The Night Is for Hunting (16 page)

I decided on one more risk. I saw two older men running around the corner of the building, fifty metres to my right, but they weren’t armed. They were yelling to people I couldn’t see, and they gave the general impression they didn’t quite know what to do. I’m sure there were people at the other end of the house too, but the machinery shed, where I wanted to go, would be just out of their sight.

I skidded the bike around in another tight turn and accelerated into the shadows of the shed. Last time I’d been here, locked in the car boot, it had been a place of terror and darkness. I was astonished to think that was probably only ten minutes ago. Now our one chance of escaping this nightmare was in the machinery shed.

I pulled up next to the best bike left there, a Suzuki. Homer didn’t need any instructions; neither did Gavin. Homer seemed to leap from one bike to the other. I’ve never seen him move so fast. As he started the Suzuki, Gavin chucked a pack in front of Homer, then jumped back on behind me. I appreciated the vote of confidence. In fact I was surprised by it. His tense hands gripped my hips. He couldn’t grab much else with the swollen pack stuck between us. As soon as Homer’s bike was running, I was off. I didn’t wait for him. I mono’d my Yamaha through the shed to the other side, then, once we were in sunlight again, spun it round, put my head down, and slaughtered it.

Wow, did we move. Gavin had been hanging on tight before but now he gripped me like he was free-falling and I had the only parachute. We went along the flat faster than electricity. I glanced around and saw the dust furling out behind us, and Homer a bit further back, swerving and zigzagging. Which reminded me that I should be doing the same thing. We were going fast all right, but not as fast as a bullet. At least with Gavin’s light weight on the back it was easier to keep the bike balanced.

As the flat started to run out I swerved to the right and up the hill. We kangaroo-hopped over a hundred metres of corrugations, then jolted at a crazy speed through a rabbit warren. An old fenceline lay ahead, but it was easy to find a gap. And through that was the black bitumen of the road.

I flung the bike to the right in a racing turn. I was kind of admiring my style when Gavin spoilt it by bashing me hard on the shoulder. It scared me. I thought he was warning me of something, most likely people chasing us. I didn’t think they’d have been that quick though. I glanced around at him, reluctant to slow down or lose my concentration.

He pointed behind us, and as I looked at him a moment longer, trying to work out what the hell he was on about, he shouted, above the roar of the engine: ‘Fi.’

I still had no idea what he meant, but I knew I couldn’t keep going towards safety while Gavin was pointing in the opposite direction and yelling Fi’s name.

I skidded to a halt. A second later Homer ripped up beside us. ‘What did you stop for?’ he yelled. His face was all covered with dust. That’s what happens when you come second.

‘I think Fi’s back there,’ I yelled at him.

Kicking down into first I swung the bike around. As I blasted away Homer, who was still turning, got another faceful of dust. I had other things on my mind though. Just when I thought we were getting clear of the Whittakers’, we had to ride back into the jaws of the place. It seemed incredibly unfair.

Luckily we only had to go a few hundred metres. We rounded a small bare hill, and suddenly, from out of the bushes at the base of the hill came a wild-looking figure. She could have been a distressed angel, blonde hair all mussed up, distraught look on her face, arms reaching out. ‘I’ve lost Gavin,’ she said. Then she saw him. She didn’t seem to know whether to embrace him or hit him. But there wasn’t time for either. She hesitated but I yelled at her, ‘Get on Homer’s.’

I spun around yet again and took off flat chat. I didn’t see Fi’s reaction when she saw Homer’s bloodied face and body, but I did catch a glimpse of Homer as Fi climbed on behind him. That sleazebag, even at a time like this he had a little smile when Fi’s arms went around his waist. She wasn’t hanging on too tightly though. It looked like she’d fly off at the first bad pothole.

Maybe she was safer that way.

We raced along the road for a couple of kilometres. I got the Triton up to 110 k’s. I’d love to have stayed on the road longer, enjoying the smooth ride, but we had to assume the people at the house would have been on the phone to the authorities ten minutes ago, so the chase could be coming from two different directions. I kept searching right and left for the best place to leave the road, and finally found it when a big patch of rocks loomed up ahead. Rocks were perfect for us because we’d leave no tracks.

