LITTLE PEOPLE!

by Gardner Dozois

  Of course, the horde of August visitors was also a great boon. All summer the hobs picked up a stream, steady but relatively thin, of useful stuff dropped or forgotten by visitors. August brought the flood, and the year’s bonanza: bandanas, wool socks, chocolate bars, granola bars, small convenient pads of paper, pencils and pens, maps, rubber bands, safety pins, lengths of nylon cord, fourteen Swiss Army knives in fifteen years, guidebooks, comic books, new batteries for the transistors (three) and the electric torches (five). Every night in summer they would all be out scavenging the courses of the long-distance footpaths, the Lyke Wake Walk and the Cleveland Way, each with a big pouch to carry home the loot in.

  Earlier and later in the year, however, they were forced to spend more time hunting, and hunting a meal was Elphi’s first priority now. Luckily he and his people could digest just about anything they could catch (or they would not have been able to survive here at all). They were partial to dale-dwelling rabbit and spring lamb, and had no objection to road-killed ewe when they could get it; but as none of these was available at the moment, Elphi settled for a grouse he happened to start: snapped its neck, dismembered it, and ate it raw on the spot, hungrily but neatly, arranging the feathers to look like a fox kill (and counting on a real fox to come and polish off the bones he left behind).

  Satisfied, his head clearer, Elphi trotted another mile to a stream, where he washed the blood off his hands and had his first drink in more than four months. He had begun to move better now. His hands and broad feet shod in sheepskin with the fleece side out settled into their long habit of brushing through the old snow without leaving identifiable tracks. Still on all fours, he picked up speed.

  Now then: what were they to do with Woof Howe Hob so that no human could possibly discover that he had ever existed?

  Burning would be best. But fire on the moors in April was a serious thing; a fire would be noticed and investigated. The smoke could be seen a long way, and the Park rangers were vigilant. Unless a convenient mist were to cover the signs . . . but the hobs almost never, on principle, risked a fire, and in any case there were far too few stored peats in the den to burn a body, even a hob’s small body. Elphi suddenly saw Woof Howe on a heap of smouldering peats and his insides shriveled. He forced the picture away.

  They would have to find someplace to bury Woof Howe where nobody would dig him up. But where? He cursed himself and all the rest, his dead friend included, for having failed to work out in advance a strategy for dealing with a problem so certain to occur. Their shrinking from it had condemned one of their number—himself, as it turned out—to solving it alone if none of the others woke up before something had to be done.

  Elphi thought resentfully of the past century and a half—of the increasing complications the decades had added to his life. In the old days nobody would have fussed over a few odd-looking bones, unless they’d been human bones. In the old days people hadn’t insisted on figuring everything out. People had accepted that the world was full of wonders and mysteries; but nowadays the living hobs’ continued safety depended on making the remains of their dead comrades disappear absolutely. They’d managed it with Kempswithen, rather gruesomely, by cutting him into very small bits quite unrecognizable as humanoid, and distributing these by night over four hundred square miles of open moorland. None of them would care to go through that again, unless there were positively no other way.

  Elphi thought about that while he gazed out above the stream bed and the afternoon wore gradually on. The air was utterly clear. Far off to northwestward the peak of Roseberry Topping curled down like the tip of a soft ice cream cone (Elphi knew this, having seen a drawing of one in a newspaper a hiker had thrown away); and all between Roseberry Topping and Westerdale Moor, where he now risked standing upright for a moment to look, swept the bristly, shaggy, snowy heath, mile after mile of it, swelling and falling, a frozen sea of bleakness that was somehow at the same time achingly beautiful. White snow had powdered over an underlayer of russet—that was dead bracken at the moor’s edge—and the powdered bracken lent a pinkish tint to the whole wide scene. The snow ended roughly where the patchwork fields and pastures of Danby Dale and Westerdale began, and among these, scattered down the dales, were tiny clumps of stone farm buildings.

