by Guy Sheppard
They passed the stag that bellowed like a bull as it breathed its last. The fatal bullet had sliced clean through its ribs at 700 yards to carve a great wound. With its chin resting on the ground, it stared at them in wide-eyed astonishment. It was a cold, accusing look that Sam felt at a loss to explain. His stomach tightened again as he retched violently, though he wasn’t going to throw up, after all.
Not as far as he knew.
‘Get a ruddy move on,’ said James, ‘or the other one will give us the slip.’
‘But how will we find it?’
‘Don’t worry. That shot I fired was a .303. A round that size creates an excellent blood trail.’
He needn’t have asked. They trod red, all right. A ribbon of scarlet splashes stained the snow. At every step the blots became larger and larger, like stars. He had to clasp his head in both hands because he could feel the agony. His brain beat like a drum and his eyes were on fire.
The stricken stag had managed to travel a surprising distance. Too shocked to think straight, it lay on the ground where it twitched and shivered. Every dragon-like breath it blew in the cold air was an exhalation of intense pain. There was no need to hurry; it wasn’t going anywhere soon. They stood over it. Heard it panting. They could kill it whenever they chose.
‘Not good,’ said Sam and went to inspect the hole in the stag’s hip. He could see where the bullet had exited the other side.
James pulled him away.
‘What the hell! What are you doing? You’ll get blood all over your clothes.’
‘We should apologize.’
‘To whom?’
‘To the Forest.’
‘Are you serious? It’s just a wild animal, Sam. We can put it in the freezer and eat venison at Christmas.’
Sam nodded but said nothing. In his eyes the raw, bloody wound weighed heavily – as heavily as the silence that fell from the trees.
‘You don’t know anything.’
So saying, he refused to budge between stag and man. They should give it a moment in the falling snow.
Did he know why?
Not that he could think of, no.
He couldn’t give a reason.
James screwed up his face, relaxed his grip on the rifle’s trigger and pulled off his balaclava.
‘Don’t ever do that again, Sam. You could get yourself killed.’
But Sam’s eyes were firmly focused on the trees all around. Other eyes saw him. Locked on. Some creature lurked just beyond the edge of the clearing, not twenty paces from where they were standing? The reddish orbs were two bright coals. Nor was it clear to him whether they could see him very well because they appeared so small. Such a look suggested an acute attentiveness that went beyond mere surprise, however. It was inquisitorial. Hostile. Malign? In the face of such scrutiny he shrank and shivered, but to raise his arm and point must surely provoke it to charge straight at them.
‘Now what?’ said James.
‘Behind you.’
‘Damn it, Sam, move out of my way. Let me cut the stag’s throat.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t. Something’s watching…’
Again he sought to divert attention from one animal to another. His lips worked frantically but noiselessly as he tried not to surrender to the glowing pupils that were scrutinizing them with such ferocity.
‘Is this another of your funny turns, Sam? Tell me.’
But Sam stood his ground. If he was going to get his father’s attention, he had to be convincing. While paralysed with fear his senses worked overtime as he saw a large, bristly white head and fat snout rise from the bushes. He heard snorting. Smelt pig. Except no pig he had ever seen was so large. Raised hackles remained partly hidden by the rapidly deteriorating weather. He could imagine already what it would mean to be ripped apart by its long, pointed tusks. One quick swipe and his throat would be gone.
What were they supposed to do?
What did it mean?
Rooted to the spot, but making deaf and dumb signals, he waved towards dead bracken at the edge of the clearing.
‘But dad, it’s the white boar.’
James forgot about the deer and went on the defensive.
‘Where?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Don’t tell me you saw nothing.’
‘It must be something.’
‘Where?’
‘A little to the left.’
‘I don’t know what to believe now.’
Still the creature studied them both in absolute silence. No matter how devilish its eyes, it had seen the gun in the hunter’s hands and it was assessing how best to attack. The great head retreated into shadow; it merged with the frosted grass but somehow the threat failed to diminish, only became less visible.
‘I don’t see a thing,’ said James.
All was silence and stillness.
‘It’s watching us, I tell you,’ said Sam indignantly. ‘I can still feel its eyes on me.’
‘A boar, you say?’
‘A big white one.’
James’s lips curved into a smile. It wasn’t mirth exactly, it was revelation.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, there’s no such thing.’
‘I saw it, I tell you.’
‘Well, you saw wrong.’
‘It had huge tusks and its eyes had red rims. Its head would look great on my wall.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself.’
‘But its bristles shone with white fire, I tell you.’
‘Say what you will, that was no phantom boar.’
‘It saw right through me.’
‘Isn’t that the truth.’
James relaxed his grip on the rifle, ready to go back to work – that wounded stag had to have its throat slit. Hot guts must spill. The hunting knife weighed lightly in his hand. That’s because its shaggy handle was made from the hoof of a deer. His heart pounded steadily and beat in his ears like a drum. To kill an animal by hand was the greatest feeling in the world. He was vanquisher. He was God.
But the stag was nowhere to be seen.
‘What the hell…!’
They searched everywhere but the wounded animal had somehow performed a miraculous disappearing act.
