by Sam Haysom
Tom could feel his impatience growing.
‘No, his stuff’s gone. This is serious, we don’t know where he is.’
‘His stuff’s gone,’ repeated Tim. He looked past Tom and out across the moor, his eyes distant and glassy. After a few seconds he wiped his eyes and looked at Tom, not saying anything. He looked pale and faintly concerned, but not nearly concerned enough. Tom was beginning to find his dopiness annoying.
‘Tim, you really need to wake up,’ he snapped. ‘Gary’s fucking missing, okay? He didn’t just go for a wander on his own, he hasn’t gone off to take a piss – his stuff’s gone, all of it. Now can you wake your dad up so we can work out what to do?’
Tim recoiled and blinked. He glanced around himself nervously, chewing his lower lip, then looked back at Tom.
‘My dad, he’s not…’ He broke off and looked round himself once more. ‘He’s already up, I think, he…’
Tim trailed off again, and Tom felt a sudden urge to reach out and shake him. ‘Is he in the tent or not?’
Tim looked up at Tom with wide eyes and an expression of confusion. He was normally quiet and calm, and Tom had never seen him looking this rattled before. At least I’m getting through to him, he thought.
‘No, he’s not in the tent,’ said Tim. ‘I think he’s gone and… I think maybe he’s out collecting firewood?’
Tom frowned. They’d built campfires on both the last two nights, but they hadn’t had one yesterday morning and Mr Stevens had made no mention of having one this morning. Yesterday it had just been a case of getting up, packing the stuff away and grabbing a cereal bar or two before setting off.
‘Firewood? Are you sure?’
‘I don’t know! I don’t know where he is, I’ve just woken up. Maybe he went off to the toilet, or maybe he…’
‘What?’
‘I don’t fucking know alright!’
There was a flash of something in Tim’s eyes, only briefly, but Tom saw it and it nearly made him take a step back. Then it was gone and Tim just looked pale and tired again.
‘Look,’ said Matt. ‘It’s fine, he’ll be back in a minute and then we’ll work out what to do. We just need to—’
‘Morning boys!’
The sound of Mr Stevens’ voice made them all jump. Tom turned to his right and saw Mr Stevens striding across the grass towards the tents, a CamelBak and two water bottles in his hands. He was sweating slightly and red in the cheeks despite the chill. There were bags under his eyes but he had a smile on his face as he waved to them.
‘I’ve just been down to the stream to top up the water,’ he said. He gestured behind him to where the curve of the tor blocked off the view further down the valley. ‘Lovely little stream round there. What’s the matter, everything okay?’
He entered the campsite and walked over to the tent where they were all standing. He was already in his walking kit, Tom noticed, including a new light blue fleece that he hadn’t been wearing the day before. As he drew closer to them his smile faded.
‘What’s the matter?’ His eyes flicking from Tom to Matt and James, then down to his son and back up to Tom.
Tom stepped forward. ‘Mr Stevens, we’re worried about Gary,’ he said. ‘When Matt woke up this morning all his stuff was gone, and we can’t find him anywhere. Have you seen him?’
Mr Stevens eyes widened. ‘Have I? No, I’ve just woken up and been straight down to the stream, I…’ His eyes drifted past Tom, in the direction of the copse of trees, and then he turned his head and stared around the campsite as if seeing it for the first time. ‘Did you say all his things are gone?’
‘Yep,’ said Matt. ‘There’s nothing in the tent.’
‘And no one’s seen him?’
Everyone shook their heads, and Tom felt James nudge him in the leg with his foot. He sighed.
‘There’s something else,’ he said, glancing down at Tim and then back up to Mr Stevens. ‘Matt and I thought we heard a scream in the night, we can’t be sure because we might have just dreamed it but we think we did, and… well…’ He glanced round at Matt and James for help. It was Matt that spoke.
‘There’s something over here you should see,’ he said. His face had lost most of its colour but he turned around and led the way across the grass.
Tom glanced at Mr Stevens’ worried face, nodded his head, and then turned to follow Matt. James and Mr Stevens came with him. Tim clambered out of the tent and walked after them, his eyes wide in his pale face.