  Elphi had spent the first, best two centuries of his exile down there, on a couple of farms in Danby Dale and Great Fryup Dale. These dales, and the sweep of bleakness above them, made up the landscape of most of his extremely long life; he could scarcely remember, anymore, when he had had anything else to look at. However truly he yearned for rescue with one facet of his soul, he beheld these dales with a more immediate yearning, and the moors themselves he loved with a surprising passion. All the hobs did or had, except Hob o’ t’ Hurst and Tarn Hole Hob. Woof Howe had loved them too, as much as any.

  Elphi drew in the pure icy air, and turned once around completely to view the whole great circle of which he was the center, noting without concern as he turned that a wall of mist had begun to drift toward him off the sea. Then he dropped down, and was again a quadruped with a big problem.

  They might expose Woof Howe, he thought suddenly—scatter the pieces in that way. It would be risky, but possible if the right place could be found, and if the body could be hidden during the day. Elphi set off northwestward, moving very rapidly now that the kinks were out of his muscles, instinctively finding a way of least resistance between stiff scratchy twigs of heather. He meant to check out a place or three for suitability before getting on back to the den to see if anybody else was awake.

  ###

  Jenny Shepherd, as she tramped along, watched the roke roll toward her with almost as little concern. Years ago on her very first walking tour of Yorkshire, Jenny, underequipped and uncertain of her route, had lost her way in a thick dripping fog long and late enough to realize exactly how much danger she might have been in. But the footpath across Great and Little Hograh Moors was plain, though wetter than it might have been, a virtual gully cut through the slight snow and marked with cairns, and having crossed it more than once before Jenny knew exactly where she was. Getting to the hostel would not be too difficult even in the dark, and anyway she was equipped today to deal with any sort of weather.

  In order to cross a small stone bridge the path led steeply down into a stream bed. Impulsively Jenny decided to take a break there, sheltered somewhat from the wind’s incessant keening, before the roke should swallow her up. She shrugged off her backpack, leaned it upright against the bridge, and pulled out one insulating pad of blue foam to sit on and another to use as a backrest, a thermos, a small packet of trail gorp, half a sandwich in a baggie, a space blanket, and a voluminous green nylon poncho. She was dressed already in coated nylon rain pants over pile pants over soft woolen long johns, plus several thick sweaters and a parka, but the poncho would help keep out the wet and wind and add a layer of insulation.

  Jenny shook out the space blanket and wrapped herself up in it, shiny side inward. Then she sat, awkward in so much bulkiness, and adjusted the foam rectangles behind and beneath her until they felt right. The thermos was still half-full of tea; she unscrewed the lid and drank from it directly, replacing the lid after each swig to keep the cold out. There were ham and cheese in the sandwich and unsalted peanuts, raisins, and chunks of plain chocolate in the gorp.

  Swathed in her space blanket, propped against the stone buttress of the bridge, Jenny munched and guzzled, one glove off and one glove on, in a glow of the well-being that ensues upon vigorous exercise in the cold, pleasurable fatigue, solitude, simple creature comforts, and the smug relish of being on top of a situation that would be too tough for plenty of other people (her own younger self, for one). The little beck poured noisily beneath the bridge’s span and down toward the dale and the trees below; the wind blew, but not on Jenny. She sat there tucked into the landscape, in a daze of pure contentment.

  The appearance overhead of the first wispy tendrils of mist merely deepened her sense of c
omfort, and she sat on, knowing it would very soon be time to pack up and go but reluctant to bring the charm of the moment to a close.

  A sheep began to come down the stream bed above where Jenny sat, a black-face ewe, one of the mountain breeds—Swaledale, would it be? Or Herdwick? No, Herdwicks were a Lake District breed. With idle interest she watched it scramble down jerkily, at home here, not hurrying and doubtless as cozy in its poncho of dirty fleece as Jenny was herself in her Patagonia pile. She watched it lurch toward her, knocking the stones in its descent—and abruptly found herself thinking of the albino deer in the park at home in Pennsylvania; how when glimpsed it had seemed half-deer, half-goat, with a deer’s tail that lifted and waved as it walked or leapt away, and a prick-eared full-face profile exactly like the other deer’s; yet it had moved awkwardly on stubby legs and was the wrong color, grayish-white with mottling on the back.

