Let's Kill Uncle (28 page)

Christie’s expression had changed. Her eyes were narrow and hard. In a rage, she took a stick and scratched out the two Teddy bears.

‘That’s the meanest thing I ever came across,’ she said. ‘No, of course he won’t let us get back to the store. Or Auntie’s. And we’re too far away to call anyone for help.’

Barnaby sat with the rifle cradled in his arms and his head bowed. It was beginning to get dark and rain fell on the forlorn little pair.

The echoes of guns sounded in their ears, some booming, some sharp and staccato, depending on which direction the wind wafted them.

Christie raised her head.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘What was the signal shots the man said they would fire? Was it two with a ten-second stop if they wounded him or was that if they killed him?’

But they had been too frightened when they were in the store to pay much attention and they couldn’t remember.

Barnaby suddenly straightened up.

‘We can’t stay here,’ he said. ‘If we could get into the forest, maybe we could meet some of the hunters. We’d be safe then. Come on, Christie, let’s get out of here.’

Yes, it was too awful to sit there patiently waiting for Uncle’s next move. Joining hands and looking fearfully in all directions, they began to run toward the gloomy forest.

The rifle was heavy and they were both barefooted. Blackberry vines dragged at their soaking clothes, hidden roots tripped them, and the mists and dusk produced a million leering, phantasmagoric wicked uncles, all waiting to clutch them.

Christie stumbled and bruised her foot cruelly on a sharp stone. She stopped, leaned her head against a stump and closed her eyes.

Barnaby, clutching the rifle and trembling violently, stood looking at her. Finally he put out his hand and touched her shoulder.

‘I’m sorry, Christie.’

Christie wiped her nose on her cape and faced him.

‘It’s all right. It isn’t your fault. Let’s go.’

They joined hands and began to run again, Christie limping painfully.

A sudden crash in the bushes made their hearts almost stand still. A grouse flew noisily past them. They ran on until sheer exhaustion forced them to pause again.

‘Oh, I wish Sergeant Coulter was here,’ gasped Christie, sitting down and rubbing her foot.

Barnaby sat beside her, the rifle still clutched at his breast.

‘It’s no good,’ he said quietly. ‘No one can help us now. Don’t you understand, Christie? He’s got it all planned.’

A low chuckle from the bushes made them spring to their feet and continue their awful race.

When they reached a bend in the path, Christie stopped suddenly in her tracks.

‘I’m not going in any forest!’ she panted. ‘That’s where we saw him the day of the storm.’

‘But where’ll we go, Christie?’

‘We’re going back to the church,’ she said. ‘And he’s not going to kill us. We’re going to kill him.’

Stumbling wildly, the children turned and changed the direction of their flight to the church. In their panic it had not occurred to them how close they were to it.

Gasping and shaking, they reached the church and entered it.

They walked slowly down the aisle, then stopped and looked about them with fear.

It was almost dark. They saw a box of matches in the front pew, and past the pew the candles of the altar stood pristine and white.

‘Light them,’ whispered Christie.

Barnaby shook his head. He was not going to put down the rifle.

‘You,’ he said. ‘I’ll stay next to you.’

The lighted candles gave them a feeling of security, of being outside the province of Uncle’s dark domain,
of belonging to a concrete world, instead of a land of shadows.

Taking deep breaths, and walking back to the pews, they sat down.

And waited.

‘Christie,’ said Barnaby finally, ‘when he gets here, talk to me. Say anything, but talk to me and don’t stop.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, but do it.’

The minutes dragged slowly on, with only the distant sounds of the baying dogs and rifles to mark them.

‘Oh, why doesn’t he come, if he’s going to,’ moaned Christie.

Barnaby sat stroking the stock of the rifle.

‘Because he’s going to make it as tough as he can for us. I wonder if he unloaded the gun. I’m sure I loaded it.’

‘But if he did, why did he leave the bullets?’ whispered Christie.

Barnaby shook his head.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know why he ever does anything. But if he did, it’s because he’s got a reason. He always has. I know him.’

There was a crash at the door.

Barnaby jumped to his feet, swinging the rifle to his shoulder as he did.

The handle of the door had been knocked off and hurled halfway across the church.

In the doorway One-ear stood swaying, his tail lashing and his head lowered.

Then he flopped on his belly and crawled toward them. He had been shot through the lungs, and halfway down the aisle he collapsed and coughed up blood.

