by Guy N Smith
He opened the door, went outside, sensed her following him but did not glance back. Suddenly Sylvia was a nuisance, a liability. Jackie would have co-operated, come up with some constructive ideas. As it was, he was lumbered with a passenger, an additional responsibility. Even being alone would have been preferable. Or would it? You wouldn't know about that until it happened, and by then it could be too late.
The yard with its row of outbuildings faced him. The goat-house, its door open, the animals probably grazing the field at the rear. The woodshed and implement shed, the hay barn. To the right was the vegetable patch, the weeds which a week ago had been brown and going to seed, now ready for hoeing, sprouting fresh greenery; that storm the other night had been heavy, an array of puddles still on the rutted track. Maybe an inch of rain. The surrounding countryside had an artificial camouflaged look about it too. Overhead the sky was gun blue, just an odd wisp or two of fluffy white cloud. The long dry spell hadn't cracked, just a freak interlude. Everywhere smelled fresh and if you had not known what had happened you would never have guessed.
'Where the devil are the hens?' Jon spoke aloud, a puzzled look on his face. Usually the poultry spent most of their time scratching in the yard and trying to devise ways of getting through the chicken-netting into the garden. But now there wasn't a single bird in sight. It was strange. Eerie. He experienced a chill in his stomach, licked his lips nervously. The hens were always around; now suddenly they were conspicuous by their absence.
He stepped forward, squelched in the mud. He'd better check on the goats, he'd been worrying about them ever since he and Sylvia had been confined below ground. The kids would be taking the milk so there was no worry about mastitis setting in, but he did not like leaving them untended. They surely would not be far away.
He saw them, the three nannies with five kids along the hedgeside nibbling at hawthorn shoots, boughs devoid of bark where they had stripped them. Relief because the animals were OK.
A horned head went up. Rosie, the oldest goat, had seen him; the ridge of hairs along her back stiffened, the hackles rising. A bleat, deep and nearly unrecognisable. Two more white Saanen heads jerked round, eyes reflecting a fear of the unknown. Kids leaped out of the undergrowth, skipped towards their mothers. Suddenly danger threatened.
'Rosie,' Jon called. 'Rosie, it's only me.'
But Rosie did not recognise her master, that much was clear. She backed away, turned, the other two following her, the youngsters staying close to their respective mothers.
Cloven hooves scampered, thudded on soft grass as the animals broke into a run heading diagonally across the small rough field away from the two humans. Fleeing in fear.
'Well, damn me!' Jon Quinn cursed. They've never done that before, ever. Usually the moment they see me they come running, hoping it's milking time and they can get a bucket of concentrates. It's as though they're . . . frightened of me, like they've never seen me in their lives before!'
'There's another one over there.' Sylvia pointed towards a spreading oak tree some fifty yards away. Another goat stood beneath it where it had been taking advantage of the shade, a much bigger animal with long curved horns and a straggling beard, head erect, watching them; a rough coat, the hair straggling down almost to its forelocks.
That's Gilbert,' Jon breathed. 'At least, I think it is. He looks kind of... different. His coat shouldn't be that long and his horns ought to be shorter too. Come to think of it, the nannies' coats looked much rougher than usual.'
'Well, he's coming this way,' Sylvia muttered. 'He certainly isn't afraid.'
Jon tensed, stepped back a pace. Something about the male of the species alarmed him. All billy goats had to be treated with a certain amount of respect, in much the same way that you never trusted a bull, no matter how docile it was reputed to be. Usually Gilbert was content to browse the hedges and graze the grass, lived in an old rusted corrugated tin shelter down in the dingle, but now he was certainly interested in the two humans. Deliberate steps, stopping, sizing them up.
Jon's pulses quickened. Gilbert had certainly changed. He looked bigger, too. Gone was his usual stare of mild interest at humans infiltrating his domain. His eyes slitted, thick neck thrust forward arrogantly.
'Move backwards,' Jon spoke softly out of the corner of his mouth, did not wish to alarm his companion unnecessarily. 'He might just be protecting his harem. Sometimes billies are a bit temperamental.' Don't take your eyes off him.
