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Badger Season
    Grunt has Dad’s old Webley & Scott twelve bore
    with the dinged end and the open scroll chasing on the stock,
    the right barrel choked by three quarters,
    the left choked by a half, for close work.
    Teague has his usual .22 for the fox
    and his .243 because you never know when...
    (he mutters something inaudible about Brock)
    and – for fun with rabbits – he’s brought his four ten.
    Both fancy trying their luck down at Rolster Bridge
    but Colin’s trying to impress some bird he met online
    by taking her lad lamping that side of the ridge
    so they sit for a while in the car watching the moon
    and comparing guns. Teague likes a ballistic head
    which shatters on impact, leaving no trace. Grunt says
    last year testing left thirty-five thousand cattle dead
    so frankly anything goes; vaccination, poison, gas.
    Far off down the valley they hear a vixen howl
    calling her mate. After an hour they go back to the farm.
    The sheep are grey ghosts in the kale,
    their eyes bright dots reflecting the Clulite’s beam.
    Grunt sends in the kelpie. She looks like a fox.
    He’s saying how easy it is – the glint through your sight
    could be the eye of a fox, or a torch face,
    or a button. Even a mobile phone reflects light,
    and these days kids are always – when a shot
    cracks round the hills like a whip cracked right.
    Teague raises his gun towards Rolster Bridge in salute
    to what they both reckon is one less black-and-white.
    They are in the field that Grunt has just cut for grass
    when something whirls overhead, low and close by,
    rotor blades slicing segments out of the stars
    and a searchlight roving the hillside like one bright eye
    that has both men and beasts running for cover.
    After that there’s nothing moving, so they go home.
    Grunt is paunching rabbits in the yard when it goes back over
    and he glances up as it passes, its low drone
    sending the dog whimpering under the Fendt,
    making his own teeth rattle and his stomach vibrate.
    The trademark red and blue of the air ambulance
    soaks the hills all around in crimson light.
    He puts the meat in the fridge and turns on the PC
    for a game of his favourite shoot-em-up, ‘Badger Season.’
    As he blasts the black-and-whites red, the events of the evening
    fall into place like cartridges into a gun,
    the soft click into the breech, the gentle squeeze,
    and a bad call which blows everything to kingdom come.
    * lamping – hunting rabbits or other nocturnal animals using off-road cars and high powered lights
    * to paunch a rabbit – to remove the innards

Full Load
    The rumour runs round the parish like a case of lice:
    the Garveys have gone down with TB.
    Even Teague admits he doesn’t know for sure
    but at seven this morning Jo Tucker, thirty-three,
    the best haulier for miles and not just on price
    points her truck towards the Garvey’s place.
    The verge runs red with rain and the Devon mud.
    She flips the wipers on to double speed,
    turns the radio on and, as the road starts to flood,
    drops down a gear and slows to walking pace.
    Been a while since Jo has driven down this way.
    A line of young alders has sprung up along the brook
    and a new gateway gapes in an old hedge
    fresh laid with a chainsaw and baler twine for crooks.
    Garvey’s farmhouse squats in a veil of grey.
    Grunt, in waterproofs, heaven diluting his tea,
    stands by the slate porch. Jo Tucker steels
    herself for the sight of Grunt’s face. Just one look
    and she doesn’t need to ask, can already feel
    the awful weight of a full load to Hatherleigh.
    She backs up to the shed and drops the ramp,
    slots the side gates in as Grunt opens the doors
    and they watch the cows come out and sniff the air.
    They smell of good grass and good straw,
    the smoky molasses stink of Grunt’s silage clamp.
    Grunt goes to push them on in but Jo says to wait,
    there’s plenty of room in the truck. She walks past
    working their flight zone, and