The two white-faced children stood staring stupidly at him. He raised his head and gazed at them with the big, cool green eyes they loved so, then he crawled painfully forward and lay at their feet.

All his sins were forgiven as the children knelt beside him and kissed his battle-scarred head. No matter what he did or what happened, they loved him.

‘Oh, I hope it doesn’t hurt him too much,’ said Barnaby, gently stroking his head.

The baying of the dogs sounded closer, and the cougar shook off the boy’s hand. He tried to sit up, but he could not. He closed his eyes then opened them wearily, gazing at the rifle which Barnaby had propped against the pew.

‘The dogs! The dogs! The men in the store said they’d tear him apart alive!’ said Barnaby.

‘Oh, no!’ cried Christie.

One-ear turned his head from the rifle to them.

Shoot me, the eyes begged.

Barnaby and Christie looked at each other in horror.

‘You’ll have to shoot him,’ she whispered. ‘You can’t let the dogs get him.’

It was then Barnaby realised he had laid the rifle aside. He picked it up and sat down on the bench, with Christie beside him.

‘No,’ he said. ‘No. The bullets are for Uncle.’

One-ear sighed and closed his eyes and the children sat quietly looking at him. Waiting.

The tall white tapers on the altar had burned halfway down when suddenly they flickered as a cold draft passed through the church.

‘Oh, Barnabee … I’

Puzzled, the children raised their heads. They heard the whisper, but they didn’t know from where it came.

‘Oh, Barnabeee … Uncle’s here.’

They turned their heads but they saw no one.

‘Oh, Bar-na-bee,’ the sweet, insidious voice drifted through the little church.

‘Bar - na - beeeee——I’ve come for you.’

They swept their heads in an arc, but still they saw nothing.

‘Talk to me,’ said Barnaby. ‘Christie, talk to me!’

‘What’ll I say?’

‘Tell me about MacNab.’

‘Oh Bar - na - bee——I see you, but you don’t see me, do you? I’m hiding behind a pew, but there are so many pews and you don’t know which one, do you? You’re so tired, Barnaby, so tired. You’re going to go to sleep, Barnaby.’

‘Talk!’ whispered Barnaby.

‘At Christmas,’ said Christie, ‘at Christmas, when he comes with my presents, we dance together. He’s usually drunk but I don’t mind, just my mother. At Christmas he always wears a funny Scotch hat he got when he was in the war.’

‘Your eyes are getting heavy, very heavy, Barnaby. How thoughtful of you to bring your little friend. You are an accommodating child, Barnaby, and I shall miss you, upon my word I will. Close your eyes now, my dear.’

‘That’s how they met, him and my mother, during the war, when he was in London. My mother worked there. Her brother is a doctor. MacNab, he always says that’s the Scotch
for you, send the sons to university and the daughters into service, but my mother says I’m going to go to university.’

‘You are almost asleep now. Your eyes are so heavy, so heavy, and you are so drowsy. Your eyes are as heavy as lead, and you purloined a gun to shoot poor Uncle. Really, Barnaby, that was very naughty of you.’

‘He loves his Scotch hat. He always puts it on my head when we dance. He’s from Cape Breton. I don’t know just where Cape Breton is, but it’s on the other side of Canada.’

‘You are asleep now, Barnaby. Sound asleep because you are so tired, so tired, so tired. You are asleep and you can’t move. It was I who took the bullets out of the gun, you know. And then I
let
you put them back in. Do you know why? Poor Barnaby, so tired, so tired. I let you put the bullets in because the gun is useless to you. You can’t move, Barnaby, you can’t move, Barnaby, you can’t use the gun.’

‘I remember now, it’s a Seaforth hat, the Seaforth Highlanders they’re called, but they’re not Scotch, they’re from Canada too. Maybe they’re from Cape Breton, like MacNab.’

‘Sleep, sleep, sleep. Did you really think you would have any chance against me, you silly little boy?’

‘It has a silver badge on it, with a deer’s head on the badge and under it says, ‘Save the King,’ only not in English. It’s in Scotch but that’s not what they call it. I forget what they
call it, but MacNab speaks it and my mother doesn’t, and she’s Scotch. That’s funny, isn’t it Barnaby?’

‘My voice is so soothing, so soft, so sleep-making, and you want to sleep, sleep, sleep. Do you know why you went to the church instead of the forest? Because I wanted you to. Because I waited until you were on the edge of the forest and then I frightened you. I knew you would panic and the only other place you could go was to the church.’

