Which one are you? replied Isaac Hartley.
Thomas.
Well listen, Robert Thomas. A hundred guineas I’ve promised and a hundred guineas you’ll get. That’s all there is to it.
That doesn’t answer my question, does that.
You’re asking why I’m hiring on a couple of simple corn threshers to kill William Deighton?
A man could take your tone as insulting.
Take it any way you like.
We do a lot more than fucking thresh corn, said Matthew Normanton, stiffening his stance.
Yes, said Isaac Hartley. That’s what I heard. My ears told me that Robert Thomas and Matthew Normanton are the two most ruthless bastards around. Do anything for money those two – that’s what I heard.
The men smiled at this. They nodded with approval.
My boys reckon you’ll kill for coins. That’s why I asked you. The only reason.
Then I have one more question to ask, said Robert Thomas.
What?
How come you never had us coining or collecting for you?
Because you are the two most ruthless bastards around. Do anything for money those two, they said.
So?
So any man who does anything for money is not to be trusted. And that’s why you’ll get your guineas when Deighton’s blood is running cold across the stones and pooling around the shining cobbles. Now trot on.
Through icy rain and lifting wind they walked. Beneath their coats Robert Thomas and Matthew Normanton carried pistols and a twist of gunpowder. Two pieces of guns and slugs to fit. The coiner Thomas Spencer went with them.
They took the long way back round, through the villages of Sowerby and Sowerby Bridge. Down one side and up the other they walked, crossing swilling waters where foam gathered in swirls, and then passing by still dark pools and hamlets of houses and inns with lights in the window, and the rain began to fall harder. And then they were in trees and the wind blew and it took two long hours to reach the top of King Cross bank where they saw Halifax below them, and suddenly the night was real, and the guns were real and the slugs in their pockets were ready to bring death.
They reached Bull Close Lane and the street was quiet so they took up positions in the shadows of houses, and it was not yet late but the cold came in with a vengeance now.
The sky fattened and the rain fell, and they waited.
Time passed slowly, slower than the clouds across the autumn moon, slower than the dull distant chimes of a midnight bell that came and went, and they shivered wet in their wool layers, sopping right down to their undershirts. Robert Thomas did not have a hat nor Matthew Normanton a light for his pipe and Thomas Spencer watched the men watch Deighton’s door from afar until no-one came and the night defeated them, and after several senseless hours spent shivering in silence they departed for their beds, silent still save for the wet squeak of their boots and the rattle of unspent slugs still full of death in their pockets.
Stolen coyns they tork of a lot in here now that many of my fellow poor shackled sods no ecksackly who it is I am and what it is I did For the word on the Crag Vayle Coiners has spread far and wide these passing munths Yes a lejun I am becummin as I sit in the condemmed mans cell awaytin my fate Stolen coyns they say are buried around the Royd and now every day they axe me about it King Dayvid King Dayvid they corl across the eckersise yard or down the airless corrydoor Where is it you hid the ginnys and I shouts back What fucken ginnys and they say The wans your own men stole off you and I shouts No Coyner stoll a fucken penny off me you daft and dirty black Lancastreen bastids and they laff and says Thats not the werd from the valley The werd from the valley is there was so much munny being clipped that there was yung lads what absconded with great bags of it from rite under your greesy nose and they burryed it in the wuds and in the crags and on the moors and they hid it in worls and roots and midden pits and horse byres and now they say that Calderdayle is rich with treshurs so menny treshurs that one day in the fucher men will find it and they will be rich rich rich And to this I bellow back turn it in you silly cunts But that nite as I lie moiling and tossen I carnt help but wunder if its true what they say Meanen wud my men really steel from the mitey King Daevid of Bell Howse becors after all this enterprise got so big so fucken quick hoo can relly say how much munny was clippt and filed and milled and melted Aye becors when orls said and done hoo can reely no owt about owt that goes on.
