The Stag

The stag paws the ground, its chest heaving as it struggles. Its dark coat is matted from the strain of the chase; blood red where it has been harrowed by the hounds. It snorts and steams like train building pressure. It raises its head and stares, four square and stern. It stills itself ready for the inevitable.
Two cartridges pressed into the shot gun. The barrel is clicked home and in one move is raised to the shoulder. The halloo of the hunt has dissipated; a ring of silence envelopes us.
The stag turns lifting its head ready to bellow.
First retort: the blast is deafening.
The beast staggers, shocked. Its head jerks one side to another, its lips are dragged back in anger. It drops its head ready to rut.
My face feels moist. I scrape my hand over my cheek licking it as it's withdrawn. It's salty. I've been coated with a miasma of blood.
The gun is still levelled at the beast, the finger tensed on the trigger. Another shot maybe necessary but not desirable.
The decision is taken by the stag. Its hind legs buckle. For a moment wild-eyed panic is there, its front legs thrash, desperate to get away. It stamps and throws its head, antlers circling ready to attack, but life is ebbing. It sags and slumps. One last breath shudders its flanks. Then it is a carcass.
And someone cries a long, furious: “No”

It has been a long, long time since I have been here. The shadows of memory resonate against the freshly painted houses. There've been changes; tarmac for cobble, yellow lines and parking signs. There's a fair bit of tourist tat discretely hidden, seen through shadowed doorways, like porn – a guilty necessity; a reluctant admission - this is their life now; entertaining the grockels whilst insulting them behind their backs. The land can’t support them, the sea; well from my walk along the Weir earlier this afternoon, it is all pleasure craft and dinghies not a ketch amongst them. Gone is the 4 am walk to bring in the morning’s catch. Now it’s gentrified tea rooms, the curse of second homes and summer lets and the hope that the holiday season’s good enough to tide them through the winter.
The late summer sun is warm on my face. Its been a fine day’s walking. I’ve got that pleasantly tired feeling, the one you get after a good stretch of the legs. I could do with a drink. I round the corner at the bottom of the high street and just past the apex of the bend is the reassuring presence of the town ‘hotel’; Georgian portico tagged on to thick white washed walls, black framed windows letting no light into the quietness inside. I climb the uneven steps smiling. A small blue plaque announces which chain owns it now, framed by a yellowing patch hinting at past changes. I push the heavy oak door open; still painted black with a huge brass knocker, bright and shinny irrespective of who owns it. The stone flagged floor is cool and calm. There is the gentle hum of activity. Some teenage lass appears from the back, pauses, looks me up and down:
“Bar’s through that way or we’ve got a beer garden out back.”
I smile and make my way to the bar. It smells different. I remember it with a claggy taste in my mouth, the smell of pipes and woodbine. I’d sit on one of the stools by the bar, legs dangling watching Alan or his wife cleaning glasses when the bar was shut. Or I’d peer through the window at night and watch them, the adults in their own private world. And now here I am pint in hand, sitting beneath those antlers, staring at the steep hills rise above the town, with their wooded combes and streams breaking to hard and harsh moor. This was where I grew up.

There. One moment held.
The stag stands by the brook snorting steam into the frigid autumn air; its flanks heaving from the exertion, its eyes wide from the pursuit. All I can hear is my shallow breathing. The undergrowth is reaching round my feet, now my ankles, making it harder and harder to move. My muscles are tensed. I don’t know what to do. It holds me in its stare. It is magnificent.
The stag shits.
Distant sounds filter through the trees, a horn, the yelp of dogs. The stag jerks its head; horn again, the dogs baying closer. The stag bellows, shaking birds into flight. A flash of red, a dog yowls, the scent is caught and the stag is away, past me with one leap spinning me into the bracken. I'm up from the ground and can hear the dogs closing.
No time, just act. This time'll be different.
I jump across the beck and drop to me knees, pause, roll forward into the dung. It is warm against the hard forest floor. I roll back feeling it squish beneath me.
I stand. I stink. I better had do. I stink of stag.
I'm off into the bracken up the hill, pushing my way through. Glancing back the first of the hounds break into the clearing snuffling and testing the ground. I stop and duck into the undergrowth. The dog pauses questioning the scent. Another arrives and another – until the weight of numbers produces a collective decision. I break cover, crashing through bracken. I stumble, but keep going, moving from bright light to deep shade; the sound of dogs on my heels, the taste of their frenzy in my mouth. They have taken the bait.
