The Nargun and the Stars

by Patricia Wrightson

  ‘It’ll be disappointed, then,’ said Charlie. ‘It’ll get no mutton tonight. We stopped its little game.’

  ‘Doesn’t it sound big?’ whispered Simon.

  ‘Noise can’t hurt,’ said Edie. ‘Do I get any help with the washing up?’

  ‘In a minute,’ said Charlie. ‘I was thinking about a fence. How do you think that’d work, Simey? A strong fence, you know, iron posts driven well in and a heavy-gauge chain-wire. We could run a strong fence right round the thing, keep it in one place while we work out what to do about it. What do you think of that?’

  Simon tried to uncurl whatever it was that curled up inside him when the Nargun called. ‘Could you make a fence that strong?’ he asked.

  Charlie laughed. ‘Iron posts driven two feet in? It’d take a tank to shift it. What do you think, Edie?’

  ‘It’s a start,’ said Edie. ‘It might turn out that we don’t need it, but it wouldn’t hurt to have it there. You’d have to ring up town and see when you could get the stuff for it.’

  ‘Do that tomorrow. Simey and I’ll have a look tomorrow and see what we need. Eh, Simey?’

  ‘All right,’ said Simon, feeling a lot better by now. They knew nothing really bad about the Nargun, even from the Potkoorok. There was only the sheep, and Charlie had moved the others. The noise couldn’t hurt; maybe they didn’t even need the fence, but Charlie would build one anyway. It would be stupid to get worked up.

  All the same, when everyone went to bed Simon left his bedroom door open to the firelight. He was the one who had met the Nargun by moonlight – unless that was a nightmare.

  The pine-tree whispered against the stars, and the shrill cries of crickets patterned the silence. All the lights were out; only the fire still burnt behind its safety screen. The flames made little darting grabs up the chimney, and their light flickered in the windows. Everyone was asleep, even Simon.

  The white house settled firm and low on the ridge, its iron roof shining like water in the moonlight. The mountain stood over it, tall and massive, and from there the Nargun looked down. It had dragged itself down its small gully, rocking from limb to limb and grinding moss into the soil, to look at the shoe-box house below. It watched for the yellow flicker that sometimes shone from the windows and lit up a shrub or a fence-post; and it dreamt of fire.

  After a while it moved slowly on, out of the gully. It rocked into stillness and felt beneath it the upward swing of the mountain. It lifted its clumsy head to the moon and felt the silence; the earth and all the shining planets were threaded like beads on that enduring silence.

  There had been days that were a moment of irritation to the Nargun; when it had moved restlessly down its small gully to escape from the throbbings and thunders that killed the trees. It was not angry yet, for the moment had been too brief, and as yet it felt no need to leave the mountain. In its cold, heavy way it loved the mountain. It had come to love distance and sky and high rocky places; and though it had killed only a sheep it knew there were men near. In its cold, still way the Nargun loved men: loved them even when it killed them. Trees that were not yet seeds would be grown and felled and milled before the Nargun chose to leave the mountain.

  But in these last days it was restless for a moment, and it sought the peace of night and the star-threaded silence. Now it was soothed; it felt again earth swinging on its moth-flight round the sun. It lowered its head and looked at the shoebox house, watching for the yellow flicker and dreaming of fire. It moved another pace.

  Charlie and Simon found it there next day, three yards outside the gully.

  eight

  It was afternoon before Charlie had time to go up the mountain, and Simon went with him. Charlie wanted to see where the fence should go, and how long it would need to be, to enclose the Nargun; Simon was to hold one end of the measuring string. They were more than half-way to the gully before Charlie slapped his pocket, made a disgusted noise, and confessed that he had left the string behind.

  ‘Sorry, Simey. Have to go back – wait a bit, though! Where did I leave that rope last time I hauled wood with the tractor? Should be near here.’ He rode a little way off the track and dismounted. From under one of the logs that he seemed to use as handy tool-sheds he dragged out a long coil of rope, which he looked at with satisfaction. ‘What did I tell you? Always a good idea to keep a thing where it’s needed.’

