The Hunt

by T. J. Lebbon

  Rose needed focus and clarity, and with Chris she hoped to find just that.

  He’d never really experienced the adrenalin buzz that true mountain biking could inspire. Aiming down the mountainside, much of the valley floor still obscured by driving sheets of fresh rain and drifting mists, Chris found himself enjoying some of the more technical descents. Standing on the pedals, hopping down steep drops, using his body weight to switch the bike left and right, feathering the brakes and sometimes coming to an almost complete standstill, he had to concentrate and prepare for a tumble at any moment. But finding a long spread of relatively smooth hillside where he could put on some speed … that’s what really got his heart pumping. The wind in his hair, rain striking his face, clothes flapping, bike bouncing smoothly beneath him as the suspension handled the shock and vibration, he howled like a wolf. It was less an expression of delight than a welcome release of tension, both from his mind and the knotted muscles of his body. Mud splashed, soaking him and the bike as he sped down the hillside, confident in his abilities and welcoming the tang of danger. He’d often looked at the small sign he had pinned above his desk: Do one thing every day that scares you.

  He’d certainly had his fill today.

  At the base of one long slope he paused to look back and up the mountain. He thought he saw movement – a flicker of something bright, perhaps yellow, perhaps orange, slipping out of sight behind a rock. It might have been his imagination, or a trick of the light. The rain grew heavier, waves of it billowing across the mountainside like shaken sheets. It couldn’t have been them, not if they’d pursued him up towards the mountaintop. And they must have, because they’d have been tracking his blue spot. It couldn’t have been them.

  But maybe Blondie had contacted them somehow, told them what had happened, and they’d continued along the lower slopes, just missing him at the cliff. If that were the case, they might be very close indeed.

  Perhaps it was the mountain biker using his girlfriend’s bike.

  Or it could have been Rose.

  But Chris would not stop, not now. He was close to the lowlands, heading into the valley and whatever might be down there. Trails, roads, maybe even hints at civilisation. Once he stopped, Rose would catch up with him. Then he’d have a chance to see whether she really had anything to say.

  And he had the rifle. If for some reason she wanted him to halt for the hunters to finally catch up with him – if that suited her plan more – at least he might be able to protect himself.

  The thought came again to call the police, and at least try to let them know what was happening. The mountain bikers would have almost certainly made the call, and if they could describe him at least half accurately, the law would soon put the pieces together. The hunters would be joined by professionals, and the Trail would inevitably call off their hunt.

  Maybe they’d kill him first, maybe not.

  Time was compressing, and his future was a darker, closer place.

  Topping a small rise half an hour later, Chris saw a slope leading down to the valley floor. It was crossed with rough tracks, and bounded a couple of hundred metres away by a tumbled stone wall.

  A little way beyond that there was a farm. A sparse tree shaded one wall, a barn with a slumped roof was almost subsumed by bramble and heather, but a wisp of smoke rose from the chimney, soon washed away in the deluge. Sheep dotted the fields and hillsides. They’d have food, drink, and warmth, and if he hid his rifle – and if they didn’t instantly recognise him – he could plead ignorance. Just a mountain biker who’d got himself lost.

  It was a good place to wait for Rose.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  rain

  The old couple were only mildly suspicious. The fact that they seemed to speak only Welsh appeared not to hamper their understanding of his predicament.

  ‘Thought I’d be off the mountain much quicker. Fell, bent a wheel and broke a few spokes, then a puncture straight after that. So … yeah, spent the night up there, cold and hungry. And now this rain, it’s almost … biblical. Thank you. Thanks so much.’

  The old man smiled, nodded, and gestured that he should enter. The woman had already retreated back into the house, and Chris could hear pots crashing and water flowing. He nodded his thanks, but took a moment to glance behind him one more time.

