Travellers #1 (13 page)

Far off the dogs heard my shouts. Young Jokey and Whitey, Old Jokey’s and Whitey’s descendants, led the goats running, bleating, saying they were pleased to see me back, bunting my legs as I greeted them by name.

Jak, Jess, Trick, and Het barked, jumped, and landed feet together. Heads down, tails up, they leapt, twisted, and whined. I realised how they had suffered my absence. I knew I was going to return, but they couldn’t.

“Did you think I had left you behind?” I slipped off the donkey, hugging them. They sniffed me all over, as if listening to a strange story.

Smoke blurred the mouth of the cave. Hagar tottered out, one hand over her eyes. I ran and hugged her. She felt different, as if the flesh had slumped forward from her skeleton.

“Fool!” she said, the lines deepening around her mouth. “A Traveller never looks back.” I grinned and patted Nip. “Did you look after Hagar?” Poor Nip smelled rank. She was deaf.

With handfuls of dry bracken I rubbed down the donkeys. They rolled in a sandy patch, kicked up their heels, and tore mouthfuls of grass.

Hagar had rabbit stew simmering. “I hoped you had come to your senses and kept going.”

“I will not leave you behind.”

“Dolt!” Her eyes were haggard among wrinkles.

“Don’t you want to see what I’ve brought?”

She waved her hand dismissively. Her nose stood out from the cheeks; the skull stared through the skin at the temples. Her head looked narrower.

“You haven’t been eating.”

“Huh? The dogs took the animals out each day and brought them back. None has been lost.”

“You’re thinner.”

“What about Dinny and Tara?”

I told her their messages, how they looked, everything they said. She looked at the herbs Dinny had sent her. “I’ve never seen this leaf before,” she said.

“Dinny said to pour hot water on it and let it steep. He said it makes a cordial that will let you sleep. And this one is good for rheumatism, he told me. Tara brought me these plants from their gardens to put into ours. She said their old people chew the leaves. I’m going to plant them in mine.” Hagar sniffed, but she put the dried leaves away carefully.

I showed her the new seeds, described the Metal People’s gardens and the one I was going to dig. Hagar shook her head.

She pretended she wasn’t interested but sneaked a look when I put some potatoes in the pot. “Wait till you taste them! We’re going to grow them ourselves. Dinny told me how. We’re going to be Gardeners and Farmers!”

“We are Travellers,” said Hagar.

“Dinny says the Salt People told him the Whykatto is desert, burnt dry.”

“They want it for themselves. Take the animals and leave me behind.”

“Dinny says the Metal People don’t leave anyone behind. He says they never put babies outside to die.”

“Oh, Dinny says this, and Dinny says that. Did he tell you to get on with the Journey?”

“We are staying because there is nowhere to travel to. Hagar, I am not going to leave you behind!”

“If you were a man you would kill the girl’s father, take her, and go north. That’s what Karly Campy would do!”

I ladled out one of the boiled potatoes. Hagar sniffed. I
mashed it with gravy off the meat. Hagar always liked her food. She swallowed a spoonful, mumbled, and turned away.

I smiled. “Do you like it?”

“It’s all right.” She sucked another spoonful, toothless jaws working. “A Gardener must stay in one place.” As hurtfully as she knew how, Hagar said, “Your father would never do that.”

“It was different for him.”

“The Stag Man and the Dog Man will punish you.” Hagar still said prayers to the Animal Dancers, but I had almost forgotten them. “At least –” she paused and looked cunning. “At least you could go and see for yourself if the Whykatto is desert.” She glared. “Leave me behind: as I left my father; as my mother had to leave her mother; as my son left me. The Travellers have always left their old and sick behind. That is the Journey.”

“I am going to stay and look after you. Dragon and Tor are here. Mak is buried here, Bar on the mountains. The Hawk Cliffs,” I said, using Tara’s words, “the Hawk Cliffs are going to be our home.”

Hagar’s shadow was black as if painted on the wall. “Ish,” she said, voice sounding like a young girl’s, “remember the first Whykatto stream where we always camp after crossing the hills? How the animals run to drink from it and to eat the sweet Whykatto grass?”

