Brutal Revenge

by Raven, James

  NINETEEN

  It was 9.30 a.m by Parker's watch when the first sounds reached them.

  He heard a sharp cry over to the left and then two shouts came from the right, seemingly in answer to the first. Were there three of them? Or just two? He couldn't be sure. But they were working their way up the hill towards the ruins for certain and at a guess they were about a hundred yards away.

  Another shout. This time from the right and nearer. Sixty yards? Not much further.

  “They're spread out,” Hodge whispered.

  Parker nodded agreement. “They'll be here in a few minutes. Got any bright ideas?”

  Hodge caressed the shiny, black barrel of the shotgun.

  “If they show their faces here, I know what I'll do.”

  “Don't be an idiot. You'll bring the lot of 'em up here. We've got to get away from here. Not play at Custer's last stand.”

  “What about Mac? If we go he won't find us.”

  “Well, if you want to stay that's your business. I'm going up to the top to look for a way down the other side.”

  “Okay,” Hodge said, “I'm with you.”

  Parker went back inside to pick up his shotgun. He paused for a moment in the middle of the roofless room and sniffed a couple of times.

  “What is it?” Hodge enquired impatiently.

  “Bloody fag smoke. The place reeks of it.”

  “So what?”

  “Well, for one thing, they'll realize we've only just left and for another they'll know which way we've gone.”

  “Well, there's nothing you can do about it now unless you happen to have an air freshener handy?”

  Outside they heard the voices again, clearer now, and Parker thought he saw a shadow move in the mist just below where they were standing. Instinctively, he tugged at Hodge's arm.

  “This way.”

  They moved quickly but carefully so as not to make a sound. They went round the back of the house to the remains of a well, then started to climb the hill.

  The terrain underfoot was predominantly grass, pimpled with bare rock made slippery by the heavy dampness in the mist.

  With Parker out in front, the two men scrambled feverishly up the hill, not bothering to look back because visibility was only about thirty feet all round. Their breathing came hard and heavy and very soon they were panting like mad dogs.

  It had been years, Parker reflected, since he had run further than the bus stop near his flat — and that was downhill all the way. He just wasn't up to this sort of thing anymore.

  They’d gone only a short way when they heard the shot. It was close. Too close. Probably a signal to announce the fact that the group climbing the hill had found something. The derelict house? The cigarette smoke?

  Parker tried to work out his next move but couldn't. He was paralysed suddenly by the terrible and overwhelming thought that death was inevitable. He couldn't see that there was any way out.

  He vaulted on to the nearest flat-topped rock and from there to the next rock up, knowing that Hodge was close behind him. He laboured over stretches of long, wet grass, arms flailing in front of him, legs on the brink of collapsing under the weight of built-up tension and sheer bloody exhaustion.

  The mist cleared a path for them as it was stirred into a breeze by the swiftness of their flight. Parker could see only so far ahead and every obstacle reared up at him suddenly out of the mist. A large overhanging rock which had to be climbed using both hands and feet and another that was so slippery he fell on his back when he stepped on to it.

  The shouting behind them grew louder and became incessant as those in pursuit sensed how close they were to their prey. Others were being summoned and directions called out as the chase gained momentum. They were preparing to close in, gathering their forces for the final kill.

  Parker urged himself on despite the pain in his calves and behind his ribs. His face was dripping sweat and he was beginning to experience a strange light-headedness as his strength seeped out through his open pores. He wasn't sure how long he could maintain his present pace. The hill was so steep. It tore the life from him with every agonising step. The rocks were like wet ice and the grass a soft springy mattress that pulled possessively at his feet.

  Then, suddenly, they reached the crest.

  Parker stopped and Hodge very nearly ran into him from behind. They both stood gasping for breath, trying unsuccessfully to see into the mist through squinting eyes. All was quiet for the moment, but Parker did not allow himself to be lulled into a false sense of security. They were not clear yet. Far from it.

  “Here they come,” Hodge said.

  Parker looked down the hill in the direction they had come. Three ghost-like figures were emerging from the mist. Dark incongruous shapes that appeared almost to be forming before their very eyes. They were approaching slowly, sinisterly, like white hunters stalking a pair of wounded lions.

  It was impossible to identify the weapons they were carrying, but it was clear they each held something and Hodge was taking no chances. He raised his gun and fired down the hill. The blast shattered the foggy silence and Parker felt sure the noise would carry all the way across the stretch of sea to Mull.

  They weren't able to tell if he'd scored a hit because the figures melted into the mist and they were not going to wait around to see how many of them emerged again.

  With Parker once again in the lead, they took off. The ground on top of the hill was less of an assault course, but at the same time it didn't go very far and within seconds it was falling away beneath them and they were unintentionally picking up speed as momentum carried them down the other side.

  Parker stumbled once on a rock and rolled painfully across its jagged surface before dropping on to a patch of spongy grass. Hodge helped him to his feet and they were off again, weaving and jumping and colliding with one another in a desperate bid to increase the distance between themselves and their pursuers.

