Year's Best SF 3

by David G. Hartwell

  She wriggled out of her tunnel, pushing aside a circle of bramble she'd fixed to hinge like a lid, and emerged in a clearing of loose earth and shale. During the Civil War, a bomb had fallen here and fizzled. Eventually, the woods would close over the scar.

  When she stood up, she could see across the moors, as far as Achelzoy. At night, the infernal lights of Bridgwater pinked the horizon, clawing a ragged red edge in the curtain of dark. Now, she could make out the road winding through the wetlands. The sun, still low, glinted and glimmered in sodden fields, mirror-fragments strewn in a carpet of grass. There were dangerous marshes out there. Cows were sucked under if they set a hoof wrong.

  Something moved near the edge of the clearing.

  Allie had her catapult primed, her eye fixed on the rabbit. Crouching, still as a statue, she concentrated. Jack Coney nibbled on nothing, unconcerned. She pinched the nailhead, imagining a point between the ears where she would strike.

  A noise sounded out on the moor road. The rabbit vanished, startled by the unfamiliar rasp of an engine.

  “'S'blood,” she swore.

  She stood up, easing off on her catapult. She looked out towards Achelzoy. A fast-moving shape was coming across the moor.

  The rabbit was lost. Maskell's men would soon be about, making the woods dangerous. She chanced a maintained path and ran swiftly downhill. At the edge of Maskell's property, she came to a stile and vaulted it—wrenching her shoulder, but no matter—landing like a cat on safe territory. Without a look back at the “TRESPASSERS WILL BE VENTILATED” sign, she traipsed between two rows of trees, toward the road.

  The path came out half a mile beyond the village, at a sharp kink in the moor road. She squatted with her back to a signpost, running fingers through her hair to rid herself of tangles and snaps of thorn.

  The engine noise was nearer and louder. She considered putting a nail in the nuisance-maker's petrol tank to pay him back for the rabbit. That was silly. Whoever it was didn't know what he'd done.

  She saw the stranger was straddling a Norton. He had slowed to cope with the winds of the moor road. Every month, someone piled up in one of the ditches because he took a bend too fast.

  To Allie's surprise, the motorcyclist stopped by her. He shifted goggles up to the brim of his hat. He looked as if he had an extra set of eyes in his forehead.

  There were care-lines about his eyes and mouth. She judged him a little older than Susan. His hair needed cutting. He wore leather trews, a padded waistcoat over a dusty khaki shirt, and gauntlets. A brace of pistols was holstered at his hips, and he had a rifle slung on the Norton, within easy reach.

  He reached into his waistcoat for a pouch and fixings. Pulling the drawstring with his teeth, he tapped tobacco onto a paper and rolled himself a cigarette one-handed. It was a clever trick, and he knew it. He stuck the fag in his grin and fished for a box of Bryant and May.

  “Alder,” he said, reading from the signpost. “Is that a village?”

  “Might be.”

  “Might it?”

  He struck a light on his thumbnail and drew a lungful of smoke, held in for a moment like a hippie sucking a joint, and let it funnel out through his nostrils in dragon-plumes.

  “Might it indeed?”

  He didn't speak like a yokel. He sounded like a wireless announcer, maybe even more clipped and starched.

  “If, hypothetically, Alder were a village, would there be a hostelry there where one might buy breakfast?”

  “Valiant Soldier don't open till lunchtime.”

  The Valiant Soldier was Alder's pub, and another of Squire Maskell's businesses.

  “Pity.”

  “How much you'm pay for breakfast?” she asked.

  “That would depend on the breakfast.”

  “Ten bob?”

  The stranger shrugged.

  “Susan'll breakfast you for ten bob.”

  “Your mother.”

  “No.”

  “Where could one find this Susan?”

  “Gosmore Farm. Other end of village.”

  “Why don't you get up behind me and show me where to go?”

  She wasn't sure. The stranger shifted forward on his seat, making space.

  “I'm Lytton,” the stranger said.

  “Allie,” she replied, straddling the pillion.

  “Hold on tight.”

  She took a grip on his waistcoat, wrists resting on the stocks of his guns.

  Lytton pulled down his goggles and revved. The bike sped off. Allie's hair blew into her face and streamed behind her. She held tighter, pressing against his back to keep her face out of the wind.