Green clumps of wet goose scat dotted the flag stone path that cut through the field as the honking birds were driven from cart to fold to pen. Their owners used stripped willow sticks to steer the waddling, hissing creatures to the showing circle where they were paraded in gaggles of a dozen or so.
Every November valley men brought down their best birds for the goose fair. It was a sign of winter incoming, a final chance to trade and gossip and boast before they holed up for the shortest darkest days. Cheese-makers came down too, and bakers with loaves and brewers with fresh furmenty, and a butcher with smoked sides and prime cuts to sell and a great pot of beef water being stirred over a smouldering fire.
Children ran screaming amongst the chaos of birds and people and baskets of wares.
To one side, by the pasture wall, the hired collaborator Robert Thomas and coiner Thomas Spencer watched as geese were paraded, and they puffed on their pipes and exchanged an occasional word through gritted teeth. When Matthew Normanton arrived he took them to one side, away from the bustle of the birds and their drovers.
He has gone to Bradford now, he said. Deighton has gone to Bradford.
Bradford is no use to us, said his partner Robert Thomas.
No it is not, but tonight he will return.
Then tonight he will be full of slugs.
Thomas Spencer shook his head.
And I will not be joining you.
Has the yellow trade made you a yellow coward now? asked Robert Thomas.
I will not be joining you. Already I have been to Halifax and it is you who are getting paid. I work for the Hartleys, not you two. I’m staying here.
This man is a coward, Robert Thomas said to Matthew Normanton. He’d rather be amongst the goose shit and kiddies games than doing man’s work.
Call it what you will, said Thomas Spencer. But I’m not coming.
This is the work of three people, said Matthew Normanton. One to bide as lookout and for making distractions and two to do the deed.
Thomas Clayton will take my place.
Thomas Clayton the farmer?
And Coiner true. He will be waiting.
Waiting where?
Matthew Normanton asked this.
At your abode, said Thomas Spencer.
When do we go?
Now. Isaac wants it done this night.
Christ, said Matthew Normanton.
He sends another guinea.
Thomas Spencer handed over another coin.
Where’s mine? asked Robert Thomas.
That is to split.
To split now, is it?
Yes.
What do you take us for – bloody Coiners with rusted shears? said Robert Thomas.
Nevermind that, said Thomas Spencer.
Is it true about them other missing bits though? asked Matthew Normanton.
What other missing bits?
They say that there’s a stash of coins gone missing and been buried somewhere. Somewhere close. They say that folk have been skimming.
I don’t know about any of that said Thomas Spencer. I just run the messages and collate the intake. Only a fool would skim though.
That’s right, said Robert Thomas. Folk say that there’s Coiners got their hauls stashed in tree roots and rock holes. That some of them have been stealing and others have been clipping their own coin on the side and giving nothing to your Hartley brothers.
I
don’t know, said Thomas Spencer. And I’ll not say it a third time.
Because if that’s true we’ll be the first to find it, isn’t that right Matty?
Rest assured brother, said Matthew Normanton. I have a nose for gold. And he who finds it keeps it. That’s the law of the land, is that.
You’d have to ask Isaac Hartley and I wouldn’t advise doing that while his brother sits in the dungeons of York gaol because of the doings of one of his own.
That nugget Broadbent you mean?
Yes, said Thomas Spencer. Broadbent.
Shall we kill him too? said Matthew Normanton through a yawn as he waggled a finger in one ear to dislodge some wax that was stuck there. It’ll cost you another hundred guineas but I’d gladly slit that sly bugger like a breached sow.
No said Thomas Spencer. Broadbent is not your concern. Enough of this talk: you need to go now.
Robert Thomas looked at Matthew Normanton and said: do you have food at your home, my friend?
Barely. I have bread.
And the guns?
The guns are there too. I’ve put them in a poke out back.