Going backwards a step at a time, Jon mentally calculating the distance to the gate. Ten yards at the most, no more. Sylvia's hand clutched his arm and he could sense her fear. For Christ's sake don't panic. I can smell my own sweat, and so can Gilbert. He knows I'm shit-scared.
The big goat advanced, tossed its head, its eyes never once leaving the two people who retreated before him, blazing sheer malevolence at them; an enemy trespassing in his domain, a threat to his supremacy, the male of the species seeking to prove his prowess in battle.
Jon anticipated the rush, saw those tremendous leg muscles tensing, a springboard to thrust the beast on its final rush. He had lost count of the number of yards to safety but the time for calculations was over. He wheeled, grabbed Sylvia in the same movement, half-leaped, half-ran. The aluminium steel gate was open no more than two or three feet; Sylvia screamed and he knew just what he had to do. Terror lent him strength, enough to hurl her forward, sent her sprawling in the thick mud on the other side; hearing a snort from the enraged goat who saw his intended prey suddenly escaping, a drumming of hooves as the death-charge began.
It was the mud which saved them, the soft mire deep enough to slow the billy's speed, gave Jon those few extra precious seconds in which to jump through the narrow gap, drag the heavy gate shut after him.
A metallic clang as Gilbert's horns struck the bars, buckled the middle one, became momentarily entangled. A roar of pain and fury, extricating himself, banging the gate again. The bars were buckled but they would not snap, made to contain the most devilish of fierce bulls. Clanging, echoing in the still air, the frustrated fury of a killer beast.
Then Gilbert sensed the futility of it all, backed off a pace, stood watching the pair who had tricked him; they should have been dead by now, gored by those sharp horns, mutilated, disembowelled. Instead, they lived.
Sylvia was trembling, leaning her full weight on Jon, crying softly. 'Oh, my God, he meant to kill us.'
'Something's happened to him.1 Jon watched the billy closely, noted the roughness of the hair again, the size, the way those eyes blazed their crazy hatred. A man-killer, a creature maddened beyond reason, its former domestication replaced by instincts age-old in its species; no longer the smallholder's animal, it was a goat gone feral. Immobile, knowing that it could not pursue them but at least it had driven them from its territory. They would not return. It had won.
'Well leave him to cool his heels for a while.' Jon Quinn was trembling. Til maybe get a rope on him when I've got time. In the meantime let's check the other field. I bought some calves in a fortnight ago, three-month-old Charolais heifers and I'm a bit worried about them. At a hundred and fifty quid each you can't afford to lose 'em.' Except that money doesn't exist any longer. If civilisation ever gets going again it'll be back to the old barter system. //.
Along the thick hawthorn hedge, following a muddy well-trodden track, aware that Gilbert was keeping pace with them on the other side. Occasionally they caught a flash of white where the branches were sparse, but overall the hedge was stockproof and no way would the billy be able to get at them. At least Jon hoped so, preferred not to think about it too much. He remembered the shotgun in the porch, almost suggested that they went back for it but it would only serve to alarm Sylvia still further. They didn't need a gun now, that need was past and they were still alive.
'What's that?' She clutched at his arm suddenly, pulled them both to a halt.
'What's what?' He felt his skin start to prickle.
Then he heard it, some kind of b
ird noise coming from the overhead branches of a clump of Scots firs which some former owner of this place had planted as a windbreak, dark green spiky foliage, the trees planted close and never thinned, forming an impenetrable barrier above the line where they had once been brashed.
Listening, trying to identify the sounds, unable to place them right away. Not the soft cooing of a wood-pigeon digesting its early-morning feed, not harsh enough for the cawing or chattering of a corvine. An alarm call certainly. Beware, Man the enemy approaches. Stay hidden.
Jon stepped forward, Sylvia still clinging to his arm. She wanted to go back, maybe wished that she had taken his advice and stayed behind in the first place. Maybe next time she would listen; she had learned a valuable lesson even if it had almost cost her her life.