They reached the flattened patch of grass with the rust-coloured stains and formed a ring around it. The shape in the grass was slightly less distinct than it had been earlier, but it was there.
‘Well, what’s this?’ said Mr Stevens. He’d placed his CamelBak and water bottles at his feet and now he was frowning down at the ground.
‘We don’t know,’ said Tom. ‘I found it this morning when I got up to go for a walk. It looks like something was lying here, though. And we think that stuff could be blood.’
They stared down at the ground in silence for a while. Tim glanced round at the boys and then stared up at his dad, looking nervous. Mr Stevens crouched down and studied the grass without saying anything, his face serious.
After a few moments he got up and walked around the patch of flattened ground, his head down.
‘No other tracks,’ he muttered to himself. ‘It’s probably been quite a few hours now, though.’
He paced once around the patch of grass, paused to look back at the tents, and then stopped to scratch his head.
‘Did you say you looked all around the campsite?’ he asked Tom.
‘Well, sort of. I went over to those trees for a quick look.’
‘And you didn’t see anything?’
Mr Stevens’ eyes were fixed on Tom’s, and for one guilty second he thought Mr Stevens knew about the rabbit. Tom still felt funny when he thought about that ear, just lying there in its little nest of rust-coloured pine needles. It clearly didn’t have anything to do with Gary, though, so why bother spooking the others by even mentioning it? Tom shook his head and Mr Stevens’ face relaxed. He thought for a second, then looked at Tom again.
‘Gareth seemed very withdrawn yesterday afternoon and evening,’ he said. ‘I could tell something happened with you all at the top of Duck Tor.’ He paused and looked at each of the boys in turn. ‘I didn’t say anything yesterday because I didn’t want to pry, but I think it might be time to tell me about it now.’
He stared back at Tom, and Tom could tell from the set of his mouth that he wasn’t asking.
Tom stared at the ground, feeling a guilty warmth flood into his cheeks. He was about to will himself to say something when James spoke.
‘He’d been winding me up all weekend, and Tom stood up for me,’ he said. Tom glanced over at him and James smiled nervously back.
‘It’s true, Tom didn’t do anything wrong,’ said Matt. ‘Gary was the one that shoved James. He’s always messing with him, and Tom was just defending him.’
Then Tom began to explain what had happened between him and Gary, and James told Mr Stevens about the prank Gary had played, and before long they’d covered everything – from the build-up right through to Gary’s sullen aftermath and their failed attempts to talk to him.
Mr Stevens listened to the whole story without saying anything, his head cocked slightly to one side. When they’d finished he took off his glasses, wiped the lenses, and put them back on.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Well first of all I don’t want any of you boys worrying or thinking that any of this is your fault.’ He glanced at James and Matt and then his eyes returned to Tom’s face, where they lingered. ‘What’s happened is no one’s fault, and if we all work together I’m sure we’ll find Gary in no time and get this all sorted out.’
He paused, glanced over at the copse of pine trees, and then looked up at the tor they would be walking up next. He cleared his throat.
‘Now, my guess is Gareth decided to go
on up ahead of us – he’s taken all of his things, which suggests he was planning this yesterday afternoon and didn’t just wander off on a whim – and that he’ll be aiming to stick to the route but beat us back to the finish. Sort of a wounded pride thing, I reckon; he’s probably thinking he wants to show us all—’ his eyes flicked over to Tom as he said this ‘–show us all that he’s better than us. That’s one possibility, anyway. The other is that he’s out to play some sort of joke on us, and he’s somewhere up there—’ Mr Stevens gestured to the tor that rose up beyond the copse of trees ‘–waiting for us. I hope that is the case, if I’m honest, but I’ve got a feeling it might not be. Either way, we’ll have to prepare for the former just in case.