  They rode on, and had almost reached the mouth of the little high gully before they saw the great stone humped on the ground outside it. They would hardly have believed it could be the same stone if it had not been for that name, simon, still showing in the lichen at its base. They stopped in their tracks and stared at it for a moment. Then Charlie dismounted and tethered Surprise to a sapling a little way off, and Simon did the same.

  Charlie was silent and frowning. It was one thing to believe, because Simon and Edie did, that a great rock could move up and down the mountain as it wished; it was quite another thing to see it for himself. A small, grim doubt entered his mind that any fence built by humans could hold this bit of ancient earth.

  Simon was silent and frowning, too. He had suddenly seen that below the Nargun, a little way down the mountain, lay the house. The white house that closed its walls around you in the dark, and stood steady under the hammers of rain – where firelight flickered on your bedroom door and your mat crept about in the wind and the pine-tree whispered outside the window – that was where the Nargun was headed. Simon was so afraid that he was angry instead. He picked up a lump of charred wood and threw it hard at the great crouched stone.

  It should have hit – it almost looked as if it had hit – but there was no thud of wood on stone or thunk of wood on flesh. The wood bounded back hard at Simon, he had to dodge it quickly. And the great hunched stone crouched unmoving, headed towards the house.

  The heat of Simon’s anger turned cold. He felt frozen, his eyes fixed on the stone. He didn’t hear Charlie speak to him until, after several tries, Charlie clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘What’s up, mate? Ears full of wax?’

  Simon whispered ‘Charlie -’ and gulped. He tried again: ‘Charlie, watch. Watch, now, keep looking.’ He groped around for a heavy stick and threw it.

  It swung end over end, hard and true towards the big stone and seemed to bounce off some invisible wall and came bounding back. ‘Duck!’ shouted Simon, leaping aside. The stick whizzed by between Charlie and Simon, and thudded and bounced on the ground yards behind them.

  ‘M’p,’ grunted Charlie. ‘Better be careful what you chuck at that thing, mate.’ The lines of his face had deepened, and he was lost in thought for a while. At last he spoke in a businesslike way. ‘I don’t reckon we’ll wait for the fence, Simey. The way this thing moves about, you must be able to shift it. I reckon we’ll give Surprise a try.’

  Simon’s eyes opened wide. ‘Shift it? Where?’

  ‘Eh?’ said Charlie. ‘Not shift it anywhere, just shift it. Surprise couldn’t shift it away, it’s too much weight for him. We’ll just see if he can’t rock it a bit, or tip it a bit or something.’

  ‘Why, Charlie? What good will it do?’

  Charlie tried to collect and sort out reasons that he felt rather than saw. ‘Well. We don’t know much about this Nargun thing at all, do we? We don’t know if we can fence it, or blast it, or touch it, or what we can do. I reckon we’ll have to start finding out, don’t you?’

  ‘I – suppose so.’

  ‘Well, you just found out something yourself, didn’t you? You found you can’t chuck something at it without it chucks it back. What if you hadn’t found that out? Suppose I’d just lit a fuse and chucked a stick of gelignite. It would’ve chucked that back, just the same as your stick, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘I – suppose so.’

  ‘And then where would we be? We don’t know where we are with this thing at all. We don’t even know if we can put a rope around it. Suppose we find out we can, and suppose Surprise gives it a tug and makes it rock
or tip up or something, then we might try with the truck or the tractor. We might be able to get it on a truck and have it carted off somewhere. I don’t think we can just leave it here, do you? And wait and see what happens?’

  Simon glanced down at the house and back again. ‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘Only – if it’s too heavy for Surprise wouldn’t it be better to try with the tractor straight off?’

  ‘Well, you could have an accident on this slope, with a rock that size. A tractor’s got no sense and a horse has. I’d rather have a go with Surprise first.’

  ‘All right … only, Charlie …’

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Say we did get it on a truck. Where would you cart it off to? Where could you leave it?’

  ‘It’s a big country, mate.’

  ‘But it might kill someone else’s sheep! It might come back!’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’ll have to think about that. First we have to find out if we can do anything at all. Now you go up there – not inside the gully, up on the edge of it – and keep an eye on that thing while I see what I can do with this rope.’