Homer and Fi had dropped a bit behind – their Suzuki wasn’t as fast as our Yamaha – but they were still in sight, so they could see what we were doing. I didn’t need to put on the blinkers to make my turn.

It was a tough gig, going up those rocks. There were plenty of patches of grass, but I wanted to stay off them as much as possible. The flat stretches of rock were fine, but quite steep, and of course there was no traction. I had to manhandle the big heavy bike up a lot of it. I think Gavin on the back was having some kind of reaction to all the excitement, which wasn’t surprising. He sat there crouched over like a little jockey, not helping at all.

I didn’t have time to do anything about him: all my energy and concentration were on getting up that hill.

We were about halfway up when the road started getting busy. A couple of four-wheel drives raced past, going towards the Whittakers’. I was more-or-less walking the bike at the time so I heard them coming and was able to get into the shadows and lean the bike against a tall boulder while I struggled to get my breath. Looking down the hill I saw Homer and Fi hiding behind another boulder. I wondered how Homer was going, with all his injuries. At least he had Fi to help him. Gavin seemed to have lost all his strength.

As soon as the cars had gone we resumed the long grunt. There was one big flat area, quite unexpected, all grass, and I left tracks on that. We accelerated across it, and from then on the going was better: not so steep, with smaller rocks. I went another two kilometres, then stopped again. I put the bike on its stand and waited for the other two. They got there about four minutes later.

‘What do you think?’ I asked.

‘We’ve got to keep going,’ Homer said. He looked awful, grey and sweaty, although not so bloody now. ‘They got such a good look at us at the airfield, and once they sit down and compare notes with the people at the farm ...’ He had to pause for breath. ‘It won’t take them long to work out that we’re number one on the most wanted.’

‘OK,’ I said, impatient about all that stuff. I’d already figured that out. ‘But which way do we go?’

‘What about out around the Mingles?’ Homer said. ‘And then across the bridge near Holloway. They won’t be able to follow us that far, and even if they did, it wouldn’t point them to Hell.’

‘Have you got enough petrol?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, should get us most of the way, if the gauge is accurate.’

I didn’t have the breath or the energy to argue. I pushed the bike off its stand. Gavin said, ‘I’m going with Homer,’ and jumped on his bike. Fi shrugged and got on mine. We blasted away again, over the last of the rocks and into the bush.

Some of that day was actually pretty good. Sure the tiredness got worse and worse. The physical exertion of the climb, after a sleepless night on an empty stomach, and the emotional exhaustion after such a series of horrible events combined to steal my legs of strength and my heart of courage. I kind of blanked out for a while – in fact for most of the morning – and rode in a coma. Fi kept prodding me to keep me awake. But there’s something about the bush that calms you. I try not to get sentimental about it, because I know how cruel it can be, and I saw what it did to Darina, but all the same, sometimes it does make you feel better. We’d have visitors from the city, and they’d get all gooey and sentimental. I remember two friends of Mum’s looking out across the creek at a flock of ducks on the other bank, and saying, ‘Aren’t they beautiful? What a peaceful scene.’ I just stared at the ladies in total disbelief. At the time the ducks were engaged in a screaming brawl, a full-on civil war, racing around with wings flapping, feathers flying, voices squawking, like they wanted to kill each other.

So it’s no good kidding yourself about the bush, or about nature for that matter.

I knew all that, but I still couldn’t resist the power of the place. At one stage we were riding through a eucalypt forest, trees quite widely spaced, no undergrowth. It was so easy, so relaxing. Tall white trunks, fawn bark peeling off them, little brown birds darting from one to the next. There were no bright colours to hurt the eye. Quiet, fresh, self-contained. It wasn’t paradise – far from it – but it would do me.

Just after noon my bike ran out of petrol and we dumped it in a billabong. We shared the other bike for another hour. It carried two people and the two packs. We agreed that when Homer’s bike ran out we’d shout ourselves lunch. We were being tough, making ourselves wait, but we needed to be a long way from the farm before stopping. I found myself waiting desperately for a cough or splutter from the Suzuki, hoping for a signal that it was nearly empty.