  When they arrived, Susan had finished milking. Allie saw her washing her hands under the pump by the back door.

  Gosmore Farm was a tiny enclave circled by Maskell's land. He had once tried to get the farm by asking the newly widowed Susan to marry him. Allie couldn't believe he'd actually thought she might consent. Apparently, Maskell didn't consider Susan might hold a grudge after her husband's death. He now had a porcelain doll named Sue-Clare in the Manor House, and a pair of terrifying children.

  Susan looked up when she heard the Norton. Her face was set hard. Strangers with guns were not her favorite type of folk.

  Lytton halted the motorcycle. Allie, bones shaken, dismounted, showing herself.

  “He'm pay for breakfast,” she said. “Ten bob.”

  Susan looked the stranger over, starting at his boots, stopping at his hips.

  “He'll have to get rid of those filthy things.”

  Lytton, who had his goggles off again, was puzzled.

  “Guns, she means,” Allie explained.

  “I know you feel naked without them,” Susan said sharply. “Unmanned, even. Magna Carta rules that no Englishman shall be restrained from bearing arms. It's that fundamental right which keeps us free.”

  “That's certainly an argument,” Lytton said.

  “If you want breakfast, yield your fundamental right before you step inside my house.”

  “That's a stronger one,” he said.

  Lytton pulled off his gauntlets and dropped them into the pannier of the Norton. His fingers were stiff on the buckle of his gunbelt, as if he had been wearing it for many years until it had grown into him like a wedding ring. He loosened the belt and held it up.

  Allie stepped forward to take the guns.

  “Allison, no,” Susan insisted.

  Lytton laid the guns in the pannier and latched the lid.

  “You have me defenseless,” he told Susan, spreading his arms.

  Susan squelched a smile and opened the back door. Kitchen smells wafted.

  A good thing about Lytton's appearance at Gosmore Farm was that he stopped Susan giving Allie a hard time about being up and about before dawn. Susan had no illusions about what she did in the woods.

  Susan let Lytton past her into the kitchen. Allie trotted up.

  “Let me see your hands,” Susan said.

  Allie showed them palms down. Susan noted dirt under nails and a few new scratches. When Allie showed her palms, Susan drew a fingernail across the red strop-mark.

  “Take care, Allie.”

  “Yes'm.”

  Susan hugged Allie briefly, and pulled her into the kitchen.

  Lytton had taken a seat at the kitchen table and was loosening his heavy boots. Susan had the wireless on, tuned to the Light Program. Mark Radcliffe introduced the new song from Jarvis Cocker and His Wurzels, “The Streets of Stogumber.” A frying pan was heating on the cooker, tiny trails rising from the fat.

  “Allie, cut our guest some bacon.”

  “The name's Lytton.”

  “I'm Susan Ames. This is Allison Conway. To answer your unasked question, I'm a widow, she's an orphan. We run this farm ourselves.”

  “A hard row to plough.”

  “We're still above ground.”

  Allie carved slices off a cured hock that hung by the cooker. Susan took eggs from a basket, cracked them into the pa
n.

  “Earl Gray or Darjeeling?” Susan asked Lytton.

  “The Earl.”

  “Get the kettle on, girl,” Susan told her. “And stop staring.”

  Allie couldn't remember Susan cooking for a man since Mr. Ames was killed. It was jarring to have this big male, whiffy from the road and petrol, invading their kitchen. But also a little exciting.

  Susan flipped bacon rashers, busying herself at the cooker. Allie filled the kettle from the tap at the big basin.

  “Soldier, were you?” Susan asked Lytton, indicating his shoulder. There was a lighter patch on his shirtsleeve where rank insignia had been cut away. He'd worn several pips.

  The stranger shrugged.

  “Which brand of idiot?”

  “I fought for the southeast.”

  “I'd keep quiet about that if you intend to drink in The Valiant Soldier.”

  “I'd imagined Wessex was mostly neutral.”

  “Feudal order worked perfectly well for a thousand years. It wasn't just landed gentry who resisted London Reforms. There are plenty of jobless ex-serfs around, nostalgic for their shackles and three hot meals a day.”

  “Just because it lasted a long time doesn't mean it was a good thing.”

  “No argument from me there.”

