The Old Silent

The mob was crowding at the wall but the old Smoke wouldn't move.

He couldn't waste time, because she was in danger. He had no choice.

He shuddered. He'd have to bark.

The old Smoke crashed through the opening and the rest went spilling after it.

10

It was all Abby could do to keep down because once again she couldn't believe it had worked. Worked this far, anyway.

Mr. Nelligan's sheep had been moved down the rocky hillside faster than she could believe possible. That was a hard drive. Hours, it should have taken.

Now they were cascading through the wall as if the wall were nearly invisible, no more than veils of smoke, mist, and clouds.

Again, Abby wanted to stand up and cheer and yell at this mob running toward her, driven by Stranger and Tim. The Gun would not be able to shoot, load up and shoot again and again, even if it were stupid enough to try picking off a hundred and twenty sheep.

But she did at least rise up on her knees and clasp her hands beneath her chin in a prayerful pose.

Looking up at the heavens, she thought, Oh, why not? and started to give thanks to Jane's, Helen's, and Charlotte's God. But then she lowered her fisted hands to her hips, and called up,

'It was my idea!'

She dropped back, trying to fold herself like an accordion, arms tight round her legs, but still watching the sheep running straight at her-

Oh, no!

11

The bike roared on through the underpinning of ground mist, nearly spilling Melrose as Ellen jumped a frozen stream as if it were an obstacle in a steeplechase.

They had zigzagged between drystone walls searching for the one Melrose remembered. Once the bike had skidded in loose dirt and toppled them both by a melting snowbank. She drove the BMW in ever-widening circles and through corkscrew turns at the ends of packed-down lanes.

After the second spill that had Ellen aiming mild obscenities at the BMW that seemed to sputter and grind in some sort of metallic rhythm, Melrose tried to work a boulder out of his shoe and mud off his jacket. Ellen had fanned out the ordnance map she used for her Bronte turns, paying him little attention, holding the map in front of her headlamp as she revved the engine, dying to get going again.

When Melrose had hoisted himself behind her, she tossed the map back at him and came down so hard on the pedal the bike bucked around now like an unbroken horse.

He took time out from worrying over Abby to remind himself that in spite of that incredible look of purpose, that intensity of eye, that frost that sparkled her hair, she was intractable, as grimy as his gardener, and probably in flagrante delicto with her BMW.

'Over there!' Melrose yelled, seeing the distant light of Nelligan's gypsy caravan.

'Where?'

'Straight on. Run along that wall-'

It came out as a wail, lost, but she careened the bike down the slope of the hill and another onrush of wind smacked him in the face.

Melrose unlocked his eyes to look across her shoulder as best he could. 'Down there,' he shouted, seeing the opening in the wall. His hand shading his eyes, he saw the hulk of what he thought might be a dead sheep until it moved sluggishly. 'Don't hit that-'

She didn't. They didn't sail through the opening as much as they didover it. He was half-turned to look back through the rubble at the hindquarters of the moonlighting sheep and was, therefore, totally unprepared for the sudden braking of the bike.

Ellen said, 'What the hell-' as the BMW careened into a whirling dervish-dance, tossing Melrose into the rocky furze. '-is that?' she added, bringing the bike out of its spin and stopping with a thud. Her black-clad arm pointed ahead. She rose from the bike, using the pedals like stirrups.

Melrose struggled up from the broken rocks and rime-hard heather to inspect his ripped up trouser leg and the additional damage done to his sleeve, which was hanging by little more than threads.

'Well, look!' Ellen called back at him.

'Sheep! Don't you know sheep when you see them? I think my ankle's broken.'

Her voice was high and frenzied now. 'I think I'll go back to Queens.'

Melrose dragged himself onto the BMW, which was clearly raring to go, and said, 'Stop complaining. Go!' And he slapped the fender.

Less than a minute later, the BMW slid to a stop a few feet from the herd, and Melrose thought he'd swung free of it until his bootlace caught in the wheel spokes, landing him facedown.

'Hell's bells,' he mumbled, reaching up to wipe away what felt like a lacework of blood. Ellen, naturally, had managed to land on her feet and was waving him furiously on.

To where? There were sheep everywhere, two hundred or so, he judged, as he hobbled along. There was Ethel's dog, Tim, throwing himself at one of them that was about to bolt. The Kuvasc's teeth were clamped in the thick wool of the leg. He ran, negligent of the ankle that was killing him, round to the other side, where Ellen looped back and forth, running like a border collie, only aimlessly.

Melrose saw Stranger standing taut as a bow, giving an old ewe the eye. Rising from the bleats and the awful smell of wet wool came a voice from in there somewhere.

'Get me out of here!'

The voice was familiar, both in sound and tone. Demanding, irascible.

'It's her, it's Abby!' Ellen was jumping up and down trying to get a view.

In absolute wonderment, Melrose worked his way to the back of the low wall. A dozen sheep were standing in some sort of hypnotic trance and Melrose muscled them out of the way to get to the wall, where he reached over, dragged Abby up on her feet, and bounced her over the backs of the sheep.

She was a mess, standing there black in both body and mind, saying to Melrose, 'I could have died out here. And Stranger's foot's bleeding… give me a piece of your shirt.'

'I hardly have any left,' said Melrose, ripping a strip from the shredded end. 'Here!'

Abby reached down and bound up Stranger's foot as best she could. Then she rose, wheeled away from them, beating the mud and bits of grit from her waterproof and shawl. As both of them stood there staring from her to the sheep, she wheeled round again, saying: 'Oh, leave them, just leave them,' as if the bumping, bleating mob were a big load of dirty dishes. 'It's Mr. Nelligan's sheep; he'll find them and maybe it'll teach him a lesson.'

Ellen pulled her bike upright and rolled it beside her, as Abby lost no time straightening both of them out on who and whatsaved whom in this rescue mission. She began with herself, went on in great detail about Stranger and Tim, and then praised the sheep for their part. Man did not come into it.

They walked on, followed at a distance by the two tired dogs, while Melrose said he'd go to Harrogate before he'd go back to Weavers Hall if it meant hurtles through fiery hoops, dives across abysses, plummets through the air with Ellen as driver.

'I'd sooner crawl,' he announced. 'You must be the world's worst.'

Just then they heard the distant sputter of engines and saw, across the far field, ghostly lights bobbing,