‘Damn you Sam Boreman, this is all your fault. You distracted me with your silly talk of wild boar.’
Sam looked crestfallen. He could only splutter and flounder.
‘What did I do?’
‘Don’t you see, you’ve made me look a complete fool in front of my friends.’
This was beyond Sam’s power to understand. All he could think was that the winged stag had overcome its shock and pain to live another day. It made him more excited than he could say, whereas James was suddenly downcast and moody. Disappointment clouded his eyes as he trudged back to the lorry and the three other hunters.
If James wanted to finish off that stag so badly, thought Sam, why didn’t they pursue it right now? But the momentum had gone out of his father, apparently – his hitherto murderous intentions had dissolved, as if a spell had been broken. And he, Sam Boreman, was responsible.
*
Back at the dropside truck, Phil Cotter was first to light a cigarette. His moustache wrinkled as he gave a big smile.
‘What happened, boss? You let it get away?’
James managed a smile of his own, a thin one. It was pure menace.
‘Sam thinks we met a giant hog.’
‘You killed someone’s hog?’ asked Gordon Bates, dragging their steaming deer carcass across the ground. ‘The owner won’t be pleased. It’s the pannage season.’
James turned his back.
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘What, then?’
Sam stepped forward, brimming with pride. He couldn’t be sure what was going on from the tone of the men’s voices, but he knew he had their full attention.
&n
bsp; ‘I saw it first. It was a big white one.’
‘Did you now?’ said Phil and rumpled Sam’s hair rather roughly.
‘He doesn’t know what he saw,’ said James and poured himself a cup of whisky from a flask.
‘Tell us,’ said Devaney.
‘Its eyes were full of fire,’ declared Sam, ‘with red rims.’
‘Were they now?’
‘And its bristles gleamed with a ghostly white light. It was a phantom boar. I can’t think how else to describe it. Or who sent it. It could be the legendary Twrch Trwyth, as in the Welsh stories.’
‘Is that a fact?’
‘Take no notice,’ said James. ‘There hasn’t been a wild boar in the Forest of Dean for hundreds of years. Let alone a white one.’
‘Doesn’t mean they don’t exist. You get Judas deer, don’t you?’
‘Enough,’ said James. ‘Let’s call it a night. That dead stag of yours in the lorry yet?’
‘All done and dusted,’ replied Phil.
‘But dad, you don’t understand…’
‘Forget it.’
‘But what if it’s magic or something?’
‘Just get in the truck.’
‘But…’
‘Better hear the kid out,’ said Devaney as he blew smoke from his pipe.
‘Yeah, give him a break for Christ’s sake,’ added Phil.
James lodged his gun in the lorry’s cab.
‘Say what you have to before I lose my temper.’
Sam stood up straight. Lifted his chin. But James wasn’t listening. His head felt leaden, his hunched shoulders weighed heavily upon him. No one was saying too much because they didn’t dare to, but a man didn’t have to say a lot for another to know what he was thinking. He’d shot a stag and as good as missed it. These men were inwardly laughing at him. They were, in their unsubtle way, getting one over on him, their own boss. It was a direct assault on his authority.
It was all the boy’s fault, but he couldn’t take it out on Sam, not when he really did believe he had seen something so very unusual.
His hands shook and his anger simmered. It was the sort of frustration that soon grew into something else. People had got hurt because of it. People lived in fear of it. Such volatility lurked deep within him, but he had it under control. Above all else, he had not struck his own son in public.
Yet Sam had spoken with such certainty. If there literally were a wild boar in the Forest, then he was very anxious to be the one to kill it. Unbeknown to anyone else he would return within the hour to set some snares; he’d trap the swine once and for all, just to be on the safe side. Then he’d put a bullet through its heart – he’d make out he’d shot it while bravely stalking it all alone.
That would wipe the smirk off his men’s faces.
No one would know what to say then.
Besides, Sam was right – the white boar’s head would look splendid on a wall in Beech Tree Grange where it would take pride of place among his other kills. People would talk about it – and him – for years to come. Forget the mundane matter of how palatial his new home felt, or how rich he had become thanks to his black marketeering, or even how beautiful he still considered his wife to be, this was all about what he really wanted, in his soul.
He would demonstrate, by hook or by crook, that he was the real King of the Forest.
At the very least, he would quash all this silliness about a phantom Twrch Trwyth before it got out of hand.
Sam watched from the sidelines as his father seethed with unsated bloodlust.
Then he smiled a little smile of his own.
FIFTY-ONE
That voice, again. Tempting, coaxing, beguiling. From the depths of the disused coal mine.
Why not sit back, Jim Wilde, and wait for rescue?
‘Because I’ll die if I don’t make an effort.’
But it hurts so much to move a muscle.
‘Can’t disagree with you there.’
No one saw you enter the tunnel.
‘Don’t I know it.’
Each mind-numbing stab of pain robs him of his breath. His cracked hip burns like fire and there is a terrible throbbing in his lower spine. His neck aches. It is virtually impossible to think straight when his whole body keeps going into agonising spasm like this.
