The listener shrugged. He could hear nothing, and a hand slapped the top of the cab, and the vehicle lurched forward, and in a moment the angle had changed and Belcher no longer had a view of the incline. He held the rifle tight, and bucked, and sensed the excitement of the guys around him, sniffing for blood, and killing. They knew nothing. How bad was it? Belcher reflected. It might have been as ‘bad’ as at any time since his journey had begun; a herdsman was at the top of an incline, and he had his dog and his goats around him, and a rifle on his back.
The herdsman moved slowly, the dog close to his heel and the rifle snug against his back. The animals seemed less settled than usual and he wondered why. He assumed it might be because they had not been to the top of the incline before and were uncertain. His dog was wary too. He could see far below him. His home was wreathed in the smoke that seeped through the ceiling, from the internal fire his mother would have lit. She would be cooking the main meal of the day, which would be goat and rice, and there would be bread. They were lucky to have meat that week – one of their goats had been hit by a pick-up and the animal had been put out of its misery and its throat slit: they had more than enough meat for some to go to his cousins. The fighters had paid well for the goat they had injured.
He and the dog followed the goats. He could not have said why the animals looked up and around so often, and were not just concentrating on the search for anything digestible. There was less up here, on the plateau, than he’d expected, but the rains had not been heavy. The dog growled. It pointed. Its snout showed where it looked and the growl was almost silent, but he heard it, and saw its old teeth, yellowed, in the blotched gums. Nothing. The goats had stopped dead on hearing the rumble in the dog’s throat, alerting them, but the herdsman saw nothing that might account for the dog’s suspicion. He had known that dog almost all its life. Now it was five years old, and the best dog in the village. It was said that a Ukrainian worker at the Marib refinery had brought it as a puppy from his home in Europe, then abandoned it into the care of a servant when evacuated less than a year later. He worked with the dog, and fed it from the family’s scraps, and the dog slept against his body. He trusted it, but he could see nothing. He was puzzled. Because he had the dog with him and the rifle on his shoulder, he had no fear, but he was confused.
The dog stayed hard against his leg. He turned a half-circle, as if an answer could be found behind him. The Emir’s car had left and was on the main road: the car the Emir used was supposed to be a closely guarded secret, but often he went out in the night to check the goats and there was one car under the tarpaulin that was dirty and rusty but whose engine had a sweet purr. Another vehicle followed the Emir’s. His father said he knew more than was good for him to know. Another pick-up was travelling on the main road towards Sana’a, carrying many men, and there would be a killing. He had no wish to join the fighters and be a part of their war; he wanted his goats and his dog and the freedom of the wilderness around and above his village.
Because of his faith in his dog – for no reason that he could have justified – the herdsman slipped the rifle off his shoulder, carried it readied, but he saw nothing.
It stood twenty-five yards, give or take, from where Corrie lay. It was the biggest goat and seemed to snort through flared nostrils. Its right hoof pawed the ground, did its confrontation strut. Other goats, younger or smaller, were behind it and would follow its lead.
Corrie blessed the scrim net, and its quality of camouflage, but it would fail if they came any closer. The boy was the far side of the flock and might not have a decent view of where they were hidden. He was holding the rifle in two hands and chances were that the kid was not practised in arming it fast and flicking off the safety. There was the quiet except for the wheeze of Rat’s breath and the scrape of the hoof and the dog’s low growl – like the world had stopped. In front of him the snake had not moved.
In London they would have held a committee meeting and then subcontracted the business out to consultants, and another committee would have started to check what risk assessment had been done and if Health and Safety had been properly informed. The herd boy had a nice face and held the rifle with ease. He was listening and would have near-perfect hearing. The boy took a step forward, then was still, watching his animals, looking for a lead from them.
How would it end? What to do?
