ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom is a poet from Devon in the UK and has been published in Punk Noir, Bristol Noir and A Thin Slice of Anxiety.
Seeing anything from the point-of-view of an outsider can cause bias, and is hard to change in a person. You were either with the hunt or against it, and if you were against it, you had better not be deep into country, when the hounds were let loose. Fred was against hunting although he had never said so out loud to any one of the farm hands or family. I knew though, it was in his eyes, the eyes always told the truth. He tried to keep himself and his values tight within, so on hunt days like today, would linger and hide whenever he could. I was what you would call a sovereign, or at least as best I could be, but I liked Fred so went along with him and on our own hunt. A set of trees on the north ridge of the valley was as good a place as any for this, and with the hunt making its final markings deep down within the gully, we watched alone, or so we thought.
“Boo! What are you two doing all the way up here, being gay?” A startling woman’s voice came from behind, as we turned to see Daisy standing there, hands on hips like an entitled boss.
“We were blocking off this area Daisy, anyway what is it to you?” replied Fred in as much assertiveness as he could muster, but a choked-up throat letting him down with a squeak at the end.
“OK, OK, don’t wet your knickers Freddy, fuck what is it your time of the month, and what about you John, are you here to protect him from, the big bad wolf?”
I had learnt long ago that saying nothing was far better than getting involved, and that a-look could say all that was needed.
“OK, don’t say anything you creep, stay here with your boyfriend.”
“Don’t speak to him like that!” Fred letting out the high-pressured remark.
“Why what are you going to do about it Fredwin?” With that she began to walk out from the trees as if to descend down into the valley, turning to say her last piece, as Fred lunged forward pushing her backwards and over the edge, her head hitting a rock with a thud, and as if a fish culled, lay motionless.
The other families and hands were spread out around the ridge at various advantages, in their 4-wheel drives, the hands on their quad bikes with gun lock boxes insitu, and a few on horseback in full uniform with hats. The day was pearl grey with mist, visibility poor, and the ground hard and cold. Occasionally a hawk would come out of the mist, circle and then disappear back into it.
“Oh, what have I done, Daisy! wake up, wake up! They are going to kill me John, when they find her, they are going to shoot me.” He looked at me with his childlike eyes, and delicate skin and curly hair, as shocked as human that I ever saw. There was something honest about it, something real that I had never witnessed before in a man.
“Here’s what we are going to do Fred, are you listening, look at me, we are going to... listen Fred! we are going to pick her up and put her on the quad and we are going to take her to the marsh land, OK?”
“OK. Oh God.” Fred whimpered.
We walked to her side and saw the open eyes, the turning, the expressionless clay, and the blood on the rock trickling down onto the heather. lifting her big body, in silence, pulling the skull away from where it was stuck on the rock, and pulled and dropped, and struggled for 30 minutes until she was slumped over the bike, and driving up and over to the marshes.
The radios were only really for use in emergencies as the noises would alert any pray instantly. So, when our radio on the quad started to go off, we looked at each other and knew.
“Ryan are you there, Ryan come in, you need to come and see this.”
“What’s the matter Ben, this better not be a joke.”
“No joke, the dogs have found blood, a lot of blood up at the north ridge, and Daisies quad is a mile or so back and she’s not anywhere, COME!”
That was all we heard on the radio, we tried to dig but the ground was solid, the surface water frozen, so the body lay heavy, face down, still. The sound of the dogs different this time, and the ears of the pray that listened to them. I took out Fred’s gun from the lock box and tried to get Fred to come but dumbed to inertia, almost like his spirit had left his body and all that remained was, the automatic, he sat and remained.
By the time I was up further in the trees, looking down through the scope at Fred, surrounded by men and woman, heavy and wild, I knew it was over for him. They took out a tow rope from a truck, dragged him to the nearest tree and hung him till he was dead. Fred had died 30 minutes before though and did not struggle.
They searched the area for me, but the marsh was hard to track on in winter, and nobody really knew what I looked like, I watched them for an hour, mostly fighting amongst themselves, not satisfied, never satisfied. I put the cross hairs over each of their heads one-by-one, bulging eyes and goitre necks, and waited for the hunt to begin again.