Bone Jack

by Sara Crowe

He dreamed the names of scarp and dip and rise and boulder, and they sang through him. The story of the land, written in rock and blood and wraith. Through Silent Hollow and the long shallow trough of Hound-grave. Past Burntwood, where no trees grew; past the Keening Stone, a big teardrop of rock with a smooth round hole that the wind wailed through.

  Ash raised his face into the storm.

  He glanced at Callie, walking next to him. At Dad ahead. At Mark, swaddled in the bivi bag, his face ghost pale.

  He looked to his right and saw Bone Jack.

  ‘Are you really here?’ he said.

  ‘Really here.’

  ‘Can they see you too? Dad and Callie and Mark?’

  ‘Mebbe.’

  Ash kept walking. Tired beyond tired. He scarcely felt it any more. He zoned in and out. He was borne along by storm and gravity, by willpower, by some ancient instinct of his body.

  In the distance, the wildfire was a line of dirty orange that surged and shimmered.

  His mind drifted into dreams. He was running barefoot through steady rain, along mountain paths claggy with mud. In this dream, someone ran beside him, but when he turned to see who it was, there was no one there.

  Ash stumbled, caught himself. Looked up. The bitter smell of smoke filled his nose and mouth.

  ‘We’ve been walking for hours,’ he said to Bone Jack. ‘We’ve hardly got anywhere.’

  ‘It’s only been a few minutes,’ said Bone Jack. ‘Not hours. Keep on, lad.’

  Ash walked. And the world seemed faraway and nothing to do with him, like he didn’t belong to it any more.

  On.

  He watched the wildfire. It seemed brighter, closer. The wind changing direction, driving it towards them again. A roaring tide of fire, eating up the land, smoke rolling over it like low cloud. Rain couldn’t stop it. Men couldn’t stop it. The land would burn until there was nothing left to burn.

  ‘Are we going to die?’ said Ash. His teeth chattered though he wasn’t cold any more. ‘Are we going to get down off this mountain?’

  Bone Jack didn’t answer. Ash looked across at him but he was gone, vanished into the night. Maybe he’d never really been there at all.

  ‘Dad,’ said Ash. ‘The wildfire.’

  ‘I know,’ said Dad. ‘Keep going. We’ll make it.’

  And there was only Ash, Dad, Callie and Mark, and a choking blizzard of rain and ember and ash and the wildfire beyond it like the end of the world.

  ‘Keep going,’ said Dad. His head bent into the storm, trudging on, steady, relentless.

  And then they were past it, the wildfire hungering southwards while they skirted its charred and smouldering flank.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  There were lights in the valley. Torches, and the headlamps of cars. Men in red mountain jackets and hard hats ran up to meet them. They brought a proper stretcher, unswaddled Mark, fitted braces to his back and neck and took him away. Blue lights flashing, a siren wailing. Ash watched through his eyelashes. Then Mum was there too, hugging him so hard he could hardly breathe. They put him in the back of a Land Rover ambulance. Voices. Warmth. Mum and Dad standing at the door, watching him. The growl of an engine. A paramedic checking him over. A blood-pressure band tightening around his arm. The door closed. The ambulance bumped down the track.

  Ash drifted in and out of sleep.

  A white glare. White walls. Bright steel. A metallic rattling noise.

  Faces he didn’t recognise. A nurse smiling at him. More voices.

  A bed in a big half-dark room. He curled up on his side, in the deep warmth of blankets, and slept again.

  Woke to daylight.

  ‘All right?’ said Mum. ‘My love, my precious boy. All right?’

  ‘Mum,’ he said. His mind still fogged with sleep. ‘What time is it?’

  She smiled. ‘I’m not sure. About ten o’clock, I think.’

  ‘In the morning?’

  ‘Yes, darling, in the morning.’

  The smell of antiseptic. On the wall behind her there was a tall white cabinet, a washbasin, double doors. He looked around. In a bed opposite, a man in his twenties slept propped against several pillows.

  At the other end of the room, two more beds. Both empty.

  ‘I’m in hospital,’ he said. His voice was a rough whisper, his throat dry and sore.

