Jungle Half a Mile from Home

There are two reasons men kill, lust and money, or the disciples of
either. Animals know neither. The beast kills for food or survival.
Crawling along the floor or swooping for high pinnacles of rock, the
beast does not recognise the dull throb of a golden vein. Eruptions of
desire do not engulf the beast, the way a woman may quake a man's soul.
The beast hunches up and crawls a little faster. The beast folds back
its wings and dives a little quicker. Natural law dictates the outcome
of this encounter. It has been this way for a million generations,
until a shot rings out, and the natural order becomes turmoil.

'Good shot old man! Damn fine shot. I say, hope you've left some for
me.'

Albert Masonwell never misses. His family motto reads 'Shoot truly.'
The Masonwells are true of eye and aim. It's in his blood. Thirty
generations back to the king, every Masonwell has inherited the shot.
Albert, fourteenth Earl of Bronver, has won the Bronver Shooting every
year since he was fourteen, with one exception. One year ago, crippled
with a broken heart, Albert missed the target, and drilled a clean hole
through the head of his fianc?'s lover. The magistrate, a wise man,
with an ear for Albert's father, justly declared the incident to be a
terrible accident. He suggested Albert travel, clear his mind of the
unfortunate events.

'Mayfly, the place is swarming with vermin. I'm sure even duffer such
as you could take a pot shot and get lucky here. We're not shooting the
grouse on Finley's Common now. Go on man make your shot.'

Before the next dawn had broken, Albert's father had seen his son on a
fast carriage to the coast. He took only a few possessions, three
suitcases of silks and leathers, a case of port and wine and his
favourite hunting pistols. His father offered him a little money for
the passage and parted with the words, 'twice around the world son,
then you will be welcome home.'

Mayfly makes heavy work of the shooting. He fires round after round
into the undergrowth with neither a squeal nor a flurry of
leaves.
'Damn it Albert, you have scared them all away.'
Albert flashes him a few teeth, picks up his weapon and fires blindly
into the trees. Plumes of feathers spray in the air, followed by three
firm thuds against the earth.
'Keep your aim steady Mayfly and let your weapon speak.' His father
taught him that. His father never taught him a poacher's walk, but it's
easy enough to turn sport into survival. 'Now we have something for the
pot, let us walk a little, remember better times,' and he strides into
the trees.

Albert saw wide oceans; great expanses of desert, rolling prairies and
terrible mountains that wrenched themselves from the clutches of the
earth. Then he would close the pages of the heavy atlas and pour more
port from his dwindling supply. He'd intended to board the boat. He had
tried to make it to the port but, when he stopped off to say farewell
to his old friend, the welcome was warmer than he expected, the beer
sweeter than he had remembered. It was too difficult to leave without
another. Before he knew it, the sun was high in the sky and the ship
was long sailed.
So there he stayed. Mayfly's discretion was assured. Besides, his
sister Mary was coming into her prime. Albert had never paid much
attention to the girl before. She was taller than most men, and
previously he never bothered looking at her face. When she sat darning
in her mother's old chair, the firelight brought life to her hollow
cheeks. She must have caught him looking at her, for after a week, when
Mayfly was in town, she came over to him. She closed the atlas for
him.
'You must be a passionate man, to kill your lover's lover stone
dead.'
'How much of a man would I be, had I not?'
'Maybe you could tell me that Mr Masonwell.' She kissed him on the
lips, but he pushed her head away.
'You know that I am a Masonwell no longer, Mary.'
'That might make a difference to you. It might make a difference to
some other women. But would those women be worth you time?'
She took the atlas, placed it on his lap, and opened it across the
expanse of the Atlantic.

They walk pathways that become more familiar with each step. They are
getting close to the Masonwell's own land. They pass into a plantation
of high and mighty oaks, fixed points for the daily scenes of carnage
to orbit. Nothing breaks these trees' routine of bud, leaf, acorn and
shed. The trees are mark each season with a colour, mark each year with
another name carved into the trunk. The older names, near the base,
have stretched over the years. The newer ones, higher up the trunk,
threaten to close up and disappear.
When they carved their names, they were boys, the forest alive with
imagined creatures meant to keep them in their beds at night. Now those
animals are locked in childish trunks and the trunks of the trees are
tarred with black.
Albert pulls a charred leaf from a branch to examine the damage.
'What happened here?'
He presses the leaf to his face, smells the fire, the fear in the tree.
It leaves a smear of soot on his cheek. He sniffs, pulls back branches
and finds a clearing where there was none before.
The forest has become something different. A store of timber to fed the
ovens of industry, land waiting to be cleared to mop up the sprawling
city.
Albert steps into the smouldering glade and stops.
'Watch out old man!' cries Mayfly, as he blunders into him. Albert is
still, his hand raised.
'Look what they've done Mayfly.'
Men have cleared the dense thicket down to stumps and ashes. The
labourers are still there, working with horses to lift roots from the
ground.
'Do you remember the beech that used to grow over there by the brook?
We tied rope around it and swung into the water. I have drawings of the
elms, and the sky through their branches. Now they plough their
remains. Who let this happen Mayfly?'
'Calm down old man, the lads might spy us. You can't afford to be
seen.'
'There should be rowan and birch to hide behind, but they've burnt them
all down. I will not stand for this.'

Mary stretched her arms above her head, fingers swaying from the taught
limbs, casting shadows of branches across the hearth. Albert was
studying the atlas again, this time in a chair by the fire. The winter
had closed around the house and all the shudders were locked tight.
When the wind turned northerly, it sang tunes and drew up the fire into
a rage.
'Do you think he'll have you back?' she asked him, but he did not
reply. 'Albert, when will you return to Masonwell Hall?'
Albert unhooked his glasses and folded his arms. 'I have to go twice
around the world my love.'
'And where are you now?'
He looked back at the page, 'China, heading West. I'm following the
spice roads that Polo paved. He had camels, but I have bartered fast
horses from the nomads of the steppes. I gallop through the cold desert
nights and sleeps brief hours around noon. I'm coming home my love.
I'll be with you soon.'
'But that is only once Albert.'
'I promise you Mary, I will stay with you a while before the next
revolution.'

His silk shirts are not well suited to a low profile. The figure that
strides across the new field is both dashing and dishevelled. His cap,
lent by Mayfly as disguise, falls over his face.
'I say, you there! Yes you man, you with the horse.'
There are three labourers, strong men with weather battering their
faces. They have lashed a harness around the horse and chains around a
stump and beat the horse with sticks to make it strain harder.
'You, what are you doing?'
The men ignore him, until Albert descends on them. He pushes the
biggest of them, away from the animal, takes the stick, snaps it and
hurls it to the ground.
'That's no way to treat your beast. You men should know that. Don't you
know that? Well don't you?'
They all look at distant objects, at Mayfly hobbling towards them,
boots sink in the deep scars left by the horses.
'What have you done to this forest?'
The ringleader leans against the horse. He says, 'we don't have to tell
you nothing. This is Masonwell land, and we're Masonwell's boys. That
means you're on our land, and we're going to remove you.'
'I have a gun.'
'We'll so you do sir. And loaded I'll wager.'
The boys chuckle amongst themselves.
'Maybe not, woodsman,' gasps Mayfly, arriving short of breath, 'but my
pistol is both loaded and primed. And I've know Mr Masonwell's family
since I was a boy. I think you owe us an explanation.'

--This is work in progress. If you would like me to finish it, please
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