A Different Kingdom(33)

Mullan's traps caught themselves a fox and a pair of rabbits. There were signs that one had caught something larger but whatever it had been was gone, leaving the snare bent and broken behind it, the surrounding vegetation thrashed to shreds. Michael, Pat and the old soldier stood staring at it one bright morning in the tail-end of August. Pat pushed his cap back on his head and whistled softly.

'Something made a right mess here.'

The trap was still affixed to its ground peg but the links of the chain had been stretched almost to breaking point and the jaws were bent.

Mullan eased his old bones down to look closer. He picked off a tuft of coarse black hair that was sticking to the metal.

'Badger?' Pat asked.

'Not likely. It's too long, too dark. And even a badger would be held fast in a snare like this, or he'd worry his leg off to get away ... No, I'm damned if I know what it is, except some bloody big dog. But there's no blood around. You'd think it had bent open the jaws somehow, not scraped free. Curiouser and curiouser.'

'He'll be after the sheep next,' Pat said grimly. 'I'd best warn Sibbet and McLoughlin that there's a big stray on the loose, gone feral maybe. Lambing's long over; that's one thing ... Easy, boys, calm down for God's sake.' This—was the his pair of collies which were whirring and snarling a little way off, refusing to come near. They seemed frightened one moment, angry the next.

'Useless buggers,' Pat said, not without affection. He clapped Mullan on the shoulder, staggering the older man as he was in the process of getting up. 'So much for your traps. There's a few ten bob notes down the drain there.'

'Rabbit pie tomorrow, though,' Mullan said sulkily. He wheezed and spat, putting one brown fist to the small of his back and grimacing. 'Never seen anything like it. Maybe it was kids skylarking.' They both turned to Michael enquiringly.

'I haven't seen anything.'

They laughed, two old doors creaking on their hinges.

'There's a guilty conscience if ever I saw one,' Pat said. 'But then they always are at that age.' Michael scowled.

'So what now? We just keep an extra lookout?' Mullan asked.

Pat nodded. 'No great deal, this time of year. You and Michael could scour the woods again if you like, sit out another night or two.'

'What we need is a bloody good hunt,' Mullan said, producing the Peterson from his pocket. 'A lather of horses and hounds pounding through here. That'd flush him out, wherever he is.'

'No ground for horses here,' Pat disagreed, looking about him at the dense undergrowth and the low-hanging trees. There was a light in his eyes at Mullan's suggestion, however. Winter hunts—they were a great occasion, fifty horses thundering across the fields and the hounds baying in a pack. Pat had not ridden in one for years, the last hunter having been sold off when Michael was a mere infant. Felix and Pluto were workhorses, and even Fancy could be justified to an extent, but Sean had drawn the line after Pat's last hunter, a wicked-eyed giant of a horse, had died. Dog food, now. And Pat was getting too old for tearing about the countryside and leaping everything in sight, so said Michael's grandmother.

'Never clear these woods,' Pat said absently. He accepted a black twist of tobacco from Mullan and rubbed it between his fingers. 'Been here longer than the farm has. They used to be twice as deep when I was a boy, but these parts are too up and down, too wet. Best to let them be.'

'Sean would clear them,' Mullan said, smiling toothlessly round the stem of his smoking pipe.

'Sean would skin a gnat for its hide,' Pat retorted. He looked at his grandson quickly, guiltily. 'Damn it, Michael, you're going to be tall.'

Michael shifted uncomfortably. 'Not my fault.' He felt that his grandfather, and Mullan too, were waiting for him to say something, to communicate some revelation. He studied the ground stubbornly. His grandfather filled the silence with lighting his pipe, the blue smoke a streamer reaching through the trees.

'Fay bones. Always been tall, our family.'

'Always been horsemen,' Mullan added.

'Aye. That too. Used to be fifteen horses on this farm, cobs and Oydesdales. A Morgan once, bad tempered and black. We sent four off to the war, gone for good. A waste.'

Mullan clamped his lips though Michael was sure there was a comment hovering behind the pipe. He coughed, and said at last: 'Cows need watering. They're drinking like fish these days.'

Pat inclined his head. 'You'll keep an eye out?' he said to Michael.

'Sure.'

'Fine. I want this bastard shot before winter comes. He'll get hungry then, if he stays around, and the next thing you know we'll have lambs disappearing.'

IT WAS WITH his grandfather's approval that Michael began handling the shotgun, learning the principles of safety, marksmanship and cleaning. There were three of the weapons in the house. Two were side-by-side twelve-gauges, the third an old over-and-under, intricately carved and as light as a toy. It was Russian-made, the wood gleaming with age and polish. Pat's father had picked it up at a fair before his son's birth and carved thin copperplate letters in the stock: Michael Fay, Ballinasloe 1899.