Jago (75 page)

Erskine had shot, and Terry. Lytton had slipped down behind his motorcycle, which had fallen on him. There was a bright red splash of blood on the ground. Teddy was bringing up his rifle.

She scooped a stone and drew back the rubber of her catapult.

Susan screamed for everyone to stop.

Allie loosed the stone and raised a bloody welt on Erskine’s cheek.

Susan slapped Allie hard and hugged her. Erskine, arm trembling with rage, blood dribbling on his face, took aim at them. Draper put a hand on the Constable’s arm, and forced him to holster his gun. At a nod from the Reeve, Teddy Gilpin took a look at Lytton’s wound and reported that it wasn’t serious.

‘This be bad, Goodwife Ames. It’d not tell well for you if’n it came up at magistrate’s court. We’m be back on Saturday, with the vet. Have your animals together so they can be destroyed.’

He walked to his police car, his men loping after him like dogs. Terry laughed a comment to Erskine about Lytton.

Allie impotently twanged her catapult at them.

‘Help me get this off him,’ Susan said.

The Norton was a heavy machine, but between them they hefted it up. The pannier was still latched down. Lytton had not got to his guns. He lay face-up, a bright splash of red in his left upper arm. He was gritting his teeth against the hurt, shaking as if soaked to the skin in ice-water.

Allie didn’t think he was badly shot. Compared to some.

‘You stupid man,’ Susan said, kicking Lytton in the ribs. ‘You stupid, stupid
man
!’

Lytton gulped in pain and cried out.

* * *

It wasn’t as if they had much livestock. Allie looked round at the eight cows, all with names and personalities, all free of the madness. Gosmore Farm had a chicken coop, a vegetable garden, a copse of apple trees and a wedge of hillside given over to grazing. It was a struggle to eke a living; without the milk quota, it would be hopeless.

It was wrong to kill the cows.

Despair lodged like a stone in Allie’s heart. This was not what the West should be. When younger, she’d read Thomas Hardy’s Wessex novels,
The Sheriff of Casterbridge
and
Under the Hanging Tree,
and she still followed
The Archers.
In storybook Wessex, men like Squire Maskell always lost. Alder needed Dan Archer, the wireless hero, to stride into the Valiant Soldier, six-guns blazing, and lay the vermin in the dirt.

There was no Dan Archer.

Susan held all her rage in, refusing to talk about the cows and Maskell. She always concentrated on what she called ‘the job at hand’. Just now, she was nursing Lytton. Erskine’s shot had gone right through his arm. Allie had looked for but not found the bullet, to give him as a souvenir. He’d lost blood, but he would live.

Allie hugged Pansy, her favourite, and brushed flies away from the cow’s gummy eyes.

‘I won’t let they hurt you,’ she vowed.

But what could she do?

Depressed, she trudged down to the house.

* * *

Lytton was sitting up on the cot in the living-room, with his shirt off and a clean white bandage tight round his arm. Allie saw he had older scars. This was not the first time he’d been shot. He was sipping a mug of hot tea. Susan, bustling furiously, tidied up around him.

When he saw Allie, Lytton smiled. ‘Susan’s been telling me about this Maskell character. He seems to like to have things his way.’

The door opened and Squire Maskell stepped in.

‘That I do, sir.’

He was dressed for church, in a dark suit and kipper tie. He knew enough not to wear a gunbelt on Gosmore Farm, though Allie guessed he was carrying a small pistol in his armpit. He had shot Allie’s dad with such a gun, in a dispute over wages. Allie barely remembered her father, who had been indentured on Maskell’s farm before the War and an NFU rep afterwards.

‘I don’t remember extending an invitation, Squire,’ Susan said evenly.

‘Susan, Susan, things could be so much more pleasant between us. We are neighbours.’

‘In the same way a pack of dogs are neighbours to a fox gone to earth.’

Maskell laughed without humour. ‘I’ve come to extend an offer of help.’

Susan snorted. Lytton said nothing but looked Maskell over with eyes that saw the gun under the hankie-pocket and the knife in the boot.

‘I understand you have BSE problems? My condolences.’

‘There’s no Mad Cow Disease in my herd.’

‘It’s hardly a herd, Susan. It’s a gaggle. But without them, where would you be?’

Maskell spread empty hands.

‘This place is hardly worth the upkeep, Susan. You’re only sticking at it because you have a nasty case of Stubborn Fever. The land is worthless to anyone but me. Gosmore Farm is a wedge in my own holdings. It would be so convenient if I could take down your fences, if I could incorporate your few acres into the Maskell Farm.’

