Bone Jack by Sara Crowe Read Free Book Online Page A

careful, won’t you?’ she said. Anxiety creeping into her voice. She’d never liked him running in the mountains. Anything could happen to you, all alone out there, she’d say.
    But she’d never stopped him.
    ‘Training is one thing,’ she said. ‘You can decide your own route and set your own pace when you’re training. The Stag Chase is different. It’s a race, a tough race. The pressure will be on. Don’t let it get to you. Don’t do anything dangerous just to win it.’
    ‘I won’t, Mum.’
    ‘Promise?’
    ‘I promise.’
    ‘OK then.’ She smiled. ‘You look like you could do with some sleep.’
    ‘Yeah, it’s been a long day.’
    ‘Bed then.’
    In his room, he lay in his bed as if it was a boat in the silent ocean of the night. Tiredness washed through him, and he surrendered to it.

TEN
    The days passed, glassy with heat, the nights as thick as tar. Dad shut in his room and Mum restless, spending most of her time in the garden or visiting friends. It seemed to Ash that life was on hold, all of them adrift on a windless sea, choosing not to look at the storm clouds gathering on the horizon. He slept, he ran, he ate, he played computer games, read books, tried to stay focused.
    Every day now, he saw other boys out running in the mountains. They ran in pairs and sometimes in packs. Hound boys, training for the race. Some were boys he’d never seen before, from towns and villages further out in the mountains. Others he knew from school, boys he’d been friendly with until he’d beaten them in the trials and become the stag boy. Sometimes they passed him, silent, their eyes cold and hostile. Sometimes they ran alongside him for a while, jostled him, veered off laughing. He hated it but he knew the score. The stag boy was always an outcast in the weeks between winning the trials and running in the Stag Chase itself. So Ash kept his gaze on the path ahead, kept running. It was him against them now until after the race.
    Twice he saw a distant figure silhouetted against the sky and he was sure it was Mark. Standing above and apart from it all, watching. He remembered Mark’s words again and shivered. It’s the stag boy who has to die … I don’t want to kill you.
    After a week of being hassled by hound boys, Ash started to run a different route – one that took him far away from where the other boys ran, far from the Cullen farm and Stag’s Leap. He took the little paths, the ancient paths, and ran north then northwest, beyond the wide farming valleys and into the wildlands.
    He almost tripped over the dog.
    It was lying in a hollow where the path tucked down between high banks of gorse. A big dog, with a rough black and grey coat matted with muck and dried blood.
    Someone’s pet, lost or dumped out here in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere.
    Ash crouched beside it. It didn’t move, didn’t even seem to be breathing. It looked dead but, in case it wasn’t, he spoke reassuringly to it. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘It’s all right, boy. I won’t hurt you.’
    No reaction. The dog lay there looking like a moth-eaten fur coat that had been dragged through the dirt.
    It must have owners somewhere, people who cared about it, missed it. They were probably out searching for it this very moment, worried sick. He pushed his fingers into the thick hair around its neck. He felt for a collar but there wasn’t one.
    Maybe it was a stray after all, living wild out here, far away from people.
    He ran his hands along its body, felt its bones sharp through its heavy coat. Every rib, every vertebra.
    A low rumble in its throat. Ash snatched away his hand.
    Its eyes half opened: light amber eyes, wolf eyes. A gaze as ancient and wild as the mountains themselves.
    Ash drew a sharp breath. ‘Where did you come from then?’ he said softly. ‘How did you end up out here?’
    The wolf-dog curled its lip as if it wanted to snarl and snap but didn’t have the strength.
    The spell broke. It was just a dog