  Simon edged a little way up the mountain, full of uneasiness. There was no need to tell him to keep an eye on the Nargun; except for a quick look at Charlie now and then his eyes could not leave it. It stood humped on the hill, unmov-ing, on its path to the house. simon, it called silently. He could see one dark cavity like an eye half turned to him, as though the darkness knew and watched.

  Charlie had laid one end of his rope on the ground ten feet from the Nargun. There was a small loop tied in that end of the rope, and Charlie walked away from it in a wide circle unwinding a trail of rope as he went, making a ring of rope on the ground around the great stone. On the uphill side he stopped for a moment to think, then moved closer in, step by step, to a sapling that grew only a yard or so from the stone. There he laid his trail of rope over a small branch, so that the sapling held the rope a few feet above the ground. Then he went on, finishing his circle and closing the ring of rope. He shook out the rest of the rope and passed his end through the loop that lay on the ground, turning the rope ring into a wide, slack noose. The stone was still, and the dark cavity watched. Simon’s knees felt weak. He was sure Surprise could not move the stone, but in the dark places of his mind he dreaded what the stone might do.

  Charlie stood with the loose end of rope in his hand and looked about again. Then he called to Simon.

  ‘I’ll take her round that messmate,’ pointing to a sturdy tree near him. ‘She’ll pull towards the tree, and Surprise and I will be going the other way. Keep your eyes on that thing – yell if it moves an inch.’

  Simon nodded. Charlie walked to the tree, flicking the rope delicately so that it slid lightly through the loop. The noose grew a little smaller but it did not move from the sapling branch. Charlie passed his end of the rope over a shoulder-high branch of the tree, and brought Surprise and tied the rope high on a stirrup-leather. Simon saw that the noose, held up by the sapling on one side and the tree on the other, might tighten about the Nargun high up under its blunt muzzle. If that happened, and Surprise were pulling at the top of the rock instead of at its base, then perhaps he might move it a very little. He fixed his eyes on it, ready to shout at the first movement. The great boulder crouched, heavy with stillness, and the dark cavity watched.

  The noose drew in; it rose above the ground on all sides; it strained at the sapling branch. Simon could hear Charlie’s voice bullying and coaxing Surprise. The sapling sprang and the noose whipped tight – around the neck of the Nargun, under what looked like its head. Simon held his breath: nothing happened. The dark cavity watched.

  He glanced away for a moment at Charlie and Surprise. They had rounded the messmate and returned towards the gully. The rope was strained tight: to the tree, around it, and back to Surprise who was leaning into the leather breastplate of his harness and pulling. Simon looked at the great boulder again. His hands ached from being clenched.

  He could not see the dark, vacant eye.

  He tried to yell with empty lungs. The rope strained, the rock seemed to rear a little. Simon managed to yell: ‘Charlie! Then everything happened.

  Instantly Charlie steadied Surprise and began to ease him while he looked across to the rock. Slowly, heavily, the great rock moved – not towards the tree with the pull of the straining rope, but like a pendulum, down and across towards man and horse. Surprise fought as Charlie forced him back and away, trying to keep tension on the rope, to use the tree, to untie the knot. Simon kept on yelling.

  He could see a rock, heavy and inert, changing course and rolling the wrong way – and he glimpsed rocky limbs levering at the ground, a blunt muzzle snarling, a watchful darkness -

  Charlie fought and fumbled – the rock rolled past the horse’s heels – he lashed at it and cracked it with a hoof as it passed – a piece broke off and scuttled into the grass uphill – the end of the rope fell loose, and Charlie and Surprise sprang away – the rock lay still.

  Simon sat down and put his head on his knees.

  In a moment he looked up again. Charlie was still talking to Surprise, and Pet was straining nervously at her reins. Simon dragged himself up and went to Pet. The rock lay near with the rope still round it and the loose end trailing; there was a fresh break near the base where the piece had chipped off. simon, said the rock.

  Charlie and Simon looked at their horses and said nothing. Charlie began to lead Surprise away down the mountain and Simon followed with Pet. They left the rope where it was.

