The Trees

by Ali Shaw

  In front of her were two bull kirins, and they were fighting.

  Judging by the animals’ injuries, the duel had been a close-fought affair, now reaching its climax. The bulls faced one another for their final clash. They were massive animals with brown fur and scarred and leathery shoulders, each labouring to breathe against its wounds. Each clenched its eyes when it blinked, as if to reopen them was as hard a task as lifting the great spiked horn atop its skull. They stamped their feet and snorted with breath so hot it blurred the air. One was bleeding profusely from a dozen wounds across its neck and head. The other had fewer cuts, but one deep gouge in its throat. Blood flowed from it with every exhalation, dribbling to clot in its dewlap.

  The kirins stamped the earth, lowered their heads and brayed. With instant acceleration they broke into a charge, and when they met they jarred the very air. Horns clashed and locked like sabres, neck muscles bunched with all the power they could muster, feet danced unnervingly quick, and they pissed as they fought and moaned sometimes the way that trees moan. Then their horns came unlocked, and each slid home. The first sliced deep through the leathery hump of its foe bull’s shoulder. The second found the throat wound it had already made. This it ripped wider, and blood slapped from the opening like water shed from a branch. That bull’s forelegs buckled. It went to ground half kneeling, half collapsed. The victor stood still for a moment, staring blankly around it. Its eyes passed over Hannah as it did so, and she had no idea whether or not it had noticed her. Then it harrumphed and turned away, departing with a wheeze in its belly.

  The defeated bull watched it go. Then, with a resigned huff, it lowered its head to the earth. Hannah could see the scores and chips taken out of its horn, the ivory exposed in white lines, some of which were coloured in red. Its shoulders swelled and sagged as its lungs tried to cope, but breathing was difficult when each inhalation escaped through the hole in its neck. It huffed and laid its head to the side, to try to ease the weight of its enormous horn. Its eyelashes were thick and golden, half closed over exhausted eyes.

  Hannah approached with her hands clasped in front of her mouth. It was going to die now, she supposed. What a waste. She thought of black rhinos impaling their young, of tigers mauling their own litters. She bit her lip, and the kirin watched her. Clear droplets welled on its eyelashes. They were only sweat, she supposed, as she sat down on a log at a respectful distance, but they looked like heavy tears. She pressed her hands together between her knees. Each breath the kirin took flowed out slower than the last, and after each she was surprised to hear it attempt to draw breath again.

  There had been nothing but dying, since the trees came. This kirin, Diane, her beloved Zach. Hannah choked on the grief welling up in her. She got up and swished at a fly descending on the kirin’s wounds. It buzzed around her arm and landed in the blood all the same.

  Hannah swatted at the fly again, and again it took off and again tried to land. ‘Have a bit of heart,’ she hissed. ‘It’s not even dead yet.’

  She crouched at the kirin’s side and, very gently, reached out to touch it. Its coat was warm from the heat of its exhaustion, and it didn’t seem to notice when she slid her hands through its fur. As its eyeballs began to roll upwards, Hannah saw that its irises were flecked with silver, and that on the underside of the animal’s chin there was a flash of diamond-white fur.

  The fly hummed but waited to land. Grey daylight shone between the leaves. A bird was singing in its nest. The kirin stopped breathing.

  Hannah screamed. She screwed up her fists so tight that her fingernails cut into her palms. All of her anger surged out in a bellow, as loud as the clashing of the bulls.

  6

  Murderers

  At first, when Adrien found himself alone again with the gunman, they did not talk. Adrien was satisfied to just slouch in one of Zach’s armchairs and nurse his throbbing forehead. Meanwhile the gunman watched him in studied silence. They had gagged him but, after a time, the gag had slipped down around his chin. Still he did not speak.

  Adrien wondered if it would matter if he took a brief nap. Whether the gunman’s bonds were secure enough or whether he might find a way to murder him in his sleep. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  ‘You can gag me again,’ said the gunman eventually, ‘if it will help you feel more comfortable.’

  ‘Why would I want to gag you, if you’re not even speaking?’

