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A Likely Tale, Lad

Page 6

by Mike Pannett


  It had all started with cowboys and Indians. Mum had confiscated my six-gun when I charged it with a double dose of percussion caps, stole up behind her and pulled the trigger, causing her to drop an entire basket of clean washing in a puddle.

  Mum was angry, very angry indeed. At first she threatened to make me re-do the entire wash. Then she remembered the time I’d bleached my best trousers to get them clean, and changed her mind. Instead, she took away my most prized possession, and the red belt and holster for good measure, and said I might get it back when I’d learned my lesson. What’s more, I would miss the morning’s outing to Bempton Cliffs to look at the puffins. If that didn’t teach me a lesson, nothing would. When she suggested that Doris might find me some work around the kitchen I took it as a clear signal that I should stay in the yard, and out of sight if possible.

  I put a brave face on it. I didn’t want to see any stupid puffins anyway, I told myself. And off they went, leaving me with Petra. There was no way they’d take her bird-watching.

  For a while I mooched about the yard. Billy and Jack had both gone out into the fields. I sat in the sun thinking about cowboys. Then I spotted Gillian’s skipping rope that she’d abandoned as she hurried into the car with the others. I picked it up, tied it at one end to make a slip-knot, and settled down to see whether I could make a lasso. Maybe I could throw a loop over Petra, the way my cowboy heroes lassoed runaway cows. She was very obliging about it: just sat there, head on one side, and waited patiently as I threw the rope at her, time after time, with the same result. Even when I managed to land it on top of her head it still flopped at her feet in a hopeless tangle.

  Just when I was about to give it up, I heard the tractor coming up the lane and into the yard. Billy drove it up to the barn, got out and stood under the eaves, eyeing the pigeons that were always gathered there, drawn by the spilled corn and chicken-feed.

  ‘Flaming birds,’ I heard him say. ‘If I had my way I’d poison the lot of ’em.’

  I tried to throw my rope a couple more times, no more successfully than before. Billy had one foot up on a big old log that stood by the barn door. He seemed to be re-threading a lace. The log was more like a tree-stump, really. It had been there since the old days, according to him and Jack, when the three aunties were little and used to hop up on it in order to mount a horse. He finished what he was doing, then came across to where I was standing. He didn’t say anything, just took the rope in his hand, and ran it through his fingers. Finally he spoke.

  ‘You’ll never throw a loop with this, young Michael.’

  ‘What, am I doing something wrong?’

  Billy pushed his flat hat back and rubbed his forehead. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘it’s not you; it’s your rope. It’s the wrong sort.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, and waited for him to tell me more. Billy was what you’d call deliberate. Slow and deliberate. He always thought before he spoke, and he never hurried anything. ‘Them cowboys,’ he continued, ‘they had what they call rawhide. That’s leather as hasn’t been tanned. Real tough, it is.’ He handed me the rope, undid the buckle on his belt and pulled it out, careful to stop his leather sheath dropping on the ground. He always wore a belt, and with it the short, dark brown sheath with a brass rivet at the bottom. He worked the belt into a loop and held it for me to see. ‘A cowboy rope’s more like this,’ he said. ‘What you’ve got there is way too limp. You mek a rope of rawhide and it’s stiff as this belt – stiff as a length of a wire cable. You mek a rope out of this and it holds its shape, d’you see?’

  I did. I stood there, fully expecting him to take me in the shed and conjure up just such a length of rawhide as he was talking about. But he didn’t. Instead, he looked at me and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid you’re wasting your time with that thing and you may as well know it.’

  I let the rope drop to the ground. ‘I wanted to be a proper cowboy,’ I sniffed. ‘And lasso things.’

  ‘I know,’ Billy said, picking the rope up once more and looping it over his forearm. ‘I know just how you feel. Same as me and Jack did when we were growing up in Cloughton. We were crazy about cowboys – aye, and Indians too.’

  ‘You were?’ Looking at old Billy I couldn’t imagine him racing around the yard playing cowboys and Indians.

  ‘Aye, every time t’owd travelling cinema came through we got a proper dose of wild west fever. All on us lads.’

