The Border Reiver

by Nick Christofides

  The back of the car had gone eerily quiet, but Davey was still there, breathing heavily. He drove fast into the centre of Hexham, to the market place where he stopped at the side of the road next to the monument in the middle of the square. There must have been more than twenty people milling around; all of them knew Nat by sight or name and at least ten were now affiliated in some way to the NSO. Not one approached as he began to daub something on the sheet metal. The gathering crowd could see Davey in the back of the steamed up car, his face and hands pressed against the rear-view window. They could see the state of Nat, covered in dirt and blood, wild and unkempt. Some could see the rifle and shotgun in the passenger side foot well through the open driver’s side door. Mobile phones were pulled from pockets: some made calls, others made videos. Most local people had heard by now that Nat had gone mad or gone rogue, depending on allegiances’. But they had not witnessed any real opposition to the NSO. Until now.

  Once he had finished with the paint he left the metal sheet on the roof and moved around to the boot. He opened the boot, and Davey immediately started to scream for help. Nat beat him in the face with his fist until he stopped. Then he turned to the crowd and looked for trouble. None stepped forward so he turned again and dragged Davey by the scruff of the neck out of the car, Davey's legs falling limp to the ground. Nat dropped him next to the monument and he turned back to the car; he saw out of the corner of his eye two men approaching - he knew them. He walked back to the open door of the car and leaned in; pulling the shotgun out, he turned to the approaching men. They slowed their pace as they saw the weapon in his hands.

  “This is not your business, Steven,” Nat said to the taller of the two men, brothers, policemen from Hexham and now NSO enforcers in the town.

  “You know it is, Nat. We can’t let you carry on like this.”

  “You can, boy, or I’ll be lying you down next to these four animals. You do what you have to do, but no one is gonna think any the less if you just go back to your office and report this, come back with more of you.”

  The two men looked at each other, they both knew Nat, more from reputation, let alone the stories people had been telling in the last day or so.

  “We’ll be back shortly, Nat. You've got to be stopped.” They turned and ran back to their vehicle and screeched off. Nat presumed it was back to the base to do as he had said. So he stepped up a gear and hauled the other three bodies out of the boot and dumped them roughly on the cold concrete next to the pulp that was the skinny lad.

  He attached the bodies, arms to ankles, with the pull ties and then with two more pull ties he hung the sign that he had just written tight around the live one's neck. He stood back and turned three-sixty, slowly looking at all the faces staring at him in the square, the blood caked on his skin and clothes, shotgun hanging by his side in his right hand. Then, after a moment and within four strides, he was back in the car.

  He fired up the engine and hammered down Hallstyle Bank out of the town, leaving his gruesome message for all to see. The sign he had written, that underlined the bloody misery that was Davey's face, read…

  “NO QUARTER FOR NSO NORTH OF THE WALL”

  NINE

  The cold hard evidence of his activities hit all forums of media very quickly. Recordings from bystanders went viral within hours and he made the front pages within the press.

  Nat sat next to Esme’s grave as the tide of dusk enveloped his surroundings. He chewed raw beans, the pangs of hunger waning as he listened to rotor blades of a light chopper circling his ruined farmhouse. The murders were like a drug: he wanted more to numb his pain, avenge his wife’s murder, teach these people, slake his bloodlust.

  His backside rested hard on the cold ground, his clothes constantly damp - it didn’t bother him, he was warm and at home here. The brook babbled under a still sky. Beyond the stream and the distant beat of the rotor blades, the wood was quiet. Maybe too quiet.

  He suddenly felt that somebody else was present. His eyes looked down at the lifeless pile of stones next to him and he shook his head at the thought, he didn’t believe in ghosts. His second reaction was to put his hand on the cold steel of his handgun; he placed it on the boulder next to him and pulled his shotgun up over his lap. Then he reverted back to the absurd and reached down with a big hand, placing it on the stones that lay over his wife’s body. The chill of the barren stones transformed the inertia into a frigid wave through his body. There was no paranormal energy there, just the temperature of an inanimate object in the cool evening; Esme was not haunting him tonight.

  He turned his attention to the increasingly blue/black plethora that engulfed him. His ears pricked and his eyes bulged but there was nothing to see so he dug back into his beans and quashed the hollow pain of hunger in his belly. He shovelled in the sustenance; like a lion at a carcass, he wolfed down the meal before any passing hyenas sniffed out the bounty - there was no point savouring cold beans anyway. As he scraped the plastic spoon around the bottom of the tin, he heard it: mute, almost in-audible, but a human sound. It was a faint plastic pop. Like the click-pop of an old plastic paracetamol container or even older, he remembered camera film containers. He knew exactly what that sound could have been; he stopped, he stared into the darkness, heart pounding, wild, calling on the height of every one of his senses. Was the hunter becoming prey?

  * * * * *

  The man in black fatigues had a fully blacked-out face; he nestled in the undergrowth of the wood high up above the ravine, as his eye focussed through his night-sight on the green and black figure sitting next to the makeshift grave. The image cleared in his mind, it registered the legs standing firm in the dirt. The weapon lay across his lap, tin of food in hand resting on lap, grim face with two black dots for eyes. He was stunned at the sight because those black dots were staring straight back down his lens.