At last, at 1.15, it gave its last sad shudder and died. We chucked it in a patch of blackberries.

The silence felt weird. I’d become so used to the roaring of the motorbikes and it took a while to get used to the difference. We had a nice picnic though. Gavin watched wolfishly as we opened a pack. It had been so long since we’d stolen the food that I couldn’t remember what we’d put in them. Sadly, it seemed like we hadn’t brought the pack with my favourite cashews and the other nuts. We did find rice snacks, and the bananas and oranges I’d thrown on the top at the last minute.

No-one said a word. We knew time was precious, and we had no energy for conversation anyway. We ate kind of furtively, like we didn’t have the right. In our own country! It was so unfair. Homer kept walking off through the trees, banana in his mouth, stopping and listening with head cocked while he ate, then returning for his next helping.

Within fifteen minutes I got them moving. I put one pack on my back, Homer took the other. We started walking north-west but gradually circled around, until at about four o’clock we saw the blessed outline of Tailor’s Stitch, a high purple-blue ridge in the distance. The sight gave me fresh energy. I dropped back and walked with Fi and Gavin, to keep them company, to encourage them. They had fallen behind and I knew they had no reserves left. But I also knew that if we kept up a decent pace we could be in Hell by dawn.

Chapter Eleven

The weird thing was that everything in Hell was so normal: like, while we’d been locked in boots or chasing around on motorbikes with bullets flying, they’d been sunbaking and reading and playing. The only interest the ferals had in our adventures was when we treated Homer’s injuries. They seemed to enjoy watching him flinch and bite his lip and swear while Fi and I washed his wounds.

He had a bad gash on the scalp, in among his thick hair. It seemed to be the cause of all the dried blood on his face. Most of his other injuries were cuts and bruises, especially on his right hip and shin. They must have hurt like buggery.

There wasn’t much we could do about them, except admire the spectacular purple-blue-green-black colours.

True to form Homer was tough though. He might have grimaced and sworn, but every time we hesitated, worried about how much we were hurting him, he’d say, ‘Come on, get on with it, what’s your problem?’

Gavin and Jack watched enviously. I could see the lesson they were learning. At one point I said to Homer: ‘Would you mind shedding a few tears, just so these guys can see it’s OK to cry?’

Fat chance of that.

As soon as we finished Natalie wanted me to tell her a story, and Jack and Casey dragged me off to see this elaborate dam system they’d constructed in the creek.

It was pretty good as a matter of fact. I stood looking at it thinking how they’d both make good engineers when they were older, then went into a big downer by reminding myself that they were unlikely to survive long enough to have the luxury of becoming engineers or anything else. Becoming a corpse wasn’t much of a future.

But for the time being they seemed quite cheerful. They showed me how they’d channelled the water through a series of locks. They could alter its flow by moving a few stones. ‘Clever little buggers,’ I thought. I said to them, ‘All you need’s a turbine and you could run electricity through Hell.’

Their eyes sharpened and I think they had visions of the whole valley ablaze with streetlights. Casey was probably dreaming of a TV and video player already. I didn’t like to tell them it mightn’t be that simple.

Lee and Kevin were interested enough in what had happened and happy to listen to our endless post-mortems, but as always it was never quite the same, telling people who hadn’t been there. Homer was in the middle of describing how I’d shot through the door lock, and Kevin was nodding like he really cared, but just as Homer got to the most dramatic part Kevin pulled off his sock and started inspecting an ingrown toenail. I mean, honestly, sometimes I thought there was no hope for Kevin.

I had made one decision while I was in the boot, and it was about Lee. Those terrifying hours had given me a slightly different perspective. I’d realised, curled up in the tiny dark space, that I didn’t want to die without fixing things up with him. It wasn’t worth throwing away a deep friendship just for the sake of pride. There were more important things in life. Sometimes being in the right wasn’t the end of the story.

It was hard to get anyone away from the food though. As well as the two packs, which were certainly full, we’d killed a lamb and brought that in with us. We’d decided it was worth the energy needed to catch it and kill it and skin it and gut it, and then cover the blood and bury the unwanted bits so we left no evidence of our visit.