  ‘A travelling cinema,’ I said, trying to imagine such a thing. When Mum and Dad took us to the flicks we went into York – to the ABC or the Odeon. But a travelling cinema. All I could think of was the fish-and-chip van that Mum used to tell us about, the one which came around when she was a lass. Maybe that’s what Billy meant, a van that they all crammed into to watch the films – like the mobile library that came to Staintondale once a week.

  Billy sighed and said, ‘It were just a van, like. They’d come round the villages every so often and tek over the old church hall or mebbe t’library. Throw up a big old bed-sheet at one end and set up the projector at t’other on a wooden table, with rows of chairs in between and put t’first reel on.’ He was grinning as he remembered. ‘And woe betide anyone who stood up and blocked out the light. We’d all whistle and shout till he sat down again.’

  We’d wandered over toward the barn by this time and Billy had sat himself down on the old tree-stump.

  ‘Aye, and when the sheriff went stalking them baddies and we spotted them hiding we’d all shout out, “Look out, they’re over there! Behind the rock!”’ He kept chuckling as he reminisced. ‘Aye, it was quite a do when t’travelling picture show came around.’ As he spoke he coiled the skipping rope, tighter this time. Then he paused and said, ‘We used to carve toy guns, out of wood – aye, and we made lassos, just like you was doing. And you know what, young Michael?’

  ‘No, what?’

  He laughed. ‘We couldn’t mek ’em work neither.’ Then he leaned forward and winked at me and said, ‘But d’you know what we did do? Eh? Shall I tell you?’

  ‘What?’ I was all ears now.

  ‘We learned how to mek bows and arrows,’ he said, and sat up straight and put his hands on his knees. ‘Now then. How’d you like that, eh? To be an Indian, instead of a cowboy? D’you want me to show you? It’s just as much fun.’

  ‘Wow!’ I said. ‘You bet.’

  ‘Right, we’ll gather up a tool or two, shall we, and off to t’woods.’

  I followed him into the workshop where he picked up a beautiful steel knife with a wooden handle and slid it into the sheath on his belt. Then he reached up to the collection of saws and handed me one.

  ‘You tek the bow-saw, lad. And be careful,’ he added. He chuckled gently as he showed me how to carry it over my shoulder with the teeth behind me and the smooth metal handle to the front. ‘Them teeth used to belong a shark,’ he said.

  Naturally I believed him, and thought about it all the way out of the yard and down the lane that led to the woods, wondering how they’d caught the shark and why the teeth weren’t white like anybody else’s. And when it finally occurred to me that he might have been making it up I tightened my grip on the bow-saw and thought about what a brilliant idea it was to have a special saw for making bows with.

  Instead of going into the woods and along the path that led down to the Wyke, we climbed over a rickety wooden style and followed the edge of a field, beside a tall hedge. There was a stiff breeze blowing, and the sea, which we could see beyond a bank of gorse-bushes, was flecked with white-caps.

  ‘Now then, young Michael, d’you know what these are?’ Billy was leaning over a sagging strand of wire. He had hold of a tall sapling of some sort and was pulling it towards us. ‘Come on, lad, what kind of tree’s this? Don’t tell me you don’t know.’

  I shook my head. I knew what a conker tree was like, and a holly tree, but not a lot else.

  ‘Why, it’s a hazel, lad. If you look carefully you’ll see a few nuts. Here y’are, here’s some – see?’ He’d tugged a
t one of the slender branches and held it in front of me.

  Standing on my tiptoes I could just see a cluster of pale green nuts. ‘Can we eat them?’ I asked, reaching out to grab at them.

  He laughed and let the branch spring back to where it belonged. ‘Not until t’autumn,’ he said. ‘And only if t’squirrels and birds leave you a few. Anyway, that’s not what we’re after just now, is it? We’re after mekking you a sturdy bow, to go hunting with.’ As he spoke he reached out and grabbed another sapling and bent it down towards where I could get my hand around it. ‘Now then,’ he said, ‘you keep hold on it, and I’ll saw off what we need. See how nice and springy it is?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do.’

