The Fall of Chance (32 page)

The bear had demolished the larder. Only one wall of the tin shack was still standing and its silver surface framed the bear’s silhouette. On all fours, it was imposing but when it heard the Wizard’s arrival, it stood up and then it was truly impressive. The tales were no lie; the Wizard was dwarfed by the beast he was rushing to confront. Unt sprinted to help.

The Wizard had closed on the bear before Unt had the chance to get near. He cast the torch onto the ground at the creature’s feet and though it recoiled, it didn’t run. It came back at him, all the more fierce for its fear.

The Wizard gripped his spear in both hands and lunged at the bear. The blow hit the unmissable target but just seemed to bounce off the animal’s hide. The Wizard was left off-balance for the bear’s retuning swipe but managed to pull the spear back in time to block it. The iron shaft took the impact but the force drove the Wizard onto his back. The next attack would surely kill him but with a final burst of speed, Unt entered the fray.

He yelled incoherently, knowing it was suicide but sure that the only way to survive was to make an all-out attack.

The bear took its attention off the Wizard and watched Unt as he came running in. With momentum behind him, he swung the hoe over his shoulder, right at the bear’s face.

It would have done serious injury to a man but the bear just looked confused. Unt was terrified but knew he couldn’t afford to hesitate. Snarling, he jabbed at it, one, two, three times. Still it did nothing but baffle the creature.

By now the Wizard was back on his feet and he joined the attack. The bear was wary of being outnumbered, even though these little creatures had failed to harm it. It wavered, backed off, and then went into full retreat. The Wizard grabbed the fallen torch and followed it into the woods, shouting.

He stopped after several dozen yards and returned to Unt, leaning on the spear as he came.

Unt was stood with his hands on his knees. “Wow,” he panted.

The Wizard shrugged in an affected way. “Not the first bear I’ve had to deal with.”

“Good job I was here this time,” said Unt.

“Never had any problem getting rid of them before,” said the Wizard. “I was distracted with worry over you getting hurt.”

They returned to the cabin where Unt spent the night listening for bears but the only thing that roared was the Wizard’s snoring.

*              *              *              *

Some time later, they were out gathering firewood together when Unt said, “You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said: about using time productively.”

“And time spent daydreaming isn’t that,” said the Wizard.

Unt ignored the jibe. “I was thinking about the stream, how we could turn it into a mill sluice.”

“Know how to do that, do you?”

“No, but I’m sure you could work it out.”

“And what use would that be?” said the Wizard. “I’ve done without a damned mill all this time. What will it bring us but a waste of effort?”

“A mill? Well, you could make flour, for one. We could even use it to make power: get some electricity going.”

“Now
that
I know nothing about.”

“Well I do. We had a windmill back home that did a similar job. We all learned the theory.”

“And what would it run?”

Unt shrugged. “Lighting? Heating? There’s still the milling, anyhow.”

“The stream’s too weak to drive a wheel.”

“We could dam it, build some pressure.”

“It’d be too much effort to dig a reservoir.”

“But once we’ve got it we can stock it with fish. Catching them then will be easy.”

“And what about a stone for your precious mill? You can’t have a mill without a millstone. Where are you going to get that and how are you gonna get it in place?”

Unt frowned. “Look, I know there are problems but if we talk it through, maybe we can get our heads around them. Progress comes through sharing ideas.”

The Wizard let his wood pile drop. “See here, Unt. You’re a good boy but you’ve got to see that you’re still labouring under the delusion of civilisation. You don’t need a mill: you can get all the food one man needs alone.

“What you’re talking about is a project to feed hundreds of people. Those people don’t exist anymore. They threw you out because you dared to take what they wouldn’t take for themselves. Now you can be selfish with a clear conscience. You’ve nobody left to help.”

*              *              *              *

Unt carried on regardless. The Wizard moaned that he was wasting time and threatened to withhold food, saying that as he hadn’t earned it, he couldn’t have it. When Unt offered no resistance though, he surrendered it anyway.

First, Unt made a wooden channel. It would have been better to dig one but that would take time and there was plenty more of that to do for the reservoir. The Wizard had shown him how to cut planks from logs and he put his new skills to good use.

When he’d finished, the channel was rickety but functional. It was nowhere near watertight but it didn’t need to be. The water had only a short way to travel before it reached the point where the mill would be.

Unt left the mill itself while he worked out how he was going to approach it. To give him time to think while he worked, he set about digging the reservoir. He found a patch of sunken ground that would give him a starting point and then enlarged it. He dug right up to the stream but didn’t break through its bank yet. He didn’t want the water rushing in while he was still trying to work.

Preparing the channel had been difficult but digging the reservoir was pure back-breaking labour. It was the kind of work that was so exhausting it sweated out all the badness and left you exhausted but content. Unt worked up such a lather that he barely noticed autumn pass into winter.

The Wizard responded to Unt’s obvious graft and even helped him from time to time but it was clearly Unt’s project and he let him take all the responsibility.

As Unt worked, he thought about two things: how to make the wheel and how to get a millstone. The millstone problem he solved quite by accident. He was digging when his spade hit something hard. It was a rock - not the first he’d encountered - and as usual, he moved the soil from around it in order to shift it. As he did so, he realised that the rock had a very regular shape - almost circular - and had a rough, grainy surface. With a bit of chiselling, it would do nicely.