All fours to scramble up a bank, cresting the top I reel down into a glade scattering leaves before me. I turn. The yelping is growing. Red again in the trees, shouting, the horn blares. I force myself up, pause to determine direction and wheezing and gulping air tack back up the rise. I drop down again into cover. “Come on, come on!” I daren’t look back now; I can feel the hot snarl of the dogs at my heels. For every stride of mine I sense their two. There's anticipation and pleasure in their yap and snap, excitement as they chase down their quarry. Fetid breath, panting, teeth bared, claws digging in, they are at my back. Is this what the stag knows? A root trips me. I drop and roll, ground and sky merge, somehow I gain my legs again. Left, right, push on past grabbing branches, hurling my self through thickets, where thorns impede. Whose side are they on? Another stream, faster flowing and deeper; the cold current grasps at me as I ford it, but the hounds are still there; gasping and wheezing wood is breached. Harsh sunlight. I'm out in the open. I have failed.

“Go on.”
The firkin is offered. I don't move. Tom flexes his eyebrows dismissively and withdraws the stone jar taking a long swig for himself; releasing the jug with a satisfying smack of his lips. Long shadows flit across the clearing in the dimpsy autumnal light. The fire glows brighter as dusk shrouds the forest.
“‘S good y’ know.” The cider is proffered again. “Go on.” This time it is said with a jagged smile that shows Tom’s broken tooth sustained in some boyish brawl. “One swig won't get you puggle ‘eaded.”
Tentatively I reach for the jar. As my hands slide round its body, Tom yanks it away: “Sure y’ want it? This ain’t no ale this ain’t. Proper natch this is.”
Annoyed, I lunge for the cider, he sees me coming and jerks the jar away. I tumble off the log I’ve been sitting on and sprawl on the damp ground, almost ending up in the fire. Tom cackles with delight; “Y’ great big dumpling. Here.” He hands me the jar. I sit up with my back to the fire. Its warmth is a contrast to the cold stone in my hand. I lift the jug. The sweet smell greets me. I lick my lips.
“Steady” I can’t see Tom’s face, but he's watching, askew grin and eyes bright waiting for me to cough, throw up, anything for his amusement. I'm not going to him that pleasure. I take a small swig. The liquid is cold and fresh, a longer drag follows. It's so dry it sucks the moisture from my mouth. As I swallow it catches the back of my throat and I splutter and retch. Tom's rasping laughter is only curtailed by me almost dropping the jar and letting its precious liquid seep away. I retreat to my log.
“You proper comical, you but you ain’t no cow-baby. S’right to bring you up here. I’ll have you scollared right proper.” I felt the warm pleasure of belonging, the way Tom had sidled up to me and told me that he was off to find the stag tonight and the fact that he’d chosen me, a towny, for company. Saturday afternoon trips to the museum were not like this. The ‘wild’ diorama all poised and positioned; the static stag, head raised in mid troat; the still badger scurrying to cover, the rabbit motionless in its burrow, the woodpecker freeze framed as it drills into the artificial tree. I'd trace the contours of the scene, imagining the world where this existed and here I was now experiencing it in all its vibrance and reality..
“We be up ‘fore sun up. The stag’s up ahead, where I spied him, in his wallow.”
“How d’you know?”
“Signs m’ acker signs.” He taps his nose conspiratorially. “As we come up see how bark on trees was poached up? Be stag markin’ ‘is place. You see the tracks?” I shrug trying to hide my ignorance, marvelling at his knowledge of the natural world. “Be stag. Y’see I been watched. This time the stags they challenge each other, y'see and so I’d been and followed one. And he’s up there, we’ll get ‘im in mornin’.” I follow his finger pointing into the wild darkness beyond the safe halo of our fire. I shiver.
We sit in the fire light sharing cider and the vittels tightly wrapped in crackly grease proof paper. Beyond is blackness, the bark of a vixen scavenging, the hush of an owl as it swoops and maybe, as Tom begins his tall tales, the souls of punkies forever cursed to stay in the dark but irresistibly drawn the the flickering fire. And I smile, a town boy at home here; escaped from a dreary, dusty, ordered world, feeling the land around me.
