The Amber Trail (18 page)

From behind them, Shiv burst
through the outside door of the bar, breathing hard. He spotted
them and ran.

“
Go!” screamed Jules.
Dig looked down at the pedals on the bike. He pressed a backward
lever and it clunked into gear.

“
Can you drive this
thing?” she shouted.

“
I’m learning!” Dig
released the clutch. The motor screamed and the bike jerked
forward, lifting the front wheel from the ground before it thumped
back down. Dig wrestled the controls straight again and steered the
bike toward the main road. As they passed over a pothole the rear
wheel guard bottomed out with a crunch.

Dig pulled back the throttle,
heading out of town. The bike strained under the combined weight of
the three passengers, and Jules clung tightly to Dig’s
midriff.

“
Where to?” Dig
shouted.

“
The railway
station,” Chook screamed. “Just keep going straight.”

“
My place first,”
Jules said.

“
No time!”

“
Just give me thirty
seconds. It’s just up here—that white building.”

Dig furrowed his brow. “Shouldn’t
we just go?”

Jules pulled in close behind him;
the swell of her breasts pushed up against his back. She spoke into
his ear. “Please, just let me get my bag.”

Dig swallowed, blinked, and
steered the bike off the road, bringing it to a stop outside the
boxy concrete building. Thick mesh barred its windows. Jules jumped
down from the bike.

“
Shit Jules!” Chook
said. “Hurry up!”

She jogged to the front porch and
fumbled some keys into a lock, then swung open a heavy metal door
before disappearing inside.

Dig looked to the road behind
him, scanning for any signs of Shiv or his friends. He
rapidly t
apped his foot on the ground. “Come on,” he
said under his breath.

Moments later, Jules burst
through the door again, carrying a multi-coloured, hand woven bag.
She left the door open behind her as she ran across the drive and
jumped back onto the bike. Dig accelerated back out onto the
road.

The road was long and flat, and
cut through long stretches of rainforest and palm trees. Dig drove
as fast as the bike would allow. He squinted and ducked his head
forward as moisture from his watering eyes tracked back across his
face. Jules sat close behind him, arms tightly around his waist. He
imagined Chook on the back end of the machine, likely holding onto
the rear frame of the bike with only one hand, the other cradled
against his chest.

After some time, small brick
shacks began to appear on the side of the street, and the road
narrowed into a level crossing over a railway line. A set of open
boom gates stood on both sides of the track. Beside it was a
platform and station building.

“
Left here,” Chook
said, pointing to a dirt alleyway that disappeared behind a row of
buildings. Dig pulled into the alleyway, and brought the bike to a
stop beside
a
set of rusted steps. Dig
killed the engine and kicked up the bike stand.

Chook was off the bike
first
, and
he stumbled over to sit on the
bottom riser of the steps. His face was pale
;
h
is injured hand still cradled on his chest
. B
lood ran down his arm to his elbow. He reached
into a pocket with his good arm and produced a packet of
cigarettes. As he fumbled out a cigarette with a shaking hand the
box fell to the ground and bounced away. He watched it falter to a
stop, then grimaced and closed his eyes.

Jules stepped down from the bike
and walked over to Chook. “Arms up,” she said, then grabbed his
T-shirt and lifted it over his head. She wiped the blood from his
arm and tied the T-shirt tightly around his injured
hand.

She crouched and lifted the
cigarette box from the ground, shook out a cigarette and placed it
in Chook’s mouth, then extracted a lighter from inside the box, and
flicked a flame into life. The end of the cigarette glowed orange
as it fired up. Jules sat beside him on the step.

“
How’s the
hand?”

Chook rolled his glassy eyes.
“Sore.”

“
We need to get you
to a hospital.”

“
Not in Goa. That’s
the first place they’ll look.” He clenched his teeth as another
wave of pain overtook him. “I think there's a train due, heading
north. We’ll find somewhere up there.”

“
Can you wait that
long?”

“
I'll have
to.”

Dig cleared his throat. “Hey
Chook.” He scratched the back of his neck. “I’m sorry about your
hand. I...feel like it was my fault.”

Chook gave a weak shrug. “At
least we're finally away from that place.” He turned back to his
sister. “What did you take from the house?”

“
Don't worry about
it. Just clothes, and some money.”

“
No gear?”

Jules frowned. “No.”

“
You sure? Because if
you stole any of Shiv’s stash you better dump it right
here.”

“
I told you I didn't.
So leave it.”

Chook watched her for a moment
then turned his attention to the train station. The entrance was
filling up with people—milling in groups and squatting on the
floor. “After I get my hand sorted we’re flying home. Back to
Ireland. Right?”

She studied her fingernails and
gave an almost imperceptible nod.

A low rumble approached from the
distance and a dirty silver train laboured into the station,
belching smoke and sounding its horn. It slowed to a stop with a
hiss of brakes, and the passengers crowded around the
doors.

“
Let’s
go.”

They picked up their packs and
jogged out into the street, dodging motor rickshaws and taxis until
they reached the busy station lobby. People jostled for space
around them.

They pushed out onto the
platform, and headed for a door of the train. A porter offered to
take their bags from them, but they waved him away. A dirty faced
boy clasped packets to his chest and yelled “Pea...nuts!” into the
open windows of the train. Behind him a man held a tray above his
head, balancing glass cups filled with milky liquid. “Chai! Chai!”
he cried in a low drone. They followed the tide of people into the
train, and crouched inside the doorway.

Dig bit his lip and looked across
the platform to the street. Disembarking passengers streamed out
across the dirt road, loading bags into rickshaws and lining up in
front of buses. He took a sharp intake of breath as a motorbike
screamed around the corner and skidded to a halt beside the
station. Shiv dropped the bike to the ground and strode toward the
train. Two more motorbikes appeared behind him with the silhouettes
of the thugs in the seats.

