On Beulah Height (28 page)

That first day was a real cloudburst, then it settled into a steady downpour, sometimes slackening for a while but never really stopping. Back in Dendale we heard they were finishing off the clearing-up job, shifting any big stuff left, sorting out the electrics and such, and when that were all done, they bulldozed the buildings. Seems it didn't matter whether they were going to be drowned or not, the Board didn't want owt left standing to tempt folk to explore either under the water or out of it.

So school, pub, church, houses, barns, byres, everything were knocked flat in preparation for flooding the dale. The dam was nigh on finished, the becks were full bubble, the Neb was spouting water like a leaky bucket, and White Mare's Tail was wagging full force again, so that Dender Mere was nearly up to its old flood level, and high on Black Moss col, twixt the Neb and Beulah the new tarn, were broadening and deepening, ready for its release into the valley below.

All this I picked up the usual way kids pick things up, by hanging around grown-ups with mouth shut and lugs open. No chance of seeing any of it for myself. I'd been warned like all the rest of us not to go anywhere near Dendale. Partly it were that our mams and dads were still feart of Benny Lightfoot or the nix or whoever had taken the three girls. Partly I think they knew how much it would hurt them to see their old homes flattened and drowned, and reckoned it would be just as bad or worse for us kids.

In my case they were dead wrong. I really liked it in Danby. I settled in real quick. And when school started in September, I found that Mr. Shimmings, the teacher with the eye patch, hadn't got it anymore. He'd only been wearing it 'cos he'd hurt his eye in an accident and needed to cover it up till it mended. And he didn't have a split cane but only a walking stick to help with the limp he'd got from the same accident. In fact he were really nice, and him and Miss Lavery got on right well.

I forgot to mention, Miss Lavery had got taken on at Danby Primary, and though I weren't in her class anymore, she always stopped and had a word with me when we met.

There were lots of the old Dendale faces around. Mr. Hardcastle, like my dad, were working for Mr. Pontifex on his estate. The Telford brothers had set up their joinery business in Danby, though I heard tell it were mainly Madge's uncle George doing the work, as Joe (that's her dad) didn't seem able to keep set on anything. The Wulfstans had moved back to town and then sold up there and moved off down to London. Nobody saw owt of Aunt Chloe again, but Mr. Wulfstan's works were up here and he was still around, and there were stories of him being seen wandering around the fells like he was still hoping to find some trace of Mary. Also there was talk of his lawyers suing the police for not doing their job properly, but nowt came of it.

As for Benny Lightfoot, he'd gone without trace. His gran made a right durdum about leaving the dale, and barred herself in Neb Cottage when time came. They went up there to try and talk her out, but when there was no sign of her, they broke in and found she'd had a seizure with all the excitement, so she'd been taken off to hospital. She'd have likely ended up in a home if some niece down near Sheffield hadn't said she'd take her in and look after her.

All this seeped into my head the usual way, but none of it bothered me. Dendale and hot weather, and Jenny and Madge and Mary been taken, seemed miles and years away. We had a cottage quite near the school right on the edge of Danby and though it might have seemed like living in the country to a townie, for me after Low Beulah, it were like being in the middle of a city, with different people and different sights all round me every day.

I think change did Mam good at first too. She seemed a lot livelier and made some new friends and even went out with them now and then. Dad were better, too, for a bit. He were shepherd overseer for Mr. Pontifex and I heard Mam tell someone if he kept his nose clean and his lip buttoned, he should get Stirps End Farm when a present tenant retired, which were expected next Lady Day or Midsummer at latest. Dad used to say he didn't know if there were much point in starting all over, and I knew he were thinking of me being only a lass. And mebbe that's why them days I didn't much mind having my hair cut short and nearly always wearing dungarees or jeans, 'cos I thought that mebbe I'd do for a boy and be able to take on the farm.

Sounds stupid, I know, but that's what I thought. And I tried not to think at all about Dendale, and like I say, soon it seemed as far away as London, and I'd not have dreamed of going back if it hadn't been for Bonnie.

The move seemed to have bothered Bonnie most of all, and if it hadn't been that it hardly ever stopped raining, I doubt he'd have come in our new house at all. He wandered around, all restless. If I shut him in a room with me, he wanted to be out. And if I shut him out, he wanted to be back in. And whatever he wanted, he yelled till he got it, and this really got on Dad's nerves. He'd never liked Bonnie anyway, so I did my best to keep them out of each other's way.

