Chapter Thirteen
Jarvis Turnpike’s face was almost as red as his overalls. Flecks of spit flew from his mouth as he berated her.
“What the devil are you letting that dog of yours–”
“Please,” said Holly desperately, “shush! Don’t shout!”
“I’ll shout if I–” He stopped as Holly, mouthing at him, pointed to the ground beneath their feet.
“It wasn’t my dog worrying your sheep,” she whispered. “It was the wolves. They were chasing him. They’re down there, in the caves. That’s where they’ve been hiding. My dog found them – he led me here.”
She did not mention that he had also led the pack of wolves here. Doofus had scrabbled out of the opening behind her and now stood patiently by her side, only his heaving flanks revealing the efforts he had made that morning.
Jarvis Turnpike stared at her, his mouth open. “Those wolves? They’re there, down underground?”
“I think that’s their entrance, where I just climbed out behind that clump of heather. But I fell in through a hole in the stream bed, on the other side of Barges Bridge. Be careful!”
This last was because Jarvis had just jumped over the heather to see the entrance. “Well! You’d never know there was a hole there, until you were right on it,” he said, amazed.
Holly had begun to shiver, although it was much warmer up here in the sunshine than it had been underneath the earth.
“I don’t want to stay here,” she said, glancing around.
“Come on, then,” said Jarvis decisively. “Back to the farmhouse, and my Missus will look after you while I look after this.” He began to stride away towards the farm. Holly and Doofus followed, until they reached the gateway. There Doofus stopped and lay down.
Jarvis turned and stared at him. “What’s that dog doing?”
“He’s doing what he does,” said Holly.
The farmer shook his head and yelled into the house. “Lexie?”
Holly had never thought there might be a Mrs Turnpike, let alone a baby Turnpike. But his wife, when she appeared, was young and thin and anxious-looking, with a red-haired, red-faced baby hiccupping on her shoulder.
“Stay in the house,” commanded Jarvis as he marched inside. “Keep the doors and windows shut.”
“Why? What’s going on?”
“This lass found the wolves’ den.” Jarvis unlocked a cupboard and grabbed a shotgun. “I’m going to fill that hole in once and for all!”
He strode outside again and Holly heard the tractor roar into throaty life. Lexie ran upstairs, carrying the baby, to look out from the hall window.
Holly followed, trying to explain the situation and stuttering in the attempt. She didn’t have the words to describe the presence in the tunnels; but Lexie listened without questions, while the baby clenched its podgy fists in her hair.
“I don’t understand all this about wolves,” said Lexie, staring through the window at the tractor chugging down the farm track. It wasn’t the red tractor this time, but a slower, heavier, green one with an earth-moving shovel attached.
As it approached the gate, Doofus stood up and strolled out of its way. Then he lay down again as soon as it had passed.
“I don’t understand either,” said Holly. Her head was a jumble of tunnels and wolves. Why exactly had Doofus been there with them?
He wasn’t with them now, thank goodness. Holly shuddered as she saw the tractor jolt over the uneven ground to Barges Bridge. Something was moving through the clumped grass beyond the bridge, making her heart stop momentarily; but it wasn’t grey. More sandy-coloured, she thought, the same shade as the dry reeds; and anyway next moment it was gone.
The digger got to work, lifting and filling, for several minutes. Then she saw Jarvis throw the shotgun to his shoulder with a swift movement: a shot rang out above the tractor’s thunder.
At the same instant, there was a long drawn out howl from the farmyard. It was Doofus, who had his noise pointed to the sky. There was a second shot: a second howl, which set off all the tethered farm dogs howling too. Holly’s heart began to pound again amidst the din. She flinched away from the window.
But Lexie, staring out, said,
“Are those really wolves? He’s got two of them. He’s a good shot, my Jarvis.”
Holly swallowed. She could barely speak. “Are there any more?”
“I can’t see any. He’s filling the hole in now. Don’t you worry, pet. You’re safe.”
Holly did not know whether to be glad or sorry. What about the poor wolves, buried alive under all that soil? It was a horrible thought. Her imagination could all too easily conjure up the feel of falling earth, cold and damp and smothering.
“Come on,” said Lexie. “I’ll make you a hot drink.”
Down in the kitchen, Holly held the baby while Lexie made coffee. She did not know what to do with the baby. Its head rolled and it waved its fat arms as if trying to conduct her. She was glad to hand it back over in exchange for a mug of coffee, which was not as bad as she expected, being very milky and very sweet.