“
They’re coming,” Dig
said.

Jules’ eyes widened. “Oh
shite.”

“
Get
down.”

Somewhere a whistle blew, and
with a shudder the train moved forward. Through the open door they
watched the  platform creep away beside them. They hunkered
low in the carriage until it rolled past the station building. Shiv
stood in the forecourt, hands on hips, breathing heavily as he
scanned the train. He locked gaze with Dig through the doorway. His
eyes widened before he leapt forward and ran at them.

The train picked up pace with a
couple of strong jerks. Dig rose to a standing position. Jules
whimpered behind him.

Shiv ran into view and grabbed
the door railing, his shoes slapping along the platform as he tried
to pull himself inside.

Dig leaned back and kicked. His
foot thumped into Shiv’s arm and broke his grasp. Shiv momentarily
disappeared into the wake of the doorway then sprinted back into
view to reach for the railing again.

Dig kicked a second time, his
foot thumping into Shiv’s chest—but this time Shiv held firm to the
rail with clenched teeth and eyes like pinpricks.

Chook dragged himself up to stand
beside Dig, his good hand holding the corridor wall for balance. He
nodded at Dig and they kicked together this time, their feet
thumping into Shiv’s midriff.

Shiv winced and let go, but as he
dropped he hooked two hands around Chook’s ankle. Chook tried to
kick him away but Shiv held tight, his feet scraping along the
platform behind the train. Chook called out as he was dragged
through the doorway, and Dig scrambled to grab hold of his good
hand. Chook grimaced and held his grasp with a bulging forearm; his
forehead was creased in fear.

“
No!” Jules shouted,
and tried to grab a handful of Chook’s shirt. Together they
strained to pull him back in the carriage—but Shiv’s weight
anchored him back.

The carriage accelerated toward
the end of the platform where a metal fence bordered the drop to
the tracks. The gap between the train and the fence was minimal,
and threatened to guillotine Chook’s waist.

Dig yanked again to no avail.
Chook glanced ahead to the approaching fence, his long hair blowing
across his face in the slipstream, then turned back to meet his
sister’s gaze. With a final furrow of his eyebrows he released his
grip. His hand slipped out of Dig’s sweaty grasp and he
fell.

“
No!” Jules screamed,
her face contorted. She pushed to the doorway as the end of the
platform ran away to be replaced by a blur of steep rocky
embankment.  

Dig leaned out behind her. Chook
tumbled across the platform and collapsed in a static heap. Behind
him, Shiv pushed himself up to his knees as the thugs arrived and
hooked their hands under Chook’s armpits.

“
We’ve got to help
him.” Jules shouted, and glanced down to the rocky ground speeding
past.

Dig put a hand on her shoulder.
“You can’t jump. It’s too late. You’ll break your legs.” She gave
him a pained look then stared back at the platform as it receded
into the distance.

Finally she dropped to her rear
in the train doorway, hooked her hands into the inside of her knees
and curled up with her eyes clenched. Her shoulders hitched in
sobs.

Crap,
Dig thought. He
squatted beside Jules and watched the passing scenery run away at
an ever increasing speed.
We’re in it deep now.

JULES’ SOBS EVENTUALLY DROPPED
away,
and she turned to lean back on the wall of the train corridor. Wet
tracks ran down her cheeks.

“
We need to go back
and help him,” she repeated.

Dig pursed his lips. “We’ll help
him somehow. But right now we’re stuck on this train until the next
stop.”

“
We can stop the
train.”

“
And do what? Head
straight back to the bar? We’ll be massacred.”

Jules’ head dropped. “The next
stop is miles away. It’ll be too late.”

“
I think it’s
already
too late. We don’t even know where they took him.”
Dig bit at his nails. “Should we call the police?”

“
Not the Goa police.
They’re on the Banyan payroll. They come into the brewhouse every
month to pick up their payoffs.” Her eyes were sullen and shoulders
slumped. “There must be something we can do.” She sat for a few
minutes, staring out to the horizon.

Eventually Dig extended his hand.
“Look. We’ll get off at the next stop, and then we can work
something out. But for now, let’s go sit down.”

She glanced at his hand, then up
to meet his gaze. After a long pause, she reached out and Dig
pulled her to her feet.

They moved into the humidity of
the train carriage, ducking their heads to avoid a scalping on the
low door frame. Passengers crowded into square wooden seats,
sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, their brows lined with sweat, their
children curled at their feet. The scent of body odour and
something like mothballs filled the air. A stack of metal cages
constricted the aisle, filled with chickens that beat the air with
their wings as they passed. A boy lay on the ground with his head
propped against one coop, sleeping. Dig stepped over him, then
found a seat near a sleeping man wearing a turban and a long beard;
he had a transparent plastic bag clutched to his chest, filled with
documents. Dig lowered himself into the opposite seat. Jules sat
beside the window and let her head rest on the frame.

“
You okay?” Dig
said.

She shrugged and stared out the
window. “It’s my fault,” she said. “We should have left Goa a long
time ago.”

“
There’s no point
blaming anyone. We just have to figure out what to do.”

“
Yes, but Chook was
in my ear for months. Telling me to get out of Goa. Telling me to
go home. And I didn’t listen.” She bit at her lip. “But at the end
of the day, it wasn’t me who paid the price. It was
him.”

Dig rubbed at his neck. “So why
did you stay?”

“
Staying was
bad...but going home was worse.”

A boy walked through the train
with a pot of chai balanced on his shoulder. Dig handed the boy a
few coins and he poured out two measures into small cardboard cups.
He passed one of them to Jules; she gave a small nod and took a
sip.