  In shock, the man at the top of the ravine jerked his eye away from the sights. He stared into the darkness, but there was nothing, no outline, no shadow, no sound, just one swathe of dark blue washing over black. Silently holding his breath in check, he placed his eye back over the nightsight and the ghostly chill washed over him again. The ghoulish figure sitting in the blackness was staring intently and unwaveringly back at him.

  * * * * *

  The sun had risen over Greenwich less than an hour before. As Baines leaned towards the huge TV screen in his office, Lucas perched on the arm of his high-backed armchair like some sort of devil on his shoulder. The devil sipped coffee from a mug with the picture of a London bus on it - it read 'I Heart London' in big bold letters with a big red heart in between I and London. Around them, nine colleagues and aides all focussed on the screen at the front of the room. As Baines flicked through the various news channels, he imagined with horror the millions of families across the country interpreting the disturbing images that they were witnessing.

  The reports were, on the whole, toeing the government line on the story; Start had seen to that. The regime had spun the actions of the farmer as a ‘violent and dangerous criminal using the revolution as an excuse for murder’ and the newsreel was littered with language such as ‘heinous crimes’.

  However, Baines was no idiot; he knew what he was watching and how critical sections of the population would interpret this story - at best this man would become an anti-hero, at worst a cult-hero. He personified the fuel for a fire that was already burning bright, especially in the border counties.

  Baines watched the massive figure on amateur video hauling and dragging the bodies from his vehicle as though they were simply sacks of potatoes, his thick white hair and beard framing his tanned face. Baines watched the rugged, statuesque figure going about his gruesome business. He hoped that the feral appeal of the man that he recognised was not universal.

  The channel hopped to England Today, the only opposition news station claiming to be fighting back against press control. Now the independent news station transmitted through random countries and offered ‘the truth
’ in terms of story to the sectors of the population brave enough to watch it. Baines glanced at Start, both men dreading this report.

  The young reporter stood in the market square in Hexham, Baines raised his hand and ‘sssh’d’ the room, the report continued,

  “…the questions must be answered, what led this well-known, well-liked farmer, family man and popular local figure to start killing people? What happened to his thriving farm? And what has become of his wife? Also a well-known and well-liked local who has not been seen for a week. This man had never been convicted of a crime - far from it, locals talk about him as mild-mannered, charitable. Certainly no recluse; in fact, a pillar of the farming community.

  Questions must be asked of the new government and, in particular, its enforcement units. Rumours abound in this rural idyll that this farmer's bloody rampage was sparked by the enforcement squads’ brutality, which led to the death of Esme, his wife.” Esme’s beautiful face appeared on the screen and Baines slumped down in his seat. Start threw a hand at the screen as though he were watching a football match and the referee had waved play on to a blatant foul.

  The report continued, “And their elderly neighbours Bob and Jean Maddocks. Although unproven, there is an overwhelming opinion throughout this region that NSO enforcers have the blood of locals on their hands. And those locals see the action of Nat Bell as an act of war rather than murder. As this situation unfolds in this volatile region where insurgency is rife, the regime must face up to its shortcomings. Rather than resort to violence, channels of diplomacy must be set up to connect with an ever increasingly marginalised population. This is Rory Jones reporting from Hexham, Northumberland for News Today.”

  The picture flicked from the reporter's baby face standing in a soggy Mack looking rather bullied by the rain to a still of Nat from that day in the market square. His sapphire blue eyes staring straight down the lens, gritted teeth, white hair streaked with blood from his victims, clenched fists like ball-peen hammers and long legs set wide like two tree trunks.

  Baines felt as though the colour had drained from his face; a little light-headed, he tried to gather his composure and face his staff without panic etched in his features. The leader knew about revolution, and as he digested the image of this wild man fighting back, he knew it would strike a chord in the psyche of the very people who had brought him to power. He was sure of this because he felt it himself: he had an affinity with this enemy.

  He turned his attention to Start, shock being overwhelmed by anger, “What happened to the wife? What happened at his farm?”

  Start was prone, pensive… he stared at the floor, elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him.

  * * * * *

  Claire had called Stuart after she had dressed the wound to Nat’s shoulder. As she had watched him putter away on the small motorbike, she knew that his friend needed to know the whole situation.

  Shortly after speaking to Claire, Stuart told Amber everything, about her home, her father and her mother. Amber had broken down in his arms and sobbed on his shoulder. But in her father’s image she pulled herself together and pushed the sadness deep down. That steely look appeared in her eye. She began to demand their return to Northumberland to be with and fight alongside her father. Stuart looked at the young girl, eighteen years old - to him a babe in arms. That was not the way she saw herself.

  A few hours passed as the two saw to the animals. It was mid-afternoon when they both sat in front of the news, mouths agape, as they watched her father, his friend dumping the bodies in the marketplace.

  Amber looked across at Stuart, her cheeks flushed with colour, her movements twitching with nerves and anger.