Then let us fetch Thomas Clayton now and we will eat on the way said Robert Thomas. Then we will go to Fax and kill this devil Deighton and get this business resolved. Then we will live like gods. Not scrawny hill-top, deer-fucking false kings, but gods. True gods of the valley. Come, I’m tired of standing around in the shadows talking to forgers too yellow to clean up their own mess.
He looked at Thomas Spencer for a lingering moment and then turned and left, kicking a goose that blocked his path out of the way as he did. Ruffled, the bird stumbled and then cut a zig-zag path through the crowd.
For several months a John Walton and a James Lord had been in dispute over the purchase of a barn at the end of the village of Cottingley, and the amount of hay contained within in it. Twice they had nearly come to blows in the street over the transaction. Lord, as purchaser, had claimed the hay had turned rotten and so reneged on the full payment, and then one night in revenge Walton’s brother-in-law attacked the brother of Lord, who was but an adolescent. A blood-feud had developed and now William Deighton had been called upon to take out a warrant on both men over unpaid duties.
Accompanied by a Justice of the Peace, one Colonel Patrick Peasholme, the exciseman travelled the ten miles from Halifax to the village in the Bingley ward of Bradford. This day they took a coach as Cottingley was the far side of Bradford.
Each valley across the West Riding seemed to wear its own weather – those further to the west suffered the clouds that blew in from the Irish Sea and dropped their sheets of rain onto the spine of the Pennines, while those older wapentakes to the east and south had their skies blackened by the clouds of industry blowing over from Bradford and Leeds and all the cotton towns in between. North beyond the Ridings led to miles and miles of nothing but the sheep-rearing Dales and beyond those, the coal fields of Durham and tin mines of Westmorland.
It was an evening dusted with sparkling stars as the sky cleared itself of cloud and the temperature dropped further; it was not a night for riding, nor was it a time for Coiners business.
Afterwards, with the Walton-Lord matter only partially resolved, William Deighton and Colonel Patrick Peasholme took a coach back to Halifax. In The Nag’s Head inn they met with an attorney Tommy Sayer. They talked. They drank. They drew up an agreement that they hoped would settle the matter between the two men, whose idiocy they happily mocked, and Deighton ensured the necessary tax levee and fines for non-payment were to be made to the crown.
He was hungry. He had travelled twenty miles and neither John Walton nor James Lord had thought to offer him a bite nor an ale all day long. He thought now of the meal his wife would have waiting for him. There was always something. Even when he had returned in the middle of the night from the godforsaken Eringden Moor aback Bell House there was a pot on the range or a plate under a cloth. Always something. A serving of stew. Slices of ham and baked eggs maybe. Or chops in the cold store. Cobs. Fruit cake and cheese. The bottle of brandy and his glass beside it. The fire banked and glowing. The log basket never empty. Upstairs his family asleep.
With these in mind he bade farewell to Tommy Sayer and to Colonel Patrick Peasholme, whose company he had found fatuous and condescending, as so many men with military titles were, and he rose to leave.
William Deighton opened the door and the night came flooding in. It was still and clear and bitterly cold. The stones of the street winked with frost as he walked downhill only slightly unsteadily. Swires Road swayed before him, most of its windows cast in darkness, and the inhabitants of each domestic residence asleep, as his family were, and he soon would be.
Tomorrow he would rise a little later than usual, he decided. Tonight he would drink three fingers of brandy slowly and tomorrow he would not hurry to do his daily tasks. He would raise the glass to King David Hartley and he would smile, knowing that his own belly was full and his bed warm, and his liberty boundless.
He heard his feet. The comforting clett-clett of leather on stone.
He turned down Savile Park road towards Bull Close Lane and the night seemed so cool and clear, the sky so bejewelled, that he felt as if he could chip a piece of it away and mount it on a ring for his dear devoted wife.
They heard the footsteps – expensive shoes pacing the frosted pavement – and like phantasms they rose from the tight shadow by the wall that cornered the meeting of three lanes. Their joints were stiff with the cold. Finger-tips benumbed.
Clett-clett.
Two men. Hired.