  This sheep reminded her somehow of the albino deer, an almost-but-not-quite-right sort of sheep. Jenny had seen a lot of sheep, walking the English uplands. Something about this one was definitely funny. Were its legs too thick? Did it move oddly? With the fog swirling more densely every second it was hard to say just what the thing looked like. She strained forward, trying to see.

  For an instant the mist thinned between them, and she perceived with a shock that the sheep was carrying something in its mouth.

  At Jenny’s startled movement the ewe swung its dead flat eyes upon her—froze—whirled and plunged back up the way it had come. As it wheeled it emitted a choked high wheeze, perhaps sheeplike, and dropped its bundle.

  Jenny pushed herself to her feet, dis-cocooned herself from the space blanket, and clambered up the steep streambed. The object the sheep had dropped had rolled into the freezing water; she thrust in her ungloved right hand—gritting her teeth—and pulled it out. The thing was a dead grouse with a broken neck.

  Now Jenny Shepherd, despite her name, was extremely ignorant of the personal habits of sheep. But they were grazing animals, not carnivores—even a baby knew that. Maybe the sheep had found the dead grouse and picked it up. Sheep might very well do that sort of thing, pick up carrion and walk around with it, for all Jenny knew. But she shivered, heaved the grouse back into the water and stuck her numb wet hand inside her coat. Maybe sheep did do that sort of thing; but she had the distinct impression that something creepy had happened, and her mood was spoiled.

  Nervously now she looked at her watch. Better get a move on. She slipped and slid down to the bridge and repacked her pack in haste. There were four or five miles of open moor yet to be crossed before she would strike a road, and the fog was going to slow her down some. Before heaving the pack back on Jenny unzipped one of its outside pockets and took out a flashlight.

  ###

  Elphi crashed across the open moor, beside himself. How could he have been so careless? Failing to spot the walker was bad enough, yet if he had kept his head all would have been well; nobody can swear to what they see in a fog with twilight coming on. But dropping the grouse, that was unpardonable. For a hundred and fifty years the success of the concealment had depended on unfaltering vigilance and presence of mind, and he had demonstrated neither. That he had just woken up from the winter’s sleep, that his mind was burdened with trouble and grief, that walkers on the moors were scarcer than sunshine at this month and hour—none of it excused his incredible clumsiness. Now he had not one big problem to deal with, but two.

  The old fellow groaned and swung his head from side to side, but there was no help for what he had to do. He circled back along the way he’d come so as to intersect the footpath half a mile or so east of the bridge. The absence of boot tracks in the snow there had to mean that the walker was heading in this direction, toward Westerdale, and would presently pass by.

  He settled himself in the heather to wait; and minutes later, when the dark shape bulked out of the roke, he stepped upright into the path and blocked it. Feeling desperately strange, for he had not spoken openly to a human being in nearly two centuries, Elphi said hoarsely: “Stop reet theear, lad, an’ don’t tha treea ti run,” and when a loud, startled Oh! burst from the walker, “Ah’ll deea thee nae ho’t, but thoo mun cum wiv me noo.” His Yorkshire dialect was as thick as clotted cream.

  The walker in its flapping garment stood rigid in the path before him. “What—I don’t—I can’t understand what you’re saying!”

  A woman! And an American! Elphi knew an American accent when he heard one, from the wireless, but he had never spoken with an American in all his life—nor with any sort of woman, come to that. What would an American woman be doing up here at this time of year, all on her own? But he pulled his wits together and replied carefully, “Ah said, ye’ll have to cum wiv me. Don’t be frighted, an’ don’t try to run off. No harm will cum ti ye.”

  The woman, panting and obviously badly frightened despite his words, croaked, “What in God’s name are you?”

  Elphi imagined the small, naked, elderly, hair-covered figure he presented, with his large hands and feet and bulging, knobby features, the whole wrapped up in a dirty sheepskin, and said hastily, “Ah’ll tell ye that, aye, but nut noo. We’s got a fair piece of ground ti kivver.”