  “I don’t care whether you come with me or not…I’m going tomorrow, you won’t keep me here Stuart, the man needs our help and so do the rebels. I spoke to Jesse Rowell; we need to join up with them and fight with them,” she stated aggressively, as teenagers do when they want to make a point.

  “Hey, hey, hey, Amber,” Stuart responded with his hands up, “no-one’s being kept here, you gotta do whatever you gotta do, and I’ll be coming with.”

  Stuart looked back at the television, the blue light washing over his face in the dull room. He knew this young woman would go whether he liked it or not, she would follow him if he went, or she would vanish overnight if he tried to stop her leaving. He had known this girl from the moment she was born. She might not say very much, but she was as decisive and determined, or some would say ‘pig-headed’, as her father and even more capable. She had spent her years independently roaming their land, deep in the environment. Those who knew it marvelled at her ability to disappear in the countryside; she had a gift for nature, she loved it, she was part of it and Carlins Law was her home. Stuart knew that they would be leaving for Northumberland.

  “I’m going to pack my bag,” she said quietly.

  “Amber, I told Nat that I would look after you, I hope you understand that if we turn up there, he’s likely to kill me himself!”

  “Well, I’m going with or without you…and he’ll definitely want to kill you if I show up there alone.”

  “Jesus, woman, you are your fathers’ daughter. How do you propose we cross the border?”

  “Come on, Stuart, I’m eighteen not eight. There is no way that that wall has been completed in the last three days - we just need to find a gap.”

  “Ok, lassie, let’s get our stuff together. But, we go on one condition: we try and persuade your father to leave with us - he can’t win this war he’s started. Not one man against the Regime.”

  “Well, he isn’t one man now, is he? He's two men and a woman, and I think he'll want to fight with the rebels as much as I do. You get me there safe and then you can leave - come back up here to safety,” she replied with a smile; then, she turned and left the room, up the stairs and into her room.

  Stuart felt a cocktail of anger, excitement, fear and sadness as he pushed himself up out of his low comfy armchair and went straight to the cold steel of his gun cabinet with a large holdall.

  * * * * *

  Lucas Start looked at the floor for a long time. Baines didn’t understand, he thought the man was about to explode or breakdown so he waited patiently for his closest political friend to decide what he was going to say.

  Start had been forced by this menace in the North to act sooner than he had wanted. He raised his head after what felt like an age and looked around the room at his cohorts and his gaze was met by supportive and provocative nods and raised eyebrows. He wrung his hands, drew breath and turned to Baines, the man who had carried him to where he was today.

  “Ben, you are losing touch with the people. The peaceful revolution will not work. While you have been appeasing the old guard, the population are becoming wild and untamed, twisting our system for their own gain. I am the man who is keeping control. Mine are the shoulders carrying this system and I am the one creating security for our country. This is one man refusing to live the way the society democratically decided to live. There are thousands more like him and we need to crush them. To bring about the change we want, we need to force change through martial law. I have been busy, Ben; I have amassed our own army. We have been training new recruits for months now and we have been receiving arms and officers from the South Americans. We are now a regime with our own muscle and we are using it to keep control in areas where we are experiencing resistance.”

  Realisation dawned on Baines, the rug was being pulled from underneath him by the man he had nurtured, supported and pushed through all his difficulties and shortcomings. He had not seen this coming. Until this moment he had been the leader, the talisman and pivotal mastermind of the regime. But in that instant he realised that now that power was the NSO's, he was surplus to requirement. A dictatorship did not need a leader who cared about the people.

  He could see that the room of greedy, selfish politicians were following Start. He wanted to explode with anger, his ideology was being manipulated for per
sonal gain; he had to remain calm and figure out a way back.

  Start continued, “The naivety of your system never took into account the fact that a lot of people out there are simply lazy. They don’t want to be empowered as you call it. They don’t want to work, they just want hand-outs. Men like this Bell character are capturing the imagination of the same people that mobilised our movement. Those who just want to fight. If we don’t stamp it out, these pockets of resistance will grow and destroy our regime. I have conscripted many of these people into our army and put those fighters out there to stop further resistance.”

  Baines sat stone-faced, his eyes focussed on Lucas Start.

  “Look, Ben,” Start continued, “I realised a long time ago, although you were our leader and a good man,” - Baines nearly choked on the condescension - “your abilities are floored. When it comes to the tough decisions of security and control, you are allowing the population too much freedom, too much time to think for themselves and take advantage of the chaos.

  “But the most important gulf that has opened up between you and us,” Start looked around the room, as did Baines, to a gang of shifting eyes looking everywhere but into his eyes. “None of us believe in your airy-fairy ideals of equality for all. Why should we organise the country, set up the systems which will govern us in the future and carry that responsibility for the population? Yet, we only receive a fraction more in recompense than a builder or factory worker, it’s ridiculous.”

  Baines sat in silence but as it dragged he uttered with disgust,

  “So, this is about money, greed.”

  “No, I like to call it ‘quality of life and power’.”

  “So, what now, what do you want me to do?”

  Start’s face softened, the bully had broken through the wall and he felt subjugation was close; he was high on the thrill of the coup.