Something above him moved, a backward shuffle along a thick bough which took the bird closer to the trunk of the tree, framed it in a shaft of bright sunlight which somehow managed to penetrate the dense foliage, the principal actor in a who dunnit play spotlighted for the surprise of a hushed audience, the ultimate climax.
Jon Quinn saw a thick bunch of light-brown feathers, a huddled form which was both familiar and unfamiliar, his brain slow to reach a conclusion because something just wasn't quite right. Not an owl seeking refuge from daylight; it could have been a roosting pheasant except that pheasants don't perch in trees except during the nocturnal hours. Its size fooled him for a moment, and then he knew, saw three or four more birds close by on the next branch. Warren hens!
'It's the missing hens!'
And again something wasn't quite as it should be. Huge birds which had gained at least a couple of pounds in weight since he had last collected the eggs in the hen-house a few days ago. Birds which normally flew no more than two or three feet up on to their perches now sat five or six yards up in the trees. Alert, wary, no longer clucking a welcome and coming to him in expectation of a handful of corn. Birds which were wild, feral like that damned goat on the other side of the hedge. You found yourself instinctively cowering, throwing up your hands to form a shield in case they suddenly flew at you and tried to peck your eyes out.
'They're . . . not like hens,' Sylvia Atkinson muttered and clung on to Jon's arm. 'They look . . . sort of wild'
It was true. The birds on the branches above regarded them with hostile red-eyed glares. Their plumage was no longer the sleek light-brown feathers belonging to the Warren variety, instead thick and ruffled, matted with dried mud, evidence of scaly-leg on their legs. Bewilderment, edging back into the foliage, clucking softly in alarm.
'They're scared to hell,' Jon said. 'So scared they don't even recognise me. Like those goats.'
But there was more to it than that. The poultry had undergone some kind of drastic physical change, lost their accustomed domestication during the short time since he had last seen them, were virtually game birds of the wilds.
'Well, they're not going to come down while we're here,' he sighed, 'and we can't waste any more time standing here looking at them.' They're repulsive, frightening; they won't ever come back to the buildings and I don't want them to. 'Let's go and take a look at the calves in the other field.'
He didn't want to go and look—Right now he would have seized upon any excuse to retrace their steps back to the house, return to the safety of that claustrophobic cellar. It would have been only too easy. But he would not be able to forgive himself if he did that, not just because he had yielded to sheer cowardice but because some kind of morbid curiosity drove him on. Everything out here had changed, even the fresh growth of grass and foliage had a different look about it, a coarser tough texture, throwing off Man's concerted efforts at cultivation, the use of sophisticated husbandry. A reversion to primitive wildness. He shivered, held Sylvia's hand tightly and wished again that he had brought the shotgun along. Next time he would.
Walking slowly now, eyes scanning the ground ahead of him. The belt of firs was petering out, the hawthorn hedge on their right tall and straggling. It had always been rough; he had been meaning to lay it ever since they had come to live here but it was one of those jobs which he had never got round to. Gaping holes had been plugged with cut-off tin sheets or pieces of left-over wire-netting, improvisation sufficing, but there came a time when you realised that you were fighting a losing battle. This place had got in a shit-awful state. Now it seemed that it had won.
Another gate, a loop of binder twine holding it to the rough-hewn post. Jon Quinn rested a hand that trembled slightly on the top bar, had to make a conscious effort to look into the field beyond.
Charolais calves, four of them grazing just inside the tract of rough pasture. He knew they would not be normal, steeled himself to run a glance over them. Coffee-coloured beasts but their smooth coats no longer had that silky eye-pleasing look about them. Rough and mangy, plastered with mud where they had chosen to spend the night out rather than return to the shelter in the far corner. Nervous, ears flicking, sensing an enemy, as wary as highland deer even before they saw the two humans by the gate.
Heads tossed, hind legs kicked in the air, and then they were stampeding, a headlong flight in the opposite direction, bellowing their terror as they ran.
'I thought as much,' Jon muttered, clutching the gate with both hands. 'It was too much to hope for ... hey . . .' his eyes narrowed and he felt his pulses beginning to pound again.
'What is it, Jon? For God's sake what's wrong now?'