He rolled his find down to where the mill would be and left it as a kind of marker. He then continued his excavations until he was satisfied the weight of water would provide enough pressure.

Unt now turned his attention to the mill. With the smaller stones he’d dug out, he built a column that would house the wheel axle. He then built a wooden shell to surround the machinery. All the while, he puzzled over how he would get the job finished.

On the day he was putting the final touches to the roof, he heard a cry of “Look out!” from up the hill. He looked up to see a dark shape bearing quickly down on him. He didn’t have time to see what it was or to get out the way. It shot past and struck a nearby tree and it was only then that he saw what it was.

It was a mill wheel. He looked up the hill and saw the Wizard gambolling down toward him. The Wizard rarely ran and when he did, he was hunting. This was something else entirely. He was coming down the steep slope in such a head-long rush he was almost slipping.

Unt reached out an arm to stop him and then looked at the wheel. It was beautiful. Unt had thought he’d have to make a rough shape with lots of short edges but the Wizard had made a true circle. He must have warped the wood so that it hugged the meaty spokes. The paddles round its edge must have been secured tightly because they hadn’t come off after rolling down hill and smacking into a tree.

“You made that?” asked Unt, awed.

“Yep,” said the Wizard, too pleased with himself to even be ungracious.

“It’s wonderful.”

“Yes it is.”

*              *              *              *

From that point on, the Wizard became more of an equal partner in the project. He was invaluable in making the mechanism that would turn the wheel’s motion into a grinding action for the stone. Unt worked with him and soon the mill building was finished.

“Right, what’s left?” asked the Wizard as they ate a meal to celebrate their success.

“The sluice gates,” said Unt. “We’ll need one to release the water out of the reservoir and another to let us control the flow of water into it.”

The Wizard grunted. “We’ll need hinges then. Damn tricky metalwork are hinges.”

“Can you make them?”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t, did I? Tell you what, you get yourself over to my bookshelf and bring me over the blue volume.”

Unt went over to the corner of mouldy books as instructed. The shelf had always been a bit of a mystery to Unt. It was the only place in the camp where the Wizard didn’t tell him to always help himself. He’d never expressly told Unt to keep off it but Unt had always got the impression he shouldn’t go near.

There was only one blue book on the shelf. On its own, it probably wouldn’t have been identifiable as blue, it was so washed and faded, but next to it was a red book and that made the original colour clear.

Unt took the blue book and flicked it open. It was filled with hand-written notes and diagrams on all sorts of practical things. Unt hadn’t seen the Wizard’s handwriting before but knew by the short, waspish style that it had to be his. He realised it was the sum total of the Wizard’s knowledge. Everything he was was laid out in this book.

As Unt leafed through, he saw it was a chaotic mixture of random topics. Like its author, it was a collection of bursts of intensity. There was no logic behind the layout. ‘Eclectic’ would be a generous term. It would take ages to find the correct section without the Wizard’s help.

Unt was about to return to the fireplace but the red book caught his eye. Presumably, it was just another book like the first but there was something about it that was calling him. Unt sensed that he shouldn’t look. He didn’t need to and there were better times to try and get a peak but still, it demanded to be read.

He stole a guilty look over his shoulder - a thrilling, unpleasant emotion he’d almost forgotten. The Wizard was busying himself with something or other. His back was turned from Unt and he was hunched intently over whatever it was he was doing. Unt snatched the book and opened it.

The yellowed pages didn’t have diagrams. They were solid blocks of text, each roughly half a page long. Every block was preceded by a header with numbers and words. Unt recognised them as dates, even though he didn’t recognise the calendar.

The book had fallen open at a particular place as though this were a page often turned to. Unt’s eye was drawn to an entry written in a bolder hand, the passion involved imprinted in the script. He read:

October 21
st

It’s three weeks since she left. She said she’d be with me always and now she’s gone. No note, no nothing. Only today have the pieces started to come together. I saw Sally in the street today. She looked like she wanted to run away so I went over and had a chat, pinned her. I could see she knew something but didn’t want to let on. I wondered what she might have told her friend and then I realised: Sally’s a midwife.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing!?” A banshee screech ripped his ear.

A bony hand clawed the book from him. The force of the tug spun him round to face the Wizard. The old man was filled with a white fury deeper than Unt had ever seen.

“I’m sorry, Unt stammered, “I-”

“What the hell gives you the right to go looking through people’s things?”

“I didn’t realise.”

“Didn’t realise what colour blue is? It’s that one there. The one you laid aside to go snooping.”

“I didn’t know I wasn’t to look.”

“I don’t want you watching me have a shit but I don’t need to tell you not to, do I?”

The Wizard hefted the book like a weapon, as though he might beat Unt’s brains in with it. It was such an animal rage Unt doubted he could even reason.

“I’m sorry!” he tried again, desperately. “Honestly. I thought it was just like the other one.” Unt believed himself at that moment.

It was enough to make the Wizard waiver for a heartbeat, a tiny influence that deflected the juggernaut of his anger.

“Damn it boy, I told you the blue one.”

“And it was such good stuff I thought this must be more like it.”

The Wizard lowered the book. “Say I take you at your word. Why didn’t you close it the second you saw what it was?”

“How could I know what it was before I read it?”

“The dates,” said the Wizard, “The entries. What else could it be?”