“That stream dried up last year. The animals would die there this winter.”

“Bah! You are bewitched by that girl.”

Hagar used every argument she could think of. I was sinful. She blamed herself for not opening the Whykatto cave, for not asking the Gods to bless our Journey with their Dance. She ate less each day until she could not stand.

“You are making yourself ill.” I washed her body, dried her with a soft cloth. “Hagar, even if you were not here, we could not go north. The sun is angry. It is burning the Whykatto.”

All one sleepless night she lay, face clenched like a fist, hair wet with sweat. I sat her up, but she could not find any comfort, no matter how I arranged the cushions. She tried to hide her agony. Her breath stunk as if something inside her rotted. She drank Dinny’s cordial and said she felt better. But a few nights later I woke and found her in terrible pain.

“It hurts,” she said, laying a withered hand on her stomach. “Like something eating its way out.”

I steeped the yellow bark that helped her sleep before. She drank the mixture, slept a short while, but woke needing more. Each day she weakened. I tried all the healing skills she had taught me, brought berries, leaves, bark, and roots. Some she chewed and swallowed; others simmered for hours, and she drank their liquid. Nothing gave relief for long. I could not shift Hagar without hurting her.

“It would be kinder,” she said, “to leave me behind.”

There was a plant which killed any animal who ate it. We trained the dogs to recognize it and keep them away. One cold day Hagar told me to bring the dried berries and any shoots I could find on the Dark Shrub. A cold finger traced its icy tip down my back.

“I want you to live!”

“If you had left me behind this would not have happened. I have lived beyond my time. Bring me the Dark Shrub.”

Face contorted, she turned to the wall. She would not eat. She grew thinner and suffered more. Stronger mixtures of the old medicines no longer worked.

“You are making me suffer,” she said after a night of agony. “It’s not fair.” I heard a childish voice through hers. “It’s not fair.” They were the words I said when my father died, when Karly Campy left me behind. “It’s not fair!”

Long ago I had chopped and burned all the Dark Shrub along the bottom of the cliffs. Higher up it still grew. Although late in the season, there were a few shoots on the
cane-like branches, soft-green tips among the dark leaves. Those and a basket of dried berries, I collected, and showed her in silence.

“It will kill the beast eating my insides,” she said. “This is a good thing we do, Ish!”

I boiled the seeds and shoots to a sticky mess. It smelled of evil. I knew I was killing Hagar myself. The mountains disappeared, the lake turned black, and a hawk cried above the cliffs.

“I would have died after Karly Campy left me behind,” said Hagar. “I lived those happy years because of you, Ish. You have been better than a son. I taught you everything I know. Now I must follow Bar and Mak.”

One arm holding her up, I tilted the bowl past her cracked lips, and she gulped greedily.

“Ugh!” she retched, and brought up a little. “It is foul!” She cackled with her old grimace. “I always wondered what the Dark Shrub would taste like. Well, now I know!”

I wiped her mouth with a handful of wool. She took the dried seeds from my hand, pulled a face, and swallowed them. “I will not let the beast eat my insides,” she croaked. “Leave me, Ish.”

But I stayed, and we spoke of the Journey, of the animals and the people. She asked me to recite the names of the fords, the rivers, the hills. I talked of our days on the mountains, the blankets we wove and swapped. Hagar lay, eyes closed. I wrapped another blanket around her, went to the mouth of the cave, and whistled the dogs to bring the animals home. She slipped out her hand for mine.

When she trembled I held her. Convulsions shook her, her back arched, her throat heaved. Stinking, dark fluid ran from her body and mouth. I could keep her clean, little more.

I built up the fire. Black clouds hung low on the cliffs. Hagar said something, and I took her hand, spoke her name.
She opened her eyes, stared where shadows rose and fell with the flames. She stared with eyes so bright I looked up. A shadow like a hawk’s flew across the roof of the cave. The talons of her hand let go, and the Traveller continued her Journey.

Her pain had stopped, that was all I could think. It was not till Nip whimpered and dragged herself towards Hagar that I moved.