'Four of them,' he whispered, 'but there should be five.
Calves invariably stay together. We'd better go and look for the fifth.'
'No!' She was pulling at him now, using every ounce of her puny strength to drag him back. 'It isn't safe to go in there. I don't want to. They might attack us, like that goat did'.
'He was a billy, the male of the species.' Jon did his best to smile reassuringly, knew that he made a hash of it because he felt his lower lip trembling. 'The nannies didn't bother us so there's no reason why these heifers should. We don't have any bull calves and these are only youngsters anyway, no more than three months old. You can see how scared they are. I'm going, but you can stop here, if you want.'
'I'm coming with you.' She began to climb after him, her torn overalls snagging on the rusted bars of the gate. No way was she going to be left here alone. That mad billy goat was only in the adjoining field and suppose he found a weak part in the straggling hedge. And those hens in the trees behind, they were wild and fierce like birds of prey. Sylvia Atkinson was determined not to let Jon Quinn out of her sight.
The fields sloped down to a dip that was hidden from their view. Uneven tussocks that had had the butt grazed out of them by generations of livestock over the years, sour ground that would never be lush again without reseeding, but that wasn't Jon's way; a natural pastureland was his ideal but right now there was nothing natural about anything.
The four calves had run down into the dip, splashed their way through a patch of boggy ground and were cantering up the other side. They stopped, turned back to look. Calmer, moving away at a walk. Uneasy but their panic had subsided now that they had put some distance between themselves and the intruders in their field.
Jon slowed his pace, he did not want to alarm the calves any more than was necessary. Beyond his own boundary hedge the land sloped sharply upwards, Bill Gwyther's fields, always dotted with peacefully grazing sheep except during the winter months when the flock was moved lower down close to the farm buildings. The sheep were still there but today they were huddled together in a corner, a bunch of plaintively bleating frightened animals that sought safety in numbers.
What the hell's got into them, Jon thought, they can't even see us from up there. Something's frightened them. Up above Gwyther's land the skyline terminated in a line of dark even firs, the beginning of some five hundred acres of Forestry Commission woods that followed along the ridge and down over the other sides. Artificial woodlands, symmetry that was not consistent with this wild landscape, thousands of rows of trees wit
h only the odd self-set seedlings out of place. A dark forbidding world where it never got properly light, no undergrowth able to grow below the branches. You could get lost up there if you forgot your bearings. A world of silence virtually devoid of wildlife.
That fifth calf could not have got out of the field, Jon was sure of that. Only this last spring he had blocked up every patch of sparse growth in the hedges; unsightly but effective. It had to be down in the hollow, possibly stuck in the cloying mud or else just after water. Either way . . . Sylvia Atkinson screamed, a piercing shriek that the echoes immediately took up and magnified, starting those four nervous calves running again, tearing blindly back along the hedgeside. And in that instant Jon saw why she had screamed.
Out of the dip came a grey-black fearsome brute, long pointed ears lying flat along its head, bushy tail streaming out behind it as it ran. Only once did it turn its head to look back and the watchers saw slobbering open jaws, and eyes that seemed to glint redly in the sunlight. A rough coat, bare in places as if it had been devastated by mange. Even as Sylvia's scream died away the waiting echoes took up the bestial howl, a bloodchilling sound that was filled with hate and anger but not fear. The creature fled because its instincts commanded it to but in no way was it afraid of Man, 'Gwyther's Alsatian.' At least Jon thought that that was what it was, the resemblance was vaguely familiar although he was sure that the dog had never been quite as big as that. He shivered, recalled the goats and the hens, how they had once looked; the calves, too.
'It's. . .like a. . . a wolf.' Sylvia was trembling violently and for one awful moment Jon thought that she was going to pass out. Every vestige of colour had drained from her face and only by holding on to him did she manage to remain upright. But it had to be Bill Gwyther's dog, it couldn't be anything else, there was no other feasible explanation. At least, none that he could come up with.
His narrowed eyes followed the Alsatian's flight, now an easy loping stride that carried it up the far bank to the right of the cattle, through a gap in the hedge and into the sheepfield beyond.