  From down here in the valley, the mountains he had spent the night being hunted across loomed massive and imposing, a bulk of peaks and ridges behind the obscuring rain. The valley was still shadowed, the glow of the new day struggling against the clouds and barely pushing an unwilling darkness ahead of it. The sky seemed to reach the ground, as grey and heavy as the solid mountain it hid. For a moment he felt the sheer weight of it drawing on him, stirring his inner tides as if the landscape itself could steer his mood and fate. Perhaps that was true. He had always been aware of his relationship with the land around him, and even though he’d found civilisation he believed the mountains were still in charge. He suspected the old couple knew this. It certainly seemed to appear that they existed to the beat of the land’s heart.

  The farm could have been part of a rural life museum. Other than an old, mostly rusted tractor parked beside the slumped barn, there was no other technology on show. If the couple owned another vehicle, it was parked out of sight. The farmyard was a mess of mud churned into complex shapes by thousands of boot prints. A rough stone wall extended from behind the house and swung around the yard, linking the house and barn and ending at the head of a track that led along the valley. The track itself was rough, and probably impassable by anything other than a four-wheel-drive.

  A scruffy dog hid beneath a lean-to shed at the far end of the yard, looking suspiciously at Chris and the bike he’d so recently stolen. Beyond, sheep dotted the land. There were stone walls here and there, but no real demarcation lines, no patterns of fields. He could hear chickens calling from somewhere behind the house, and he could see the edge of a large vegetable patch.

  There was no sign of any power or phone cables leading to the house. He was willing to bet they even had an outside toilet and a spring-fed well as a water supply.

  ‘Well?’ the farmer said.

  ‘So you do speak English.’

  ‘’Course. Don’t find any use for it, usually.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Chris said, meaning it. He went to enter, then thought of the bike. He paused, looking at where he’d left it leaning against the house’s stone wall.

  ‘No one to steal it,’ the old farmer said. His lip twitched, once, and Chris guessed that was a smile.

  ‘I’ll just … ’ He grabbed the bike and wheeled it across to the dilapidated barn, limping alongside. The dog trotted across the yard and sat close by, staring at him, neither growling nor wagging its tail. The rain didn’t bother it one bit.

  ‘Hey, boy,’ Chris said, but the mutt seemed not to hear. He slipped the bike behind a timber door hanging from its top hinge, then hobbled back to the house.

  The farmer was still waiting by the door, and as Chris entered he closed it tight behind them.

  Stepping inside the farmhouse was like taking a step back in history. The woman was fussing at a Rayburn, a huge wood-burning stove that threw out massive amounts of heat and which likely heated the rest of their house, as well as their water supply. Several oil lamps hung from the ceiling and sat on the table and dresser, throwing strange shadows that jiggered and danced as he entered. A large wooden table took up one side of the kitchen, and beyond a darkened doorway led deeper into the house. Pots and pans hung above the Rayburn, the air was heavy with the smell of burning coal and cooking bacon, and two breakfast places were set at the table, with steaming mugs of tea, cutlery, and a loaf of knobbly bread.

  Chris’s mouth watered. He could smell the bread, and he suspected the farmer or his wife had baked it fresh that morning. Warm bread. Butter. And there was a jar of preserve, lid off and greaseproof paper slipped aside. Homemade. Probably everything here was homemade, and if they didn
’t keep pigs here then the bacon was probably from a neighbouring farm, or a farmers’ market close by.

  There were no photos on the walls of the large dresser that took up one wall, no sign of any children. This old couple had themselves and their farm, and Chris felt an immediate affection for them.

  ‘Can you … ?’ the man said. He nodded, and Chris realised what he was hinting at.

  ‘Oh, yeah, sorry.’ He shrugged off the dripping coat and hung it on a hook beside the door. His running trousers were also soaked. He touched them, looked at the farmer. ‘Er … ’

  The farmer shook his head and nodded at one of the breakfast settings. ‘Go on, then.’

  Chris hesitated for a moment, then looked at the bread again and went to sit down. The chair’s feet scraped across the flagstone floor, and the woman looked. She looked as old and grizzled as her husband, but there were laughter lines around her eyes and mouth which screwed up again now.

  She turned back to the Rayburn and flipped bacon on its frying surface.

  Chris started slicing into the loaf of bread.