Above the clearing the woods roll on until they break to hard, heather clad moor. Turn inland and that is all you see. Look back the way you’ve come, climbing through combe and streams you see the road forking at Steep Bank, one way an almost vertical climb to the moor, the other the toll road, snaking through pines, which scent the air in summer and in winter’s freeze become laced with icicles which dance and chime in the wind. In the lee of the of the hills farms huddle. Cattle and sheep dot fields below, which slide into stony beaches and the lapping, blue sea ceding seamless into the summer sky which is scarred with twisting striations as planes silently battle out the conflict that has sent me here. From the moor you see the town, a spider at the centre of a web drawing house and farm and hamlet to it and to the world beyond. The main street curving round the large houses with the 'hotel' at its heart; each iteration of dwellings back from it diminishing in size until they dwindle a shacks and then nothing but fields. I know now that this was a harsh, precarious place but then it seemed warm and safe, a world away from the bomb battered street that I used to think of as home. This was a good place to shelter.

“Wake up. Come on, ‘s time to go.” Tom shakes me hard. “You ain’t fuddled ain’t you?” My head has a thick fuzziness. I'm fighting with blankets and bed clothes in a warm room. I try to turn over until Tom kicks me in the ribs. “Up. We got to go.”
The world has been drained of colour; it’s just shades of grey. It takes a moment to realise that the sun has yet to rise. Seeing me sit up Tom tosses me a piece of cold pie, “Eat!” He returns to folding his bed roll into the sack he’s brought before turning his attention to the smouldering fire. With the toe of his boot he flicks it apart, stamping vigorously on the faggots. Stiffly I struggle to get up. My limbs won’t obey. They ache. I'm damp too: the morning dew.
“’Appy it ain’t no frost.” The comment makes me shiver. “Put’s y’ blanket in ‘ere.” Tom tosses the sack. I do as I am told. “Quietly now,” he instructs. We set off through the undergrowth, Tom knowing exactly where he is going. Each step is measured. I simply follow, hoping that my tread will not announce our alien presence in this waking world. We climb for about ten minutes. Through the trees I can see fragments of sky, fingers of early sunlight reach in, caressing the trees. Tom motions me to stop. For a moment I am not sure why.
“Coupie down now!” he pushes me forcing me to crouch. Peering through the trees I see nothing. Gradually shadows begin to coalesce into meaningful forms. And there it is, head bowed, lying in its den. The stag.
It's serene in the stillness, unaware that it is being watched, hunkered down but awake. In the half light colours are slowly developing. Its coat is thick, red. It lifts its head and reveals a bib of long fair hair cascading down its throat, its flanks gently undulate as it breathes. I thought of the Saturday afternoon stag, posed, poised and unnatural. This is how it should be, the gentle sough of wind in the trees, bird song filtering through, the dampness of rotting leaves exuding into the day. We're trespassing on his land. It turns and cocks its head listening. Its antlers spread out, a crown. It is beautiful. I'm so close I can sense the wildness. The stag in the artificial scene once lived, breathed and bellowed and was ripped from its rightful place.
Tom whispers into my ear: “‘S good, master will be ‘appy.”
The stag looks directly at us. We freeze. It holds us, sensing the air. My heart beats so hard I place my hand over it to quieten it. Tom is tense, I can feel his fear, fear that the beast may bolt. Away to our right a grouse’s grating call shifts the stag’s attention. Tom nods, satisfied. He backs carefully away. I follow. Glancing back, despite the ever stronger light I can not make out the stag, it's been absorbed back into the woods.
“What now?” I call after Tom.
He doesn't break stride replying over his shoulder with a huge smile on his broken face: “We tell master.”
“And then what?”
Tom pauses and turns looking at me quizzically: “Why, they hunt and kill it.”
“Kill it?”
Naive I know but only then did I realise the purpose of our journey and my complicity. We are the harbingers.
Tom shrugs and stares at me. Nothing is said; it's the way it is. I feel the gulf between us. I am still a stranger here.
Tom turns and continues down hill, picking up speed. The greater the distance from the stag the faster he moves. Silence is no longer an issue. We break from the cover of the woods. The brightness of the morning makes me shield my eyes. A dark shape appears, moving quickly up the steep bank. Tom beckons unnecessarily as it is heading straight to us. The shape resolves into a man dressed in a tight red jacket, riding breaches and black cap. I follow slowly.
“‘S about 100 yards down from top of ‘ill. If ‘ee send in tufters just below ‘ere, I’s reckon stag ‘ll break over that way;” the red man listens intently, following Tom’s gestures. He briefly looks me over disdainfully. Coming up the hill is another man dressed all in brown so that he appears linked to the landscape. He carries a staff and around his heels six dogs dance. He reaches us and wordlessly stills the dogs.
“Good, Marks;” It's the red man. “Tom’s found it just where he said it would be. You will drive it west, and we'll see if we can run it long the ridge. Yes?”
