The Border Reiver

by Nick Christofides

  “Don't you fucking move,” came the soft voice of a young woman. Tom's blood turned to cement rendering his body rigid, not with fear but calculation, this is where he came into his own: his thoughts were lucid, his body awaited instruction from the grey matter.

  It is not easy to cut someone’s throat; he knew it was both physically and mentally hard, involving a great deal of hacking and pints of blood. He had never met a young woman capable of stomaching such horrors, so he raised his arms in surrender.

  As the first synapses began to order his hand to grab his attacker's arm, the undergrowth about ten yards in front of him exploded in a thunderous roar. Standing before Tom and Amber was the huge frame of Stuart with a semi-automatic weapon pointed at the forehead of the ghost.

  “Please try that, she won't have to do the killing then...”

  Tom's arms dropped again, he knew when he was a hostage and he knew how to get through it. He looked at the big Scot, his long straggling dark hair was wet and stuck to a face filled with threat and promise, the man was not playing tough. His eyes were dark, thick-set and heavy, his was a face you could love in friendship or fear in animosity for all the same features. Tom knew what to do: submit and say nothing.

  * * * * *

  Nat leapt from his perch. As he ripped through the wet foliage, he pulled his handgun from his pocket. His eyes were crazed and Amber drew her knife away from Tom’s neck and stepped back from the prisoner, fearing a side of her father she had never witnessed before. Nat's visceral intent was clear; as he approached his old friend backed off slightly in surprise,

  “Control yourself, Nat. He's alone. We need to know who he is!” said Stuart urgently.

  Tom did not flinch as Nat approached and pistol whipped him across the face, lacerating his skin on his cheekbone and sending him tumbling into the dirt. Nat stood over the ghost, breathing heavily, thinking his next move after the fix of violence. Tom returned the look calmly. With no threat, no aggravation he slowly reached into the pocket where he kept his phone; as he did so Nat's knee came down hard on his forearm, pinning it across his chest.

  “It’s my phone, I'm getting my phone!” exclaimed Tom. “You call the number on there...”

  Nat leaned over Tom, close now, they could smell each other’s sweat and he stuck the barrel of his handgun into his prisoner’s eye socket. He then lifted his weight and his knee off the man's chest, leaning his weight through the barrel of the gun into Tom's eye. The man winced with pain. Nat crouched and his big hand delved into the small pocket where he found a mobile phone. As it powered up he looked down at his prisoner and pressed the barrel harder into his eye, pinning his head in the dirt.

  Tom spoke as calmly as he could muster, “There is one number in the phone - call it and tell the man who answers who you are.”

  Nat pressed the green button and put the phone to his ear. It was answered immediately.

  “Tom, I haven't heard from you twice in one day since we were children...”

  Confused, Nat looked at the man at his feet, he recognised that this was a professional, something to do with the security services, but he seemed far too slick for NSO. He felt the voice on the phone was familiar but he could not place it.

  “This isn't Tom,” Nat growled. He heard the gulp down the line. He felt the pause, then the shuffle of panic: probably whoever was on the other end sitting down or standing up, the brain giving orders that the body misreads in an attempt to buy seconds and think.

  “This is Ben Baines. Where is the man that you got the phone from?”

  Now it was Nat’s turn to panic, his jaw clenched, and Tom winced as the barrel of the gun was pressed so hard into his eye socket he felt the cold steel against his eyeball. Tears of pain, anger and hatred welled in Nat’s eyes and it was Tom who first whispered 'no' at that point. Nat looked down at the man beneath him; the cogs in his brain beginning to move.

  “I've got a gun pointed in his face,” Nat replied, distracted and sounding distant, dangerous.

  “You think that I am the enemy but I'm not, I am no longer the leader of the NSO, quite the...” Baines continued down the line.

  “Shut up, you fucking animal, you are the reason for all of this. You are the reason...” Nat looked across at Amber and flicked his head gesturing for her to disappear. He then looked at his old friend, who looked at him quizzically.