Then this night it all went wrong. Dad came into the kitchen through the back door and Bonnie shot between his legs, almost tripping him.

He swore and lashed out with his boot, catching Bonnie right in the ribs.

The cat let out a screech and shot through the open door. I screamed, too, and Mam came in to see what was going off.

"It's Bonnie," I sobbed. "Dad kicked him and he's run away."

"Is that right?" Mam demanded.

"Bloody useless animal," said Dad. "Good for nothing. If I never see it again, it'll be too soon. Anything that can't earn its keep isn't bloody well worth keeping."

This made me cry even more, and not just for Bonnie.

Mam tried to comfort me by saying Bonnie would be back once he realized he were just getting soaking wet outside. And even Dad, who mebbe felt a bit guilty, said it would be all right, Bonnie would be back under his feet in the morning.

But he wasn't. No sign of him.

I cried all through breakfast and all the way to school. No one noticed at first, we were all so wet, a few tears made no difference. It were a really foul day, rain hissing down so hard it came straight back up again, filling the air with curling mist so's you couldn't see across playground. But once we got inside and dried off, my friends soon spotted I were crying and asked me what was wrong. My girlfriends were all dead nice, but one of the boys, Joss Puddle, whose dad had had the Holly Bush in Dendale, said, "Don't know why you're bubbling. I know where he'll be. He'll have gone home."

"Well, he hasn't, stupid," I said. "That's what I've just been telling you. He hasn't come home."

"I don't mean Danby home, I mean his old home, his real home, so who's stupid now?" he retorted. "And I'll tell you summat else. If he's gone back to Low Beulah, he'll likely get drowned, 'cos they're letting loose Black Moss today."

I thought about this all through the morning till break. The more I thought, the more I reckoned Joss were right. Bonnie had been fretting ever since the move. Where else would he run after Dad had kicked him but back to Dendale? At morning break I told Joss to tell teacher I'd gone off home with a bellyache.

Looking back, I know what I set out to do were daft. Chances of finding Bonnie, even if he had set out back to Low Beulah, was rotten. Chances of me slipping and breaking a leg were a lot better. But I had this picture of Bonnie sitting down by the mere all forlorn and this big wall of water rushing down from Black Moss and sweeping him away.

So I set off up the Corpse Road to Dendale.

It were a steep climb out of Danby, but I were strong for my age and the path were so well worn, I had no problem following it even when the mist swirled close. Rain never let up, and soon I was sodden through, but it weren't a cold rain with the wind coming from the south, and I was moving fast as I could, so that kept me warm inside.

As I came over the ridge of the Neb I could hear White Mare's Tail thundering, but there were another noise I didn't recognize. It wasn't till I got halfway down into the dale, and suddenly the mist opened up like it does, that I saw where it came from.

Down from Black Moss what had used to be a whole lot of becklets streaking the hillside like silver threads had knit together into a great tumbling force. It rushed straight down fellside into the valley bottom, where it joined with White Mare's Beck and went roaring down to the mere.

The mere itself were fuller than I'd ever seen it, even in the old spring floods. Mebbe this were 'cos of the dam wall holding it back from running off down dale, mebbe 'cos of all the rain we'd had, and the new force from Black Moss. But already its old shape were gone and it were covering fields and walls which ran along its edges and lapping about ruins of houses, like Heck, which had stood close.

I stood there and felt ... I don't know what I felt. I were looking at place I'd spent most of my little life and not recognizing it. It were like looking in mirror and seeing someone else there.

Through the mist I could just make out on far side of the mere the round hillock close by where Low Beulah had stood. Then it vanished, and in no time at all I could hardly see more than a couple of steps in front of me again. But it were easy enough to follow Corpse Road down to Shelter Crag. Now I was scrambling around on blocks of stone from buildings that had been knocked down and it were hard to tell just where I was. I were trying to get to the little humpback bridge over White Mare Beck, which would take me onto the road round mere and so up to Low Beulah, but when I reached edge of the beck, or river as it were now, I realized how daft I'd been. Bridge would have gone, if it hadn't been knocked down it would be underwater now. I were so wet, I thought of wading over, but I could see it were too deep. And any road, it moved so fast, I'd have been knocked off my feet.

