Dear Deceiver(40)

The man went back to the hilltop and seemed to be talking to his companions.

'Are they going away?' Haidee suggested hopefully.

Toby was wiser. 'They're just deciding which way to come at them. The wind's wrong from that end.'

'Then they can't shoot from the top?'

'Too chancy.' He shook his head.

Agonizing as the circumstances were, she had to marvel at his maturity.  He was only ten years old, but she'd followed him as though he was Rory.  And now he had scrambled to his feet. 'I don't care what they do to me,  I'm going to put them out.'

Haidee gripped his arm. It taxed her very hard, but restrain him she  must. He was only a child and with men of that type, especially armed  men, anything could happen. What would a million deer be worth if Toby  were injured?

'No, Toby,' she said firmly. 'Not on your own. That's sense.' It was a  testing moment. Suzanne's child, she asked herself, or Rory's.  Disciplined or irresponsible? 'He'd say that, actually,' she added.

'All right,' Toby gave in. 'I'll get someone. You stay here, Johnny, and  don't let them see you. I'll be as quick as ever I can.'

Rory could count himself lucky in his son. He had passed every test with  flying colours. His last: 'Don't let them see you' rang in her ears as  she left the cover of the bushes. That he would be as quick as possible  she did not doubt, but even with his speed it was a long way through the  wood, so obviously she could not wait for him. This was something that  she, miserable coward that she was, must handle on her own.

She made no bones about it. She was deplorably fainthearted and the  prospect of facing four rough customers with guns was daunting in the  extreme. She certainly couldn't press a trespassing charge. What she  must do, and quickly, while Toby was out of the way, was to scatter the  deer. She could blunder straight down the slope where she stood, but  Toby had been right about the wind. It was blowing dead into her face.  The skilled and gender approach would be to get in front of it. That way  the deer would scent her and be warned at the first possible moment.                       
       
           



       

So far so good. She must first work her way round to the head of the  dell. That it would bring her well up to the area where the men had been  standing was something she just had to face. Toby had faced his man in  the wood while she had stood there lacking the gumption to speak. Toby,  green at the gills, would have faced all four men and their guns. Toby  was ten years old.

There were times when she couldn't stand herself. This was one.

Look a lion in the mouth, or was that a gift horse? It didn't matter  because anyway it had something to do with teeth, and as she crept  along, skirting the little hill, it seemed that her lions' teeth had  been drawn. The men had disappeared. There wasn't sight nor sound of  them as she broke cover and stood cautiously facing down the side of the  dell. Luck or the miracle still held.

There it lay, a clear green oval, and there were the does feeding  peacefully, their white tails going like rudders. In light of the  anti-climax it seemed heartless to scare them, but by now they'd got  wind of her and started to move. They moved with dignity and at their  own pace, purposeful but unhurried.

Haidee walked down the dell behind them. As she lessened the distance  the deer quickened their leisurely gait. She felt sorry for them, but  thank heaven it was like that, thank heaven they were upright and not on  their backs with their feet beating the air.

A premonition? The thought had just occurred when, astonishingly, one of  the foremost does stumbled. She seemed to keel over, but she didn't  fall. The ones behind streaked past her and from the boulders ahead a  rifle cracked. Another doe stumbled. Barks of alarm and one heartrending  cat-like scream tore up the previous silence.

It happened so quickly that at first it was not real. For a few merciful  seconds both the tottering and the screaming passed before Haidee's  eyes and ears in a meaningless ding-dong. Seconds only. Then she was  chasing down the valley, sobs rising in her throat.

There had been no miracle, the poachers hadn't gone. They had merely  manoeuvred down-wind for the stalk. They were there in the boulders at  the lower end of the dell and she had driven the does straight into  range.

As her brain cleared she realized that the marksmanship was very poor,  but this was no good thing. She had heard Rory on 'shotgun merchants'  who left wounded animals behind them. And as yet these 'merchants' had  not seen her, for their fire kept coming. Someone had spotted her,  though-on the cliff above her, indistinguishable but gesticulating. His  arms were saying: 'Get back,' but he didn't understand. She dashed on,  raking desperately into the centre of the dell. They would see her now,  they would have to.