The time before there had been a face to cling to. Not available any more. Now there was a woman in a trench. A woman who washed in a tent. A woman who advanced with a heavyweight hammer raised, who walked unwillingly alongside danger but did not step away. Hers was a substitute face, maybe more valuable than the first. The herd boy’s face twisted, suspicion curling his mouth and hostility growing. Corrie thought of what he had seen before. Another young goatherd obliterated, with blows raining down on his curling hair, the blood splashing on him. Could not have said how it was possible – best to believe in miracles – that the corpse had not been found within an hour, as the animals would have milled around, and he would hardly have been clear of the killing place. In fact it must have been many hours, and meanwhile he had moved with all the speed that the crippled leg permitted, through daylight, through the whole of the night. Would he do it again? Too fucking right, if he had to, if the alternative wasn’t there. And call up for the evacuation bird, if the Yanks had one spare and going home empty, and report it all with a shrug. Just bad luck, Jericho, that it didn’t work out. Maybe next time. Except there wouldn’t be a ‘next time’ – this was one chance only. A wheeze hissed in Rat’s throat. The man was rigid and had his pistol in his hand but had not yet armed it: when he did heave back the lever and mount the round in the breach, the noise would spook the goats’ leader and arouse the fury of the dog. The boy would nestle the rifle on his shoulder, and . . . end of story, and no curtain call, and bad luck for people who needed to take any trip that involved flying over a fracture or a trough or a basin. Alone, oblivious to the threat around it, the snake slept, sunlight burnishing its skin.
He could not buy the boy, had not been able to the time before either.
Corrie put his hand gently on Rat’s arm. Not in friendship, just to keep the beggar quiet. He squeezed, did it hard so that he hurt, flexing his strength. Rat turned and his eyes blazed. They were inches from each other and survival was at stake, it was the moment that Corrie told him who ran the business and who had first call on decisions.
The pawing of the leading goat, a big fellow with powerful squinting eyes, likely not afraid of much, became more aggressive. The animal edged closer and others followed, and he heard the growl from down in the dog’s throat, and the crunch of small stones and earth crushed by the sandals of the herdsman. They were closing in on the scrim net; they still hadn’t seen it, but would in another pace or two.
Corrie freed Rat’s arm, then reached forward.
Chapter 9
One chance, one only.
Had been given only one chance when he had worked with the paper clip on the lock, and when he had gone on his stomach slithering, same as the snake had moved and one chance only when he had gone at the boy minding his goats and beaten the life out of him. His life was more important than another’s: the law of survival. It would have been good to have had a stick, maybe one a foot long. Corrie had no stick. Might have told the man beside him, a combat veteran, what he intended, asked for an opinion, but he did not. Just hissed in Rat’s ear.
‘Stay still. Don’t move. Be ready.’
He might have had a dozen seconds of time to play with, not more. A great clock ticked in his mind, powered towards a chime. The herdsman, the rifle held tight, his features anxious, was behind his goats, and the leader scratched at dirt still, and the dog let out a whispered growl. They all knew they were there, but not where, and the livestock were deceived by the scrim net. Corrie knew from childhood the speed with which a kingfisher dived on prey in a stream’s pool, and knew from the Scottish trip that a heron could stand among the swirl of the s
eaweed, then plunge its head and beak in a rapier-fast movement. He reached forward, and sensed that Rat had stiffened beside him and the wheeze was louder, and it was now or the business failed.
His hand went out towards the snake. The creature was the length of the Rangemaster barrel from him. It would be one movement, using one hand, and the mission, Crannog, depended on the smoothness of the snatch. His mind emptied. The snake slept and did not register the movement of his hand as he struck.
The snake’s neck, just below the head, where the flicker fang was, was as thick as Corrie’s thumb. He used his thumb and forefinger; they went down on the neck and he felt the warm surface of the skin, and the snake started a frantic thrashing as he lifted it clear of the ground and pushed it past the edge of the scrim. It wriggled hard, was as slippery as soap, and if he lost it then the snake would turn on him, its tormentor. He had it clear of the edge of the netting and threw it.