  ‘Fool thing to try,’ said Charlie at last. ‘Should’ve set it up the other way round and used another tree … Should’ve used the tractor …’

  ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Simon flatly. ‘Nothing would. It did what it wanted to.’

  Charlie looked uncomfortable and was silent. After a moment he said, ‘I need my head read. Should’ve known it’d roll downhill whichever way the pull went. Only I never thought Surprise could shift it, not with that rig. It must’ve been just balancing.’

  ‘It rolled half across the hill, not down,’ said Simon. ‘And Surprise had stopped pulling when it started … Did you see the bit that broke off? It ran away uphill into the grass.’

  Charlie gave him a sudden sharp look. ‘I didn’t see that. And there was too much happening for you to be sure what you saw. So we won’t say anything about it to Edie, mind.’ He frowned, pushed his mouse-coloured hat into its worried position, and tugged it down again hard. ‘I’ve got to get the stock back into this paddock soon, and lord knows if that thing’ll hold still while I put a fence round it. Maybe I’d better try with the tractor …’

  Simon broke into a cry: ‘Don’t make it angry, Charlie!’ He broke off because it was a useless thing to say and Charlie couldn’t answer it; not until he too had seen the Nargun. So they went on in another uncomfortable silence, leading their upset horses.

  When they reached the house Charlie declared that they were still too busy for a cup. He added cunningly, ‘We needn’t give Edie a look at us till we’ve settled down a bit. So we’ll just get the jobs done first, and have a cup after that.’

  Simon felt sure that nothing would rouse Edie’s wonder more than Charlie’s failing to appear for his cup; but if Simon knew the Nargun better than Charlie did, Charlie surely knew Edie better than Simon did. He said nothing, but helped as usual to feed the animals. It really was late enough. The timber-getters, who had been working today with their chain-saw though without their bulldozer, had stopped for the day while he and Charlie were coming down the ridge. The hills’ great shadows leaned across the ridges, and crickets were shrilling to the silence.

  Simon stood watching the cows and horses while they snuffled up their little heaps of chaff from the winter-browned grass. One by one as they finished they lifted their heads, snorted or blew, and snuffled in the grass again for the last bits of chaff. Simon could wait no longer. Refusing to look at Charlie, who was feeding the dog
s and watching, he began to herd the cows and horses down the ridge to the creek. They were as surprised as Charlie, but he didn’t let them stop; he shouted and waved his arms and threw bits of stick until they kicked up their heels and ran down the creek to the flat. That was the best he could do.

  Coming back he checked the fowl-run gate. It was well fastened, but the light wire netting of the run looked flimsy and unsafe. Still, hens were very small things, and they roosted quietly in the darkness of their shed. They were probably safe except for accidents. Simon went to the wood-heap for an armload of wood, still refusing to look at Charlie.

  The sky was cold and pale when they went into the kitchen at last, and smoke from the chimney showed that Edie had already lit the fire. She gave each of them her seeing look and said, ‘You won’t be wanting a cup now it’s so late. I’ll have dinner on the table by the time you’ve cleaned up.’

  ‘That’ll do us,’ agreed Charlie warmly. ‘We could eat a horse, eh, Simey? As long as it was Surprise and not old Pet.’ And he laughed in a way that drew another of Edie’s looks. She said nothing more until they were having dinner.

  ‘And how was the Nargun?’ she asked them.

  ‘Eh?’ said Charlie. Simon kept his eyes on his plate.

  ‘The Nargun. You were going to look at it and see about the fence. Is it still there?’

  ‘That thing,’ said Charlie, remembering the Nargun with an effort. ‘Yes, it’s still there. We had a go at shifting it with Surprise and a rope, but we only managed to roll it a bit further down the slope.’

  ‘Did you measure the fence?’

  ‘Forgot the measuring string,’ said Charlie. ‘Have to have another go tomorrow.’

  Edie looked at Charlie’s innocent smile and at Simon examining a baked potato. She retreated into her calmest mood and said nothing more. Charlie made up for this by teasing Simon about old Pet and the Potkoorok and the grader. Dinner had been over for half an hour before Charlie’s cheerfulness failed; then, quite suddenly, he grew quiet and strained.