  ‘Don’t you remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Sort of. Bits of it anyway.’

  ‘You were suffering from exhaustion and mild exposure so they kept you in overnight. They think you might have slight concussion too, and you’ll have a sore throat and a cough for a few days from the smoke. You’ve got some nasty cuts and bruises as well but nothing broken. You were lucky. You could have been killed.’

  ‘I wasn’t though.’ He could hardly believe it. ‘I’m here, I’m alive.’

  ‘You were lucky.’

  ‘It wasn’t luck. It was …’ Mark. The stag boy. Bone Jack. But he couldn’t tell Mum about that stuff. ‘Dad,’ he said. ‘Dad found us and brought us down from the mountain.’

  ‘I know. I was there when you came down.’ She smiled. ‘The doctor gave you the all-clear to come home today, so long as you promise to rest.’

  ‘I will. Where’s Dad?’

  ‘He was here most of the night. He was exhausted himself but he sat with you for hours. We both did.’

  ‘Did he flip out again?’ said Ash.

  ‘Yes, a bit. All the strain. The hospital, you know. Mr Sloper gave him a lift home.’

  ‘Right. Dad came to the Stag Chase in the end though, didn’t he? I mean, before he knew something had gone wrong in the mountains? He came to see me run?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘He wasn’t afraid.’

  ‘He was,’ she said. ‘But he came anyway. He wanted to stop off at Tom Cullen’s grave, just like you did, and you’d already set off by the time we arrived. We waited, so we’d be there when you finished. Then later, when we realised you were missing and there was a storm, he went into army mode. Had to do something. We drove straight back home so Dad could pick up his mountain gear, then he went out looking for you. I stayed at the rescue base, in case you came back down yourself or the search party found you.’

  ‘Do you think Dad will be OK now?’

  ‘Eventually,’ she said. ‘Don’t expect miracles. It’s going to take time. Maybe a very long time. He’s going to talk to the counsellor later this week. It’s a start.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘A start. Where’s Mark? Is he …?’

  Alive, alive. He couldn’t say the word.

  ‘Mark will be fine,’ she said. ‘He’s got concussion too, and a few broken bones. He’ll have to stay in hospital for a while but he should make a full recovery. Callie’s with him now.’ She paused. ‘I spoke to Grandpa Cullen earlier.’

  ‘Spoke to him? How?’

  She laughed. ‘The same way I’m speaking to you, numbskull. He’s been ill. He’s not dead. Anyway, Callie might come and stay with us for a few weeks, just until things are sorted out. Is that all right with you?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Of course it is. What about Mark? What will happen to him?’

  ‘He’ll be in hospital for a couple of weeks. They’re going to discharge Grandpa Cullen in a few days’ time, so he’ll be back home by the time Mark comes out. Mark will probably move back in with him, for a while anyway.’

  ‘That woman, Mrs Hopkinson, said Grandpa Cullen was dying.’

  ‘Well, he could have died, I suppose. But he’s had surgery and he’s well on his way to a full recovery. Dad and I will help out as much as we can with Mark, and Mrs Hopkinson will too. They’ll be OK.’

  ‘We’re going to be all right, aren’t we, Mum?’

  ‘Yes, we’re going to be all right.’

  ‘Can we go and see Mark and Callie now?’

  ‘You’ve only just woken up.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘Don’t you want some breakfast first? There’s a t
ray here with delicious cold toast and a pot of strawberry yoghurt.’

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘You should eat something. You need to get your strength up.’

  ‘The yoghurt then. I’ll pass on the cold toast.’

  She watched as he ate, then she stood up. ‘I brought you a change of clothes from home. They’re at the end of your bed. Can you manage by yourself?’

  He grinned. ‘I’ve been dressing myself for years now.’

  ‘Smart aleck.’

  She drew the curtains around his bed and waited as he got changed. It took him a long time. His muscles were so stiff he had to hold on to the bed as he pushed one leg and then the other into his jeans.

  He came out through the curtains, smiled at Mum. ‘OK, I’m ready.’

  She put her arm around his waist and steered him towards the double doors.