The hole in the cave’s sandy floor was well over my head when the spade clinked on stone slabs. I levered them up and, in the cavity below, saw the preserved corpse of a child. Her hands held flowers. Flowers wreathed her faded hair. An empty bowl stood beside her. Another was filled with seeds, the same we picked and chewed as we walked behind the animals. Hagar used to grind them and bake cakes sweet with wild honey.

There was a bone spoon, a necklace of dyed seeds on a thread that fell to dust when I touched it, and a toy dog carved out of wood as light as air. Her mother and father had buried her favourite toy with the girl so she should not be alone.

I washed Hagar’s shrivelled body, wrapped her in the blanket that had kept us warm through many a cold night, and laid her beside the child. My first piece of weaving Hagar had kept all these years. I put it under her head. Her nose sharp-cut, she looked like a hawk.

I put milk in the empty bowl, cheese on the seeds. The fire-drill Rose had sent with Bar, wool, and a loom, I set beside her. I made a circlet of lacey-bark flowers for her head, and between her hands laid her spindle. She would have fire, food, drink, and wool to spin and weave. Lowering the stone slabs, saying goodbye was easier because Hagar had a companion in that other world.

As I climbed out something on the roof of the cave caught
my eye, lines, a shape that bulged. I held up my torch of resinous wood. A charcoal drawing of a man spearing a deer. The bulge was the deer falling off a cliff, painted over a rock that swelled out of the roof. There were other paintings: dogs, animals, children playing on a log in the lake, and one of a hawk. I filled the grave beneath, ramming the sand hard.

That night I began drawing our story. Hagar walking behind the animals, her spindle, black scarf over her head, black dress, and bare feet. Lined forehead; furrowed cheeks; old eyes set deep, their sharp stare. Pursed mouth, snaggleteeth cackling, beaky nose. And, wearing flowers and a necklace of dyed seeds, a little girl danced and clutched Hagar’s dress; and a boy limped and held it on the other side.

Hagar was there yet not there, buried where I walked, near me when I slept. I spoke to her, thought of her as present in the cave. One morning I shot two grass-fat stags. When the donkeys carried them down I expected Hagar to hobble out and start slicing and drying the meat. “They’re in good condition,” I said towards the mouth of the cave.

“There is nothing to keep you here,” I heard her reply.

“I will not leave you behind.” I picked up the charcoal and filled in the outline, giving her clothes the shape they took as she walked, the easy lines of the folds. Hands blackened, I drew the stags’ death, bringing them home on the donkeys, skinning and boning, slicing and drying the meat.

Feed for the animals was the first thing. Store as much grass as possible. Everything else could be done in bad weather. The grass must be cut and dried while the sun shone, but I drew on the cave wall.

I forced myself out, sent the scythe crunching, swathe toppling on swathe. I kept the heel of the blade down, the tip up, and cut a narrow slice. I swung and leaned with the movement as Dinny did and learned the beautiful rhythm.

The grass dried blond and, hidden beneath fragrant
loads, the donkeys carried it inside a cave we didn’t use. The dogs helped me squash it down, barking, jumping, and disappearing, sneezing, shaking their heads. Each day I scythed more and turned yesterday’s with the long-handled fork. Hay perfumed the air under the Hawk Cliffs and we began filling a second cave.

“It’s better to have too much than too little,” I said to Hagar and saw her smile grimly.

“If you’d left me behind, Ish, there’d be no need. The animals would feed themselves.”

“We are Farmers now,” I said.

When the donkeys seized mouthfuls from their loads I called, “Hagar they’re stealing the hay!” I tethered them on the green grass, while I stacked it, but they wanted the dry stuff. “You’ll be sick of it before winter’s over,” I told them and took time off haymaking to hunt again.

Like her mother, Jess scented and heard deer long before me. Her tail lashed, one of her ears pricked, and she looked up to get my attention. I tiptoed after her, aimed, and drove an arrow into yet another deer. The stags were red on the green grass.

During rain I stacked firewood to dry. Slumped in front of the fire after a day that began at first light and ended after dark I said to Hagar, “I want the caves full of hay, and lots of food stored. I like the idea of staying here.”