The man in brown nods compliance: “’Ho’s ‘this tackladdy?” He throws his head in my direction.
“Ee’s with me.” Tom’s answer elicits a shrug of acceptance.
“Good job Tom, see me this evening and we’ll sort payment.” With that the red man turns and side steps hurriedly down the hill. Tom turns to the man in brown who acknowledges him with a simple nod. I feel this means more to Tom than anything the red man could offer.
We stand in silence whilst the men work their way back down the hill. Guessing my questions Tom begins:
“Listen ‘ee. Man in red were huntmaster. He's gone t' bring hunt round t’ other side woods. Man with dogs, ‘ee were tufter. ‘is job is to rouse stag an’ force it out. Got to be right side of course, if hunt to pick it up. Course, ain't do it without us coz we knew where stag were harboured.”
“What ‘ll happen?”
“To stag? Well ol’ Marks an’ ‘is hounds will flush it, an’ the hunt will chase it an’ run it 'til it's exhausted an' then they’ll kill it. You’s comin’? I’m right hungered.” Tom is off down the hill. He pauses once, looking back and calling but turns when I don’t move.
I can't move. The hounds have started calling.

The sun is high now, the sky an intense, azure blue just like a Technicolor movie. Around me, rising to the horizon is the moor-land heather, blush pink; whilst below, to my right I can see the first hues of autumn beginning to spread through the trees, which are shyly caressed by a breeze rising from the sea and fields below. Behind me is the woods I've just broken from, ahed the stag just below the point where moor and sky meet. It regally stands commandeering the land. This is his place and it will stand, fight and fall here.
Despair floods in, I’d thought I was leading the dogs away but I've lead them straight to the stag. I have betrayed it, condemned it.
Then the dogs are through, hurling themselves from the wood behind me. They rush past, a canine tidal wave. They've the scent and my decoy days are over.
At the same time the rest of the pack crests the horizon and with a collective frenzy sets after the stag. It sees the two packs converging, turns and breaks down the hill, heading again for the cover of the woods below me. The full hunt now appears checks itself as it assesses the situation and then divides. Three men are sent on foot to follow the pack into the woods. For a moment I think they've been sent to bring the dogs back; the stag has won. But no, the hunt skirts the wood, edging round whilst the stag is driven towards open land. The hunt streams past, heavy hooves on the ground, riders exultant in the hue and cry.
I am hungry.
The town is a good couple of miles away, working my way back will be hard work and judging by the height of the sun in the sky it will be gone lunch by the time I'm home. I rub my belly plaintively, it rumbles back. I start to traipse down the hill, finding a small track that weaves through the trees. When the breeze comes I can hear the sounds of the hunt, the rally of the horn, the shouts of the men working the hounds. I take a sombre pleasure in this: it means they've not caught the stag, yet.
The path levels out. I finally leave the dappled woods and enter open fields. Not far now I tell my aching stomach. I reach a gate and laboriously clamber over it pausing to rest on the top bar. I've reached the road back to town. Now my legs are tired too. I think of Tom, wondering whether he's sleeping off the large breakfast he'd no doubt have made sure he got. Suddenly, from behind in the wood, the noises of the hunt are there again, dogs yapping and yelping, harsh voices calling. Then the stag breaks cover. It barrels across the field leaping the hedge bordering the field effortlessly, landing on the road, it skitters on the mettled surface. I fear it's going to collapse but it gains its balance just as the first of the dogs reach the gate and begin to push through the bars. One man is racing across the field trying to keep up with the dogs and their renewed enthusiasm for the chase. He pauses and places a small, brass horn to his lips. His rallying call is answered and some way off, up the road I can see black caps above the high hedgerows. The hunt is coming. A river of hounds burst through the gate, flowing after the stag.
I slip off the gate, jarring myself as I fall. The man with the horn is with me, vaulting the gate almost as effortlessly as the stag had cleared the hedge. His two companions are following hard with the last few dogs at their heels. They climb the gate, gruffly pushing past me. I can hear the hunt rattling along the road up from me. I start to run, following the stag heading for the town. I veer off the road just as the first of the horses catch up with me, nearly knocking me to the ground. The rider chooses not to see me. In tumbling away I nearly collide with another horse. I catch a whip hand being raised and cuss words spat at me before they're gone.
There's a stile with a path direct to the town which I take. The road meanders so I know that running flat out I will beat the hunt and maybe catch the stag.