  ‘I just thought it might help you to relax around me.’

  ‘I’m about as relaxed as I can be, thank you very much.’

  The man laughed. ‘This is an awkward situation, isn’t it? It’s going to be a pain in the arse for everyone, if you keep me like this.’

  ‘Better than you shooting us.’

  ‘Yes, yes I suppose that’s true. But it might be better still if you shoot me.’

  ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself. That might just happen.’

  ‘I think we both know that it won’t.’ The gunman took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, savouring it. ‘I would have done it, you know. Shot you, if I had to. I’ve killed three people since the trees came.’

  Adrien studied him for a moment. His keen eyes. His crisp speech. Whether to believe him or not. He wasn’t used to discussing death threats so casually. ‘I preferred it,’ he said eventually, ‘when we were sitting in silence.’

  The gunman nodded. ‘Just one last thing. Can you clean my head up? It feels strange where your friend clubbed me. Cold. Dirty. I don’t want to get an infection.’

  They looked at each other for an unguarded moment, and then Adrien laughed shrilly. ‘I’m not your nurse. Why are you even asking me?’

  The man smiled. ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘your point is made.’

  It was quiet in the lodge without the others around. The trees kept still against the walls, and the birds were too busy gathering the day’s grubs to call to one another.

  ‘Okay,’ Adrien said, getting up. ‘But this is only because I’m better than you. This is the sodding Geneva convention.’

  He found an old dish-washing sponge and wet it in one of the buckets they had used to collect rainwater. The gunman made an appreciative noise when Adrien dabbed at the congealing blood in his hair. ‘Is it very bad?’ he asked. ‘It hurts like hell.’

  Some of the blonde had dyed red, but the wounds themselves were not deep. ‘You’ll live,’ said Adrien. ‘It’s just swollen up and cut in a few places. Look on the bright side. At least you still have all your hair.’

  The gunman laughed as if they were friends, and Adrien grimaced and lifted the bucket of rainwater. They had caught plenty, so he had no worries about wasting it.

  ‘Thank you, by the way,’ said the gunman. ‘You’re kind.’

  ‘My pleasure. Now all I have to do is wash you clean.’

  He sloshed the cold water across the gunman’s scalp, drenching his head and neck and face, soaking his clothes. Droplets streamed off his nose and he screwed up his eyes and spluttered and sneezed. ‘I suppose you think,’ he said, when the water had drained clear, ‘that I deserved that.’

  ‘You deserve a whole lot more,’ said Adrien, returning to his chair, ‘if what you say you’ve done is true.’

  Adrien sat down and looked upon his bedraggled handiwork, and was at once frustrated to feel guilty. How ridiculous to feel sympathy for someone like this. The gunman was poking his tongue out, trying to lap up the last drips of water.

  After a few more minutes, Adrien got up with a harrumph and filled a glass. ‘Drink it,’ he said, holding it to his lips. The gunman glugged greedily, and drew a long pleasured breath when he had finished. ‘Thank you. Thank you very much.’

  Adrien sat down again. ‘You’re fortunate you got me. If you got the girl watching over you, you’d be lucky to get through the morning with all of your teeth still in place.’

  The man chuckled. ‘But now you see the problem, don’t you? You can’t keep me like this for ever. I need to drink, eat. At
some point I’ll need to relieve myself.’

  Adrien held up a finger. ‘One thing at a time. I’m hoping we can be reasonable. Work things out.’

  ‘That can’t happen. I’m afraid it’s just one of those things. Opposing forces coming to a head. You and I are like two stags smashing antlers.’

  ‘Not really. I’ve got you tied up. Your antlers have already been smashed. All I’ve done is wash the blood away.’

  ‘Yes, yes I suppose that’s true. Except . . .’ But he didn’t finish the sentence.

  Adrien knew he was waiting to be asked to continue. He resisted for a long thirty seconds, during which his headache renewed its throb behind his forehead. Then he huffed, ‘Go on, just say it, whatever it is. Except for what?’

