S Bolton: Blood Harvest

‘Get lost, you stupid buggers!’ she managed to shout. Horses hated bikes at the best of times, the combination of silence and speed completely unnerved them. And these four were buzzing around her like mosquitoes. They kept coming back, disappearing behind the wall and then reappearing somewhere else. Here was a fifth, sneaking up behind her, cutting in front. Duchess threw up her head, spun on the spot and set off at a fast canter down the hill.

Urgent shouting. Hooves skidding. A short smack of something that might have been pain but at the time felt more like outrage.

And then silence.

Evi was lying on the ground, staring at a piece of litter that had caught between two cobbles and wondering if she was still alive. A second later she got her answer. A drop of blood landed on the stone and she watched it tremble in the breath from her mouth.

She knew there was pain waiting for her, but the part of her brain that normally took charge was spinning away, leaving her behind. She was lost amidst cold, white softness, but feeling hot – so very hot – and watching a tiny stream trickle away from her, wondering why a mountain stream should be crimson and knowing, even in that first moment, that her old life was over.

‘Hold on, I’ll be there in a sec!’

Someone had called to her, that last time, in a language she couldn’t understand. Someone had yelled instructions at her in a Germanic tongue and she’d stared upwards, at the bluest sky she’d ever seen, and known that movement was beyond her. Might be beyond her for the rest of-

‘Don’t move. I’m almost done. Alice! Tom! Can you hear me?’

And then she’d been surrounded by tall, fair-haired men who’d smelled of beer and sun-cream and they’d sent words down to her, meant to comfort, to keep her calm, while they trussed her up and pinned her tight and sent her spinning away again, down the mountain…

‘It’s OK, don’t try and get up. I’ve caught your horse, he’s perfectly safe.’ A man was kneeling beside her, one hand gently on her shoulder, speaking to her in a strange accent. ‘I’m going to call for an ambulance but I’ve left my phone in the church. I can’t leave you in the road… Alice! Tom!’

Evi raised her head and moved it slowly from right to left, up and down. There was a pounding in her forehead but her neck felt fine. She flexed her right foot inside her boot and then her left. Both did what they were supposed to. She put both palms on the cobbles and pushed. There was a sharp pain in her ribs but she knew, instinctively, that it wasn’t serious.

‘No, don’t move.’ The voice was close to her ear again. ‘The Fletchers were here a minute ago. They can’t have gone far. No, I really don’t think you should…’

Evi was sitting up. The man kneeling beside her, though tall, looked too slightly built to be German or Austrian. And these hills all around her weren’t mountains. They were moors, just turning the soft, deep purple of a fresh bruise.

‘Are you OK?’ asked the fair-haired man, who was dressed in shorts and a running vest. Boys on bikes. Duchess panicking. She’d been rescued by a passing jogger. ‘Where does it hurt?’ he was saying.

‘Everywhere,’ grumbled Evi, discovering she could speak. ‘Nothing serious. Where’s Duchess?’

The jogger turned to look down the hill and Evi did the same. Duchess was tied to an old iron ring at the corner of the church wall. Her head was down and her huge yellow teeth were making short work of a nettle patch.

‘Thank God you caught her,’ said Evi. ‘Those stupid bastards. She had a nasty bruise on her foot a few days ago. Did she seem OK?’

‘Well, obviously starving to death, but otherwise fine. Not that I’m much of an authority on horseflesh, I’m afraid.’

Duchess was standing squarely on all four legs. Would she be eating if she were in pain? Quite possibly, knowing Duchess.

‘Are you sure you’re not hurt?’ asked the man, who, she noticed now, was wearing deck shoes. And the shorts weren’t running shorts. They were blue and white striped cotton, almost to his knees, and the hair on the back of his calves was blond and thick.

‘Quite sure,’ she said, taking her eyes away from his legs. ‘I’m a doctor, I’d know,’ she added when he looked uncertain. ‘Do you think you could help me get out of the road?’

‘Of course, sorry.’ The fair-haired man leaped to his feet and bent down, holding out his right hand for Evi, as if offering to help her up from a picnic rug.

She shook her head. ‘That won’t work, I’m afraid. I can’t stand by myself. If you don’t mind, can you take me under the arms and lift? I’m not that heavy.’

He was shaking his head, looking worried. ‘You said you weren’t hurt,’ he said. ‘If you can’t get up by yourself I don’t think I should be lifting you. I think we should call for help.’

Did he need it spelling out?

Evi took a deep breath. ‘I’m not hurt now, but three years ago I had a bad accident and seriously damaged the sciatic nerve in my left leg,’ she said. ‘I can’t walk unaided and my leg is certainly not strong enough to support my weight while I get up from these cobbles. Which are not very comfortable, by the way.’

The man stared at her for a second, then she watched his eyes fall to her left leg, unnaturally thin and ugly inside the crimson jodhpurs.

‘Does this road get much traffic?’ asked Evi, looking up the hill.

‘It doesn’t. But you’re quite right. Sorry.’ He knelt again and put his right arm under her shoulders. His left hand slid under her thighs and even though she’d been expecting it, had been quite prepared to be touched, she felt a shock running through her that had nothing to do with pain. Then she was upright, leaning against him, and he smelled of skin and dust and fresh male sweat.

‘OK, ten yards up the hill there is a bench for weary shepherds to stop and take succour on. I don’t imagine they’ll mind if we borrow it. can you make it that far?’

‘Of course,’ she snapped, although it was easier said than done. She had no choice but to wrap her arm round his waist. He was hot. Of course he was hot, it was a hot day and she was hot too and she probably smelled of horses. Evi moved her right leg, and her left screamed at her to stop this stupid moving business right now.

‘Bugger it,’ she muttered, trying without success to bring her weaker leg forward. Come on, you useless, bloody…

She stumbled and almost fell again, but her companion tightened his grip around her waist, bent lower and lifted both legs clean off the ground. Instinctively, she reached her free arm up to clasp him around the neck. His face had turned pink.

‘Sorry, didn’t want you going down again,’ he said. ‘Can I carry you to the bench?’

She nodded and a second later he was putting her gently down on a wooden bench close to the church wall. She leaned back gratefully and closed her eyes. How could she have been so stupid? Bringing Duchess all this way. She could have seriously injured them both. Why the hell did life have to be so bloody difficult? She waited, eyes closed, until the tears had slipped back where they came from.

When she opened her eyes again she was alone. He’d just left her? Christ, she hadn’t exactly been Miss Congeniality but even so…

Pushing herself forward, Evi looked all around. Across the street the windows were dark and empty. A heavy stillness seemed to have settled over the moors. The bike riders had disappeared – hardly surprising given the trouble they’d caused – but where was everyone else? So many houses, so many windows and not a soul in sight. It was Saturday afternoon, for heaven’s sake. Why was no one looking out to see what was going on?