  ‘Well, that’s where you get the power from.’ I still wasn’t sure what he meant but I did as I was told and held tight while he started sawing. With the moist saw-dust falling like snow, I breathed deep to catch the sweet smell of the sap. Half a dozen strokes and he was through, and now I was holding the felled sapling across my knee while he lopped off the top and threaded the unwanted foliage through the hedge and out of sight.

  ‘Right,’ he said, ‘that’s your bow. Let’s go and find some willow wood, shall we? No good having a bow without any arrows, is it now?’

  We crossed the field – a sheep pasture it was, although most of the sheep were gathered at the other end of it. Billy loped along in front while I hurried behind him with our length of hazel wood. It was mostly downhill, and it led to a little beck that formed the boundary. There was a thicket of trees growing there, nondescript trees that formed a waving green barrier.

  ‘Willows,’ he said. ‘Just the job, lad.’

  Suddenly Billy was out of sight. I peered over the edge of the steep bank. All I could see were the branches twitching this way and that and the leaves fluttering. Then he was clambering up the bank with his right arm wrapped around a bundle of long thin canes. He threw them onto the grass. They were smooth and straight with just a few leaves on them – at the tip.

  ‘Now,’ he said, sitting down beside them and wiping his forehead with a large red handkerchief, ‘you go and cut some more.’

  I needed no further invitation. I took his knife and slithered down into the tangle of young willows. The sharp steel blade cut through the young shoots easily, and I quickly had another stack to carry up to Billy, who lay on his back watching the clouds go by.

  ‘Good lad,’ he said, eyeing the neat pile. ‘I reckon that’ll do us for now. It’s time for some refreshment, don’t you think so lad?’ With that he reached into his pocket and pulled out a stick of rock. ‘I’ve been saving this for you lot,’ he said. ‘Bought four of them in Filey. Last summer, it was.’

  We sat there for some time in the sunshine. I chewed on the rock while Billy started sorting through the lengths of willow we’d collected, discarding the odd crooked one, one or two that he considered too green, and some that were too thin or too thick.

  ‘Thing with arrows,’ he said, ‘they want to be just right, else they won’t fly straight.’

  Then he dug deep in the pocket of his brown corduroy trousers, pulled out a length of twine and tied up the ones he’d selected.

  ‘There,’ he said, ‘twenty arrows – once they’re trimmed and sharpened. We need to peel the bark off before it dries out as well. But I’ll tell you summat else we need to get.’

  ‘Feathers,’ I said. ‘We need some feathers to put in the end, don’t we?’

  He slapped his knee and laughed. ‘By golly, there’s no flies on you, lad. Feathers it is. And I’ll tell you where we’ll start. In the henhouse, eh?’ Then he added, ‘But what I was going to say was, string. You’ll want some strong waxed twine for your bow, won’t you?’ He nudged me, then got slowly to his feet.

  Back at the yard, Billy and I went into the shed. There I started peeling the bark off. The wood underneath was smooth, white and slick, sweet-smelling too. As I peeled, he took them from me one by one, rubbed them dry on his trousers and trimmed them, whittling a sharp point on one end, and making a cut in the other – for the feathers, he said. Meanwhile, I looked around to make sure none of the aunties were about, slipped into the potting shed and came out with a ball of strong twine. Then the pair of us went into the chicken-run in search of feathers – or tried to. The old cockerel didn’t welcome visitors, and was at our ankles, pecking away, as soon as we opened the little wire-mesh gate and ducked inside.

  ‘Go on wi’ you!’ Billy shouted. ‘You long streak of useless gristle.’

  He aimed a kick at the grubby white bird and missed, stifling a swear-word as he skidded on a patch of poop and almost lost his footing.

  ‘You go inside, lad,’ he told me. ‘Go on, grab some feathers and I’ll keep this little – blighter at arm’s length. Always been a bad-tempered so-and-so, and I tell you what.’ He paused and narrowed his eyes. ‘One of these days, I’ll have him.’ And with that he bent down, picked up a lump of clay and hurled it at the indignant cockerel. ‘Aye, in a pot wi’ a few leeks and some shallots.’

