Rampike Read online

  Rampike

  European P. Douglas

  Published by Ghost Creative, 2018.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  RAMPIKE

  First edition. June 1, 2018.

  Copyright © 2018 European P. Douglas.

  Written by European P. Douglas.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 1

  Deep orange glowed through the cracks in the blackened embers; the ash crumbling and shifting in the battered tin bowl as Maul Thorndean swivelled it around. Ever since he was a boy he’d loved to see the dying of the fire and listen to the last death of embers rattling around in the dented vessel. The bowl grew hot, and he had to shift it from hand to hand keeping his thick fingers in constant motion against their burning. His vapored breath in the cold air fused with the wisp from the ashes and he spat into the bowl to add a hiss to the effect. When he’d watched long enough, he tilted the bowl and let the embers fall, breaking to the hard earth at his feet.

  Maul looked through the trees and saw the town of Emerson down in the valley, about ten miles away. It was the closest town to his own home of Mercy and yet not once in his forty-five years and six months had he been there. It looked much bigger than Mercy, but that wasn’t saying much. With only one street and a few houses spread around the woods it was lucky it even had a name. Maul was sure that when he was a child, his father had never once even mentioned the name of Mercy and it was possible he didn’t even know the name of the place he lived. The Thorndean’s had been an isolated clan going back longer than Maul could remember; a tradition he was more than happy to continue. It had been said in the past that Mercy only was named at all to justify having a sheriff who could keep tabs on the wild ways of the Thorndean’s. It was fanciful but Maul wasn’t sure that made it untrue. There was a sheriff after all; Joe Moorefield at the present time and he represented very, very few people.

  A bright flash in the valley caught his eye and the telltale crack of the rifle shot came a moment later. The cries of a wounded animal, a young deer by the sound, rose pitifully on the sharp air.

  “Not a great shot,” Maul mused. The animals he killed never had the luxury of knowing their fate like that. He looked to his own kill from the morning, a hefty doe that would feed him for a few weeks to come. He’d sat to rest and recover some of his strength but it was time to get moving again. Standing up he grabbed the ropes that held the rim of the tarp in which he dragged his dressed meat and began to walk home, the ropes joining over his shoulder and pressing into the padding he wore there for this very reason. A mile behind him lay the rest of the carcass and he wondered if the wolves would have arrived there yet or would it still just be the birds pecking away at the meat.

  A mile on from his fire site Maul took his first step back on to his own land; the most cherished and sacred thing in the world to him. It had been instilled in him from a young age that under no circumstances should he ever part with this land. This was the place where the Thorndean’s belonged — the only place. It would take his death to remove Maul from the land.

  As he waded through the thigh high grass, a cluster of thin trees to the south caught his eye. Something about them didn’t look right but he couldn’t tell what it was from where he stood. The trunks looked almost white in the morning light. He dropped the ropes to the ground and walked over to investigate. As he got closer, he saw that his eyes had not been deceiving him and the bark of the trees had turned white in large parts, looking like they had been scorched in a fire or struck by lightning long ago. It puzzled Maul as he knew for certain that this damage had not been here only two days ago when he had been chopping wood just by here. He felt the bark and found that it was smooth and hard with not a bobble to be found on the sections affected.

  He wondered if it was the beginning of some kind of disease, like the Dutch Elm that had almost wiped out that species in these parts over fifteen years earlier. Maul looked around to see if he could see the marks on any other trees but nothing came to his eyes. It wouldn’t be so bad to have some of the trees here die and fall eventually, but he was sure he didn’t want them all getting a disease that might have the end effect of driving the animals out of the area, and with them his main source of food. He rubbed his hands on the smooth bark once more before going back for his meat and heading on home.

  Maul’s house was a large wooden structure that once served as a family home. It had four bedrooms and one central room that housed a rudimentary stove. He lived alone here and three rooms were almost completely neglected, the doors to them having remained shut for a very long time. On getting to the house he let go of the tarp and went inside, propping his gun against the wall just inside the door. He settled into a chair for a few moments and felt the stove for the heat left in it. Stoking the fire inside brought small flames, and he tossed light dry bark inside for kindling to get it started up again. It had been a cold morning and Maul felt much more weary than usual when he was out hunting. Though he’d slept well last night he thought if he lay down in bed he would find it very easy to fall back to sleep.

  “You must be getting old,” he said and smiled.

  Maul woke with a start and looked about the room. There didn’t seem to be anything that might have woken him but he was very surprised that he had fallen asleep all the same. The fire in the stove was almost completely dead now, so he hadn’t even got that going properly before nodding off. Panic suddenly shocked through his body and he rushed to the door.