  ‘Except you can’t let me walk off into the forest like you would a defeated stag. You can’t trust me if you let me go.’

  ‘Is that a supposition or a statement of intent?’

  The gunman smiled. ‘There are no policemen. There are no judges now.’

  ‘There will be. When things get back to normal you’ll be straight into a jail cell.’

  ‘Be serious. I can tell you know better.’

  Adrien tried to sound defiant, but his voice wavered. ‘You can’t tell anything about me.’

  ‘I’m good at telling things about people. And I’ll tell you something else, for free. Things are back to normal. In the woods is how we’re supposed to be.’

  Adrien stood up and took a few paces towards him. ‘I think I’m going to do as you suggested now.’

  ‘What? Shoot me?’ For half a second only, the gunman looked panicked.

  ‘Gag you, of course.’

  The gunman nodded (was that a flicker of relief?). ‘What do you think I did for a living?’

  Adrien waved a hand dismissively. ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘I was a solicitor. Four weeks ago I was a defence lawyer.’

  ‘Four weeks ago I was the president of the United States.’

  He laughed. ‘Good one. But, seriously, you were as you are now. Of course you were. You believed in the same authorities you still believe in today. Eventually you will have to confront their disappearance, just like I did. You will either decide that you are your own authority or imagine a new one. For my part, I had a head start. I have spent years of my life defending men whose crimes were indefensible. When the trees came, I knew how things would play out. I had long ago lost all faith in systems. In proxy authorities. Superficialities, all of them. What’s your name?’

  Adrien opened his mouth to give it, then for some reason decided to hold back. ‘I’m not telling you.’

  ‘Then I’ll just have to call you Mr President. Here are your new policies, Mr President. Now that things are back to normal, there isn’t fairness. There isn’t compromise. There is only the coming together of force against force. Stags locking antlers. Men have always been this way, but some spent a little while fooling themselves otherwise. When push comes to shove, justice is only ever the deferral of force onto some other man’s shoulders.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I’m telling you that if you shoot me, nobody will come after you. Nobody will care. The only consequence will be that you’ll no longer have to keep me captive. And yet . . . you’ll no longer be able to defer the burden of having shot me onto someone else. Some anonymous judge or lawyer such as I was. But neither will you have to feed me, or keep my ropes secure, or accompany me while I urinate.’

  ‘You make a compelling case.’

  ‘You won’t do it, though. I think you’ll try to talk your way out. Even your feisty little friend who hit me, she won’t do it either. You’ll try to reason with me, and I’ll present you over and over with the plain truth of the way Mother Nature made us, and it will exacerbate you, and at last you will turn me loose, and then I will have won.’

  ‘And what,’ asked Adrien with something of a snarl, ‘do you imagine your prize will be?’

  But before the man could answer, Adrien yanked the gag into his mouth, and tied it very tight around the back of his head.

  The gunman’s gag held, after that, so no more words were exchanged. Adrien slouched in the armchair and wished that ice still existed, so he could pack some against his forehead. He supposed there would be none until winter, although his headache felt like it would last until then. Whenever he looked up, the eyes of the gunman met his, and he looked away again.

  After a long hour, Hannah returned looking dishevelled. There were twigs in her hair and her lips looked grey and drawn. She stared briefly at the gunman, then at Adrien and asked, ‘Is Seb back?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Good. I wouldn’t want him here for this, nor Hiroko. I saw, Adrien. Near the hill where Zach and I used to swing.’

  Adrien got up from the armchair. ‘Saw what? Are you alright? You look—’

  ‘Kirins. And everything, actually. I saw everything very clearly.’

  Adrien couldn’t tell precisely what, but something was different about Hannah. Something in the way she held herself. ‘Hannah, maybe you should have a lie-down . . .’

  She turned her attention to the gunman and yanked the gag out of his mouth. ‘I want to start again,’ she said.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Cleared your head now, sister?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I’ve been talking with the president, over there. Explaining to him the dilemma that you have. I’ll need to eat before long. Need the bathroom. You can’t keep me tied up for ever.’

