QR Short Stories: A View From a Hill (Part 3)

Patten handed the headset over slowly, and holding it up to my face hesitantly, after the familiar period of adjustment, I recoiled in horror.......

There was the graphic image of the ensuing massacre at Duneane so garishly rendered in Baxter’s canvas, as the rain drowned any Dohsian worshipper lucky enough to escape the human blades, but wait; in the second stained glass window of the church, there stood an elderly convict in full uniform, his face twisted into a sadistic smile. And as full realisation dawned upon me, Patten frantically rooted for old clippings in the maw of his paper bag. “Look” he urged, “Dohsian press doesn’t circulate in Earth’s new media as frequently since decolonization. Each clipping, which I obtained from the Duneane archive with some difficulty, describes some unexplained massacre at the beginning of the harvest season in rural regions of the Southern hemisphere on Dohs, all instigated and perpetrated by forces unknown; subsequent enquiries falter and explanations fail to explain these killings at every hurdle.” Patten frantically piled scrapbook upon scrapbook of headlines to that effect upon my desk, and as I furiously scanned through them, with my sense of uneasiness increasing and the gorge rising in my stomach as each massacre was laid bare before me, Patten coiled into his chair, exhausted.

“I’ve only got three months to live”, he whispered, rivulets of tears flowing out of the deep ridges and lines which grew under his eyes, streaking his cheeks. “It’s Cancer. We must never allow this to get out-not for my sake-but for the sake of the sanity of the Dohsian people. Baxter would be seen in the eyes of every middle-aged introvert, every outspoken politician, every inconvenient and indispensible individual in Dohsian society, and they’d hang more innocent suspects searching for him than the total lost in the atrocities these clippings describe. I want you to look after these when I’m gone and keep my secret.”

Thus Patten and I engaged in a heated argument, and I protested that by highlighting the problem, Baxter could and would be found and prosecuted. But he was right. Better to leave well alone than to uproot every Dohsian man, woman and child, and begin a witch hunt in every town and village, the flames from which would not be extinguished until half the population had stoked its inferno. Patten and I approached the problem from the same perspective. What had happened here was something beyond humanity itself-his crimes, his escape, his indefatigability. 

And thus, this is the story of how I came to believe an old legend and acquire A View From a Hill. The headset, and that confounded canvas, languish in a corner at the National Gallery where the shadows very rarely retreat, night or day, and thus Baxter’s crimes against both the Dohsian people and humanity are forgotten, at least, until the beginning of the Dohsian harvest season.

By Michael McConway