But he has to do something.
He can’t stay where he is.
He yells for help and waits for the echoes….
No one answers.
…. to fade away before he can listen.
Not a damned thing.
How long has it been? One day? Two?
Everything is quiet apart from the plop, plop, plop of dripping water from the tunnel roof – that seems to grow louder by the minute as if to torment him.
He clamps both hands on the cold, rusty rails of the subterranean tramway; he starts clawing and scratching. He utters little, unconfident moans as he unfolds his good leg and prepares to drag the other one after it. That way he kicks and hauls himself uphill along the narrow tunnel.
Does he dare hope that someone will think to look for him down here?
Obviously not.
So he has nothing, except that terrible smell. Pungent, acrid, bitter. And what else? Whatever it is, it wasn’t there when he descended.
God forbid something is blocking his path out of the mine now.
He shouldn’t even look.
It’s a very bad idea.
You could say that.
But his fingers don’t lie – he’s touching the lifeless body of a young man that rests face up on the adit’s floor. His shirt has been ripped apart on his chest where someone has pumped his heart in an attempt to revive him?
This cadaver has been dumped like rubbish.
It’s truly disgusting.
He’ll have to look at it to crawl by. The victim’s boots have slipped half off his ankles; both arms are horribly wounded, one more so than the other. Blisters have turned green and gangrenous, with the cause of death probably being sepsis – it’s hard to tell, because other damage has been done with very strong acid. That odd smell he can smell is liquefied flesh. Much of the victim’s face has been melted to reveal teeth, jaw and cheek bones. The eyes are empty black sockets and he’s missing the tips of his fingers.
Whatever the reason this anonymous cadaver lies here, it has to be the same as the one called Angela.
Take it easy, Jim Wilde. He’s pawing at bones in what amounts to a graveyard.
All the more reason to reach the surface before he, too, expires.
It’s not as though he doesn’t know the way.
He’ll be right there.
Unless he’s somehow dead already? It is so much less painful when he stops moving. Does he really have to get back to Sam and Freya? Not yet, anyway. In this underworld he has the chance to join the spirits of the departed in his very own Hades.
In his very own grave.
He dug it himself years ago.
Pretty much.
Next minute he’s pulling himself along as rapidly as he can. He doesn’t look back for fear of his two grinning witnesses with each shaky grasp of metal railway.
Because he was hit on the head and left to die.
Because someone has to be told about it immediately:
Whose boneyard this is. Whose lair.
FIFTY-TWO
‘Wait for me here.’
More Freya would not say, only shut the door to her Riley 9 Lynx Tourer with a loud bang. Driving hadn’t been easy in the snow. Now she marched along the driveway to Beech Tree Grange with an air of stolid determination, even obstinacy. For someone not given to trusting anyone, her dogged tread through the gathering darkness demonstrated a foolish bravura, thought Jo. She felt terrible just watching. How could she not ask her to go with her? She must know that James wouldn’t let Sam leave without a struggle. It was her word against his.
Didn’t mean Freya wasn�
��t in the right. But what if she wasn’t? It could turn out to be worse than she thought. She might look like any other person returning home on a bleak winter afternoon, but that in no way reflected her actual circumstances. Was she not there to abscond with her son?
Meanwhile Ruby popped her head up like a periscope from her shoulder bag and sneezed when a snowflake settled on her nose.
Jo paced up and down before motorcycle and sidecar. ‘How is this part of the plan?’
John dug his fingers into his coat pocket and wondered whether to light the last, precious cigarette from his packet of Player’s Navy Cut No. 9. He’d queued for an hour and a half at his local tobacconist’s just to buy a few fags and couldn’t be sure if or when he would find any again. Might have to admit defeat and switch brands. Again.
‘The moment James tries anything we go storming in. Agreed?’
Jo banged the Brough Superior’s handlebars with her gloved fist.
‘We can’t just stand here.’
Bella squirmed in the sidecar. Yes, they literally could. Call it a dog’s supernormal senses. Her eyes widened. Her ears pricked up. An overwhelmingly powerful odour hit her nostrils, of freshly uprooted leaves, beechmast and acorns from the Forest floor.
That had to be the smell of hog?
John offered Jo a drag on his cigarette.
She refused.
‘We should probably do as she says and stay put.’
‘Never mind that James could kill her? He owns a gun.’
‘Freya doesn’t need us to hold her hand.’
‘But it’s so risky.’
‘Thanks, but I’m sure she’d rather make up her own mind.’
John was right, thought Jo reluctantly. Freya knew her value – she would never be drawn to her even if she already felt drawn to her. She saw her hold out one hand to clench and unclench her fingers as she strode along; she was reaching out to crush the falling flakes in her palm; she was savouring the bite of ice on bare skin. Let’s face it, she was on the warpath.
‘What’s she doing now?’ asked John, squinting hard.
Jo dusted snow off her oilskins and peered through the blizzard.
‘She’s at the house and crossing the patio. She’s opening a door.’
‘And now?’
‘I don’t like it. That’s Boreman’s lorry parked in the driveway. I can see its plate 442.’