by Bond, Nancy
“We could go down to the post office,” Becky suggested. “We wouldn’t have to go on the hunt, Jen. Just to see what’s happening.”
David set down his coffee mug. “I think I’ll go with you, Gwilym.”
So in the end they all went trudging down to join the sizable crowd outside Williams-the-Shop’s. It was mostly men in earth-colored overcoats, cloth caps, and gumboots. Some of them carried shotguns tucked in the crooks of their arms, most of them had dogs beside them, who were sitting patiently trying to ignore one another. Sometimes it was just too much, though, and a couple of them would have to be dragged apart, complaining. Children of various sizes wove in and out of the group.
The Morgans and Gwilym stood on the edge waiting for someone to take charge. A sheep-killer was nothing to be taken lightly here where hard-pressed farmers could ill afford to lose ewes and lambs. No dog that could not be taught to leave the beasts alone could be tolerated. These men lived precariously close to the edge of subsistence, sheep were their livelihood, and there was a serious feeling to the crowd—faces were grim. What happened to Jones-the-Top last night could happen to anyone else today or tomorrow unless the killer were stopped.
The Evanses were there; Jen saw them clustered to one side: Mr. Evans, Aled, Evan, and Dai. Rhian dodged across to the Morgans.
“You’ve heard, then.”
“What’s happening?” asked Jen.
“They’re waiting on John Hughes Machynlleth to come with his dogs. Big ones, his. Jones-the-Top says they’ll be needed. The hunt’ll go over Foel Goch, me Da says. Like as not it’s gone into the Forestry along the Einion—can get water from the river.”
“Has anyone else seen him?” Gwilym wanted to know.
“Not good. Mind you, there’s a man at Blaeneinion thinks he’s seen him two nights gone, but that’s the first there’s any report.” Rhian was pleased to know so much.
While they stood there, a light rain began to fall, though no one took any notice. In fact, Jen got quite wet before she realized it. After fifteen minutes or so a battered green van pulled up and a man got out with two enormous cross-bred black-and-white dogs.
“That’ll be him, John Hughes Machynlleth. I’m off to see what Da says.”
But Mr. Evans was coming over to his daughter. He nodded gravely to David Morgan.
“Day, Mr. Morgan.”
“Hullo, Mr. Evans. I understand you’ve got a sheep-killer in the hills.”
“Seems like. Bad business this.”
“Will you go out with the hunters, Mr. Evans?” asked Gwilym.
“Aye. My sheep too, up there, see. Me and my lads are going.”
“And me,” put in Rhian quickly.
“That’ll be what I’ve come to ask, Mr. Morgan. Would you mind keeping your eye on Rhian while we’re gone?”
“Oh, Da!” Rhian protested. “I can keep up with you!”
“Your mam would not be happy at all should I take you, and well you know it.”
“But I’m already yere.”
“Aye and you’ll stop yere and that’s an end.”
“You can come home with us,” Jen offered. “Becky and I’ll wait at Bryn Celyn till they get back.”
“I’m going,” said Peter for the second time that morning.
“Don’t see why I can’t,” Rhian grumbled.
“Rhian—” Mr. Evans gave her a stern look.
“Well, it’s not fair, see.”
“Never said it was, but you’ll be staying yere, girl.”
Rhian scowled but held her tongue.
David was studying his son whose attention appeared to be absorbed by the two Machynlleth dogs lying side by side near the van. The men were beginning to organize into groups. Dai, Evan, and Aled came up behind Mr. Evans.
“We’re to start from by the farm, Da,” said Dai. “Work back from our ffridd.”
Mr. Evans nodded. “Best go then.”
“Mr. Evans?” David spoke. “Would we be in the way if we came with you? Peter and I?”
“And me, sir,” Gwilym added hastily.
“Nay. It’ll be more eyes.”
“Well, then!” exclaimed Rhian. “Couldn’t we go with you to the farm just, Da? Only that far? We’ll stay there.”
“Mr. Morgan?”
“As far as I’m concerned, they’d be as well off at the farm as here in Borth. If your wife won’t mind.”
“She’ll not mind. Into the Land-Rover sharp then!”
