The Three Most Wanted (14 page)

“Yeah.” A snort escaped me. “
Okay
. What a joke.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“We’d better camp here, hadn’t we.”

“Not much choice, have we? I couldn’t carry
you
right now.”

Too true.

As soon as a small lot of water was boiled, I mixed up the last sachet. The smell of the nutritious meal, full of protein and fat, unadulterated by nettles, filled my mouth with saliva. How’d I ever described it so uncharitably as stewed boots?

Bane sat on the other side of the stove, staring hungrily. Sachet in one hand, I held up a single fork-spoon in the other and gave him an enquiring look. He licked his lips, clenched his fists, bit his lip and finally gave a quick, jerky nod. Towards Jon.

“Wake up, Jon, food. Food, Jon, food...” Finally Jon stirred. “Here, open up...” I started spooning the mush into his mouth. He was barely half-awake, it was like feeding a baby bird. The sight and smell of the food...

“
Margo
.”

I blinked—oh, I crouched, mesmerized by the spoonful I held. Bane looked pretty mesmerized himself—he hadn’t come any closer—afraid he’d snatch the sachet from my hand?

“Sorry,” I muttered, not sure who to.

When I’d fed it all to Jon, I used my pocket knife to cut the sachet packet open and passed one half to Bane. We fell on the pieces like hyenas; we licked, sucked and chewed until nothing but crumpled metal balls remained. Only then could I turn my attention to cooking.

“Bane, show me the map,” I said, when we were gorged on nettle stew and feeling a brief respite from the worst of the hunger pangs.

“Oh, here you are...” He tapped the screen of his phone and held it out.

I bullied my sluggish mind into action. A little red dot showed our position. I used my finger as a ruler and made measurements, checked the key. My heart slid down into my boots.

“
Miserere nobis
, there’s so far to go! It’s still a hundred kilometers to Lausanne and to arrive at the foot of the Alps in the Italian department is two hundred and seventy-five kilometers! What are we going to do?”

“If we can reach Lausanne, we’ll get food, by hook or by crook. Break into private houses if necessary, and empty the larders—don’t get excited, we can leave some money.”

“I’m not getting excited. Are you sure there are no houses around here?”

“Every village and farm I can find is yellow—abandoned or supposed to be.”

“How long to Lausanne?”

“At the rate we’re going? Ten days, minimum. Probably more. This forest isn’t going to get any flatter.”

Caught between exhaustion and despair, I stared at Jon’s sleeping form. I couldn’t walk for another ten days up hill and down dale on our current diet. One square meal wouldn’t enable Jon to, either. “We’re not going to make it.”

Bane bit his lip fiercely as though struggling with himself.

“Then start praying! That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

Hopefully the obvious would’ve occurred to me in a few moments without Bane having to point it out. Shame heated my cheeks; I felt like a bug.

Go away, demon of despair. We’re not dead yet
.

“Best thing we can do, anyway.”

“It’s the only thing we can bloody well do!”

Hang on...
Bug?

***+***

10

NEVER LOOK A GIFT DEER IN THE MOUTH

My feet squished slightly... a tiny damp patch in the bottom of a hollow, a rare survivor of the summer’s heat... Since my brainwave a few days ago, that had come to mean only one thing...

I dropped to my knees and so did Bane, letting Jon flop down on the ground between us. Tearing a rotten log from its nest of moss, I turned it over...

“Feast!” Bane’s triumph was monosyllabic; his fingers were already closing around a fat beige grub.

I grabbed another, too hungry to agree out loud, shoved it in my mouth, chewed and swallowed, groping for more. Forced myself to shove the third one into Jon’s mouth. Bane did the same.

The bare soil and underside of the log were picked clean all too quickly. One other little bit of wood lay in the damp patch, but it yielded only two grubs. Bane turned over anything nearby, then gave up with a shake of his head.

“Too dry. Or they’ve turned into beetles or whatever and skedaddled, I don’t know. Don’t fancy guessing what other insects are safe.”

“No,” I sighed.

With immense effort we heaved Jon back to his feet—his skeletal form was apparently made of lead. We lurched on like a six-legged sloth. The forest was blessedly flat here, up atop a range of hills, but toiling under the weight of the packs and Jon, we panted heavily.

“Protein, Lord, protein, Lord, protein, Lord?” I muttered as we walked—until we began slogging up yet another slope. “Bane,
must we walk up every hill in the French department!”

“I’m trying to avoid the worst ones! Just how many extra kilometers d’you want to walk? And you call this a
hill?”

A slight incline, nothing more. My anger was already gone. “Sorry, Bane.”

“
Love you.”
Not the most logical response, perhaps, but none of us were feeling at our most rational any more...

The sun was dropping in the sky.

“Shall we stop?” suggested Bane.

“Haven’t any nettles yet, might as well carry on.”