  After a moment, a realisation ignited Stuart’s face: “Hang on, Nat – wait, that’s not you...” he exclaimed.

  The psychotic mists enveloped Nat’s mind; he could see revenge for his own torture right at the heart of the regime and he spat down the phone, “You became my enemy...”

  “Don’t do it, please don't do anything...He's my brother!” begged Baines from his London offices.

  Nat continued, “…when your people...”

  “Don’t you fucking do that, Nat!” shouted Stuart.

  Tom squirmed under the farmer's weight, but his knee was firmly positioned in the centre of Tom's chest. Tom was unable to free himself as Nat mumbled…crazed.

  “My wife.”

  As he uttered the words, Nat pulled the trigger - the dampened metallic snap ended the chorus of 'No' ringing out from Stuart, Tom, Baines and Amber.

  The wood fell silent, the phone line fell silent and Nat’s heart fell silent. He felt an immediate release of his pain. But he also felt an instant self-loathing for taking a man’s life in such cold blood. He had no time to digest his actions before Stuart was onto him, a giant fist breaking the skin above his eye and knocking him off his feet. Stuart grabbed the phone and hung up.

  He screamed at Nat:

  “We could have used him to get Claire back, you selfish, stupid bastard! Esme is fucking dead, you idiot, are you a fucking murderer now? You're no better than those fuckers...You've got a daughter - you got to start thinking! What have you done, Jesus!” He threw his hands through his hair and turned a tight circle as though he were looking for an answer.

  “You probably just killed us all.”

  Nat knew his friend was right; he sat stunned. He was so tired. He just sat staring at the forlorn body of the man he had just murdered. Stuart stepped over to Nat, grabbed his collars and lifted him roughly to his feet. He looked him in the eye, drawing the farmer’s attention away from the body.

  “Who was on the phone, Nat?”

  “It was Ben Baines,” he said in a whisper.

  As Stuart let go of his jacket and turned away, looking at the floor, the weight of the name he had just heard etched all over his face.

  Nat added, “He said that that is his brother.” Nat pointed at Tom's body.

  Stuarts' hands ran through his thick hair again and he paced, mind racing and blood boiling. He exclaimed, “You have got to be fucking joking me! You just killed the brother of the leader of the NSO. We have got to be screwed; this place is going to be crawling with an army looking for you.”

  “Now he knows how it feels to have someone taken away.”

  Stuart slowed down, regaining some composure. He looked down at the dirt and kicked at it.

  “This changes things for me, Nat. We go into Hexham tonight, get Claire and then I leave with her and Amber. I'll take them back across the border and you can come with or stay...up to you, but I'm not staying here.”

  “I'm not going back to Scotland,” came the acerbic voice of Amber from a short distance. Stuart looked at the father and his daughter, both staring at him with solemn but unwavering faces, muddied, wet and ashen; they were not going to be persuaded. Stuart looked to the heavens and turned on his heels and walked away from both of them, uttering over his shoulder,

  “You'll make a bloody murderer of your daughter now, will you?”

  Nat called after him, “We have to make them see that we will not flinch, that we can hurt them too.”

  But he was all too aware that his justification was unconvincing. As he spoke, Amber walked over to the agent’s mobile phone, she switched it off and put it in her pocke
t.

  * * * * *

  Baines stared at his phone, no real tangible emotions except anger and hatred; his brain still working overtime to arrange the facts. He heard the farmer’s voice, he had seen how brutal the man could be; he knew his brother was dead.

  He looked around his room, the meaningless grandeur. So far from the rioting street politician he had been, so far from the people he had set out to benefit. He, resigned to the cul de sac power had sent him down, was doing deals with the old regime, being controlled by his own extreme elements and had no control whatsoever over benefiting the general population he had always wanted to serve.

  Something had just switched on in his belly, a furnace of energy; a new cause...as Lucas Start bowled into his office the two men looked at each other and Start smiled.