Its trajectory was low, no looping arc. He had thrown it flat, a foot or so above the earth and pebbles. It might have convulsed before landing and bouncing. The snake was now near to the leading goat, two yards from it. Corrie’s hand was back and hidden – he had to hope and believe – under the netting again.
He dared to look.
No longer scraping the ground, the goat bleated shrilly and stamped, backed, then ran. The dog wormed forward nervously on its stomach, and the snake shimmied towards it. The dog whimpered and backed away. The boy saw it, too. The goats had gone, stampeding in pursuit of their champion, and the boy bent and picked up a stone and threw it pointlessly at the snake as it moved and searched for cover. He had to follow his flock. The goats would not stay there, would not move on and forget.
Corrie looked at his thumb and his finger and wondered how near he had been to losing his grip, and how near the tongue of the snake had been to his skin. He doubted they had a custom antidote in the medic bag for that particular venom. He dragged the air into his lungs, and Rat did the same, which accentuated the wheeze and rasp from the nicotine damage, and he wondered how the wheeze had been when Rat was sniping. Corrie breathed out again. The goats were gone, and the dog with them, and the boy paused at the top, above the start of the slope, and looked around him and still wore a puzzled look, as if he had somehow been deceived but he didn’t know how, and he followed the animals.
Corrie could not see the snake.
The quiet had come again. He smelled the goats’ shit. The only sign that they had been there was the stench left because they had dropped their loads in fear when they’d seen the snake. He had the binoculars up and watched the road ahead, and saw the vehicle and saw Belcher squatting far down in the back. It had been almost as big a moment when Corrie had first spoken to Belcher, and the risk was then that he had exposed something of who he was. Not a limp-wristed aid worker, far from home and out of his depth, but a man with a proposition, and the ability to be calm and manipulative. It had been at night, and the side door that led into the villa had opened and the white boy had been framed in it, backlit, and the Italian and Austrian had been sleeping, and the Canadian had his blanket over his head so that he saw and heard nothing, and Corrie had called him. A summons. All worked out in his mind for when he found an opportunity. Some light had filtered in through the door – the giveaway about the Briton was a bottle of water he’d brought. A small gesture, but enough. Corrie was sure it was worth a gamble. It might succeed or might have left him worse off, something of his cover stripped. There was no time for a drawn-out courtship because it might be the next day or the next week that he was sold on. He thought his captors were holding out for a better price. If they received it he’d be on the move. One chance . . . Done quietly so as not to wake the others, but the need to dominate.
Where was he from? What’s it to you?
Repeated, where? Not your business.
Asked again, where? ‘Won’t help you – but the northeast.’
Little enough time, and if any of the others woke, or the Canadian emerged from under his blanket, then all was screwed. Where in the northeast? From Hartlepool, doubt you’ve been there.
He doubted right, Corrie had not been to Hartlepool, was not sure where it was exactly. He said his leg hurt badly – which was true. Said also that he needed help. Your leg, not my problem. Why should I help you?
The guy’s head was close to him. Corrie said he was worth helping because of what he could give back. You’re a joker – what else are you? What are you telling me? What can you give?
Holding the guy’s hand. Going for broke, big stakes. He could give what the guy was short of. I’m a convert, I joined up. There’s nothing you can give me.
What he hadn’t anything of. I have everything.
The guy did not have ‘respect’. Respect was on offer – that was Corrie’s gift. Respect, what he did not have. Fuck you . . . The guy had turned, straightened, and gone, but had left the water. It had been a start.
They lay side by side, Rat and he, and waited as their breathing calmed, and he could see the pick-up in which Belcher was travelling go on down the road, and Corrie supposed that Belcher still searched for it, for ‘respect’, and would have to keep looking. Rat’s hand came on to his shoulder, touched it, a light punch. Talking would come later, and the scrim net kept in the warmth.