Rhian needed no urging. She scrambled into the back, pulling Jen and Becky with her. Somehow everyone crammed in: Mr. Evans, his three sons, Gwilym, Peter, and David. As they drove off toward Llechwedd Melyn, only a few onlookers and a handful of children were left in front of the post office.
“Why do you want to go so much?” Jen whispered to Peter, who was sitting sideways hard against her on the back seat.
“To see if it really is a wolf.”
“But you know it can’t be—you heard Dad and Gwilym.”
“They haven’t seen it yet.” Peter’s expression was intense. “I think it is.”
“Peter? Are you going to pre—is it that business again?” Jen wanted suddenly to get out of the car—get out and go back to Bryn Celyn and not know about any of this. But she was thoroughly wedged in with Becky on her lap and Rhian beside her and without making an awkward scene, there was nothing she could do but sit tight.
Peter read her thoughts. “Whatever the animal is, Jen, it’s real. I didn’t make it up, and you can’t possibly say I did. If it’s not a wolf, you’re safe, but if it is . . .” He left the sentence hanging.
Mrs. Evans made them all troop into the farmhouse kitchen when they arrived and gave them steaming mugs of thick brown tea and chunks of bread. The rain was steady now, not hard but settled. Rhian knew better than to ask again about going, though it was obvious she wanted to as she watched the men pull their collars up and caps down. Mr. Evans whistled up the two sheep dogs, Bran and Bryn, who were lying alert by the stove. “Won’t go for the beast, but they’ll tell us if they smell un,” he said.
“Damn!” said Rhian under her breath as the door closed. A dull afternoon stretched ahead, full of the usual chores: feeding the animals, cleaning the byre, gathering eggs, checking the ewes in the pen by the house. And all the while who knew what kind of drama was out on the hills!
“I think Jen’s right,” Becky said at last. “I don’t think I’d like seeing an animal hunted even if it did kill sheep.”
“There, nor should I,” agreed Mrs. Evans. “Mind you, we’ll be hearing enough about it all to have been there ourselves, I shouldn’t wonder. There’s been no sheep-killer yere since the bitch from Talybont, and that were eight years back.”
“Still—”
“You go along and gather the eggs then. They’ll be hatching if it isn’t done soon. Go on, all of you.”
The hens laid in one side of the long narrow shed where the extra hay was kept, opposite the back door of the house. Their roost was partitioned off from the rest of the shed, but they often got loose, and finding the eggs meant searching the hay with care. Jen took special pleasure in collecting the new-laid eggs; she supposed it was like baking her own bread. She was seeing things at their source instead of boxed and wrapped in plastic; she knew they were fresh. Mrs. Evans could always be counted on to send a few eggs or some fresh butter home with the Morgans when they visited, so David began giving Jen money enough to pay for a regular order. He must have realized the money would be useful.
Today, with the rain dripping off the low, slate eaves and no other sounds but the shuffle of feet in the hay and the quiet mutter of hens talking to themselves, Jen began to regain her sense of balance. There was no point in upsetting herself yet, she couldn’t keep the hunt from happening. She was as sure as Peter that the sheep-killer was a wolf; as soon as Gwilym and David had said it wasn’t possible, she’d felt it. And Peter had said if it wasn’t a wolf she was safe, but if it was . . . She had to wait and
see.
The eggs were still warm. When they’d been gathered, the three girls slogged out in the rain and found the ewes and lambs huddled against the overhanging hedgerow: the lambs wet and miserable, the ewes patient and long-suffering. At least the rain couldn’t penetrate the thick oiled fleeces of the ewes. The lambs butted up under their mothers for shelter and milk.
“When they’re bigger, they’ll lift their mams’ hind legs right clear off the ground with butting,” said Rhian. She counted the beasts. “No trouble yere. I’m wondering what they’ve found on top.”
After tea there were the orphaned lambs to be fed and a cow with a sore foot to be seen to—no end of things to keep busy with. Mrs. Evans was making a vast stew that could simmer for hours on the back of the stove until the men got back, tired and hungry. And Gram, whose hands were gnarled with work and arthritis, crocheted endlessly on a blue and gold afghan. Over her head, on the mantle, the black iron clock kept track of the minutes and hours of the afternoon.