  THIRTY-SIX

  They walked slowly along the corridor. Past doors that led to other rooms and wards. They walked through a throng of anxious visitors and busy nurses and patients swinging along on crutches. They went through a set of double doors into a corridor with a mural of a deep dark forest painted along the length of both walls. They passed a wolf and a raven and a moonlit waterfall and an owl with great golden eyes. They went through a blue door into a room with just one bed in it.

  Callie was sitting at the bedside. Mark was lying on his back. One leg splinted and hoisted. His shoulder in a cast, his head bandaged, his eyes closed. He looked smaller, frailer. A tube from a drip-bag fed into a vein on his forearm. Wires. A monitor of some sort.

  Ash stared down at him. Best friend. Enemy. The boy who’d tried to kill him. The boy who’d tried to save him. The boy he’d saved.

  ‘Has he woken up at all yet?’ said Mum.

  Callie was watching Mark. She didn’t look round. ‘Yes, about an hour ago,’ she said. ‘The nurses came and checked him. He’s just sleeping now.’

  Mum touched Ash’s arm. ‘I’m going to make a few phone calls, give you a bit of time to yourselves. I’ll be back in about twenty minutes. OK?’

  ‘OK.’

  Ash stood in the doorway. ‘How’s he doing?’

  Callie didn’t answer. Her gaze never left Mark.

  ‘Mum says he’ll be all right,’ Ash said. ‘The doctors told her.’

  Callie looked at him then. Her fragile bony face. Eyes huge with tiredness and worry. ‘He’s not all right,’ she said. ‘He’s alive but he’s not all right.’

  ‘He’ll be home before too long, Mum says.’

  ‘We haven’t got a home.’

  He didn’t answer. There was another chair by the window. He sat in it, glanced outside across the tops of tall pine trees where rooks flapped and tumbled in the wind.

  ‘You look tired,’ he said. ‘Did you get any sleep last night?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Mum says you can stay with us,’ he said. ‘You know, until things are sorted out.’

  ‘What’s going to be sorted out? Who’s going to sort it?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Your grandpa, I suppose. Have you seen him yet?’

  ‘Yes. They brought him down to visit Mark last night. He’s a lot better.’

  ‘Mum thinks Mark will move back in with him.’

  Silence. Her gaze steady on Mark.

  At last she said, ‘What happened up there?’

  ‘He caught up with me on Stag’s Leap. We fought and we got too close to the edge.’

  ‘Did he try to kill you?’

  The question was so raw it shocked him. ‘It started out like that,’ he said. ‘Yeah. He kept slamming into me, trying to push me off the Leap. He nearly succeeded. Then he stopped, right at the edge. When it came down to it, he couldn’t go through with it.’

  ‘What happened then? How did you fall?’

  ‘We got too close to the edge, that’s all. The wind was so strong up there and rain was hammering down and the ghost boys were mobbing us. I lost my footing. Mark tried to save me. He grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me back, away from the edge, but I was already falling so he fell with me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘All that stuff he was talking about, blood for blood and life for life. It scared me but I never thought he’d actually go through with it.’

  ‘He didn’t go through with it,’ said Ash. ‘In the end, he didn’t. You were right. He’s not a killer. He’s just messed up. I don’t think most of it was his doing anyway.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Those ghost hound boys. They hunt the stag boy every year, only most years they’re weak, just so much mountain mist. This year they were strong though. The foot-and-mouth, the slaughter, the drought, your dad killing himself, all that sort of amplified them, made them stronger. They fed off all that somehow. It made them strong enough to kill and they nearly did kill me, and Mark too. We were lucky, that’s all.’

  ‘Not just lucky,’ she said. ‘You saved Mark’s life. You could have just waited on the ledge until the search party found you and Mark would probably have died. But instead you risked your life and you climbed up, went to get help.’

  ‘Yeah, well. I couldn’t just let him die out there.’

  ‘You saved his life. You and your dad.’

  Ash looked away, embarrassed.

  ‘Do you think it’s over now?’ said Callie.

  Ash gazed out of the window again. The grey sky, the pine trees jagged and black against it.

