Free Cross Country Murder Song by Philip Wilding Page A

off.
    Horses and dogs, I mean the domestic kind, pets, you know, not pack dogs, the wild kind, his father said. He nodded. He did know.
    Animals, like that, they just run for fun, his father said. When we run, we’re running after something or we’re running from it. His father’s voice had changed as if he was shifting down a gear like he did when their car approached a bend in the road. His father became quiet. He found a farm driveway he could back up into, turned around and headed back home. He walked up the steps into the house with his arm on the boy’s shoulder and then walked into his study and closed the door.
    The squirrel was sitting on top of the post, silver grey and alert. It was twitching with life, fidgeting endlessly, shifting its weight around. The family dog, Pascoe, a black Labrador, sat at the bottom of the post patting the earth down with his paws and making a strange low whine that turned into excited yapping. The squirrel clung onto the post and pointed itself at the earth, driving the dog into a frenzy; then it took off with a suicidal-looking leap and darted past the dog and into the thicket of trees that stood at the back of the house.
    Shit, he said and raced after the dog as it lurched off in pursuit. Three loping figures in profile frozen for a moment before the squirrel exploded with a burst of speed and hit a tree, running and skipping up its thick trunk and into the higher branches out of sight. Pascoe fared less well and went through a mesh of bracken and bushes, drool gathering at his panting jaws. He chased in after him, calling his name.
    Pascoe, suddenly mute, was sniffing around the edges of a dilapidated beehive, a small wooden cube with a sloping roof now discoloured with age. He lifted a leg lazily and added to its patchwork of stains. He pushed the dog back and circled the hive slowly, as if the air might suddenly fill with bees. He touched the panelling on its side and gave himself a start as a piece of wood came loose and hit the floor. Pascoe ran forward barking, his tail making a fan in the air. He shushed the dog and was leaning forward to examine the piece of wood when he saw the tight bundle of oily rags pushed underneath the hive. He pulled it free and was surprised at its weight; he untied it and gasped when he saw the revolver sitting there in his hand. He picked the gun up gingerly and then held it out before him and looked along its barrel. Pascoe whined and backed up behind him. He moved the gun around, aiming the sight at the high branches above him, and then he pulled the trigger. The safety held the trigger in place and without thinking he found the metal nub above the handle and flicked it forward. He pointed the gun at the tiny blossoms of light breaking through the foliage above him and fired. Pascoe ran back towards the safety of the house and he heard the scuttling above him as the higher branches emptied of startled squirrels and birds. Then the housekeeper was racing through the trees followed by his father who he heard before he saw him, his repeated, breathless, Jesus! sounded like a mantra as he came racing across the garden. The housekeeper wrestled the gun from his hand and threw him so violently to one side that he fell. His father came rushing through the brush and clipped the beehive as he did so. His stream of expletives was louder than the gunshot, his face was red and astonished. He dragged him inside the house and beat him around the face and shoulders until he was doubled up with exhaustion and then he locked him in the basement with a hand towel filled with ice cubes to stem the flow of blood and to help reduce his swollen cheek.
    He’d wanted to kill his father after that, but he knew he was too scared of him. He could only imagine failing, stalling in his actions as he stood over his father’s sleeping form and his father coming awake to pull the knife away from him and exact some terrible revenge, his mother’s