***
The hills were gray and sodden; they were a world of emptiness. Except for the small group of men, boys, and two dogs, there was no living thing to be seen—only expanses of wet bracken and here and there a wind-crippled tree. They followed the cart track up above the farm, past the ffridd, a double furrow of rich, dark mud. It was a long walk to the top, but when they got there and Peter could look deeper into the hills, he found that by fixing his eyes on a distant spot he became aware of movement in the scrub. He could see it best when he didn’t look straight at it.
Mr. Evans was staring intently toward the southeast. He raised his arm and whistled and was answered almost at once by someone further over. “That’ll be John Griffith Garthgwynion.” He turned to David, who was standing with Peter and Gwilym. “The goin’ will be rough now. We shall make for that line of trees there, can you see?”
David nodded. “If we can’t keep up, Mr. Evans, we’ll turn back. Don’t worry about us; we’ll mark this hill and meet you at the farm.”
“Ah, well.” Mr. Evans was clearly relieved.
“Should we go in a line?” asked Gwilym. “You know—to scare it up?”
“No need,” said Aled. “Beast’ll be too smart to be lyin’ in the open. Especially in this rain. He’ll have gone down the river—right, Da?”
Mr. Evans rubbed his chin. “Aye, most like. But we’ll spread out the same.”
There were sheep paths through the bracken, narrow mazy things, booby-trapped with roots and rocks. It was hard going, as Mr. Evans had warned, but Gwilym and David kept moving forward, and Peter was determined not to turn back.
They came down Foel Goch without raising anything; like Aled, Peter was sure they wouldn’t, but he had another reason for believing it: his ears sang with a hunting chant. In his eyes the men on either side of him, sweeping the hill, wavered in and out of time—sometimes silent, sometimes exchanging loud, good-natured banter, dressed first as sheep farmers, then in coarse, heavy tunics and dark cloaks. One minute the dogs were black-and-white Welsh sheepdogs, the next rangy, lop-eared hounds.
Peter didn’t even try to sort the present from the past, they were too closely interwoven here, they were merging. His heart leaped with joy when he saw against the trees ahead the slight, familiar figure of Taliesin, his copper hair dark and rough in the misty air. So he had returned from traveling in the south and was once again hunting with his friend Gwyddno Garanhir!
“Hie, Peter! You’ll break your neck if you run like that!” David was beside him. “I don’t particularly want the privilege of carrying you back up the hill!”
Peter shook the damp hair out of his eyes. “Thought I saw something,” he muttered. “One of the other men, I guess. I’ll be careful.” He met his father’s glance for a moment.
“See anything? Blast these spectacles!” Gwilym dragged them off and wiped them impatiently on the bottom of his pullover.
“Not yet.”
The Forestry Commission had planted larches further down the Einion, but here they’d planted hemlock close together so they’d grow straight. They were so dense that their lower branches were dead and their green tops tangled together. The soil beneath them was clogged with fallen needles that were barely damp. It was here the dogs were at their best, for the men had to keep almost entirely to the paths cut by the Commission. It was odd to walk through a wood that had been sown like a field of corn, in precise, spaced rows that ran off on either side of the path like endless dark tunnels.
At the edge of the trees several groups of men came together. Jones-the-Top was speaking rapidly in Welsh to a solid, dark-haired man with the end of a little cigar forgotten in the corner of his mouth. Every now and then, he grunted or shook his head. Then there was a pause, and in it the world was perfectly still except for the mournful, disembodied cry of a bird. Gwilym stiffened beside Peter.
“Whimbrel,” he muttered under his breath, and Peter smiled for an instant.
“There’s another lot that is workin’ other bank of the river,” Aled explained. “We’ve to go right on. Clear of the trees, there are old mine workin’s. Blaeneinion thinks the beast may have gone to earth among them.”
They set off again, watching the dogs for any sign of excitement. It was the woods, not the open hillside that gave the strongest feeling of desolation, Peter found, and yet he knew the country had once all been forested. He caught glimpses of the old forests now: birch, ash, beech, oak, and rowan, their branches bare overhead, crazing the slate-colored sky. These were the ancient trees, many of them with great, twisted trunks grown with moss.