  They were halfway down the hill when sunlight suddenly drowned them, its powerful rays striking them like some unseen force and stopping them dead in their tracks.

  They had broken out of the mist and looking back it became terrifyingly clear that only the top half of the hill was ringed in a grey, sombre cloak. Remnants of the mist still hung lazily in the air above the stark, undulating landscape below them, but the bulk of it had dissipated during the morning and the green fields and web of dry-stone walls could be seen stretching for about a mile before plunging into the sea. It was a fine day, as before, and the air was clear.

  “Down there! Look!”

  Parker followed Hodge's stricken gaze and saw a group of five men about half a mile away. They'd stopped whatever they were doing and were pointing up the hill.

  “They've seen us!”

  The men were over to the left in a field. To the right of them the only sign of life were a few grazing cows. In the distance was a long, sandy beach, and running down to it a narrow, zigzagging stream.

  “We'll go that way,” Parker said, knowing only too well that if others were rounding the hill from that side, then they'd had it.

  TWENTY

  Angus Campbell was on the other side of the island above the old jetty when he heard the shot. Three others were with him, including Andrew Maclean. They had been looking down on the remains of the cruiser which had brought the villains to the island.

  Most of the debris was scattered over the chaos of rocks on either side of them, but some parts were still sloshing about on the water and thudding against the jetty timbers. Evidently the boat had taken a severe battering from the rocks just offshore and although the main body of it had gone down, a good deal of it had been torn off and had subsequently found its way to the surface.

  The shot came like a sting in the heart for Maclean. He had been listening for it all morning, anticipating the worst. He hadn't thought it would take them long to find the other two once the mist cleared lower down. And there was nothing he could do about it. He felt impotent and fr
ustrated. Somehow he had to break away from the mob and find a way off the island.

  “They've spotted them!” Angus cried out.

  A second later, Maclean was chasing the others across a field. Angus was out in front, looking like a mercenary soldier leading a bunch of maniac followers to a massacre. But there was at the same time an air of absurdity about the charging group, particularly as the eldest one, a man in his late sixties, was barely managing to stay on his feet as his ageing limbs began to falter with the effort of running.

  It took them fifteen minutes to arrive at the bottom of the hill and by that time they needed to stop for a few minutes to catch their breaths.

  There was no sign of human activity above them at this point. The hill climbed steeply into the mist which appeared to be thinning gradually. They heard a second shot whilst running and there was no doubt it had come from the hill.

  Angus said, “They've probably chased them over the top.”

  Maclean was at a loss to know what to do and he felt that he had let Parker and Hodge down.

  “Andrew, are you listening to me?”

  He hadn't realized Angus had been talking to him. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

  “I was telling you and Hamish to follow me. We'll circle the hill to the north. Donald and Lechy will go up and over. Okay?”

  Maclean nodded. “Whatever you say.”

  He had hoped he might be able to lead them in another direction, away from the gunfire, but he hadn't been given the opportunity to come up with a good enough reason.

  Once again he found himself at the rear of a charging group of men.

  They plunged through a cold stream, over a low boundary wall and across rough, wet fields. All the way Maclean racked his brain for an idea — a way to prevent Parker and Hodge from becoming trapped in an impregnable net of armed men. But a solution escaped him and there seemed little likelihood that one would occur to him in time. Parker and Hodge had already been spotted and the net was about to drop over them.

  Another wall loomed up and since it was higher than the previous ones all three of them halted before it. Angus placed one foot on a jutting boulder and heaved himself up with a loud exhalation of breath. He then reached down and helped the older man up before giving similar assistance to a whacked-out Maclean.

  Maclean himself was about ready to collapse. He was that tired. The fact that he was just about managing to keep pace with the others said very little for his own state of health and a great deal more for the island way of life.

  When they were all seated on top of the wall, their hearts pounding in unison, Maclean caught sight of two distant figures on the shoulder of the hill ahead of them. They were tearing down the incline, one behind the other, fleeing from the cloud that strangled the top.

  Angus saw them too and cried out, “Over there.”

  Maclean stood up on the wall. There was only one remote farmhouse out there, surrounded by fields. A long strip of lush green machair separated the fields from high rolling sand dunes that dropped on to a pearl-white beach.

  Parker and Hodge reached the bottom of the hill and started racing across the first of the fields towards the sea. And then, above them, a group of five men emerged from the mist. Maclean noticed at the same time that there were other figures in the picture. They had just rounded the bottom of the hill from the other side and were obviously the reason why Parker and Hodge were heading for the beach. It meant they were now trapped, hemmed in on all sides, and with little or no chance of escape.

  TWENTY ONE

  They had no choice but to stand and fight. But against how many? Twenty at least. Maybe more. And since they were fast running out of ammunition the odds against them seemed insurmountable.

  Parker did not dwell on the whys and wherefores of their perilous predicament as he bolted across the field towards the dunes.