  It was dark inside the henhouse, and warm. There was a sharp smell of ammonia. I knew all about ammonia, from the time I’d found a bottle in Mum’s cleaning drawer and took a deep sniff of it. It nearly took the top of my head off. Along one side of the house was a series of nestboxes, and four or five plump brown hens sitting there, blinking at me from their beds of clean straw. Across the middle of the floor was a low bar, nailed onto four round logs and all covered in dried poop. That was their perch, where they roosted at night. I’d seen them when I went for the eggs on an evening. In the corners was a little drift of feathers. I scooped up a double handful and took them outside to see Billy, likewise crouched, but face to face with the irate rooster.

  ‘I’m telling you, your days are numbered,’ he muttered through clenched teeth. ‘Them hens can do just as well without you, you know.’ Then he turned to me and grinned. ‘Why, you’ve enough feathers there to make a war bonnet too. Come along, lad, let’s get weaving, shall we?’

  We sat outside, Billy on the old tree-stump, me on an upturned bucket.

  ‘Been a few years since I turned me hand to this,’ he said, as he picked out the best of the feathers and trimmed them with his knife, before slotting them into the ends of the arrows where he’d made the little nick earlier. ‘But it’s like riding a bicycle,’ he said. ‘Once you’ve learned it you never forget.’ He handed me an arrow. ‘Time for you to have a go,’ he said, and watched as I copied what he’d done.

  With the arrows all lined up, some with brown feathers, others with white, we set about finishing the bow.

  ‘First we cut a notch around it at this end,’ Billy said. ‘Like a groove, d’you see? That’s for t’string to sit in. I’ll do one, so’s you get the idea, then you do the other end.’ I did as he showed me, then stood in the shed and watched as he split the wood at either end, wet the string, wound it several times around the end of the bow, then slid his knife into the split to open it up, slipped the string through and removed the knife, allowing the wood to tighten around it.

  ‘Now, this is the important part,’ he said. ‘This is where we mek it good and tight.’

  And saying that he grunted, pulled hard on the string, so bending the stave of hazel till it made a sort of D shape. Then he let it slip into the notch at the far end before winding it swiftly round and round in the groove we’d cut.

  ‘Now we tie a little knot – like so – and Bob’s your uncle.’

  He took the bow in his left hand, raised it to shoulder level, pulled on the string with two fingers of his right and let go. It made a satisfying sort of ‘thwunk’.

  ‘Here,’ he said, handing me the bow, ‘you have a go.’

  It took all my strength to do as he had done, but what a good feeling it was. All that power, with the arc of the bow quivering as I cranked up the tension.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘let’s see if we can mek these arrows fly, shall we?’

  With that h
e took one from the pile, carefully slotted the end of it onto the newly fitted bow-string, pulled back as far as he could and let it go.

  ‘Wow! Look at that!’

  The arrow soared into the sky, nearly disappeared, and then fell to earth on the far side of the yard, by the tin shed where the electricity generator was housed.

  ‘My turn!’ I shouted.

  ‘Only after you’ve collected the arrow,’ Billy said. ‘Them arrows are precious. You should always collect ’em right away, otherwise you’ll soon have none left. Always meks me laugh in them westerns how they never seem to run out, but them arrows was works of art, lad.’

  ‘Like ours,’ I shouted.

  Billy chuckled. ‘Aye, like ours.’

  After I’d fetched the arrow, Billy watched my first attempt, helped me correct my grip, then left me to practise.

  ‘It’s been fun, lad, but I can’t hang around here all day. I got work to do. Just you be careful wi’ that thing, you hear? Put someone’s eye out if you’re not careful.’

  I did hear, but I might as well not have done. I was beside myself with excitement, eager to find Phil and show him what I’d got. But then I had a bright idea. How about if I used my bow and arrow for everybody else’s benefit? How about repaying Billy and seeing if I could kill a few of those pigeons he’d been muttering about? Even as the thought unfurled itself in my mind I spotted two plump birds preening themselves on the roof of the farmhouse. Could I get one from here? I picked up four or five of my new arrows and moved slowly towards them. They didn’t stir. I moved closer still, until I was sure I was within range. Then I loaded up, took aim and fired one off.

 

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