To most the bog looked like any other patch of moor but David Hartley and those who lived close by knew it was deadly. The shallow slow-running groughs fed the hag with a trickle of coppery water. They brought with them fresh alluvial deposits and gave the thick mud a life of its own. In the wet seasons – which was all seasons – it became a silent malevolent force. Often David Hartley had said that in years to come they would find a pile of bones down there belonging to different creatures and as they tried to piece them together would wonder what hellish beast it was that had been eaten up by the copper-coloured soil.

  Up at Bell House the belief was that George Wharton should have come in with the Coiners if he’d had any sense about him.

  He walked toward the fold. He walked toward the thin strip of light that seemed planted in the moor like a cattle jobber’s spiked tine. He walked toward the slowly rolling billow of smoke that was too heavy to drift upwards, and which instead sank to the fold’s stone foundations where it lay like a strange grey bed of flowers forever reshaping itself.

  Coiner coming, said David Hartley as he rapped on the wooden door kept ajar and then pushed it hard through the jarring morass of shale and stamped soil that was the dwelling’s carpet. Through the smoke he saw The Alchemist swigging water from a cup and beside him on a rotting old lintel beam that had once held the roof in place, and was now set across two rocks, were thousands of coins stacked in a line, twinkling like the faraway stars of the crispest winter night.

  He crouched to the fire and warmed his hands. The Alchemist finished the rest of his water and then pumped the fire with his bellows. He too squatted. His face was stained with soot. His face was strained too. It was darkened by more than soot. It was the look of someone troubled.

  What message do you have for me today then old friend?

  I see shadows, The Alchemist said quietly.

  David Hartley hawked some phlegm and spat it onto the coals. It sizzled.

  Well, he said. We live in a valley of shadows.

  I see shadows stretching long.

  We live in a valley of little sun.

  These shadows are not like the shadows cast by scar or scarp.

  David Hartley wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

  What are they then?

  They are crooked, said The Alchemist.

  Go on.

  Bent forms, they are.

  What are you on about now?

  Figures. They’re figures.

  Figures?

  David Hartley squinted into the fire.

  And where do you see these figures he said. In the flames?

  All round. The signs are there to be read.

  You’ve been clipping too long, friend. You’re tired. This smoke will send a man’s head west.

  I see sevens.

  David Hartley turned to The Alchemist and looked at him long and hard.

  You’re a good worker. You work hard. You do as you’re told and you keep your trapdoor closed. There’s no complaints. But you’re jawing in more riddles than ever. It’s time you got back to Bradford to clear your blackened lungs.

  Ignoring this, the Alchemist spoke quietly.

  First came the shadows in the fire and then out from the smoke comes the sevens.

  Shadows and sevens now is it?

  Yes – thems two sevens to look like shadows.

  David Hartley shook his head.

  You’re talking out your back hole you are.

  They’ll cover your eyes like cold coins said The Alchemist in a hoarse whisper.

  Well I can always use more coins.

  The sevens will cover your eyes like shadows; they’ll cover your eyes like coins David Hartley. These forms.

  Munch a chod, he snapped. What simpleton fuck talk is this? You’re getting wrong in the brain-pan you are.

  It’s written, David Hartley. The stars speak of an ill fate. The calendar. Don’t you see?

  I see fuck all, silly clot. Mine eyes are full of coins and shadows and sevens remember?

  You’d be wise to mind the calendar.

  David Hartley grinned a crooked grimace.

  Calendar? he said with scorn. The sun and the sky and the rain is my calendar, magic man. The berries and the bluebells and the birdsong tell me what time of year it is. My larder tells me so. I don’t need it written down on some stupid scroll. It’s me that reads the signs. The true signs of the Calder Valley.

  It’s the year King David. It’s the year that’s coming. Don’t you see? Two sevens.

  Eh?

  It’s a portent. Seven and seven. It can only be the year 1770.

  What of it?

  1770 is soon.

  And again what of it?