  Abruptly the walker unfroze. She made some frantic movements beneath her huge garment and a bulky pack dropped out onto the ground, so that she instantly appeared both much smaller and much more maneuverable. Elphi made himself ready to give chase, but instead of fleeing she asked, “Have you got a gun?”

  “A gun saidst ’ee?” It was Elphi’s turn to be startled. “Neea, but iv thoos’s na—if ye won’t gang on yer own feet Ah’ll bring thee along masen. Myself, that’s to say. But Ah’d rather not, t’would be hard on us both. Will ye cum then?”

  “This is crazy! No, dammit!” The woman eyed Elphi blocking the trail, then glanced down at her pack, visibly figuring the relative odds of getting past him with or without it.

  Suddenly, dragging the pack by one shoulder strap, she was advancing upon him. “Get out of the way!”

  At this Elphi groaned and swung his head. “Mistress, tha mun cum, and theear’s an end,” he exclaimed desperately, and darting forward he gripped her wrist in his large knobbly sheepskin-padded hand. “No treea if tha can break loose.”

  But the woman refused to struggle, and in the end Elphi had no choice but to yank her off her feet and along the sloppy footpath for a hundred yards or so, ignoring the noises she made. He left her sitting in the path rubbing her wrist, and went back for the pack, which he shouldered himself. Then, without any more talk, they set off together into the fog.

  ###

  By the time they arrived at the abandoned jet mine which served the hobs for a winter den, Jenny’s tidy mind had long since shut itself down. Fairly soon she had stopped being afraid of Elphi, but the effort of grappling with the disorienting strangeness of events was more than her brain could manage. She was hurt and exhausted, and more than exhausted. Already, when Elphi in his damp fleece had reared up before her in the fog and blocked her way, she had had a long day. These additional hours of bushwhacking blindly through the tough mist-soaked heather in the dark had drained her of all purpose and thought beyond that of surviving the march.

  Toward the end, as it grew harder and harder for her to lift her peat-clogged boots clear of the heather, she’d kept tripping and falling down. Whenever that happened her odd, dangerous little captor would help her up quite gently, evidently with just a tiny fraction of his superhuman strength.

  Earlier, she had remembered seeing circus posters in the Middlesbrough station while changing from her London train; maybe, she’d thought, the little man was a clown or “circus freak” who had run off into the hills. But that hadn’t seemed very probable; and later, when another grouse exploded under their feet like a feathered grenade, and the dwarf had pounced in a flash upon it and broken its neck—a predator that efficient—she’d given the circus idea up for a more terrifying one: maybe he was an escaped inmate of a m
ental hospital. Yet Elphi himself, in spite of everything, was somehow unterrifying.

  But Jenny had stopped consciously noticing and deciding things about him quite a long while before they got where they were going; and when she finally heard him say, “We’s heear, lass,” and saw him bend to ease back the stone at the entrance to the den, her knees gave way, and she flopped down sideways into the vegetation.

  She awoke to the muted sound of a radio.

  She lay on a hard surface, wrapped snugly in a sheepskin robe, smelly and heavy but marvelously warm. For some moments she basked in the comforting warmth, soothed by the normalness of the radio’s voice; but quite soon she came fully awake and knew—with a sharp jolt of adrenaline—what had happened and where she must be now.

  Jenny lay in what appeared to be a small cave, feebly lit by a stubby white “emergency” candle—one of her own, in fact. The enclosure was stuffy but not terribly so, and the candle burned steadily where it stood on a rough bench or table, set in what looked to be (and was) an aluminum pie-plate of the sort snack pies are sold in. The radio was nowhere in sight.

  Someone had undressed her, she was wearing her sheet sleeping bag for a nightie and nothing else.

  Tensely Jenny turned her head and struggled to take mental possession of the situation. The cave was lined with bunks like the one in which she lay, and in each of these she could just make out . . . forms. Seven of them, all evidently deep in sleep (or cold storage?) and, so far as she could tell, all creatures like the one that had kidnapped her. As she stared Jenny began to breathe in gasps again, and the fear which had faded during the march returned in full strength. What was this place? What was going to happen to her? What the hell was it all about?