  “Come on,” he said. “Be my lucky day!” Sunlight blinded him momentarily as he came out into the day and for a moment he thought the worst had happened. As his eyes adjusted, however, and the black spot that obscured part of his vision receded he saw that his meat pack was still lying where he left it. Thankfully there had been no carnivore out and about in the vicinity who felt brave enough to approach the house to take it. Maul sighed. That would have been a bad end to a long morning’s work. He didn’t know what had made him fall asleep like that but he knew he couldn’t make a stupid mistake like that again. These weren’t known as the Wolf Woods for nothing.

  Not long after when the meat he would not use in the next few days was salted and hanging in the meat shed, Maul looked at the low level in the salt bag. He would have to go to town and get resupplied, a thought that brought a scowl to his face. He hated going there, and he knew it was somewhere he was not welcome, but he had no other way of getting salt to preserve his meat. That big woman at the tavern (he may never have known her name, but it wasn’t coming to him now) was the only one who would take barter for the salt. The old prick in the general and grocer
y store only wanted cash, and that was something Maul had no access to. He had never had a penny in his entire life and he didn’t see that he ever would. There had been trouble the first time his barter had been refused and sheriff Oakes — the one before this new guy— had pulled his gun and made Maul leave town there and then.

  “I better take an inventory of everything I need,” he said bitterly. “I don’t want to have to go again for as long as I can avoid it.” His voice had broken a general silence in the area but no sooner had he spoken than in the far distance a clipped thwacking noise started up — an axe chopping wood somewhere closer to town.

  Maul looked in the direction the sound came from; he knew who it was, not his name, but he’d seen him in the forest before. His axe fell rhythmically and strong and he was good at it. Maul had watched him once from the crest of a rise when the man didn’t even know he was there. To Maul, the man looked like he had something else on his mind when he chopped, like he was burning off energy or perhaps even anger in a way that affected no one else. Of all the people in the area, this was the only one who did not seem to annoy him and for whom Maul had even the slightest modicum of respect. He listened to the chopping a few more moments and then went about his business.

  One hour later Maul entered the tiny town of Mercy. He’d approached the town from higher up the slopes of the mountain and he stopped in the middle of the street and looked down. So many trees had been cleared to make way for the town that there was a clear view from here to Emerson and beyond that, more miles distant, some other town that Maul had never even bothered to find out the name of.

  As he looked down on Mercy, his eyes met the first person of his visit. Mouse Allen looked at him from the door of the general store, his mistrustful eyes beady and narrow on him.

  “What the fuck are you lookin’ at fatso?” Maul called to him. For a moment, Mouse didn’t answer and Maul could feel him squirming. The man was huge and probably stronger than Maul was but though he prided himself on his manliness, he had none of the wildness in him that made Maul such an unwelcome physical opponent.

  “You don’t get to talk to me like that you crazy asshole,” Mouse said. Maul noticed that the big man didn’t make any move closer to him but stayed stood where he was. Maul took a few steps closer himself instead.

  “I can talk to anyone just as I please, fatso, and no one is going to do anything to change that!” he said pointing a finger towards Mouse.

  “I’m not fat, you idiot!” Mouse said angrily, but he came off sounding like a wounded child.

  “You’d feed a family of ten for a long time if you were roasted,” Maul said and looked past Mouse towards the tavern which was his destination today.

  “One of these days Maul, I’m gonna make you sorry for the way you treat people around here,” Mouse said. Maul looked at him and saw that his fists were balled and his teeth clenched so tight that white lines showed across his blazing red cheeks.

  “Why not today?” Maul asked with a malicious sneer. He dropped the bag he was carrying and stepped another foot towards Mouse with his arms outstretched as though inviting the first punch. Mouse glared back at him but still made no move. Maul could see the hatred in the man’s eyes but more importantly, he could see the fear that was in them too. His father had told him many times growing up that if you see fear in an opponent’s eyes the fight was already won.

  A man appeared in the doorway of the store and put a hand on Mouse’s arm,

  “Best not to get involved, eh?” the man said. Mouse continued to look at Maul a few moments longer and then he looked to the man who had come out of the store. He nodded,

  “I guess so, Jeff.” Jeff nodded his approval and went back into the store without so much as looking at Maul. Mouse took one more look at the mountain man and shaking his head followed Jeff inside. Maul smiled at the space where Mouse had been. It was probably best there was no trouble before he got his business completed; he didn’t want to be run off with nothing to show for the long walk down here. He picked up his bag and went on down to the tavern.

  The door was open, but no one was inside when Maul entered the warm building. Two large logs white hot with glowing centres showing through fissures in each lay smouldering in the fireplace and the large open room was cosy. It looked like a very nice place to sit and rest and have a beer and for a moment, he wished he could come here more often.

  “Anyone here?” he called out.