‘It’s funny because she’s the one who’s Scotch, not Mac-Nab. He’s from Cape Breton, but I told you that, didn’t I?’

‘I didn’t want you to go to the forest. It’s much too crowded there today. I wanted you in the church. You see, they’re all out after the cougar, and they’ll never think of looking for you here. Of course, you won’t be here long. Once they’ve shot the cougar and they leave the forest … why, then we’ll go there, all three of us. We’ll have a little picnic and you won’t even have to walk. I’ll carry you both, one over each shoulder. Won’t that be jolly and won’t we have fun?’

Christie looked at Barnaby. He was staring straight ahead, like a bird hypnotised by a snake, and the useless rifle was firmly clamped against his chest.

‘At Christmas … at Christmas, when we dance … when we dance … we dance reels. Our favourite is called ‘The Dashing White Sergeant’ … ’

She stopped and placed her hands on her temples.

‘Oh, Sergeant,’ she whispered, ‘where are you now?’

‘Do you hear the dogs? They’re a long way off. They haven’t got the cougar yet and poor Barnaby can’t move a muscle, he can’t move a muscle, he’s asleep, asleep, asleep and the pretty gun is no use and isn’t that a shame? We’re going to play games. Oh, I know all sorts of games. Games you’ve never even heard of.’

Christie looked around again.

Uncle was standing three pews behind them.

‘Shoot him!’ she gasped as Uncle began to move slowly down the aisle, his lips drawn back over his teeth, and in his hands a piece of long, supple wire, weighted on each end with a bar of wood.

‘Shoot him!’ she said again. ‘Please, Barnaby, shoot him!’

Barnaby’s dazed eyes were riveted. He couldn’t move.

‘Shoot him!’ cried Christie. When she realised that he couldn’t, she leaned down and tried to pry the gun from his arms, but his hands were frozen on it.

‘It’s no use. She can’t get the gun but of your hands. Nobody can. They would have to break your arms first.’

Christie closed her eyes, then opened them and looked up at Uncle, who was slowly approaching her with a coy smile on his face.

‘Oh, no,’ she whispered.

‘Oh, yes,’ he whispered.

Things were going beautifully. With the confusion of the cougar hunt, they wouldn’t be missed for hours. Already the leaky rowboat was bobbing in the waves beneath the cliff and their little shoes were placed at the water’s edge
of Death Beach, one pair still cunningly laced. The bodies, of course, would never be found.

Christie stepped back and stumbled over One-ear.

He gave one hiss of agony.

As Uncle took another step forward, three hundred pounds of pain-ridden, steel-muscled, hate-filled beige murder sprang from the floor, the claws leaving inch-deep scars in the wood.

Uncle, wicked, wicked Uncle, instinctively raised both hands to protect his throat. But alas, he got them tangled in the deadly, twining wire.

Like himself, One-ear was an accomplished murderer.

It was soon done, but it was a scene from hell while it lasted, with over-turned pews, blood-stained prayer books, broken candles and low snarls from two throats.

Christie stood silently with her eyes closed. At last she opened them and gave Uncle a cursory glance.

She sat next to Barnaby.

‘You’ve got to wake up now. It’s time for you to wake up. He said you couldn’t but you can. He’s dead, so it’s all right to wake up.’

Barnaby did not move.

Christie frowned.

‘It’s me, Christie. Wake up now. He made you go to sleep, I don’t know how he did it, but he did. He’s dead, One-ear killed him, so wake up. Hurry up, Barnaby, wake up. I want you to. I don’t like being here alone. I want you to wake up now, so open your eyes. You can let go of the gun too, he’s dead so we don’t need it any more. I don’t like being here alone, so wake up and let go of the gun.’

Barnaby stirred drowsily. Suddenly he blinked his eyes, shook his head and sprang to his feet.

‘What happened?’

‘You mean you don’t remember? But that’s not fair. I had to see it all!’ She sighed. ‘One-ear killed Uncle. You can look at him if you want. He’s over there. I did. He looks awful, but I don’t care. I’m glad he’s dead.’

Barnaby arose and walked over to the wicked Uncle’s body. He nodded to himself, and kneeling down he untangled the wire. He gazed at it curiously for a minute, then rolled it up and put it in his pocket.