  The woman glanced back at him. Her face had changed. Not so wrinkled with laughter lines now, but her eyes were darker.

  ‘Sorry, I … ’ Chris said, pausing from cutting the bread.

  The woman shook her head and returned to her frying.

  ‘I’m Arfon,’ the man said. ‘This is my wife, Jean.’

  ‘Chris,’ Chris said automatically, then something jarred inside. I’m all over the news, he thought. And though he’d seen no power lines, and the room was lit with oil lamps, he couldn’t believe that these people were totally cut off from the world. Maybe in the next room they had a laptop and a forty-two-inch TV, and they simply liked preserving the kitchen as it had been when they were kids.

  ‘Christopher … Jones,’ he continued. ‘From Bristol. Came here two days ago for a bit of an adventure.’

  ‘Well, you’ve had that,’ Arfon said. He sat in the other chair and turned the loaf towards him, cutting a thick slice. ‘Bacon?’

  ‘Please,’ Chris said. ‘Thank you.’

  Arfon waved the thanks aside and started buttering his bread. He scooped a huge dollop of jam on, spread it with a spoon, took a big bite. He didn’t even look at Chris as he ate. It was almost as if he was no longer there.

  I can’t relax, Chris thought, listening to the sizzle of cooking pig. Rose will see that I’ve stopped, she’ll be here in a couple of hours. But they’ll know that I’ve stopped too. He was exhausted, and already the room’s heat was tingling his cold skin, making him aware of the wetness of his clothing, and just how sore his legs and feet had become. His hands, too, worn red at the palms by the rough bike handles. He could not relax.

  ‘Don’t look set for mountain biking,’ Arfon said.

  ‘I had a fall, lost my helmet over a steep drop.’

  ‘Mmm.’ The farmer chewed, still not looking directly at Chris.

  The woman said something in Welsh. Arfon stopped chewing. He glanced at Chris, only quickly, then up at his wife again, talking through a full mouth. They swapped a few more sentences in Welsh, the guttural, difficult language managing to sound both musical and threatening.

  ‘Bacon’s ready,’ Arfon said, standing. ‘You’ll be wanting brown sauce.’

  Chris looked over his shoulder at the man’s wife. She was holding a plate piled with fried bacon, staring at him with wide eyes that now held only fear.

  Oh shit oh fuck, Chris thought, and he went to push the chair back to stand, flee, grab the bike from the barn and the gun from where he’d hidden it behind the stone boundary wall, and his left leg seized, knee folding as he grabbed on to the table—

  ‘Nope,’ Arfon said. Chris turned, half crouched, and looked straight into the barrels of a shotgun. ‘Nope,’ the old farmer said again. ‘Just stay there for a bit while I decide what to do with you.’

  ‘Cellar,’ Jean said, in English for Chris’s benefit. ‘Door’s strong and secure, and you just fixed the lock.’

  Arfon smiled, nodded, and said, ‘That’s why I love my wife.’

  She was in too much pain to walk, so she ran. It was a headlong, desperate flight, but the speed and carelessness kept her senses alive. It defied logic. But the blood pumped faster, keeping her faint at bay, and the discomfort echoed through her body with each pounding footfall. She throbbed with it, and the pain needed to stay clear and strong. It was her driving force. However terrible, nothing physical could match her mental anguish.

  Rose was pleased to see the new day, even though she knew she would not witness the dusk. She’d dreamed of her final day many times, and the chaos and vengeance it might see. Being there, it felt strangely sterile and blank. She hoped killing that bitch Grin would not come as an anticlimax.

  Although she ran, injured arm tucked into her jacket, rifle slung over her shoulder, wallowing and almost drowning in a sea of pain, she had to be careful. She checked the landscape all around her for signs of movement. Paused every couple of minutes to listen for aircraft or vehicle engines. Doubled back once or twice to make sure she wasn’t being tracked or rushing towards an ambush. There were three hunters still pursuing Chris, and in truth she had little idea of where they might be.