  “Mr. Ames was a Reformist too,” Allie said.

  “Mr. Ames?”

  “My late husband. He opened his mouth too much. Some loyal retainers shut it for him.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Not your problem.”

  Susan wasn't comfortable talking about her husband. Mr. Ames had been as much lawyer as farmer, enthusiastically heading the Sedgmoor District Committee during the Reconstruction. He didn't realize it took more than a decision made in London Parliament to change things in the West. London was a long way off.

  Allie brought Susan plates. Susan slid bacon and eggs from the pan.

  “Fetch the tomato chutney from the preserves shelf,” she said.

  Outside, someone clanged the bell by the gate. Lytton's hand slipped quietly to his hip, closing where the handle of a revolver would have been.

  Susan looked at the hot food on the table, and frowned at the door.

  “Not a convenient time to come visiting,” she said.

  Hanging back behind Susan, Allie still saw who was in the drive. Constable Erskine was by the bell, vigorously hammering with the butt of his police revolver. His blue knob-end helmet gave him extra height. His gun-belt was in matching blue. Reeve Draper, arms folded, cringed at the racket his subordinate was making. Behind the officers stood Terry and Teddy Gilpin, Browning rifles casually in their hands, long coats brushing the ground.

  “Goodwife Ames,” shouted the Reeve. “This be a court order.”

  “Leave your guns.”

  “Come you now, Goodwife Ames. By right of law…”

  Erskine was still clanging. The bell came off its hook and thunked on the ground. The Constable shrugged a grin and didn't holster his pistol.

  “I won't have guns on my property.”

  “Then come and be served. This here paper pertains to your cattle. The decision been telegraphed from Taunton Magistrates. You'm to surrender all livestock within thirty days, for slaughter. It be a safety measure.”

  Susan had been expecting something like this.

  “There are no mad cows on Gosmore Farm.”

  “Susan, don't be difficult.”

  “It's Mrs. Ames, Mr. Reeve Draper.”

  The Reeve held up a fawn envelope.

  “You'm know this has to be done.”

  “Will you be slaughtering Maskell's stock?”

  “He took proper precautions, Susan. Can't be blamed. He'm been organic since 'fore the War.”

  Susan snorted a laugh. Everyone knew there'd been mad cow disease in the Squire's herd. He'd paid off the inspectors and rendered the affected animals into fertilizer. It was Susan who'd never used infected feed, never had a sick cow. This wasn't about British beef; this was about squeezing Gosmore Farm.

  “Clear off,” Allie shouted.

  “Poacher girl,” Erskine sneered. “Lookin’ for a matchin' stripe on your left hand?”

  Susan turned on the Constable.

  “Don't you threaten Allison. She's not a serf.”

  “Once a serf, always a serf.”

  “What are they here for?” Susan nodded to the Gilpin brothers. “D'you need two extra guns to deliver a letter?”

  Draper looked nervously at the brothers. Terry, heavier and nastier, curled his fingers about the trigger guard of his Browning.

  “Why didn't Maskell come himself?”

  Draper carefully put the letter on the ground, laying a stone on top of it.

  “I'll leave this here, Goodwife. You'm been served with this notice.”

  Susan strode towards the letter.

  Terry hawked a stream of spit, which hit the stone and splattered the envelope. He showed off his missing front teeth in an idiot leer.

  Draper was embarrassed and angered, Erskine delighted and itchy.

  “My sentiments exactly, Goodman Gilpin,” said Susan. She kicked the stone and let the letter skip away in the breeze.

  “Mustn't show disrespect for the law,” Erskine snarled. He was holding his gun rightway round, thumb on the cocklever, finger on the trigger.

  From the kitchen doorway, close behind Allie, Lytton said, “Whose law?”

  Allie stepped aside and Lytton strode into the yard. The four unwelcome visitors looked at him.

  “Widow Ames got a stay-over guest,” Erskine said, nastily.

  “B'ain't no business of yourn, Goodman,” said the Reeve to Lytton.

  “And what if I make it my business?”

  “You'm rue it.”

  Lytton kept his gaze steady on the Reeve, who flinched and blinked.

  “He hasn't got a gun,” Susan said, voice betraying annoyance with Lytton as much as with Maskell's men. “So you can't have a fair fight.”