The frenzied deer were beginning to thin out. She found herself in the  middle, surrounded. The draught of another bullet singed her cheek. She  stopped-she had no breath for more-and stood exhausted, her arms  flailing like branches in a gale.

And then she was grabbed, violently and with no tenderness. Force  against which she could not struggle half pulled, half dragged her away.

Rory's voice thundered in her ears. 'What in damnation...' His hand  clouted her shoulder and it hurt. 'You little fool! What do you think  you're doing? Not even Suzanne would ever have been so crazy!'

'Not even Suzanne.' The words, themselves like rifle fire, cracked in  her ears cutting out the barking of the does and reducing the world to  two people, herself and a man with bright watchful eyes.

'How long have you known?' she faltered.

'All the time,' he said carelessly.

'All the time?'

'Yes. Let me spell it out for you. I have no wife. Suzanne died years ago.'

'Died? Then why doesn't anyone know?' She was too staggered to feel afraid.

'Know? Of course they know,' he said briskly. 'Everyone in Glenglass  knows I'm a widower. I'm quite sure Toby told you himself his mother was  dead.'

Against such dexterity she was useless. 'Yes, but it's still a lie-sort  of-and very cruel. All these years you knew and you let her hope.'

'Precisely,' he said without emotion. 'All these years I knew and I let her hope.'                       
       
           



       

The world came slowly back, dripping in over the rim of the dell in  faces and voices. 'Yes, she's all right,' Rory shouted back. 'We're  coming up.'

Haidee looked back shrinkingly at the deer. The holocaust was over.  Those that could had scattered up the slopes, those that could not were  staggering about, heads down, forelegs sagging.

'Never mind looking,' Rory's voice was curt. 'Let's get out of here.

'Up,' he rasped as she hesitated. 'Unless you want me to carry you.' A hand, firm and compelling, went under her elbow.

The glimpse, however, had been shattering. She was near tears.

'Come on. We haven't got all day,' he said roughly.

How had it come about that he was there at all? From Glenglass across  Dublin to the airport was a long and traffic-fraught run. The question  was smoothly disposed of. He had not wanted to be away too long, so he  had taken Jennie merely to the city terminal and put her on the coach.  On the way home, passing Willie Byrne's cottage, the old man had flagged  him down. He had got to thinking about 'a fella t'other day who'd asked  a power of questions about getting up to the deer'.

If the intention had been to galvanize it succeeded.

'But that was for me,' Haidee interrupted indignantly. 'It's true Paul  did ask questions. I was with him.' Apparently this was no surprise, for  Rory's head nodded. 'It was because I wanted to see the deer, that's  all.'

To this he had nothing to say. His knees bent, he was digging for  footholds in the slippery grass. 'One of these days,' Haidee remembered  Paul saying of him, 'he'll get what he's asking for. And more power to  the man that gives it to him.' Paul had been seen with one of the  poachers. Paul had virtually dragooned her into visiting Willie.

'You're not suggesting...' She hadn't the stomach to finish.

'Suggesting is all I can do. It's probably all he did. He wouldn't have  the guts to do it himself. He'd be the contact man. We'll never know,'  he concluded. 'But that's it, for my money.'

Continuing, he explained that while he had been with Willie, Toby had  burst in seeking help. Toby, it seemed, had been as quick as his  promise. He had not gone through the woods. He had dropped over the  crags as he had seen his father do. It had taken no more than ten  minutes and the rest was history.

'And history I mean, girl,' the recital ended discouragingly. 'It will  be a long time before you live that down. What in heaven's name were you  about?'

Could he not see? Could he not give her credit for trying? And actually  the shot fired seconds before he'd dragged her to safety had been the  last. Not soon enough, though. Her eyes, now brimming, were drawn back  in spite of themselves to the scene below where men were now mingling  with the foundering animals. For a second everything tilted and she  grabbed at a tussock of grass.