“When winter comes,” I heard her reply, “you’ll have more time. You can sew clothes of deer skin.” The last thing she had made me was a cloak of oily wool, tightly-woven to shed rain. “Set up the looms and weave all winter,” I heard her say. “You’re going to need more tools, clever things like that scythe.”

The animals were restive under the cliff. That afternoon Jak and Jess had driven off some wild dogs. There was the stream’s rush, the rain’s drip over the cliffs. I wanted to draw more pictures but took my bow and joined the dogs. Hungry
eyes watched us.

Rain blew under the cliff. Even a wall of stakes wouldn’t keep the animals dry. Much lower in the Whykatto we hadn’t had to keep them warm in winter. A wild dog howled.

The answer was so simple, I should have thought of it before. I heard Hagar say, “The big cave …”

It couldn’t wait till morning. I drove a heavy pole into the debris at the mouth of the big cave and levered out a boulder.

Jak barked. Twice he trotted into the darkness, hackles raised, and I nocked an arrow. The others growled, too. I worked fast, enlarging the entry. Nervous, the sheep and goats followed Jess. The donkeys pushed after, pleased to get inside. Nothing could get past the dogs. Back in the smaller cave, Hagar said, “Well done!” Too tired to reply I fell on my bed and had to lift my gammy leg beside the other.

Though the animals were safe, I took every chance to hunt and destroy the wild dogs. I cut and dried all the handy grass above the cliffs, pushed it down a sheer face, and stored it. The mountains to the south gleamed and stepped closer. “We must leave as soon as they’re white,” Hagar always said. I wondered about Tara. Dinny’s thatched hut would be warm, and they had the boiling water and steam vents. Besides, their valley was much lower.

In a hidden swale above the cliffs, the grass still grew lush, such rich grass, I scythed it. One more day’s drying was all it needed.

There was a frost next morning, but that just meant we would get a fine day. We were used to frosts that turned the whole of the Whykatto white, sparkled, and disappeared in the sun, but this was harsher. Sky and lake looked made of the same dull metal. No bird flew. The air was brittle. Sound carried great distances, the voice of the stream, a hind’s bark.

I would lead the animals around the back of the cliffs and save the grazing close at hand. It would be like a holiday. On our way back we would pick up the last of the dried grass and tumble it down the cliff.

Jak and Jess were uneasy. They probably smelled or heard wild dogs. In the afternoon we grazed towards the Hawk Cliffs to load the hay. I shot a couple of rabbits and had just whistled Jak to let me catch up when a cold hand pressed against the back of my neck. The mountains disappeared in cloud; the lake turned black. White patches rose where gusts tossed broken columns of water.

Jak trotted. Jess and Trick ran the animals after him. We galloped through the swale. Something harder and sharper than rain rattled. Needles stung the backs of my legs. The animals’ coats were flattened shiny-black. Heads low, ears and tails, they clattered down the zigzags, excited, calling, and hurried into their cave. The dogs shook, barked at the thunder, and licked their coats clean.

“We couldn’t manage without you.” Jak’s lop-sided face, its white blaze down one side grinned at my voice. Jess’s markings were more even. Trick shone black. “You’ve grown your coats longer for winter!” I said.

A door of strong stakes on leather hinges closed the animals’ cave. The dogs had a smaller door, one they could push open from either side. No wild dog would dare it.

As the first southerly brayed and blew pebbles off the cliff top, I ate. Now I would have time to make a door for our own cave. I guided Nip, near blind now as well as deaf, to lie by the fire. Further back lay Het, the little bitch from Nip’s last litter, heavy with her own pups.

The lush grass blackened and rotted in the swale. Thanks to Dinny’s scythe, however, we had three caves full. Summery-smelling hay heavy with seeds and goodness. I lay and looked up at the rows of split fish and fat eels smoked golden-brown under the roof. Bundled herbs hung, broad leaves
crackling with dryness, bulbs and roots turning brown and black, finer leaves drying like brittle cobwebs. Strings of dried venison slices festooned one wall. Bundles, baskets, and containers of food waiting for winter. Rich plenty for all under the Hawk Cliffs.

This, I thought, is what a Farmer feels, and Het thumped her tail.