I’ve told you before about Llandanffwnfafegettupagogo, the most lawless town in the real Wild West—that is, Wales. This is what happened there one year at the Annual Sheep Rodeo and Dog Trials.
It was a Friday night and Police Sergeant Bryn Bunyan—the fastest truncheon west of the border—was having supper with his friends PC Gorsebush Jones and Doc Rees when the High Street was suddenly full of shouting.
Gorsebush opened the door, then slammed it again as half a dozen sheep tried to get into the room.
“It’s the sheepboys in town again,” he said. “They only come once a year, but once is enough. They’ve just got paid too, by the sound of it.”
Every year the sheepboys drove the flocks down from the mountain to sell them at the sheep rodeo, and that always meant trouble, what with people getting in brawls and staying up as late as midnight.
“I think I’ll just mosey on down to the pub,” said Sergeant Bunyan.
“I think I’ll mosey with you,” said Doc Rees. “There’s bound to be a few cracked heads once those boys taste a bit of brown ale.”
When they reached the Lump o’ Coke people were singing. Someone was playing the piano and everyone else was shouting and banging on the bar.
The two friends stood outside for a few minutes, sniffing the evening air, and then there was a mighty
CRASH!as someone was thrown through the window. They lay motionless on the pavement.
“It’s Woolley Waistcoat,” said Doc. “Hmm. No bones broken,” he added, with obvious disappointment.
“Isn’t he the boss of the Lazy Z farm?”
“Yep.”
Next moment the door burst open and a stream of sheepboys poured out onto the pavement, fighting. Sergeant Bunyan thought for a moment, then blew his police whistle—hard.
PEEEEEEEEEP!
Everyone stopped as if by magic. Sergeant Bunyan flexed his knees.
“Evenin’ all, and hullo, hullo, what’s all this?” he said. “In town five minutes and already causing a breach of the peace? That’s quick work.”
“You ask that sheep thief Waistcoat,” said a tall thin man who Bunyan recognized as Rawhide Evans, who owned the Sulky Leek farm.
“It’s him that’s been stealing sheep!” said Woolley Waistcoat, pointing at Evans.
“I see. You want to lay charges of sheep stealing against each other, eh?”
“Yes,” they said together.
“I can prove that he’s been rustling my sheep,” they said at the same time, then scowled at each other.
The two farms were next to each other, up in the hills at the end of the valley. Waistcoat and Evans normally got on quite well, whispered Doc. Something was up.
“I’ll have a word with you both in the morning,” said Bunyan. “In the meantime, as I think I’ve said before, I aim to clean up this here town—and that means no fighting in the street. . . .”
“If you ask me,” said Doc Rees, “someone has been rustling sheep from Waistcoat and Evans and making each believe it’s the other.”
“I suppose I could put one of them in jail for the night, for fighting,” said Sergeant Bunyan. “But that wouldn’t be fair. If I locked them both up they’d fight in the cell. The town’s full up because of the sheep rodeo, and I don’t want trouble.”
They were having breakfast in Auntie Megan’s Lucky Strike tearoom. Gorsebush was busy trying to arrange his cooked breakfast into a smiley face on his plate.
“I’ll tell you another thing,” said Doc, slurping his tea, “the rustler is in town now. He’s got to sell the sheep, hasn’t he? And I shouldn’t think he would risk taking them too far.”
At that moment someone strolled past the window. It certainly wasn’t one of the Llandanffwnfafegettupagogo residents. He wore a shiny top hat, a spotted bow tie, and a fancy knitted waistcoat embroidered with red dragons. He had a droopy mustache and eyes hidden under two bushy eyebrows.
Sergeant Bunyan stared at him and slowly put down his fork. “Do you know who that is?” he said.
“Just some city slicker from Cardiff, probably,” said Gorsebush, glancing up from his sausages.
“That’s Maverock Weedon the gambler. Half the pubs in Wales won’t serve him. There’s not a game he doesn’t play—darts, dominoes, bar billiards, shove ha’penny—and he cheats at all of them. He might just be in town to win a bit of money, or he might be involved in this sheep stealing. Ah look, here he comes now.”
“G’d morning, gentlemen. Nice day, isn’t it?” said Maverock Weedon as he sauntered over to the table, touching the brim of his top hat with one finger.
“That’s right,” said Sergeant Bunyan. He lowered his voice. “One marked domino and you’ll be in trouble.”
“I wouldn’t use language like that to a perfectly respectable citizen if I was you,” said Maverock sternly. “As a matter of fact I’ve gone into the sheep-selling business.”
“I kind of thought you might have,” said Sergeant Bunyan. “Whose sheep?”
“Mine, of course.” Maverock grinned. “Two hundred of them. They’re penned in at the O.K. Sheep Dip if you want to see them. It’s all legal.” He lit a cigar and strolled away.
Sergeant Bunyan turned to his companions and raised his eyebrows. “He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing, you mark my words.”
Later Sergeant Bunyan and PC Gorsebush Jones went to the Sheep Dip. There were the Waistcoat sheep, marked with a cross, and the Evans sheep, marked with a circle. The Maverock flock was penned between them, each sheep marked with a cross inside a circle.
“It’d be easy to turn those markings into the Maverock mark,” said Gorsebush, “and I’ve seen that Maverock with young Dai Too, who’s aimin’ to step into his brother’s boots now Big Dai’s in jail.* They’re just the sort to rustle sheep.”
“But we can’t prove it,” said Sergeant Bunyan. “The rodeo starts tomorrow. He’ll sell the sheep then and disappear. I could check in town that he does own them, check that brand of his out, but it would take too long.”