I pelt along the path, the clatter of hooves and the cry of the hunt diminished by my own exertion. I reach the stile at the end of the field clearing it in almost one move. I'm at the outskirts of the town; past cottage gardens and then I plunge into the narrow drangs, weaving my way until I reach the High Street.
And the stag is there.
It's slowed knowing that it is in foreign territory. Confused and exhausted by the chase it does not know where to go. I wave madly at it trying to force it out of the street, to send it back to the open and away from the savagery of the dogs, but it's not me that jerks it into action; the hounds are furiously at it again. It turns and flees down the street past me. I can see that the stag is is reaching the end of what it can endure.
I follow hard trying to catch up, knowing that the dogs have that blood lust and their is no-one to control them.
The stag reaches the bend where the hotel is It's way is blocked; a dray is unloading barrels. It stumbles to a halt, frantically looking for cover. Darkness means safety. The huge black oak door to the hotel is open suggesting a shadowy haven. The stag bolts from the street up the steps into the hotel, pushing its way into the corridor. I follow behind kicking away a chasing dog that's at my heels. I stand in the door way ready to protect the stag from the onslaught of dogs.
Little, mousy Mavis, so proficient behind the bar turns to find a stag blocking her way to the snug. The tray of glasses she's carrying shatters on the stone floor.
“What the…” comes a gruff shout from the cellar, “If you’ve… It’ll come from your pay.” A large barrel chested main wheels into the passage drying his hands on a stained apron and comes to a startled halt.
The stag is wide eyed, the darkness provides no protection, ahead is nothing and behind the dogs are coming. The hunt is hurtling down the street people join them from shops and houses curious to find the source of the commotion. So many people, a throng; I didn't think so many lived here. It's enough to slow the hunt. Some dismount, weaving through the crowd forcing them apart. Others refuse, pushing their horses through, cursing the onlookers as they go.
The dog I kicked comes back, teeth bared and launches itself at the stag. It catches it on its quarters. The stag kicks. The dog is hurled back into the sunlight hitting one of the hotel’s portico pillars. It yelps in pain as it slides to the ground.
The pack are here now swarming up the steps. There is no respite. The dogs are menacing the stag. Without the master to quell them they will rip the stag to death in their frenzied delight. I try to pull some of them away with my hands. One turns and bites me viciously on the arm. I fall back, crying in pain, shaking the dog loose as I drop.
“This ain’t right!” the large man turns and is gone. The dogs are at the stag now. It can not turn to face them, there is no room. It thrashes slamming one of the dogs into the wall so that it slides limply to the floor but another attacks in it's place.
“Out of my way, out of my way,” the master pushes his way through the crowd gathered at the steps. “You boy, you,” he grabs me. “This is your fault,” and he slaps me hard sending me the ground. “Alan Robinson don’t you dare.”
I turn to look down the corridor. The big man has returned with his shot gun. “This ain’t right, No not ‘ere, not this way. Your dogs ain't no way for a beast like this to die.” He raises the gun to his shoulder.
“Robinson…”
First retort. The noise is so harsh and loud I clamp my hands to my ears, and in so doing drag my hand across my mouth, tasting the blood of the stag as it struggles and begins to stagger.
“No!” There is hatred in the master’s cry.
Second retort: fired to scatter the dogs as they harry the carcass remorsefully. The shot stops their scavenging for moment unsure what to do. Usually, they would have been pulled off the stag but no one is taking command of them. The master pushes through them, giving one that blocks his path a sharp kick in the belly.
“How dare you. How dare you. You know the rights of the hunt. I’ll have your licence, I will. I will have your license Alan Robinson.”
Alan is calmly reloading the gun. One cartridge and another.
“No, how dare you. This is my place, the stag was on my property. I wont let it be butchered by you and your dogs.” The man has brought the gun up so that it is levelled with the master’s chest.
Wide eyed fury barely contained, “You wouldn’t!”
“Wouldn’t I?” And the gun travels in an ark so that is pointed at the dogs. “Get them hounds out. Now. Or a few of ‘em will be joinin' stag.”
The master glares and stamps his feet. But he's nowhere to go. He turns gathering the dogs to his heel. Outside there's silence and sunlight. The hunt retreats and the crowd watches. Alan comes to the stag, kneels and runs his hand down its flank.
“Beautiful, shouldn’t be hunted that way. He turns to me. “Did good boy. Mavis, see to 'im will' 'ee.” He gestures inside to me and then turns to Mavis who is at his shoulder, “Looks like venison tonight then.”