  And there were most likely Trail people still after her. She didn’t know how many, not for certain. Some would be with Chris’s family. Others might have retreated back into their complex, real-life cover stories as soon as this hunt went wrong, severing ties and readying to move forward. But there would be some for whom killing her would remain their prime concern.

  She checked the tracker to make sure that Chris’s blue dot had not moved. It remained motionless. That could be a good thing, or bad. Maybe he was doing as she’d suggested and waiting for her, or perhaps he was dead. Or maybe he’d taken the time to find it and ditch it, thinking that might help. But she was too eager to reach him to call in and check, and either way she had to get there. She’d find out soon enough.

  If you could see me now. The thought of her family shocked her and she moaned as she ran, remembering some aspect about each of them as one, single thought. It was an intense, shocking sensation. And she was right, they’d never know her as she was now. She was glad of that. A killer, perhaps a mad woman, she would not have wanted her children to see her shot and bleeding, nor Adam to look into her eyes and know that she had killed. Rose was a new person.

  But she still held her family close. Though they would not know her, she had never for an instant forgotten them.

  I’d always know you, bunny, Adam said, and Rose sobbed. She so wished it could be him saying that, and not her hearing it in his voice.

  She saw the smoke first, a smudge of white in the vast wilderness. Attuned for danger, senses alight from conflict, the first thing she suspected was a burning vehicle or the trace of exploded ordnance. But as she leaned against a sparse tree and looked into the rainswept valley, she saw the small huddle of buildings.

  Checking the satphone’s screen, placing the blue glow of Chris’s tracker, she knew that she’d found him.

  They had a little under five hours left until Margaret Vey expected another call to confirm that the hunt was still live. That call would not come. A few minutes after that, she would murder Chris’s wife and two young girls, then flee the scene and vanish. It might take Rose years to find the bitch again.

  She took only a moment to survey the scene before starting down towards the farmhouse.

  There was a rifle at the base of one of the stone walls. It wasn’t hidden very well, but Rose could see that it was one of the hunters’ weapons.

  Must be the one Chris took. But why leave it? Then she realised why. He was a normal guy, and he’d never have considered taking over the farmhouse by force. Which was stupid.

  They might have already called the police.

  Hunched down, Rose approached the building across a muddy field. It looked old, ramshackle. No sign of a phone line, but that didn’t mean they ha
d no means to call out. The smoke indicated the place was occupied; surely Chris wouldn’t have been stupid enough to light a fire in an empty house?

  As Rose slumped against the farmhouse’s stone wall, dizziness threatened. Her vision faded and senses receded, dulling her surroundings. Come on, she thought. You’ve only been shot!

  She moved along the wall to the doorway. It was inset slightly, shadowed, the small porch containing two pairs of upturned boots.

  Something growled. Rose froze, hand going slowly towards her pistol. Across the yard, close to the dilapidated barn, a black and white shape emerged. The sheepdog growled again, hackles rising. It stepped out into the downpour, unfazed by the rain. All of its attention was on her.

  ‘Good boy,’ Rose whispered.

  The dog barked.

  Rose knocked on the door. It was the only thing to do. She stood slightly aside from the door, and sideways on so she could see across the farmyard as well. The dog was not moving forward, but it remained crouched low to the mud, growling, teeth showing. If it sprang, it would be on her in a few seconds.

  Could she have the pistol out by then?

  The door opened. There was no cautious shout, no hesitation. An old man stared out at her. In his face she saw years of hard experience, a man well versed with this land and all the dangers it could throw at those who tried to tame it. He was carrying a shotgun, barrel aimed down at the ground in a non-threatening way. His eyes flickered from her face to the rifle on her shoulder, back again.

  Rose thought quickly.

  ‘We got your call,’ she said quietly, urgently. ‘I’m with the police, I’m here to take him into custody. Where is he?’

  The man nodded slowly, then looked over her shoulder into the yard.

  She glanced right, saw no movement, turned to face the man.

  ‘Got no phone,’ he said. He started to raise the shotgun. ‘I sent my—’

  Rose moved quickly and calmly, seeing that she had time and not wanting to panic. She pushed the gun aside and stepped in close. ‘Let go,’ she said.