I stood there shouting, "Bonnie! Bonnie!" over the water for a while. Then it struck me. If I couldn't get over, neither could a cat. One thing Bonnie hated was getting wet. He'd been really miserable just being out in the rain, no way he'd try to swim across a river.

So what would he do? Try and find shelter, I told myself.

I felt a bit happier now. Water was rising fast but not so fast it could catch a cat, and though the new river were running strong, it were a long way short of the huge wave rushing down the dale I'd seen in my fancy.

So I started calling, "Bonnie! Bonnie!" and went wandering off up what were left of the village. The rain was harder now and it seemed to stot up from ground to join the mist so that you could really feel it like stroking your face and arms and legs as you moved along. It were a funny feeling but I were so wet now that I didn't mind it, in fact I think I might have quite enjoyed it if I hadn't been so worried about Bonnie. I couldn't see a thing, but I thought as long as I were going uphill I couldn't come to much harm, and all the time I kept on shouting his name.

And then I heard him meowing back.

I knew right off there were summat wrong. I know all the sounds Bonnie makes, and the kind of yell he gives when he's hungry and wants his supper, or when you've left him shut up for a long time and he's narked with you, is a lot different from the noise he makes when he's scared.

I thought, Mebbe he's hurt himself, and I shouted again, and he shouted back, and I went toward the noise.

First thing I saw was this big pile of stones. Then I heard Bonnie again and I saw his eyes, two slivers of green glistening in the dark. But they were quite high up and I thought he must be standing on this pile of stones. Then above his eyes I saw something else, a paleness in the air, and another pair of eyes, and I took a step closer and saw that someone was holding Bonnie tight against his chest.

And at the same time I realized the pile of stones was all that was left of Neb Cottage and the man holding Bonnie was Benny Lightfoot.

He said, "Is that you, Betsy Allgood?"

His voice were low and unearthly, and his face so thin and his eyes so staring, he looked just like one of the nixes I recall seeing in an old picture book. I'd never been so scared before, nor since. But he had Bonnie and I knew that nixes ate any beasts they took, lambs or dogs, or cats.

So I said, "Yes, it is."

He said, "And you've come calling for me," sort of wonderingly.

I said, "No, I were calling for my cat." Then seeing how he'd made his mistake, I went on, "He's Bonnie. That's what I were calling. Bonnie, not Benny."

"Bonnie not Benny," he echoed. Then he sort of smiled, and he said, "Never mind, you're here now, Betsy Allgood. Come here."

"No, I don't want to," I said.

"You mean, you don't want your cat?"

He held Bonnie up in both hands and he must have squeezed or something, because Bonnie let out a squawk of pain. I didn't decide to do anything, I just found myself walking toward him.

He were standing higher than I was, being up the fell and also on one of the stones from the cottage, and he held Bonnie out toward me. I reached up to take him, but just as my fingers were almost touching his fur, Benny pulled him back with one hand andwiththe other he grabbed me by the arm.

I started screaming, and he pulled me closer to him, his fingers so tight around my flesh, I thought he were going to snap the bone. His face came down close to mine and I could feel his breath on my face, his cold wet lips against my neck, as he spoke in a horrible, breathless whisper, "Listen, listen, little Betsy. I don't want to hurt you, all I want you to do is--"

Then, because I were twisting so hard to get away, he must have slackened his grip on Bonnie, and Bonnie shot up into the air and caught with his claws at Benny's face to stop himself falling.

Now it were Benny's turn to scream. He let go of me to grab at the cat, but Bonnie was already dropping to the ground, and I stooped down and scooped him up. Benny made another grab for me, I felt his fingers touch my hair, but it were so short and so wet, he couldn't get any grip, and then I was running away fast as I could with Bonnie in my arms.

How far I ran I don't know. Not all that far. The ground was damp and skiddy and covered with rocks and I soon tripped and fell. I could feel my ankle hurting, so I didn't try to get up but rolled over under a big boulder and lay there, panting so hard, I thought I must be heard half a mile away. But slowly my breathing eased, and Bonnie, tight against my chest, seemed to know that it wasn't a good idea to make a lot of noise, and eventually I could hear the hiss of the rain once more, and the thunder of White Mare's Tail, and the roar of the new force tumbling down from Black Moss.