Matthew Normanton. Robert Thomas.
Two guns. Loaded.
A third man was on lookout. The farming Coiner Thomas Clayton. Up the hill he waited, his eyes set on the silent street for the past two hours. The night was still but not so beautiful to him; it could not be beautiful when he knew it was shortly to be poisoned.
Clett-clett.
Matthew Normanton became a shifting shape. Matthew Normanton was black liquid. Matthew Normanton was pure silence.
Beside him Robert Thomas was unfolding. Robert Thomas was rising.
Robert Thomas was seeing.
And Thomas Clayton crouched up the hill. Thomas Clayton was looking out and Thomas Clayton was looking on.
Matthew Normanton was a spectre now. Matthew Normanton was a spirit.
Clett-clett.
Leather on stone. He raised his musket. His joints stiff. Finger-tips numb.
He rested the butt on his shoulder. Wood against wool. Wool against flesh. Flesh against the future.
Robert Thomas had a pistol. Robert Thomas had a pistol that was small and snug in his hand, and the trigger was cold as his cold numb finger-tip touched it. Frost rimed the bony barrel.
Clett.
And that was when William Deighton stopped and saw them, off to one side, two shapes hesitating. Two shapes hanging there, draped like dyed-black shalloons drip- drying on a worsted twill man’s rack. Two blank phantoms framed by the night; betrayed by it.
He turned to them squarely. And he looked.
He looked deep into the brilliant blue of eternity and the night gave William Deighton that jewel that he thought he had wanted – a gleaming flash of diamond, a final exploding star – and it was in him forever, a jolting powdered flash like a gemstone lifted to the sun between thumb and forefinger. Something dazzling lit the back of his eye and lodged there. The street pitched sideways and the cut stone came to greet him.
A bullet sat in the centre of his skull.
Robert Thomas fired too, his small, snug gun louder still. He felt its power in his wrist and arm and elbow. It recoiled up his shoulder.
The stone was cold and wet to William Deighton’s cheek. His breath was short but though one eye was a ruined mess like a blooming flower, the other was blinking clearly, wet and alive wi
th a flinty look of indignation.
The bullet just sat there. He was aware of the path it had taken, and the space it now occupied. He felt it in his core, an icily indifferent intruder.
From further up the street Thomas Clayton watched.
Several short steps brought Robert Thomas to the exciseman first and he did what he always did when death was close by: he met it head on. He stamped William Deighton with his feet. He jumped on his heaving, rasping chest with shoes that had spiked nail soles to provide traction, and he punted the taxman’s face and then Matthew Normanton was beside him, fighting to get at the prone body with the butt of his gun. He swung it like he swung the threshing stick, and he felt wood on bone, and heard things crack and split and give and spill, and then they were going through his pockets, the two of them, pulling out coins and a watch and a tin of snuff and a spectacles case and a knife and a roll of papers and a seal and a jar of ink and a notebook and lozenges and matches and a crucifix.
From up the street Thomas Clayton watched as they took William Deighton’s cufflinks and they took William Deighton’s wedding band. They took William Deighton’s wallet and they took William Deighton’s life.
Robert Thomas and Matthew Normanton.
They took these things and then they turned and vaulted a wall and ran off into the long night of a million shining flawless crystals.
The guns splashed and then sank in the gelid waters of Mill Dam below the valley bottom village of Luddendenfoot, and in the moonlight they flashed silver like the taut bellies of young darting trout as they fell to the river bed. Robert Thomas and Matthew Normanton followed the guns with rocks and boulders hoisted in the same direction to make sure they were covered and hidden from view.
Then they turned and walked the short way back along the river route to Mytholmroyd.
Oh we have done for yonder black devil tonight, said Robert Thomas.
Indeed we have, said Matthew Normanton. When it is men’s work that needs doing it is to men they come. Never again will this Deighton one enter the valley and seek out business that is not his. We fettled him right good, we did.
The Gallows Pole Page 23