“Oh yeah.” He raised his head and began scanning the passing forest again. Oh, and I was supposed to be doing that as well, wasn’t I?

Protein, Lord? Protein?

The most horrible scream split the silence. Bane and I stopped dead, hairs rising on the back of our necks, and even Jon’s head came up.

“What the...?” he gasped.

A distant crashing in the undergrowth. The scream rose to full pitch again, a sound of agony and death, then trailed off. We stood frozen, straining to hear. Snarls, a few yaps.

“Wolves!” Understanding burst on me. “They’ve killed a deer.”

“Well, they won’t want us.” Jon’s head sank again. Too tired to be afraid?

The distant sounds of lupine feasting continued and my mouth watered.

Fresh meat...

“Bane, help me get Jon up a tree.”

“Do
what?”

I practically dragged them both to the likeliest tree and dumped my rucksack.
“Help me.”
I got a shoulder under Jon and shoved. “Jon, climb up...”

Bane joined in, and a bewildered Jon grabbed a branch and scrambled onto it.

“Are the wolves coming?” Not quite too tired to wish to avoid death by devourment.

“No, just a precaution. We’re leaving the packs here, Jon, we’ll be back soon. Don’t nod off and fall out, for pity’s sake.”

“Yes, but...”

“Bane, grab a big stick and follow me.”

“
Oh no
, this is not a good idea!”

“We haven’t got much choice! Never look a gift deer in the mouth.”

“Unless it’s guarded by a whole pack of wolves!”

“They’ll just have to share. Come on or stay here! Suit yourself.” I selected a hefty stick, whacked it into a tree to test its strength and strode off towards the sounds. Cursing, Bane followed suit.

“Don’t you dare get eaten!” Jon called thinly.

I winced. Jon’s fate if we failed to return wasn’t pleasant to contemplate. Well, we’d just have to return, wouldn’t we?

Free of our burdens and full of adrenalin, we walked briskly, sticks ready.

“Don’t be frightened,” I told Bane, as we got closer, “or you’ll smell like prey.”

“Oh, thank you, Margo. That makes it easier.”

“Just act confident.”
Lord, be with us. Angel Margaret, help us?

We rounded some bushes—there was the pack and their kill. A red deer. Large, good. A gust of wind carried the tang of blood to us. The last of the entrails were disappearing and wolves were already tearing through the ribcage. One particularly massive wolf seized a hind leg, pulled and twisted—the leg tore clean off the body with a crack of splintering bone...

“Good God, Margo, are you sure about this?” whispered Bane, appalled by a show of brute strength he couldn’t come close to emulating even in full health.

“I’m guessing you smell rather like chicken just now...” I said. Anger would be a better scent than fear... I stepped forward, walking straight towards the pack at a steady pace, Bane following. “Hello, wolves, I apologize for disturbing you at dinner time, but it’s an emergency.”

The wolves wheeled to face us, snarling and astonished. No wolf now alive had been hunted, not for many generations. They weren’t that afraid any more.

“We’d be very grateful if you’d let us have some venison,” I went on firmly. “You don’t exactly look as though you’ll miss it.”

The five adult wolves had shiny coats and rippling muscles; the three younger ones were less heavily built but just as sleek-coated and well cared for.

Most of the wolves dropped back slightly as we approached, forming a hostile group just the other side of the kill. The big wolf stood its ground, showing its teeth, fur bristling. My gaze fell on the detached leg. Blast, right by the alpha wolf, but so easy to carry. Snatch and run would be better than expecting them to just stand there while we carved up their food.

“That will do very nicely, thank you, Father Wolf...” I tightened my grip on the stick and walked unhesitatingly forward.

The wolf gave an experimental lunge, growling, so I brought the stick down on the end of his nose hard enough to hurt. He leapt back with a yelp. The other wolves whined anxiously as I bent to seize the leg. It was
heavy...
Needing both hands to pick it up, I let the stick fall to the ground...

Father Wolf exploded out of his uncertain crouch with a ferocious snarl, nothing experimental this time
. How to club him with a deer’s leg I could hardly lift...?
But Bane hurtled forward with a roar that would’ve made any mate of any species whatsoever proud and slammed his stick into the end of the wolf’s nose—
crack
.

The wolf dropped to the ground with a howl, writhing on his belly and pawing his muzzle—snarled and raised his head again... With another roar, Bane walloped him on the side of the head. Father Wolf sprang up and retreated to the other side of the kill, dropped his haunches to the ground and whined.

“Well, look at that, Bane...” I was almost too breathless with fright to speak at all, “looks like you’re dominant. Dominant-ish...” Father Wolf wasn’t engaging in full submissive behavior... “Er, let’s be going, shall we?”

“You think?” panted Bane.

I began backing away nice and steadily, making sure to carry on addressing the pack. “Thank you very much, Father Wolf, for the meat. I hope your nose isn’t too sore but it’s very bad manners to attack your guests, y’know, even if they are uninvited. I hope you enjoy the rest of your meal. Good hunting.”