“Then you’re stuck,” said Gorsebush.
“But we’ve got to stop him selling the sheep tomorrow,” said Sergeant Bunyan.
“How about stealing them?” said Gorsebush. “My dog Blodwen’ll round them up tonight.”
“That’s illegal,” said Sergeant Bunyan sternly. “In other words, don’t let me catch you doing it.”
That night Maverock Weedon’s sheep—which had really been rustled from two other sheep farms—disappeared from their pen, then at dawn Gorsebush Jones cycled madly to town to find out if Maverock really owned the sheep.
I wonder where Jones has hidden the sheep? wondered Sergeant Bunyan when Maverock stormed into the police station to complain.
“It’s a busy day today, you know,” he said. “The sheep rodeo is on, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“I want them back!” shouted Maverock. “I’ve got to sell them today.”
“I don’t expect they have been taken far,” said Sergeant Bunyan.
No sooner had Maverock left when Sergeant Bunyan heard a sound from the cells behind the station. He opened the spyhole and shut it again quickly. The cells were full of sheep, and there was a note pinned to the door. It said:
Dere Sir. I dint kno
where ells to put them.
Yores Fafethully,
G. Jones
Outside, the sheep rodeo was in full swing, with sheep dip competitions, sheepdog trials, and shearing races all going on at the same time. Through the middle of all this came Gorsebush pedaling furiously.
He dashed into the police station waving a piece of paper.
“There’s no such brand as the one Maverock’s got on the sheep,” he cried. “It’s a forgery! Those sheep are stolen!”
Bunyan clapped his helmet on his head. “Right,” he said.
He opened the door—and a pair of sheep shears thudded into the post by his ear.
Then Dai Too, who had been listening at the window, leaped onto Gorsebush’s bike and sped away, with Maverock—who had hurled the shears—perched on the crossbar.
“Stop those men!”
bellowed Sergeant Bunyan. “They’re going to be in Llandanffwnfafegettupagogo Magistrates Court on Monday!”
“They pinched sheep!” added Gorsebush, peering round the door. All the sheepboys turned and sprinted up the street.
“Now that isn’t quite correct,” said Sergeant Bunyan, turning to Gorsebush. “They’re not officially guilty until Monday. That’s the law, you see, everyone’s innocent until found guilty. STOP THOSE SNEAKY SHEEP RUSTLERS!” he added.
The street was now empty except for Alun Allen the milkman, who was trotting along on his milk cart. Sergeant Bunyan leaped aboard, shouted “Giddyup!”, snatched the reins, and the milk cart disappeared after the sheepboys.
“We’ll never catch up with them now,” moaned Gorsebush as the milk cart rumbled into the hills.
Sergeant Bunyan slowed the milkman’s horse to a walk. “You’re quite right,” he said. “This needs thinking about.”
It was peaceful in the hills above Llandanffwnfafegettupagogo. The birds were singing, bees were zooming like tiny fighter planes in the heather, and the horse stopped to crop the grass.
Sergeant Bunyan removed his helmet and mopped his brow. Suddenly he sat up straight. “I know—we’ll head them off at Plimsoll’s Yat,” he said.
Now Plimsoll’s Yat was where the road out of Llandanff etc. ran along a line of wooded hills overlooking the River Severn. The yat itself was a shelf of rock that stuck out a couple of hundred meters over the river.*
Up in the hills Dai Too the sheep rustler and the gambler Maverock had lost the posse of sheepboys and were freewheeling down the long slope that led to the yat.
“Isn’t that a milk cart in the road down there?” asked Maverock, peering over Dai’s shoulder.
“Yes,” growled Dai, and put the brakes on. Now the fact was that he was riding Gorsebush’s bike, which Gorsebush used to stop by ramming his boots onto the front wheel. To put it another way, it had no brakes.
The wheels were turning so fast they were a blur. Sergeant Bunyan and Gorsebush peered from behind the cart with horror as the bike, with two screaming people on it, whirred toward them.
With a twang it hit a stone and shot off sideways, through a hedge, across a stream in a shower of spray, through another hedge, over a tree root, through a small wood . . . and up in the air like a bird.
It sailed over the yat and started the long fall into the river. When Sergeant Bunyan and Gorsebush got to the edge, all they could see was a widening pool of ripples a long way below, with Maverock’s shiny top hat floating in the center. Gorsebush snatched his own hat off and stood, looking sad.
“Oi!” came a voice from halfway up a hawthorn tree, just behind them. It was Maverock, wedged into the brambles. And they found Dai Too lying in the hedge, looking puzzled—and bootless, since his boots had got stuck in the bicycle wheel, and he had lost both boots and two pairs of socks. Both were so dazed that they just sat quietly in the milk cart while it trundled back to town.
“Here,” said Gorsebush. “We can’t put them in the cells! The police station’s full of sheep!”
“Those sheep are going to be needed on Monday as evidence,” said Sergeant Bunyan. “I’m afraid Dai and Maverock will just have to stay in there with them.”
And so they did.
But first all the sheepboys had to come and offer for the sheep, which were, of course, all still for sale. And how they laughed to see the sheep rustlers in the same pen as the sheep.
“I’ll gi’ ye ten pounds for that critter there!” Woolley Waistcoat chortled, pointing at the bootless Dai Too, who was struggling to hang on to his last pair of socks while a persistent ewe tried to eat them.
“An’ I’ll see ye the same for that one over there wi’ a chewed waistcoat wrapped around his skinny self,” Rawhide Evans offered back, pointing at a decidedly sheepish-looking Maverock.
And all the sheepboys cheered.