There were no more shots. Somewhere outside the tractor was still growling. Holly tried not to think about it, and looked around the kitchen instead. It was a dark, cosy room, with tiny, deep-set windows, their wide sills crammed with china knick-knacks and baby photographs.
One of the photos was propped against a stone with a hole in it. It was a little bigger than her hand, and a bluish colour, not like the local stone. The small, smooth hole looked drilled and polished. She bent down automatically to look through it.
A golden eye looked back.
Holly nearly dropped her coffee. She gulped, and made herself look through the hole again. No eye. Of course not. Just a cluttered windowsill. She was all on edge, imagining things.
“What’s this?”
“That’s his first haircut,” said Lexie fondly.
“No, the rock.”
“Oh, that… Jarvis dug that up nearby when he was clearing the pasture.”
The tractor roared up outside, and the baby squealed in delighted answer. A moment later Jarvis Turnpike came back in.
“That’s that done,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he’d just been squashing woodlice. “Was that your bike on the bridge? I brought it back for you.”
“Thank you,” said Holly faintly.
“Want a lift back down the road?”
She shook her head.
“Don’t forget to take that dog of yours,” he said. “It’s behaving itself now. I thought it was as bad as them wolves. But maybe not. Maybe they were just chasing after him, like you said.”
“He’s part wolf-hound,” Holly offered as an explanation, “so they probably thought he was their enemy.” She crossed her fingers behind her back.
“Is he? That would explain how he tracked them down,” said Lexie.
“Well, put him on a lead,” said Jarvis, and he handed Holly a length of yellow cable.
“Yes. I will. Are they really all gone? There’s – there’s nothing left?”
“There’s half a ton of earth in there,” he said with satisfaction. “There were two of them by the bridge, but I got them both.”
“Two wolves?”
“Well, they weren’t piglets,” he said. “I’ll have to tell the authorities. They can come and dig out the bodies of the rest. That’ll show a few people. Making it up, indeed! You’re a witness. I’ll need your name.”
Holly wrote it down for him, along with her address and phone number, and stood up shakily. “I’d better go.”
“Do you think it’s safe?” Lexie asked her husband.
“Safe enough,” said Jarvis confidently. “I reckon I got them all. And if there were any that I didn’t get, they’ll have run a mile by this time at the sound of the shotgun.”
Lexie turned to Holly. “You sure you’re all right now, pet? You don’t want a lift?”
“No, thanks, I’m all right.”
But when Holl
y got on the bike, she wasn’t all right. She wobbled so much that she ended up getting off it again and wheeling it down the track, with a last wave at Lexie and the baby in the window. Jarvis might be horrible, but his wife was nice enough. And at least he hadn’t shot Doofus.
Doofus was waiting for her by the gate. He was imperturbable as Holly tied the yellow cable to his collar. She was reassured by his calmness: if there were still any wolves around, he would let her know. But when she wheeled the bike onto the road, he walked sedately alongside her, as if nothing had happened. They’d just been for a normal walk. The world was quiet and ordinary.
Holly checked her phone. She had a signal now, and wondered whether to ring home: but it was only half past six. No one in her house would be up yet. They wouldn’t even know that she had gone, unless Matt had woken them to tell them.
After a while she worked up enough courage to climb back on her bike and freewheel down the road. Doofus ran beside her effortlessly. The air was bright and clear and full of twitterings: chaffinches this time, the fast bowlers of birdsong doing their cheerful run-up-and-hurl of notes. Sheep baaed tranquilly around her. Yet all that Holly seemed to hear were mournful howls that echoed through her memory.
And she remembered something else. The long, sandy-coloured shape, merging into the reeds and sun-bleached grass, a shape that had not been a wolf.
So what had it been? A cow, maybe, lying down? A cow, creeping?
She turned into her road. Her house was quiet and curtained: nobody was up. Her head was whirling, yet here everyone was still asleep and unaware.
Nearly everyone. Next door’s shed was open. Clive stuck his head out. He was holding Mr Finney.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Nowhere,” said Holly. She dropped the bike behind the bins. When she went to the door, Doofus was already lying across the threshold. She had to step over him to get inside.
She bent down and hugged him. “Thank you,” she whispered. Doofus did not respond with any nudge or lick; maybe she had only imagined that he did that earlier, deep underground.
No, she thought. I didn’t imagine anything. She stood up wearily, climbed the stairs and, fully clothed, lay down upon her bed.