  Mr. Ames had been carrying a Webley when he was shot. The magistrate, Sue-Clare Maskell's father, ruled it a fair fight, exonerating on the grounds of self-defense the Maskell retainer who'd killed Susan's husband.

  “He'm interfering with due process, Mr. Reeve,” Erskine told Draper. “We could detain him for questioning.”

  “I don't think that'll be necessary,” Lytton said. “I juststopped at Gosmore Farm for bacon and eggs. I take it there's no local ordinance against that.”

  “Goodwife Ames don't have no bed and breakfast license,” Draper said.

  “Specially bed,” Erskine added, leering.

  Lytton strolled casually toward his Norton. And his guns.

  “Maybe I should press on. I'd like to be in Dorset by lunchtime.”

  Terry's rifle was fixed on Lytton's belly, and swung in an arc as Lytton walked. Erskine thumb-cocked his revolver, ineptly covering the sound with a cough.

  “Tell Maurice Maskell you've delivered your damned message,” Susan said, trying to get between Lytton and the visitors' guns. “And tell him he'll have to come personally next time.”

  “You'm stay away from thic rifle, Goodman,” the Reeve said to Lytton.

  “Just getting my gloves,” Lytton replied, moving his hands away from the holstered rifle toward the pannier where his pistols were.

  Allie backed away toward the house, stomach knotted.

  “What's she afraid of?” Erskine asked, nodding at her.

  “Don't touch thick fuckin' bike,” Terry shouted.

  Allie heard the guns going off, louder than rook-scarers. An applesized chunk of stone exploded on the wall nearby, spitting chips in her face. The fireflashes were faint in the morning sun, but the reports were thunderclaps.

  Erskine had shot, and Terry. Lytton had slipped down behind his motorcycle, which had fallen on him. There was a bright red splash of blood on the ground. Teddy was bringing up his rifle.

  She scooped a stone and drew back the rubber of her catapult
.

  Susan screamed for everyone to stop.

  Allie loosed the stone and raised a bloody welt on Erskine's cheek.

  Susan slapped Allie hard and hugged her. Erskine, arm trembling with rage, blood dribbling on his face, took aim at them. Draper put a hand on the Constable's arm, and forced him to holster his gun. At a nod from the Reeve, Teddy Gilpin took a look at Lytton's wound and reported that it wasn't serious.

  “This be bad, Goodwife Ames. It'd not tell well for you if'n it came up at magistrate's court. We'm be back on Saturday, with the vet. Have your animals together so they can be destroyed.”

  He walked to his police car, his men loping after him like dogs. Terry laughed a comment to Erskine about Lytton.

  Allie impotently twanged her catapult at them.

  “Help me get this off him,” Susan said.

  The Norton was a heavy machine, but between them they hefted it up. The pannier was still latched down. Lytton had not got to his guns. He lay face-up, a bright splash of red on his left upper arm. He was gritting his teeth against the hurt, shaking as if soaked to the skin in ice-water.

  Allie didn't think he was badly shot. Compared to some.

  “You stupid man,” Susan said, kicking Lytton in the ribs. “You stupid, stupid man!”

  Lytton gulped in pain and cried out.

  It wasn't as if they had much livestock. Allie looked round at the eight cows, all with names and personalities, all free of the madness. Gosmore Farm had a chicken coop, a vegetable garden, a copse of apple trees and a wedge of hillside given over to grazing. It was a struggle to eke a living; without the milk quota, it would be hopeless.

  It was wrong to kill the cows.

  Despair lodged like a stone in Allie's heart. This was not what the West should be. When younger, she'd read Thomas Hardy's Wessex novels, The Sheriff of Casterbridge andUnder the Hanging Tree, and she still followed The Archers. In storybook Wessex, men like Squire Maskell always lost. Alder needed Dan Archer, the wireless hero, to stride into the Valiant Soldier, six-guns blazing, and lay the vermin in the dirt.

  There was no Dan Archer.

  Susan held all her rage in, refusing to talk about the cows and Maskell. She always concentrated on what she called “the job at hand.” Just now, she was nursing Lytton. Erskine's shot had gone right through his arm. Allie had looked for but not found the bullet, to give him as a souvenir. He'd lost blood, but he would live.