  ‘I know. Believe me I do. I’m going to ask you one more time what I asked you before. And then I’m going to change tack and it will be worse for you. Do you want to confess? Perhaps that will change my mind about things, although I can’t guarantee it. If you didn’t shoot Zach, you’d at least have tried to prove it by now.’

  The gunman tried to sit forward against his bonds, but the knots were still tight. ‘I have shot three,’ he said.

  That checked some of Hannah’s momentum. ‘Three what? Three people?’

  He sucked his lip and looked past her, into thin air. ‘The first one had a gun pointed back at me. Can you imagine? Two days after the trees came and we were in the wild west. I didn’t know him. We had both discovered, at the same moment and quite incidentally, a crate of wine, and we were both armed. I don’t think either of us even raised his gun the first. I think we mirrored each other, and both thought ourselves acting in defence. At least, that’s how I remember it. How ridiculous to be squaring off like that, over something so meaningless as a crate of wine.’

  ‘Do you expect me to pity you?’

  The man smiled. ‘I just started to wonder, what if I actually did it? Nothing would happen. There would be no investigation, no detectives. And I do not believe in God, or hell or any of that rubbish. And all it would take would be the slightest movement of my finger against the trigger.’

  He blinked hard. He looked like he had missed a lot of sleep. ‘The second one,’ he said, ‘I did just to forget about the first. I was not . . . prepared for how it would stick. I believe there are some who never develop the revulsion that comes with a killing. They are your typical psychopaths, if you’ll permit a generalisation. There have been studies, etcetera. I am not one of those. And how strange it was, that I cared so little for that man when he was alive that I could shoot him, but that after he died I wanted to know every last detail of his life. Not just his name and occupation, but the faces of his loved ones. His childhood. What the touch of his wife meant to him. What were the thoughts that woke him in the small hours of the night. What bored him. I wanted to know the very stuff of his mind, which I had put an end to. It was . . . relentless. Do you know there are tribes in remote places who believe that, when you take another person’s life, you absorb their very soul into your own? And so you must learn all you can of your enemies while they are still alive, not merely to study their weaknesses but to know what you mus
t coexist with, should you defeat them. We have lost all this wisdom. We’ll need to relearn it.’

  ‘Zach wasn’t your enemy. He was nobody’s enemy.’

  ‘After that first one wouldn’t get out of my head, I had the idea – not my finest ever, I must confess’– he laughed and shook his head – ‘that I could only put a stop to it by doing another.’ He sighed. ‘It was an old woman and she took me in and cooked me a bowl of revolting porridge and made me a cheese sandwich to take with me on my travels. She wouldn’t have known anything about it, I can assure you of that. I was behind her and too close to miss. After that I started to think about her life too, muddled up, in a way, with the first’s.’

  Hannah stood very stiffly over him and asked, in a brittle voice, ‘What about the third? Who was the last person that you killed?’

  He smiled. ‘None of them were personal, that’s what I’m trying to explain.’

  ‘Did you shoot Zach?’

  ‘Who was Zach?’

  ‘I damned well told you already.’

  ‘If I say I did it, what then? Does it make it easier for you to decide what to do with me?’

  The gunman leaned back his head and looked at the ceiling. Hannah was about to press for an answer when Adrien interjected. ‘Maybe that’s enough. Hannah, you’re looking . . . shattered. Let’s wait until the kids are back. If this guy pisses himself he pisses himself.’

  ‘He did it, Adrien,’ Hannah scowled, ‘I’m sure it was him.’

  The gunman licked his lips. ‘Are you his one and only sibling, Hannah, or are there more of you?’

  ‘Don’t fuck with me. And don’t use my name. You think this is some sort of challenge?’

  ‘It’s like I told the president. This is how the world works now. We square off against one another. Stags locking—’

  ‘Give me a straightforward answer. I . . . I will get one, do you understand?’

  ‘And if I don’t? What will you dare to do, exactly? I thought you said you were going to change tack.’

  Hannah turned away from him abruptly. She brushed past Adrien and out of the door. He heard her stamping up the stairs.