Sacred Sierra by Jason Webster Read Free Book Online

high in places and had trunks as thick as a man’s arm. It took a huge amount of effort, and no small number of scratches and cuts from the incredibly sharp needles to fell just one of the bastards – and there were several thousand of them to dispose of.
    There was no choice: I was going to have to get tooled up – with the one piece of machinery I could manage to get up on to the terraced fields: a heavy-duty brush-cutter.
    When you’re not used to them, heavy power tools can produce a mixed sense of awe, fear and excitement. Excitement at holding something so powerful in your hands; awe at the sight of what it can do in such a short time; and fear of what it might end up doing to you if you get it just slightly wrong. We were lucky enough in that one of Salud’s cousins had a shop selling exactly what we needed, supplying me not only with a man-sized strimmer I could barely lift, but the helmet, face mask, shin protectors and ultra-thick gloves I would also require if I was to come out of the experience of using it alive. I was also given a crash course in the workings of it and what to do if we had any problems – vital information when you’re stuck at the top of a mountain an hour’s drive from the nearest mechanic.
    ‘Don’t worry too much,’ Salud’s cousin said as he saw the expression of incomprehension on my face. ‘If it starts playing up just call me and hold the phone next to the strimmer: I should be able to tell you what’s wrong with it just from the sound it’s making.’
    Fully kitted out, I set out from the house the next day looking like a rejected extra from
Mad Max
, stiff, with my extra thick protective trousers making it even more difficult to climb up the narrow, rocky track to the gorse-infested terraces. Brambles tore at my arms from the sides, as though aware of what was about to happen and trying to force me back. I brushed past them as nonchalantly as possible: this was my land and it was about time I started showing them who was boss. The reign of weed terror was about to come to an end and a new dawn of clear fields and freshly planted trees was about to begin. The battle was going to be long and fierce, but I had my mighty brush-cutter in my hands and no one was going to hold me back.
    I fired up the strimmer and it roared into life. Clipping it to my harness, I closed the face mask on my helmet and stood to face the first gorse bush: a monster a yard and a half wide and a foot higher than myself, daring me to take it on. I pressed the accelerator, raised my weapon high and then brought it down on the fearsome beast. A shuddering pulsed up my arms as the spinning blades made contact with the gorse, then in a flash all was flying needles and spraying vegetation as the machine descended almost of its own volition in a zigzag motion down the entire height of the bush, chopping and cutting mercilessly, until moments later I was looking down at a pile of mulched gorse at my feet, the sorry stump of its once proud trunk poking pathetically out of the ground until, with another swoop, that too was gone and the gorse was no more. I took my finger off the accelerator and paused for breath. The whole process had taken less than thirty seconds and this once menacing foe now lay defeated beneath me. I was covered with debris from the kill, but was exhilarated at my victory. Man over vegetable: there was no holding me back now. The other gorse bushes seemed to cower before me as I approached them, aware for the first time of their own mortality. With a bloodthirsty grin I pulled on the accelerator once more and dived into the fray.
    After two or three hours, I had managed to clear one terraced field: a once impenetrable corner of the farm was now accessible, perhaps for the first time in years. There was still a seemingly infinite amount of land to clear, but I had made a start, and, most importantly, I now had the necessary tool to carry out the job.
    In my excitement and concentration, I