  “I haven't seen that look since our days in Parliament Square Ben...”

  “That farmer just killed my brother.”

  Lucas paused for a second, unsure whether to trust his old colleague, but he could see the sincerity and focus in his eye and he knew they had a shared goal once more.

  “I want to see the rebels in the north hunted down, Lucas, and I want that farmer hanging from a tree!”

  Start looked at Baines perplexed. There was not a hint of acting in Baines - he was solemn, genuine and determined.

  “I can see it now, Lucas; there is no place for my ideals. The dog will always bite the hand that feeds it sooner or later, unless, of course, we can control the dog. I will commit to your vision, Lucas.”

  Simple as that, the pendulum had swung, and Baines had steered a new course. The two men stood for a moment, eye to eye. Baines evoking sincerity while Start calculated the play until the latter broke the silence,

  “Oh, I don't doubt that now, Ben.”

  The two men shook hands and Start turned to leave the room, then turned back. “What's changed, Ben? Apart from your loss, why join me now?”

  “I've changed Lucas, I have changed,” he replied with assurance and determination. Start looked thoughtfully into the middle distance as he turned again, raised his hand and gave a wave as he left the room in acceptance of the explanation.

  THIRTEEN

  As the shadows of evening became longer the weather was drawing in. A deep blanket of cloud bubbled in the sky and a wet wind blustered, signifying rain in the air. The three rebels were seated around a small fire; they ate a gamy pheasant. The woodland was quiet around them; it seemed to feed off their dark moods. They didn't speak until Nat threw the last of his bones into the fire and said,

  “Better get set in the field shelter, looks like rain coming.”

  “Aye,” replied Stuart. He didn’t look at his friend as he got to his feet.

  The two men sat side by side in the field shelter as the rain began to come down. As the light began to fade they looked out over the valley that they knew so well. The chipboard factory continued to burn, there was no electricity running - not a single light shone across the whole landscape. No cars were on the road. The Tyne Valley had become a war zone and as night fell, people hunkered down.

  They said nothing to each other. All the time that Amber was away from them they sat in silence and that didn't change when she struggled up the hill with the heavy holdall. She placed the bag in front of the two men on the dry earth in the shelter and then she reached inside the bag and took one of the new NSO guns. She also took six full magazines. She moved over to the far corner of the shelter and began taping the magazines, two together head to toe.

  They cleaned the weapons in silence keeping a close eye for approaching traffic.

  Nat was consumed by an emotional deep freeze. Amber wanted desperately to hug him, to have him back, but she was also damaged by witnessing his cold-blooded killing first hand. She didn't have the words to mend such situations: they communicated by actions, by working together on the farm, there was never great dialogue in their family.

  There was no need for words between Stuart and Nat; they were bound to each other through history. Nat knew he had disappointed his friend but never questioned his loyalty and he was sure Stuart felt the same. The three of them understood one thing very clearly: they shared the same all-consuming reality. Events were moving so fast they had no time to stop and contemplate the fact that a few years previously this situation in this country would have been unimaginable. Everything had changed and they just had to keep moving and remain one step ahead.

  Amber watched her father; he was drinking tea and staring out across the valley. The rain was coming down in thick grey waves like a plague of locusts wafting across the countryside. The tanned and creased hide of his face was like a lump of varnished oak. Those blues eyes pierced his crow’s feet like two sapphires set in a carving, his white teeth shone through that perpetual grimace even in the fading light. Then he spoke,

  “She's got to be in the police station.”

  After a momentary pause to digest Nat’s sudden statement, Stuart answered, “How the hell will we get her out of there? Or more to the point, how will we get in there?”

  “That is the question,” Nat pondered.

  “There is no way the three of us can get into the police station and survive. It is bound to be full of NSO. We need to go to Waters Meet, join others like us,” stated Amber.

  As his words trailed off, all their ears pricked to the sound of engines. Nat flashed a look at Stuart - maybe the fight was coming to them. Dusk was in its full, deepening throws, but there were no headlights accompanying the rough growl of engines. They hunkered down in the shelter, heart rates increasing with every nearing grunt of the accelerator.