‘Now, turning back for help at this point won’t do us any good because we’d have to walk almost as far back in the direction we’ve come,’ he continued. ‘Carrying on with our route, however, will eventually take us to a road, and we should be able to flag down a car or get some phone signal.’ He smiled reassuringly and glanced at the tor in front of them. ‘But you know what? I’m just betting we’ll find Gary at the top of Hayworth Tor, fed up and waiting for us to catch up with him. Teenagers can only stay stubborn for so long.’
‘You don’t know Gary, then,’ muttered Tom. The words were out before he could stop them, and he thought he caught a brief shadow – something like annoyance – slip over Mr Stevens’ face. Then it was gone again, like a cloud passing over the face of the sun.
‘You may be right about that, Mr Carpenter,’ he replied. ‘Had I known him better I would certainly have intervened yesterday after the two of you had your argument. Do you have another suggestion?’
Tom looked down at his shoes, felt his neck reddening even more, and then made himself look up and meet Mr Stevens’ gaze. ‘I don’t know, shouldn’t we look around here some more first?’ His eyes travelled back to the patch of flattened grass. ‘What if he’s still around here somewhere, or…’
Tom trailed off and Mr Stevens smiled. He looked down at the patch of grass again and shook his head.
‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘You boys really have got yourselves worked up, haven’t you?’ He crouched down and patted the flattened grass with one hand, then smiled up at them.
‘I’ve been walking on this moor for years, and you’d be surprised how common this sort of thing is,’ he said. ‘It’ll be a sheep, most likely, or a calf. There is no shortage of those wandering around the moor, and they’ll often bed down for the night like this. Their bodies protect the patch of grass under them from getting wet, you see, so they’ve got something of a dry surface to sleep on.’
The boys looked down at the ground.
‘But what about the red stains?’ asked Matt.
Mr Stevens raised his eyebrows. ‘That could be any number of different things. It could be that a cow came here to give birth last night, or it might be nothing more than a sheep that nicked itself against a barbed wire fence.’ He pointed at the shape and traced an outline of it with his finger. Tom saw that Matt looked slightly doubtful, but James was following Mr Stevens’ gesture with wide, hopeful eyes.
‘The thing is, the grass won’t stay like this for long,’ he continued. ‘I’ll bet it’s already lost its shape a bit in the time since you discovered it this morning.’ He looked over at Tom and smiled. ‘That’s what will have happened to the tracks. They’ll have disappeared already. The sheep or cow, or whatever it is, will probably be long gone by now.’
Tom stared down at the grass again. It had lost its shape since earlier, Mr Stevens was right about that. But a sheep or a cow? It looked like the wrong shape, for one thing, and Tom thought that there were too many of those rust-coloured stains to account for a simple barbed wire nick. But then again, Mr Stevens had spent a lot of time on the moor, so maybe he was right. He certainly knew more about this sort of stuff than the rest of them.
Now Mr Stevens was dusting his hands and smiling once more, as if he’d settled everything, and saying something about them getting packed up as quickly as they could so they could catch Gary up. Matt looked less doubtful, and James was practically smiling again. Tom glanced over at Tim, and for just a second before Tim caught his eye and smiled back, Tom thought he saw his own concerns reflected in the boy’s face. Tim still looked very pale, and the bags beneath his eyes were the colour of a light bruise in the morning light.
Tom had a sudden memory of the confused, almost fearful look that had passed over Tim’s face when they went to his tent that morning. Maybe he heard something in the night too, and he doesn’t want to say.
Tom was deep in thought when Matt clapped him on the shoulder, and he realised the others were already moving across the grass in the direction of the tents. He waited until Tim and James and Mr Stevens were out of earshot, and then he slowed Matt down with a hand on his shoulder.
‘What do you reckon?’ he whispered.
Matt turned to him and shrugged. He looked tired and confused. ‘I think Mr Stevens is probably right,’ he muttered. ‘Knowing Gary, he probably just got pissed off and decided to go on without us. We’ll probably catch up with him over the next tor or something.’
‘Do you really think so?’
Matt nodded his head in response, but his eyes didn’t meet Tom’s.
‘What about the screams we heard in the night?’ said Tom. ‘What about that weird patch of grass and the blood? No fucking way that was just a sheep, Matt.’
