The fields sloped down to a dip that was hidden from their view. Uneven tussocks that had had the butt grazed out of them by generations of livestock over the years, sour ground that would never be lush again without reseeding, but that wasn't Jon's way; a natural pastureland was his ideal but right now there was nothing natural about anything.
The four calves had run down into the dip, splashed their way through a patch of boggy ground and were cantering up the other side. They stopped, turned back to look. Calmer, moving away at a walk. Uneasy but their panic had subsided now that they had put some distance between themselves and the intruders in their field.
Jon slowed his pace, he did not want to alarm the calves any more than was necessary. Beyond his own boundary hedge the land sloped sharply upwards, Bill Gwyther's fields, always dotted with peacefully grazing sheep except during the winter months when the flock was moved lower down close to the farm buildings. The sheep were still there but today they were huddled together in a corner, a bunch of plaintively bleating frightened animals that sought safety in numbers.
What the hell's got into them, Jon thought, they can't even see us from up there. Something's frightened them. Up above Gwyther's land the skyline terminated in a line of dark even firs, the beginning of some five hundred acres of Forestry Commission woods that followed along the ridge and down over the other sides. Artificial woodlands, symmetry that was not consistent with this wild landscape, thousands of rows of trees with only the odd self-set seedlings out of place. A dark forbidding world where it never got properly light, no undergrowth able to grow below the branches. You could get lost up there if you forgot your bearings. A world of silence virtually devoid of wildlife.
That fifth calf could not have got out of the field, Jon was sure of that. Only this last spring he had blocked up every patch of sparse growth in the hedges; unsightly but effective. It had to be down in the hollow, possibly stuck in the cloying mud or else just after water. Either way . . . Sylvia Atkinson screamed, a piercing shriek that the echoes immediately took up and magnified, starting those four nervous calves running again, tearing blindly back along the hedgeside. And in that instant Jon saw why she had screamed.
Out of the dip came a grey-black fearsome brute, long pointed ears lying flat along its head, bushy tail streaming out behind it as it ran. Only once did it turn its head to look back and the watchers saw slobbering open jaws, and eyes that seemed to glint redly in the sunlight. A rough coat, bare in places as if it had been devastated by mange. Even as Sylvia's scream died away the waiting echoes took up the bestial howl, a bloodchilling sound that was filled with hate and anger but not fear. The creature fled because its instincts commanded it to but in no way was it afraid of Man, 'Gwyther's Alsatian.' At least Jon thought that that was what it was, the resemblance was vaguely familiar although he was sure that the dog had never been quite as big as that. He shivered, recalled the goats and the hens, how they had once looked; the calves, too.
'It's. . .like a. . . a wolf.' Sylvia was trembling violently and for one awful moment Jon thought that she was going to pass out. Every vestige of colour had drained from her face and only by holding on to him did she manage to remain upright. But it had to be Bill Gwyther's dog, it couldn't be anything else, there was no other feasible explanation. At least, none that he could come up with.
His narrowed eyes followed the Alsatian's flight, now an easy loping stride that carried it up the far bank to the right of the cattle, through a gap in the hedge and into the sheepfield beyond.
The sheep milled, their frightened bleating filling the still air, pressing back into that corner, oblivious of the cruel strands of barbed-wire. By some miracle the fence stil! held firm, posts and wire taking a tremendous strain.
The fleeing dog halted momentarily. Again its instinct was offering it a choice. Flight or those sheep, the latter easy prey, pull one down after another, run them until they were incapable of running any further. It bounded, heading right towards the flock, then for some inexplicable reason altered course up towards the forest on the horizon.
Jon and Sylvia stood watching until the animal was out of sight, lost to view in those acres of darkness up on the skyline. Like the sheep, they were trembling with relief.
'Never did take to Gwyther's bloody dog,' Jon spoke at last in a hushed whisper as though he was afraid lest the Alsatian might hear him and come back to take its revenge on them. Because it hated Man, no other reason. The thing always was wild, kept caged up all the time. Old Bill's got a persecution complex, lives all on his own, too mean even to have the electricity put in, and the bugger's worth a fortune. Doesn't believe in banks either, and there's rumours that he keeps his money buried in coffee jars in the garden. I never liked calling there in case the Alsatian happened to be loose. Perhaps that's why he kept it, to deter visitors. Well it's loose now and . . . oh Jesus!'
They had stepped forward a few paces and now they saw down into the hollow which had previously been out of their view. A thick muddy patch chewed up into a sloppy mire by the hooves and droppings of cattle. A putrid stench wafting up at them but it was only too obvious where the smell was coming from.
Below them in the mud lay the missing Charolais calf. At least Jon presumed it was because he couldn't think of anything else which the mutilated remains might belong to. The head lolled back exposing a gashed throat which had stained the surrounding morass a deep crimson as if there was a sandstone element in the soil. The underside of the creature had been ripped open, hide and skin shredded into bloody strips so that the intestines had spilled out, a mess of offal that had been partially eaten. Wide staring dead eyes looked up at them, frozen in death at the peak of terror. You wanted to clap your hands over your ears to shut out its death cry, thought you could still hear the dying echoes of it across the distant range of hills. Sylvia turned her head away, almost threw up. Jon felt the bile rise in his own throat, a mixture of fear and anger engulfing him. Gwyther's fucking dog had done this, turned sheep and cattle killer now that it was on the loose. If only he'd brought the gun he could have rolled the bastard over as it fled up the bank. As it was, it was free to kill again. And again.
If the animal was Gwyther's Alsatian. It had to be. Not necessarily, he could not have sworn positively in a court of law that the dog was the culprit; it was much bigger and stronger, only a faint resemblance to a domestic guard dog. More like ... a wolf.
You're letting your imagination run wild. It was Bill Gwyther's dog, different, just like the goats, the calves, the hens, but Gwyther's dog all the same. A feeling of futility, helplessness. There was no law left to award him damages or to order the creature to be put down. No damages because money didn't count for anything any more. You'll have to shoot the bugger yourself if you want it destroyed.
'Let's get back.' He turned away, let Sylvia lean her full weight on him. 'We can't do anything here.'
That was right enough. A week ago he would have reported the matter to the police, rung the hunt kennels to fetch the dead beast or else buried it himself, cried at a funeral that had cost him a hundred and fifty quid. But there were no police, no kennels, there couldn't be. So Nature would take over, the buzzards and ravens would strip the flesh, leave the bones to whiten in the sun, gradually sink out of sight into the mud. And that would be that.
Sylvia managed to stop herself from saying 'I can't go on any longer, Jon' because you did not have any choice except to go on. There was no alternative. Maybe those who had got caught by this holocaust were the fortunate ones, they weren't left to witness what had happened. But at that moment there was no way of knowing just what had happened to the rest of civilisation; she and Jon had only explored a few acres of the whole world. And what they had seen was enough.