  It is a year of great shadows for you, said The Alchemist. Inescapable shadows beyond your reckoning.

  He blinked, his red rimmed eyes ringing the ovals of white that stared out from a face veiled in smoke markings.

  Life is shadows, said David Hartley.

  The Alchemist shook his head.

  Shadows that cross your eyes until they see nothing but the blackness, he continued. I predict things of terror because when the two sevens join, an empire crumbles.

  Which empire?

  The Alchemist paused and stared deep into the orange pulse of the fire pit. The heat was torrid and suffocating. The stone room confined it; created an oven.

  Thine empire.

  David Hartley stood. He spoke quietly and as he did he jabbed a finger at The Alchemist who continued to stare into the fire.

  You’re shitting through your teeth. You’re wrong in the nous-box if you believe sevens and shadows can fill a man’s eyes. This is the talk of duckerers and charlatans.

  You asked for my messages and I give you them.

  The Alchemist’s voice was steady as he continued.

  Thine empire is under threat from offcumdens and men that want to pull you under. Men that will appear one day across the moorlands like straw malkins to the crows on an autumn morning. One day they’ll be there. They’ll be there and you will have no place to hide. Not in the woods or up here on the moors, and no man will harbour you. And then you will wish you had read the signs and seen the shadows and seen the sevens for what they are: a warning prophesised.

  David Hartley stared at the hunched figure still entranced by the fire as he always seemed to be. But for once he said nothing.

  Take my words as you see fit, said The Alchemist in a voice so small that David Hartley was unsure as to whether the man had spoken at all.

  Over the tops of the trees smoke settled itself like the tangled dirty white sheari
ngs of a summer flock not yet dipped and combed and dyed. Like oil on water it hung there heavy. Too thick for the sky to contain its density, it cloaked the wood and muffled the sounds of the work that went on within it. Spirals of it twisted away in wisps, diminishing helices taken by the breeze.

  All his life Joseph ‘Belch’ Broadbent had been shrouded in smoke. Years tending the charcoal clamp meant it flavoured not just his clothes and hair with the slow dampened burn of oak and willow and alder, nor merely tanned his skin with soot and blackened dirt, but was within him; it had smoked him from the inside out and left Belch Broadbent with rheumy lidded eyes and a hacking cough that rattled most violently in the early hours.

  James Broadbent walked towards the distant rising plume that marked his father’s position as if it were a swarm of wasps leaving its fissure of an arid woodland floor or curl of a crawling tree root.

  He left the flat of the valley and cut away from the river. Headed uphill. Cleaved his way through damp grass. A skein of geese flew low overhead, honking in rhythmic response to their leader’s guiding call.

  For a fleeting moment he wished he had something to bring down one of those birds. Cold metal to reach from trigger to barrel to tiny beating heart.

  Any bird would do. Not even a goose. Any damn one. A partridge or a woodcock would look just as good plucked and speared on a spit dripping fat onto the sibilant fire. And by God he’d savour every greasy morsel, every fatty string, for his landlord John Sutcliffe and his wife Old Woman Sutcliffe barely fed him. Cold plates of smashed turnip or bowls of stodgy bread pap, watery stews or the last heel of last week’s loaf and the dirtiest slick of bacon fat was the best he got there. Oats and water of a morning. Fuck-all else.

  He’d stuff a spuggie in each cheek and suck on their bones given half a chance, for James Broadbent was big and penniless and he was always hungry, and it made no sense to always be hungry while all around him men were getting wealthy from the clipping of guineas – the same guineas he forced out of hard-working valley folk at great risk to his own personal liberty. From the Hartleys downwards, the men were buying clothes for their bairns and new furniture for their houses and gewgaws for their women, and for themselves leather belts and brass buckles and knives of steel from Sheffield. They were filling their stores with sugar and the best brew and good meat and here he was renting a cold room in a miserly house that often flooded with the rainwater and sewage that ran down Hall Bank Lane.