  “Be with you in a minute,” a female voice came back from another room. Maul was glad it was the woman, and he walked closer to the bar and leaned on it while he waited. There were animal heads mounted on the wall all around the room and he assumed they had been brought in by the customers over the years. Probably all easy kills, he mused. At one point, there were so many animals on this mountain that you could shoot out your front door and hit something. That was all different now though; hence his long hiking hunts when he needed to replenish his meat stocks. Maul didn’t know why there were so few hunting animals around anymore; he doubted anyone in town ever caught one these days.

  The woman came out from a door behind the bar and he turned to face her.

  “Maul Thorndean,” she said with a smile he wasn’t sure was genuine. She didn’t look surprised to see him but then this was a formidable woman and Maul thought her more like a man than some of the men in town.

  “I’ve come hoping to trade meat for salt and some bottles of beer,” he said getting straight to the point. The woman looked at him for a moment and didn’t reply. Maul was about to repeat what he’d said when she moved to the tap and pulled a glass of beer. He watched as she did this and then she put the full glass down on the bar in front of him. He looked at her with suspicion.

  “I don’t have any money,” he said.

  “I know,” she answered, “Drink it up all the same and let me see what you have in that bag.”

  Maul heaved his bag up on the bar and took hold of the drink like this was the trade itself. He took a few large swallows, and it was all gone before the woman had looked properly through the bag. She looked at the glass and then at Maul with a playful expression.

  “You want another one?” she asked. He did, but he didn’t want to be in her debt.

  “No,” he said as mildly as he knew how. She leaned on the bar and looked at him for a long time. Maul, not one to be made feel uncomfortable stared right back at her. She hadn’t done this to him before and he wondered was this some new bartering trick she had picked up and was trying out on him.

  “You don’t know what my name is, do you?” she asked breaking the silence.

  “No, I don’t,” he answered without missing a heartbeat. She laughed out loud at this, throwing her head back and clapping her hands together once loudly.

  “You’re a character, Maul Thorndean,” she said and then leaning on her side of the bar added, “I’m Sally Briers, pleased to meet you.” Maul looked down at her outstretched hand but didn’t take it.

  “Are we trading or not?” he asked. He wasn’t annoyed exactly, but he was confused by her behaviour.

  “I guess I can give you what you need,” she said withdrawing the hand without offence, her face still smiling.

  “Good, and then I can get out of your town,” he said.

  “I don’t have any desire to see you leave Maul,” she said. “I wish you were here more often, you’re the most interesting thing about this godforsaken town!”

  “Pah!” he said waving this off. “I’d be dead up in my house for a year before anyone would think to come and look for me!”

  Chapter 2

  Maul wasn’t gone all that long when the door to the tavern opened again and Sally looked up to see Mouse Allen and Jeff Sorkin come in. Sally looked to her watch and then back to the men.

  “Early for you fella’s aint it?” she said.

  “Just popping in for a sandwich,” Jeff said.

  “And a beer,” Mouse added. Jeff looked at him as in surprise but said nothi
ng.

  “I got some really fresh meat if you want me to fry some up?” Sally asked as she set to pouring the beers and the men took up a table in the centre of the room.

  “Just your regular stock will be fine,” Mouse said and there was an edge to his voice that didn’t please her at all.

  “What’s eating you?” she asked him looking at him with steely eyes. Mouse didn’t answer nor look in her direction. Jeff looked at him and sighed.

  “I think—”

  “I don’ want to know what you think, Jeff,” Sally interrupted him, “I want Mouse to answer me!”

  “You know what’s wrong with me,” Mouse said sourly. “Or else you’re dumb as an ass.”

  “I must be dumb as an ass then, cos I don’t know what the hell you’re keening over!”

  “I’m not keening!” Mouse retorted and for the second time that morning sounded like a child being teased.

  “Well then what is it? Spit it out!” Sally insisted, her hands on her hips waiting for his answer.

  “What are you doing trading with that old fuck?” Mouse asked.

  “Maul?” Sally asked to annoy Mouse more.

  “Who else would I be talking about!” he cried out in exasperation.

  “Why shouldn’t I trade with him?” she asked.

  “Because he’s a mean spirited animal who might kill you as quick as look at you!”

  Sally laughed aloud at this reaction and then even more so when she saw Mouse’s face collapse in surprise at her not taking him seriously. Jeff put a hand on Mouse’s arm that stayed him from saying whatever he was about to say at the moment.

  “Maul is no more dangerous than any of you animals around here,” Sally said. “He brings in good fresh meat too, which is much better than anything I get from the butcher in Emerson.”

  “He should stay up where he lives and not come to bother the rest of us decent people,” Mouse said in a sulk and then looking to Jeff said, “You agree don’t you?” Jeff nodded and then looked to Sally himself,