The trouble was that we hadn’t thought about carrying it over Tailor’s Stitch and into Hell. Fi and Gavin had been so out of it that Homer and I did all the work. At least we hadn’t had to carry them: three times Gavin started asking us to piggyback him, and each time we cut him off before he finished the sentence. In a way I wish I could have carried him. It was the first time he’d shown weakness or softness or affection; the first time his tough veneer had cracked. It was the first time he’d asked me for anything. But like they say, war is hell, and no-one was available for carrying duties. He was the one who’d been so keen on coming on this trip, so he had to put up with the consequences.

Anyway, I kept looking for an opportunity to talk to Lee on his own, but I soon realised I had no hope while the food was spread out, attracting everyone’s devout attention. It wasn’t until I’d fought the human magpies off and got it organised and stored that I went after Lee, determined to track him down.

Within a few minutes I saw him on his way to the creek with a water bottle, so I followed him there. I found him crouched on the bank, watching the water run into and around the top of the bottle. Yet he wasn’t making any attempt to fill it.

I deliberately walked loudly as I came up behind him, because I knew what a horrible shock it could be in this war if you didn’t hear someone coming.

He didn’t look around though.

I sat beside him and watched as he pushed the bottle a little deeper, making the bubbles gurgle. Then he lifted it out again, tipped most of the water away, pushed it back under and made more bubbles. I think he would have gone on like that for hours if I hadn’t said anything. Seemed like he was content to squat there forever, watching the water eddy and flow.

‘Lee,’ I finally said, ‘I have to talk to you.’

He didn’t respond so I just ploughed on. ‘I know what happened back in Stratton stuffed up our relationship. I hate that. I mean, to be honest, I hate what happened with that girl, but even more I hate how we don’t talk any more, how we’re not friends. I’d do anything to get that back. I know it’ll never be the same, but if we both want it badly enough, we can get back the friendship. I just want to tell you that I do want it, really badly.’

After a while I gave him a light punch on the arm and said, ‘So, what do you think? Are we going to be mates again?’

I was very tense, and maybe resenting that I was having to do all the work in this conversation.

Finally he did turn his head, and facing me, yet not looking at me, he said, ‘What do you think’s stopping us being friends again?’

He spoke in such a level voice that it was impossible to tell what he was getting at.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I guess I’ve been pretty tough on you. I’ve had to come to terms with some stuff. I keep forgetting how much life can change in a war, and how we’ve all done dumb things that we’re not exactly proud of ...’

‘So,’ he said, ‘the main thing for you is forgiving me for getting off with Reni.’

Reni was the name of the girl he’d been with in Stratton.

I gulped at his question. I had a strong feeling that I was on dangerous ground. But I tried to be honest.

‘OK, if you want to put it that way, maybe it is something like that.’

Well I’d said it now. I dug one fingernail into each palm and waited. But he didn’t blow up. He just lifted his water bottle, which was still empty, and walked away up the hill. As he went he said, ‘That’s not the main thing. The main thing is forgiving myself.’

Stupid me, I’d never really thought about that side of it. I’d been too caught up in my own feelings.

I sat for hours trying to work out where to go from there. I didn’t have a clue.

I’d have brooded about it twenty-four hours a day if I hadn’t got caught up in the project that was in the back of my head all this time.

Christmas.

I wanted to have a Christmas, especially for the kids. We knew from the start it would be the strangest one ever. The kids were thawing out a bit, but God knows, it was hard work. The biggest improvement came because of Gavin. They took their lead from him in almost everything, and after our wild times at the Whittakers’ he had a better attitude towards us. He’d had a bad time in the boot of the Alfa, so I suppose he felt fairly grateful about being plucked out of there. But he was still a terror. He’d escaped from Fi within moments of leaving the farmhouse, without a word about his plans. He obviously resented being shunted away from the action. But he’d left her absolutely terrified, not knowing where he’d gone or what had happened. Where he went of course was straight back to the farm. From the way he described it, he’d waited like a fox outside a chook yard. He knew Homer and I were in there.

When Gavin told a story he was a joy to watch. He told it with his whole body. His arms outlined the circle of the house he’d started to take, his face showed how he went from fear to excitement to hatred, and back to fear. On tiptoes he demonstrated his light-footed route around the building, and the way he’d darted into shadows at the slightest sign of human movement.