‘Now tell me something I don’t know.’

‘I can either buy from you now above the market value, or wait a while and buy from the bank at a knock-down price. I’m making an offer now purely out of neighbourly charity. The old ways may have changed, but as Squire I still feel an obligation to all who live within my bailiwick.’

‘The only obligation your forefathers felt was to sweat the serfs into early graves and beget illegitimate cretins on terrorised girls. Have you noticed how the Maskell chin shows up on those Gilpin creatures?’

Maskell was angry now, but trying to keep calm. A vein throbbed by his eye.

‘Susan, you’re upset, I see that. But you must be realistic. Despite what you think, I don’t want to see you on the mercy of the parish. Robert Ames was a good friend to me, and…’

‘You can fuck off, Maskell,’ Susan spat. ‘Fuck
right
off.’

The Squire’s smile drained away. He was close to sputtering. His Maskell chin wobbled.

‘Don’t ever mention my husband again. And now leave.’

‘Susan,’ he pleaded.

‘I think Goodwife Ames made herself understood,’ Lytton said.

Maskell looked at the wounded man. Lytton eased himself gingerly off the cot, expanding his chest, and stood. He was tall enough to have to bow his head under the beamed ceiling.

‘I don’t believe I’ve had…’

‘Lytton,’ he introduced himself.

‘And you would be…?’

‘I would be grateful if you left the house as Goodwife Ames wishes. And fasten the gate on your way out. There’s a Country Code, you know.’

‘Good day,’ Maskell said, not meaning it, and left.

There was a moment of silence.

‘That’s the second time you’ve taken it on yourself to act for me,’ Susan said, angrily. ‘Have I asked your help?’

Lytton smiled. His hard look faded and he seemed almost mischievous. ‘I beg pardon, Goodwife.’

‘Don’t do it again, Lytton.’

* * *

By the next day, Lytton was well enough to walk. But he couldn’t ride: if he tried to grip the Norton’s left handlebar, it was as if a red-hot poker were pressed to his bicep. They were stuck with him.

‘You can do odd jobs for your keep,’ Susan allowed. ‘Allie will show you how.’

‘Can he come feed the chickens?’ Allie asked, excited despite herself. ‘I can get the eggs.’

‘That’ll be a start.’

Susan walked across to the stone sheds where the cows spent the night, to do the milking. Allie took Lytton by the hand and led him round to the chicken coop.

‘Maskell keeps his chickens in a gurt prison,’ Allie told him. ‘Clips their beaks with pliers, packs they in alive like sardines. If one dies, t’others eat her. They’m
cannibal
chickens…’

They turned round the corner.

The chicken coop was silent. Tears pricked the backs of Allie’s eyes. Lumps of feathery matter lay in the scarlet-stained straw.

Her first thought was that a fox had got in.

Lytton lifted up a flap of chicken-wire. It had been cut cleanly.

The coop was a lean-to, a chicken-wire frame built against the house. On the stone wall was daubed a sign in blood, an upside-down tricorn fork in a circle.

‘Travellers,’ Allie spat.

There was a big Gypsy site at Glastonbury. Since the War, Travellers were supposed to stay on the sites, living off the dole. But they were called Travellers because they didn’t like to keep to one place. They were always escaping from sites and raiding farms and villages.

Lytton shook his head.

‘Hippies are hungry. They’d never have killed and left the chickens. And smashed the eggs.’

The eggs had been gathered and carefully stamped on.

‘Some hippies be veggie.’

The blood was still fresh. Allie didn’t see how this could have been done while they were asleep. The killers must have struck fast, or the chickens would have squawked.

‘Where’s your vegetable garden?’ Lytton asked.

Allie’s heart pounded like a fist.

She showed him the path to the garden, which was separated from the orchard by a thick hedge. Beanpoles had been wrenched from the earth and used to batter and gouge the rest of the crops. Cabbages were squashed, young carrots pulped by boot-heels, marrows exploded. The greenhouse was a skeleton, every pane of glass broken, tomato plants strewn and flattened inside. Even the tiny herb patch Allie had been given for herself was dug up and scattered.

Allie sobbed. Liquid squirted from her eyes and nose. Hundreds of hours of work destroyed.

There was a twist of cloth on the frame of the greenhouse. Lytton examined it: a tie-dyed poncho, dotted with emblem badges of marijuana leaves, multi-coloured swirls and cartoon cats.

‘Hippies,’ Allie yelled. ‘Fuckin’ hippies.’