The boy took his goats back over the edge of the incline and started to lead them down the slope. They drifted away to the right. They were relaxed now, the panic bred by the snake writhing and the flight of their leader drifting from them. The dog was by the herdsman’s side and he had slung the rifle over his shoulder again. Sometimes his sandals slipped on loose ground and he needed to concentrate on the flock. But the animals had shorter memories than he did. Something to tell his mother and brothers.
When they ate together that night, before he went out to the shed where he slept and where his dog would be, next to the corral he had built himself, he would tell them what had happened when he had strayed far from the usual grazing area and had gone to the top level of the hill and how a snake – a type he had seen before and knew to be deadly – had seemed to leap in the air. That was what he had caught from the corner of his eye, but he had been attracted by that movement, and had seen it clearly as it thrashed the ground and then had looked to defend itself. Then the animals had run and the snake had disappeared and he had not been able to shoot the beast because some of his flock were in the line of fire. They would laugh at the thought of him believing his shooting good enough to hit a snake’s head at twenty-five paces.
A vehicle, heavily loaded with men, was on the road. The herdsman thought it wise not to hurry.
There were many things around the village – his home, but now also the home of strangers – that it was good to be distanced from. He was not halfway down the slope, but he made a thin whistle, high pitched, spat the breath between his teeth, and the lead goat followed, was almost as good as his dog in responding to his commands. They would work the slope and find what food was there. He wouldn’t rush to bring them down and take them to the village. The sky now was clear. The herdsman couldn’t hear any drones, but that did not mean that the eye of one had not raked over him, watched him, put a value on him. What he had learned, as had all the other families in the village, was that the drones had been over them since the strangers had come and been given hospitality – not in his own house, but in many others. Cold men, without laughter. Correct men who prayed often and paid for everything they needed. Cruel men who had put one of their own to death, slowly. And they were fighting men and the drone aircraft hunted them. He thought he was safe high on the hill’s slope and hunched down, the dog nestling against his leg, the goats grazing close to him. There was movement at the camp where the woman dug for old pieces of Marib’s great history. He had not met her himself, but his mother had been to her a half-year before when she’d got a thorn stuck in her foot and it had become infected. The woman had removed the thorn and treated the infection.
He sat a
nd watched. The woman was in the back of a military jeep, and another with soldiers followed behind. He had a good view, down towards the mountains that were blue tinged and a crossroads close to where the road twisted, and he had bread to chew on.
When the herdsman had topped the incline, Henry had been left a wrung-out rag. She would have had a grandstand view of any confrontation, and would have heard shots, and would have known she was close to watching death handed out. But it had ended as suddenly as it had arisen. The boy had turned and his flock had led him down: no danger, no death, no shots, nothing to see. But for the rifle on the shoulder of the boy, it could have been a scene from the times when the queen of Sheba was here, or when the caravans came through, and paid tithes for the privilege, with the loads of frankincense and spices. The road was clear. She could not have said whether the apology she had made to her helpers had been accepted. If it had been they might stay. Or they might harbour hurt and quit by the evening. Henry could not anticipate. She sat alone in the back of the first jeep wearing overlarge and shapeless overalls, her hair hidden by a scarf knotted under her chin, and her shades were pulled down over her eyes, and she saw little and looked for little. The slow climb of the herdsman up the hillside had left her weakened . . . and no one there to share it with.
Could have started with Jericho, the slug, who had propositioned her and was likely now filling his face with food. He was not there, but had involved her. Nor was the boy who called himself Belcher but was a liar, and a cross was reserved for him outside the village if the lie was exposed: he was not there and had he been she might have hugged him for comfort. Nor was the man who had come down the slope and crawled into her tent and who had a toughness about his posture that seemed to indicate gentleness was weakness. He had offered her nothing: she depended on him because he had promised to lead her out. All had used her, all broken the fragile trust she had built around herself, and none were there now, she thought angrily.
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