Read The Village King for Free Online

sweep it out. You can
get washed in Gary’s.”
    Stephen smiled at her on one side
of his mouth. “Yes, ma’am.”
    The children’s ball rolled down
and rested at Karen’s bare feet. She just looked at it.

13
     
    S tephen
led them out of the
village. He ignored Gareth and Bet to take a line straight from the cattle
grid. Leaving Gareth’s gate to their left, they stepped onto the grass and
headed towards the forest. Gary was left sitting on his folding chair outside
the wash-houses. Stephen had intended on taking just Phil but Alana had
insisted. She “wanted to see the forest.” Karen, of course, loped after them in
her oversize boots.
    Phil was dressed in identical
fatigues to Gary but he needed the hood up on his coat to keep off the morning
cold. The two of them looked like new recruits to the cadets. Stephen realised
he felt good to be dressed in his own clean clothes; having had them washed and
dried by Alana. They followed a slight depression in the grass which had once
been a track, now overgrown.
    An hour later, they arrived at
the edge of the forest, next to the Margaretvale River. They all shouldered off
their bags and packs. Evidence of the forest having been worked was all around
them. Trees had been felled, leaving a ragged edge to a planned forest. Stephen
said to Karen, “Can you look for twigs and small branches that are on the ground?”
    Without directly agreeing, Karen
started hunting around. She found a few small branches and began to gather them
up. Stephen said to Alana, “Watch the tree line.” She set her jaw, nodded, and
began to help Karen.
    Stephen fetched a small axe he
had in his backpack and he gave it to Phil to start chopping at a short tree.
The boy made short work of it and it soon tumbled over. He stepped back, and
wiped sweat from his brow and undid his coat. Stephen took over and began to
hack at the branches with the axe.
    “Stephen.” Alana had kept her
voice low and calm but he knew straight away that he was to look up.
    A group of five people emerged
from the trees. Their clothes were ragged and their faces were blackened by
soot and grime. They moved slowly, curious at their visitors, but they didn’t
venture far, keeping the trees to their backs. Stephen could see the group was
made up of two men and three women. One of the men was older and stood slightly
in front of the others. Stephen stood up and he felt Phil lining up behind him.
Karen ducked behind Alana’s legs while Alana reached towards her pistol, her
hand hovering ready to draw.
    The group of people stopped, and
the older man shouted, “Who are you people?”
    “We’re from the village,” said
Stephen. He’d had this conversation before with people in the forest. “We’re
here for wood.”
    The older man stepped away from
the group. The others did not move. “These are our trees. The wood, the food,
the animals in the trees are ours.”
    Stephen looked over to Alana,
saying quietly, “This is normal. Relax.” She looked back at the group of
people, an evil look in her eyes. Stephen called out, “We don’t need much.
We’ll be gone soon.”
    The older man closed the gap but
he kept about ten paces between them. “You people from the village, with your
houses and your new clothes, are not welcome here.”
    Stephen kept his eye on the man
but he imagined how they looked to this man from the forest. In their clean
garments and barbered hair they must have looked soft to these people. He said,
simply, “Alana.”
    At his prompt, Alana drew the
Glock. She pulled back the slide to ready a shot and held out the pistol with
her left hand cupped under her right.
    A small smile crept onto the
older man’s face. “I am Joseph,” he said. “Remember my name.”
    Joseph backed off and he and his
people melted into the forest. They never came back the rest of the time
Stephen’s group gathered wood, but he imagined their eyes watching them from
the gloom.

14
     
    O n the
morning they were
due to