Susan appeared at the gate. She swayed, almost in a swoon, and held the gate to stay standing.

‘Hippies didn’t do this,’ Lytton said.

He lifted a broken tomato plant from the paved area by the greenhouse door and pointed at a splashed yellow stain.

‘Allie, where’ve you seen something like this recently?’

It came to her.

‘Terry Gilpin. When he spat at thic letter.’

‘He has better aim with his mouth than his gun,’ Lytton commented, wincing. ‘Thankfully.’

* * *

Lytton stood by his Norton, lifting his gauntlets out of the pannier.

‘Are you leaving?’ Allie asked.

‘No,’ Lytton said, taking his gunbelt, ‘I’m going down the pub.’

He settled the guns on his hips and fastened the buckle. The belt seemed to give him strength, to make him stand straighter.

Susan, still shocked, didn’t protest.

‘Are youm going to shoot Squire Maskell?’ Allie asked.

That snapped Susan out of it. She took Allie and shook her by the shoulders, keening wordlessly.

‘I’m just going to have a lunchtime drink.’

Allie hugged Susan fiercely. They were on the point of losing everything, but gave each other the last of their strength. There was something Maskell couldn’t touch.

Lytton strolled towards the front gate.

Allie pulled away from Susan. For a moment, Susan wouldn’t let her go. Then, without words, she gave her blessing. Allie knew she was to look after Lytton.

He was half-way down the street, passing the bus shelter, disused since the service was cut, when Allie caught up him. At the fork in the road where the Village Oak stood was the Valiant Soldier.

They walked on.

‘I hope you do shoot him,’ she said.

‘I just want to find out why he’s so obsessed with Gosmore Farm, Allie. Men like Maskell always have reasons. That’s why they’re pathetic. You should only be afraid of men without reasons’

* * *

Lytton pushed open the door, and stepped into the public bar. This early, there were few drinkers. Danny Keough sat in his usual seat, wooden leg unslung on the floor beside him. Teddy Gilpin was swearing at the Trivial Pursuit machine, and his brother was nursing a half of scrumpy and a packet of crisps, ogling the Tiller Girl in the
Sun.

Behind the bar, Janet Speke admired her piled-up hair in the long mirror. She saw Lytton and displayed immediate interest, squirming tightly in an odd way Allie almost understood.

Terry’s mouth sagged open, giving an unprepossessing view of streaky-bacon-flavour mulch. The Triv machine fell silent, and Teddy’s hands twitched away from the buttons to his gun. Allie enjoyed the moment, knowing everyone in the pub was knotted inside, wondering what the stranger—her friend, she realised—would do next. Gary Chilcot, a weaselly little Maskell hand, slipped away, into the back bar where the Squire usually drank.

‘How d’ye do, Goodman,’ said Janet, stretching thin red lips round dazzling teeth in a fox smile. ‘What can I do you for?’

‘Bells. And Tizer for Allie here.’

‘She’m underage.’

‘Maskell won’t mind. We’re old friends.’

Janet fetched the whisky and the soft drink. Lytton looked at the exposed nape of her neck, where wisps of hair escaped, and caught the barmaid smiling in the mirror, eyes fixed on his even though he was standing behind her.

Lytton sipped his whisky, registering the sting in his eyes.

Janet went to the juke-box and put on Portishead. She walked back to the bar, almost dancing, hips in exaggerated motion. Music insinuated into the spaces between them all, blotting out their silent messages.

The door opened and Reeve Draper came in, out of breath. He had obviously been summoned.

‘I’ve been meaning to call again on Goodwife Ames,’ he said to Lytton, not mentioning that when last he had seen Lytton the newcomer was on the ground with a bullet-hole in his shoulder put there by the Reeve’s Constable. ‘Tony Jago, the Traveller Chieftain, has escaped from Glastonbury with a band of sheep-shaggin’, drug-takin’ gyppos. We’m expecting raids on farms. Susan should watch out for them. Bad lot, gyppos. No respect for property. They’m so stoned on dope they’m don’t know what they’m doin’.’

Lytton took a marijuana-leaf badge from his pocket. One of the emblems pinned to the poncho left in the ravaged garden. He tossed it into Terry Gilpin’s scrumpy.

‘Oops, sorry,’ he said.

This time, Terry went for his gun and fumbled. Lytton kicked the stool from under him. Terry sprawled, choking on crisps, on the floor. With a boot-toe, Lytton pinned Terry’s wrist. He nodded to Allie, and she took the gun away. Terry swore, brow dotted with cider-stinking sweat bullets.