  Both Stuart and Nat filled magazines with rounds as their eyes fixated on the bottom of the driveway, both hoping that the engines would die away into the distance. Both disappointed when they began counting the trucks into the driveway: one, two three, four, five, six! They came fast, each tailgating the truck in front, losing little speed around the sharp turn into the drive. All the vehicles were large four by fours.

  Nat turned to Amber, handing her the 33 rifle and directing, “Go get yourself in the tree line, if they start coming up the hill start shooting and don't stop until they're gone or you run out...ok? Go, quick!”

  She turned and swung the weapon onto her back and ran northeast towards the trees. Nat and Stuart set off to the south-east to meet the visitors at the ruin of the farmhouse. As the vehicles motored up the long drive the two men ran down through the wet grass, its undulations testing their every step as the incline of the hill pulled them faster than their limbs could manage. Just as the vehicles were pulling up outside the tumbled stones, Nat and Stuart fell in behind the stone wall which ran west away from the northern end of the barn.

  Sitting with his back flat against the wall, Nat looked across at Stuart, who was kneeling at the base of the wall looking back for the next call. They could hear the engines die; they heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel. Nat nodded to Stuart and both men rose, leading with their weapons. They had them trained before the top of the cold, wet stones were tucked into their armpits.

  The men who had stepped from their trucks scattered as the arms came into view, running back behind the big metallic chunks, skidding on the gravel all arms and legs. All the fuss was unnecessary. Nat recognised the Toyota up front.

  Rowell’s youngest son called out, “Mr Bell, it’s Jesse Rowell - you helped my dad today.”

  “I know who you are,” Nat responded bluntly.

  “Can we talk?”

  No response.

  “It concerns Claire,” he came back again.

  “We're listening,” called Stuart immediately.

  “You two can't take on Hexham on your own. It is crawling with NSO and you will be massacred. We are attacking tonight - and what if one of ours shoots you in the confusion?”

  He stepped out from behind his truck, he was a blond, ruddy twenty-something sporting a closely shaven head on the sides with a limp Mohican covering the ce
ntre of his scalp. Now he stepped a few paces closer, still a good distance from the wall, but subconsciously communicating the fact that they were about to be party to covert information.

  “We have over a thousand men down at Waters Meet. We are going to attack the town tonight, drive the NSO out of Tynedale and start the civil war proper from the north. Word is that the Cornish and the Welsh are fighting. We have the backing financially and with weapons from the Scots. All through the north of England, people will join us if we can show some momentum.”

  “None of that means anything to me...” Dismissed Nat.

  The boy paused, as if conjuring up courage; then, he responded, “What happened to your wife, Nat, was terrible, and we all want revenge for that, but I know Amber too, I care about her...don't you? Lots of these people joined the rebels because of what happened to you, don't let them down, don't let your daughter down and don't let them win by committing suicide.”

  “Listen, son, you wind your neck in...All we're interested in is getting the girl back.”

  “Ok, ok, you stay up there living in a tree for the rest of your days... But you know one night someone will come and cut your throat or they’ll just burn you out, sooner or later...”

  “Come on, Nat, you stubborn bastard, we'll be much more likely to get Claire safely with them.”

  Stuart climbed the wall and jumped down the other side. He walked over to Jesse Rowell and held out his spade-like hand.

  “I'm Stuart, his brains,” he said with a smile on his face and a nod back up the hill to the stone wall that Nat remained behind.

  As he sat with his back to the wall, he looked back up the hill to his beloved woods. He noticed the grey film of dusk over the land, the damp smell of wet grass and rain in his nostrils, his clothes sodden and the semi-automatic weapon in his hands. As his daughter broke through the tree line and walked down the hill towards them, he had a moment of clarity in the storm that his life had become. There was more to his life than killing those men that had had a hand in Esme's murder.