  ‘Yeah, I think so. The hounds are back where they belong. The rain came. The drought’s over and the wildfire’s probably burnt out by now. The land will heal.’

  In the bed, Mark moved, cried out in his sleep.

  They stared at him.

  His eyelids flickered. His eyes half opened.

  He looked at them for a long time. Then he whispered something, his voice so weak that they couldn’t make out the words.

  Callie took Mark’s hand in hers. They sat with him, said nothing.

  He was asleep again by the time Mum came back.

  ‘How’s Mark doing now?’ she asked.

  ‘He woke up,’ said Ash. ‘Not for long though.’

  ‘Best leave him to rest now,’ said Mum. ‘I’m going to take you home. You too, Callie. We’ll come back tomorrow, during visiting hours.’

  ‘I want to stay with Mark,’ said Callie.

  But Mum shook her head. ‘You need something to eat and a hot bath and a good night’s rest. Mark’s in good hands. The best thing you can do for him right now is take care of yourself.’

  Ash expected Callie to argue, for all that stubborn fire inside her to blaze out. But instead she just nodded, stood up. In her torn and muddy dress, her dark hair still wind-knotted, she looked like a lost child.

  ‘Home it is then,’ said Mum.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The spare room where Dad had been sleeping. Curtains and window open and sunlight pouring in. All the junk gone, removed to the garage. A red rug on the floor, the bed made up with clean sheets, a duvet.

  Callie stood in the doorway, watching Dad angle a little bedside table into place.

  Dad looked rough but he smiled at her. ‘Will this do for you?’ he said.

  Callie nodded, solemn and silent.

  ‘Tomorrow we’re going to visit your grandpa in hospital and arrange to pick up your things from his house,’ said Dad. ‘You’ll feel more at home when you’ve got your own things around you.’

  Outside the window, a rook alighted on a branch of the old apple tree and preened its feathers in the soft light.

  Dad and Callie watched the bird and Ash watched them and thought how they were both broken but both still standing, sometimes faltering, falling, yet getting up again, keeping going.

  He left them there, went outside and sat on the bench at the front of the house. Dark clouds rolling over Tolley Carn. Beyond it, blackened slopes where the wildfire had burned itself out. Here and there, faint scarves of smoke trailed where t
he land still smouldered.

  A rook winging past.

  Where were they now, the ghostly stag boy, the hounds, the wolf?

  Bone Jack’s voice in his head.

  Back where they belong, it said. Back where it’s quiet, where they can rest.

  Mark, smashed and hollowed out, his summer burn faded under the stark hospital lights.

  Ash stood in the corridor, watching him through the glass pane in the door.

  ‘Are you going in?’ said Dad. ‘Don’t be too long. He’s still in a bad way.’

  ‘Dad, I don’t know what to say to him. What should I say to him?’

  ‘Just say the first thing that comes into your mind,’ said Dad.

  Ash nodded, drew a deep breath and went into Mark’s room.

  ‘Why didn’t you kill me?’ he said.

  The wind keened at the window. Grey sky, a slash of rain glittering on the glass.

  The summer over.

  Mark still strapped into casts, his eyes closed, tears silvering his cheeks.

  ‘Why didn’t you kill me? Why did you change your mind?’

  Nothing.

  ‘I need to know.’

  ‘I almost did kill you,’ said Mark.

  ‘I know. Then you stopped and tried to save me. Why?’

  ‘Because of what you said about my dad saving your dad’s life up there. Because you were alive, and you wanted to live.’

  Ash shook his head. Not good enough. ‘What does that mean? I don’t know what that means.’

  A long silence, then Mark started to talk. ‘You know when my mum died? We were friends so you know all about it. It was a long time ago. Half my life. But I remember it like it only just happened. I remember all of it. It was like part of my dad died too, when Mum did. Like we lost them both. He hardly ever smiled after that. He just worked. All the time, working. And then last year there was foot-and-mouth and I was out there for hours with him, day after day, bringing our sheep down from the mountains, watching the government men kill them, watching them burn. He couldn’t take it. Then he hung himself.’

  ‘And you found him. Callie told me.’

  ‘She doesn’t know everything. I didn’t tell her everything.’