Matt looked after the others, who were now moving over to their respective tents. Mr Stevens said something to his son, then ducked down and disappeared through the flap of their two-man. ‘Mr Stevens is the adult,’ he said slowly. ‘My mum said we should do what he tells us out here and not make a fuss. She told me before the trip that he was in charge, and that I’d be in trouble if she found out we’d been playing up.’
He turned to look at Tom and forced a smile. ‘Besides, what else can have happened to Gary? People don’t just disappear with all their stuff in the middle of the night.’
He clapped Tom on the shoulder and moved off across the grass. Tom stared after him, listening to the wind rustle the trees of the distance copse.
The heavy feeling in his stomach was back again.
3
They didn’t find Gary at the top of Hayworth Tor.
The conversation had been fairly stunted after they’d packed up their tents and set off across the grass, and it fizzled out entirely as they started to climb Hayworth. Tom was worried they’d have to walk through the copse of pine trees and everyone would see the rabbit’s ear, but in the end Mr Stevens led them along a path that wound around the trees rather than through them.
As the muddy trail they were walking along began to ascend, Tom felt the wind pick up. It bit into his skin and he had to stop to put on another layer. Clouds moved overhead.
By the time they were halfway up the tor, a fine drizzle had started.
‘It’s going to be bad weather today,’ Mr Stevens said cheerfully. ‘Best to get your waterproofs on sooner rather than later I think, boys.’
The drizzle turned into a light rain as they neared the top of the tor. Coats were dug out of packs and hoods were pulled up, and everyone walked the rest of the climb in silence. Mr Stevens was out front this time, with Tom and Matt not far behind him. James was a little way behind them, puffing along, and Tim brought up the rear. He hadn’t spoken since they’d packed up their stuff that morning.
They reached the top of the tor around 10am. The light rain was holding steady, but when Tom looked out across the moor he could see thick black clouds in the distance. The sky below those clouds smeared down to touch the earth, as though a giant hand had smudged the horizon.
Tom wiped the rain from his forehead and stared out at the clouds. As soon as he’d reached the top of the tor he’d walked in a circle around the stone outcrop in the middle, looking in all directions, but he’d seen no sign of Gary. There were no distant figures on the horizon, no dropped fo
od wrappers to suggest someone had been at the top of the tor before them, and no fresh muddy footprints on the ground.
As Tom scanned the view from his vantage point he felt someone come up alongside him. He glanced to his right and saw Tim. The boy had taken his hood down and his dark hair was soaking wet, his fringe plastered against his pale forehead in thick strands. He stared out over the moor without saying anything, and the two of them stood there in silence for a while.
‘Did you see any sign of him?’ Tom said eventually.
Tim jerked and looked round in surprise, as if he hadn’t even realised Tom was standing there. He glanced down at the ground before looking out across the moor again.
‘No,’ he muttered. The wind gusted against the hillside, making him squint.
‘I dunno,’ said Tom. ‘I just had this feeling as we were coming up the tor. This feeling that he wouldn’t be up here. I mean I looked and everything and a bit of me was hoping we’d see him, but the biggest part of me didn’t really believe it. You know what I mean?’
Tom glanced sideways at Tim, but the boy didn’t say anything.
In the distance the sky was a patchwork quilt of colours: whites, blues, greys and roiling black. Although most places looked like they’d see rain, there were one or two areas – over to the south and a small patch in the west – that showed signs of better weather. The clouds there were less threatening, and occasional breaks allowed rays of bright sunshine to spotlight sections of the moor in light yellow. Tom thought there must be a rainbow about somewhere, but he couldn’t see one from where he was standing.
‘They’re beautiful, these moors,’ Tim said suddenly. He was staring into the south, his eyes tracing the patterns of green fields, purple hills and blue streams. ‘When the sun comes out, they’re beautiful.’
‘Yeah, it’s better up here now that the fog’s cleared,’ said Tom. He glanced sideways at Tim again and saw the boy wiping his eyes, and for one alarming moment he thought he was crying. Then he realised it was just the rain.