A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines

Author:Barry Hines
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing
Published: 2000-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

5/- DOUBLE.

CRACKPOT

TELL HIM HE’S DEAD.

_____

5/-

J.H.

He refolded the slip and stuffed it into the same pocket as the money, then left the house and shut the door behind him. The noise made a starling fly off the gutter, making Billy glance up as he locked the door.

He entered the garage, opened the back window, the side window, then placed a stool over a chalk X, drawn in a position where he could see squarely through both windows by merely turning his head. He settled down on the stool to wait. Nothing happened. He sat with the rifle across his thighs, whistling softly and rocking his feet silently in tune. He stopped whistling and rocking when a house sparrow landed on top of the kestrel’s hut. He crept to the back window. When he raised his head the sparrow had gone. So he crept back to his stool and settled again.

There was a continuous CHIP CHIP of sparrows, but the only ones in view were out of range specks on chimney turrets. Then a cock sparrow landed on the gutter above the back bedroom window. It stood on one leg and scratched its beak with a high speed shuttering of the other foot, roused its feathers and settled, its fluffed body curving up over the gutter like an egg in a cup. Billy slipped off his stool to the window and eased one eye round the frame. Still there. He lifted the rifle and slowly poked it out, angling and swivelling it in the sparrow’s direction. The sparrow stopped chipping and looked about, its feathers slicking to its body, revealing its true thin shape. Billy froze. Pause. The sparrow relaxed, and continued its song, chip. chip. chip. Billy scroamed into a comfortable kneeling position, and, jacking his left elbow on the window ledge and steadying the barrel on the side of the frame, brought the sparrow into sight. A grey pom-pom with a black bib; a grey capped head turning in profile to silhouette the tiny beak splitting wide at each utterance. A well defined study, edged black against the slate background. Billy adjusted the sights just a shade to pinpoint the intersection of the hairlines on to the bib. Hold it. Squeeeeze. The kick back made him jump and blink and open both eyes in time to see the sparrow plumping head first wings out down the back-cloth of brick. Reloading the rifle he ran out to where the sparrow lay on the concrete. He touched it with the barrel tip, then carefully turned it over. It lay still. So he bent down and picked it up. Both eyes were closed. A thin line of blood emphasised the division of the beak, but there was no further sign of violence. Billy scuffed the plumage on its breast, and fanned its wings to look underneath them. But there was no mark where the slug had entered. He smoothed the feathers and refolded the wings, then held the rifle out at arms length and fired it down into the soil near his feet.

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