The hounds ran as a ragged pack, casting about for the scent of their quarry. Peter saw that the men following were armed with spears and knives, but Taliesin carried none; his short dagger was sheathed at his belt. It was seldom drawn except for cutting meat at table. Although the bard walked with the same light, springing stride as always, he was older now. There was gray streaking the russet of his hair, and the weathered lines in his face had deepened. But his eyes were quick and sharp and his forehead untroubled.
Gwyddno, too, had aged, but far less gracefully. He had grown stiff in his joints and heavy, no longer able to set the pace, content to follow and let his son, Elphin, lead.
Ahead, where the path bent suddenly out of sight, the dogs had found something. Bryn and Bran were barking excitedly. A little border collie that had been trotting obediently at her master’s heels whined pleadingly and was off like a shot when given the word of release. Without actually running, the men quickened pace, moving deceptively fast. Peter had to jog to keep up.
The dogs had plunged down off the path toward the river. Aled, Dai, Gwilym, and two other men pushed into the trees after them. But the Key sang with no urgency here and Peter waited. It wasn’t time. There was a shout, some crashing, another shout, and the sound of the dogs coming back to them. A few minutes later Aled came panting onto the path, the others behind him.
“Yon terrier got onto a pine marten in by yere. That’s all.”
Disappointed, the men called their dogs back to them and the party moved on. At the edge of the trees they stopped to watch for the other group. It was good to be clear of the wood and in the open air again. Pipes and cigarettes were lit, and a thermos passed that contained very strong tea laced with something that brought tears to Peter’s eyes when he swallowed. When David tasted it a moment later, he looked a little startled, then grinned at his son.
“How are you doing?”
“I’m all right,” said Peter.
“Grand!” said Gwilym. “I got a jolly good look at that pine marten back there. I haven’t seen but two others before.”
Mr. Evans joined them. “Not much to show so far.”
“Do you think we’ll find the animal?” asked David.
“Shouldn’t wonder. More likely from now on. They’ll come in to a farm for sheep, see, but not stay close.”
“Aye, he’ll have gone to earth in one of them old mine holes, I’m thin
king. Dogs’ll take the scent if they find un. We’ll know.” It was the solid farmer who had been listening to Jones-the-Top earlier. “And how are your two-year-olds, Evan Evans?” he asked.
Mr. Evans nodded. “Comin’.”
“It will be a good year for lambs.”
“If we find that sheep-killer,” put in Dai.
“We’ll be finding un.
The talk turned to a discussion of Dai Pritchard, who was selling his farm at Bont Goch to an Englishman from Bristol. Dai Pritchard had no sons and could not get help on his land.
“Aye,” said one of the other men. “Hard it is to find a sheepman yere now. And you, Mr. Evans, you are the lucky one with your three lads, then. I had three girls before I got even one for help!”
There was a mutter of laughter; the men were familiar with Hywel Davies’s family problems, as they were with the private business of all the farmers in the area. Their lives were hard and isolated, but they knew one another well, and word of mouth was still the best way of circulating news, just as it had been for thousands of years.
It came to Peter as he stood, part of the group, watching the men talk, that it didn’t matter which faces he saw there; they were the faces of the country. He and his father and even Gwilym would always be foreigners because they weren’t Welsh born and raised, but the unexpected regret he felt at knowing that was softened by the realization that it didn’t matter as much as he had once thought.
At last someone spotted the second group coming out of the trees. They had nothing to report either, and after ten minutes or so they reorganized again. One lot was to follow the track between Llyn Comach and Llyn Dwfn, the second to work south through the mine area. David, Peter, and Gwilym elected to go with the Evanses in the second group. By dusk everyone would meet at the road that came in past Nant-y-moch Reservoir; it would be easier to walk back along it to Talybont than to track across the hills as they’d come.
John Hughes Machynlleth and his two dogs joined the second party this time. “Must think we have a better chance,” observed David. Peter wished they’d start off again. He hadn’t noticed how tired his legs were until they’d stopped. The ground was much too wet to sit on, but he found standing still very uncomfortable and wondered if his father felt it, too. Gwilym was used to walking all day over rough ground and he didn’t seem bothered. Peter shifted from foot to foot.