The wolves snarled after us, seeming bemused. I stopped talking once we were past the bushes but carried on walking backwards. Father Wolf licked his muzzle and another wolf came to nuzzle him—Mother Wolf? Once we were about twenty meters away, the three young wolves gave wolf shrugs and tucked in again, and with the choicest bits disappearing, their adult siblings quickly joined them.

I turned my back at last and we walked away rather more quickly. I took discreet looks over my shoulder regularly, though. Jon was right that wolves were quiet.

“Here, swap...” Bane offered me his stick.

“Yeah, take it, before I tuck in here and now.”

“Umm, it does smell wonderful, doesn’t it?” Bane hefted the leg with much greater ease than I had.

I flung my arms around him from behind to avoid the bloody thing. “We did it! Do you know what this means?”

“We can make it to Lausanne.” He spoke grudgingly but the beaming smile said he appreciated the change in our circumstances.

“Yes!” I kissed his filthy, stubbly cheek.

Thank you, Lord, for sending us a deer and the means to catch it!

“Margo?
Bane?”

“We’re fine, Jon…” I called. “More than fine!”

We both came close to running the rest of the way, though skipping was definitely too much effort.

“Feel, Jon!” Bane hefted the leg.

Jon’s hand traced the hoof and his face lit up. “You got a deer’s foot! Can we eat it now?”

“We got a deer’s
leg!
A haunch, I think they’d call it.”

“That’s great... um... I don’t know how to get down... and... I’m going to fall down any time now...”

We took a quick look around for the wolves, put the leg on the ground and hastened to lift Jon down, or at any rate control his fall.

“How did you do it?” he asked.

“Hah,” snorted Bane, “you’re lucky you weren’t there. Margo just strolled in there chatting to those savage beasts as though she was at a tea party, walks right up to the largest wolf there and tries to make off with the meat it’s just chosen for its own dinner! Which didn’t go down terribly well!”

“Bane had to bash the alpha wolf a couple of times with his stick,” I elaborated. “Then the wolf decided the rest of the deer tasted just as good and let us have the leg. Quite a well-mannered wolf, all things considered.”

“He tried to rip your throat out!” objected Bane.

“Well, I had just performed robbery with violence.”

“Yeah, Margo bashed it first,” Bane told Jon.

Jon looked even whiter than usual. “You’re right, I’m glad I was up a tree quietly giving birth to kittens. Could we please eat?”

“No,” said Bane. “We are walking well away from here before we stop, just in case... well, just in case.” Just in case the wolves come after their missing food, but hopefully Jon wasn’t processing fast enough right now to fill in the missing bit.

“We need to do something about the blood,” I said.

“Yeah.”

Bane fished out a scentSeal bag and slipped it over the bloody end. Cutting a piece off the thin rope he had in his pack and binding it tightly around the leg to prevent seepage, he wrapped the whole thing in our scruffiest foil blanket. Only then did he shove it into his backpack. Very very far from scent-proof, but the best we could do. He heaved the pack onto his back, staggered, groaned, but said nothing.

“Give me something else to carry, Bane.” Though with the adrenalin wearing off fast it was all I could do to get my own rucksack on.

“No.”

Jon’s hands rose to search his chest. “Oh no... I... I’ve lost my pack... and my stick!”

“You’ve not had them for days, you numpty.” But Bane was so pleased at Jon’s burst of awareness he didn’t sound scathing at all.

“Oh... you’d better give them to me to carry...”

“Just start walking.”

We took Jon’s arms again and off we went. Felt like singing.

Deo Gratias.

We had to hang our flashlights from the trees when we finally stopped; the sun was almost down. Jon had gone quiet again, but the promise of meat kept him more alert than he’d been for ages.

“How are we going to
cook
it?” I asked.

“We’ll have to risk an open fire in the morning. Right now, I’ll just skin one little patch and cut some strips to cook in the pan. I’ll hang it from a nice bear-proof tree then.”

Bane was right. An open fire was the only way, but apart from being totally illegal and very visible, it’d take ages to roast the entire haunch.

I gathered firewood quickly and looked hungrily into the pan when I returned, trying not to drool.

“That’s enough, Bane, we’d better not gorge.”

“S’pose,” sighed Bane, taking out his lighter to light the stove.

Jon’s head rose suddenly. “What was that?” His listening pose intensified to quivering alertness. “…Bane, there’s something very large out there...”

My hands crept over my mouth to muffle any squeak of terror. A wild animal could probably smell the blood a mile away...
Angel Margaret, stick with us... Sorry, stupid thing to say, of course you’ll stick with us... O Lord, protect us.

Bane dropped the lighter, snatched up the cut-off length of rope and bound his knife to the end of his stick. Pulling it tight and knotting it well, in only moments he was gripping a makeshift spear.