  The earth was soft down here in the shadow of the hill and it made progress all the more difficult. Ahead of them and to the right there was an isolated farmhouse. But by Parker's reckoning the group to the right would easily beat them to it if they decided to try for it.

  No, they had to make it to the dunes and hope to God they could disappear among the humps of sand that were visible among the low-lying machair.

  But for how long they would be able to remain concealed just didn't bear thinking about. Not very long, though, that was for sure. The dunes did not stretch that far along the coast and from up on the hill Parker had observed that they were not very wide.

  They came to an old byre, reeking of cows' dung, and Parker paused with his shoulder against it to rest his aching legs. Hodge stopped beside him and turning back they saw the three-pronged attack was advancing quickly.

  A group of five men were descending the hill and two groups of three were approaching from the left and right. Still about three hundred yards away but gaining ground fast.

  And then the sound of a shot, seeming to come a split second before the bullet hit the wall of the byre between them.

  They both ducked and scrambled round to the other side of the byre in a panic-stricken rush. So at least one of the bastards had a rifle, Parker thought, which he obviously knew how to use.

  Keeping the byre between themselves and the group to the north — from where Hodge believed the shot had come — they broke into another run, this time making a point of keeping their heads down.

  The machair was much easier on their feet as the grass was smooth and relatively short. Soon, though, they were over it and on to the sand, which immediately slowed them down.

  Wading through the soft flowing whiteness was a nightmare. The men behind were quickly closing the gap and it was only a matter of time before the rifleman had another crack.

  They headed for the highest dune, which happened to be the nearest one, and dived into the long grass growing up one side of it. Behind them the sea, a calm, glittering green, was gently stroking the shore and gulls fluttered and squawked overhead.

  Parker crawled into a position so he could look back the way they'd come.

  The islanders were slowing, obviously hesitant to approach the dunes now that Parker and Hodge were out of sight. The two groups on the flanks were making their way to the centre and Parker assumed they would meet and formulate a plan of action.

  He turned to Hodge, lying beside him in the grass and said, “As I see it, we haven't a prayer.”

  Hodge rolled on his back and stared at the sky, his chest heaving with every breath. Sweat dribbled from his forehead on to his black tangled hair and from his cheeks on to the sand. A gull flew over him, its shadow caressing his features, and when he turned to Parker his face wore a hollow expression.

  “How many guns you reckon they've got?” Hodge asked.

  Parker looked towards the islanders who were converging into a single group.

  “Impossible to tell from here. We'll have to assume those out there have at least two between them. When the others arrive on the scene, though, they'll probably have a couple more.”

  “D'you think they'll come after us, or wait for reinforcements?”

  Parker shook his head. “It's my guess they'll come in. They won't take a chance on us sneaking away along the coast while they stand around out there.”

  “Well, I hope to God they do just that. Right now I want more than anything to blow a few fucking heads off.”

  “Go for whoever's carrying a gun,” Parker advised. “We need all the ammo we can lay our hands on.”

  Parker glanced over his shoulder, keeping his head low. The dunes humped their way for about forty yards before dropping on to the beach. On either side of them they stretched about half a mile each way. To the left, the south, the coastline ran up into steep, bird-infested cliffs. The other way, the cliffs were not so high, and the grass on top plunged down almost to touch the sea's slate grey surface.

  Parker could guess what they were up to. Two groups were branching out to the left and right of them. They would probably wai
t at either end of the line of dunes or might even work their way towards the centre, squeezing himself and Hodge in a vice and forcing them to flee from the dunes towards the guns out front.

  Parker didn't realize until it was too late that Hodge had taken aim. The blast of the shotgun sent his head spinning and the noise reverberated in his ears.

  Ahead of them a group of men scattered and Parker saw immediately a body sprawled in the grass.

  “That’s one down,” Hodge said. “Now let’s try to get the fuck out of here.”

  TWENTY TWO

  But they didn't get very far before they were spotted. The cries of the gulls overhead were drowned suddenly by an acrimonious bellow from the mouth of a thick-set man wearing a reefa jacket and holding, incongruously, a pitch-fork, which stood taller than he did in the sand next to him.

  He was standing at the top of one of the dunes, watching like some predatory bird as they slogged through the ankle-deep sand. They were in a hollow between the dunes, south of their previous position, and the going seemed to be getting tougher. The man gave another cry and then started down after them, waving the pitch-fork like it was a flagpole.

  Parker and Hodge ran, slowly, clumsily, fighting every inch of the way against the soft, deep sand. The man was some twenty yards behind them, one minute screened by a mound of sand, the next in sight and yelling for them to stop.

  They veered to the left, up and over the shoulder of a grass-flecked dune and then into a deep and difficult trench that took them into yet another hollow.

  “Just hold it there.”

  The rasping voice brought them to a sudden halt. It belonged to a short, thin man with a dyspeptic expression who didn't look a day under sixty. He was holding a long, slender hunting rifle in a pair of bony hands. And they had almost run into him. He had popped up from behind a dune and they were only about seven feet from the muzzle of the gun held snugly against his hip, finger poised on the trigger.