The other kids watched avidly. So did we. I was fascinated by his ability. If Casey and Jack were going to be engineers, Gavin could be a great actor.

Gavin hadn’t seen me grab the bike and charge at the two people. But within a couple of minutes of his arrival he noticed the movement inside: people running past windows and turning on lights. As the house erupted into chaos Gavin retreated towards the machinery shed. Suddenly people poured out of the house, gesturing wildly, sprinting in all directions. A couple of them had rifles. Gavin started stressing big-time. At last a moment came when the area outside the kitchen door was clear. That was all he needed. He went straight at the door, like a dart thrown full-strength. He flung it open. Coming at him was a large motorbike, ridden by two wild and crazy teenage homicidal maniacs ...

He actually did a pretty good imitation of the two of us, which had Natalie rolling around on the ground holding her sides. I was rapt to see that. Natalie laughing was about as common as Homer crying, or Fi swearing, or emus flying.

I said exactly that to Fi a couple of minutes later, when we were in the toilet area. She was indignant. ‘I do swear!’

‘No you don’t!’

‘Yes I do! Honestly, I swear lots of times.’

‘Oh Fi, I’ve never once heard you swear.’

Although as I said that I had a vague memory of Fi saying ‘bloody’ when we were organising the break-in to Tozer’s, the night we were so nearly trapped in Wirrawee.

‘I do, I do.’

I couldn’t help teasing her. She was so anxious to prove she was a rebel. The truth is, she was as much a rebel as I was a supermodel.

‘OK, so when was the last time you swore?’

‘At the farm, at the Whittakers’.’

‘I didn’t hear you. Where are your witnesses? You’ve got to have witnesses.’

‘Well, it was to myself. No-one actually heard me.’

‘Oh! You can’t count that!’

‘Yes I can,’ Fi said, totally unreasonably.

The war had changed many or most things but Fi was still as innocent, as untouched by badness, as she had been at the start. I don’t know how she did it.

As we washed our hands we talked about Christmas. We decided that today would be 22 December and we announced to the kids at lunchtime that Christmas was in three days. They stopped ripping into their cold lamb and biscuits and looked at us goggle-eyed.

‘How can we have Christmas here?’ Jack wanted to know.

It was good to get a reaction from Jack. He was still very withdrawn, hardly talking to the other kids, let alone us, although he seemed to think Big Daddy Homer was worth a bit of attention. Poor misguided child.

‘Of course we can have it here,’ I said brightly. ‘We’ll have a tree, and decorations, and we’ll sing Christmas carols. And Kevin and Lee are going to go out tomorrow night and get us another lamb, we hope.’

‘Will Santa Claus come?’ Natalie asked.

‘Sure will. Santa never lets you down. But the kind of presents he brings will be special bush presents, that he made for the war. No stuff like the old days. No Barbie dolls or videos or roller blades.’

Casey and Gavin looked interested, but suspicious. Judging from their faces the general attitude seemed to be ‘OK, if you can pull this off we might be impressed, but we’ll believe it when we see it’.

That psyched me up all the more to make it work.

Fi and I spent the afternoon making decorations, helped by Casey and Natalie, who were more hindrance than help. Jack actually dropped by for a little while and did some, while trying hard to look cool about it. I was pleased he’d made the effort.

We made wreaths out of fencing wire from the chook yard, using ivy, lavender and wallflowers from outside the Hermit’s hut. Then we did a dozen posies with red berries.

Homer and Kevin and Lee went off to the Hermit’s hut to organise the presents. We’d given them suggestions, and we’d ransacked our few possessions to find things we could donate. Considering the ferals had taken so many of our valuables in Stratton we didn’t have a lot left. To make it more difficult, it had to be stuff the kids hadn’t seen before.

I wanted to give Fi and the boys something too, and I spent a lot of time thinking about what it could be. For Lee I eventually wrote a poem on bark. Bark’s great to write on, as good as paper really. I did a bark sketch for Homer, a picture of his house. For Fi I made a pair of earrings out of wire, with two owl feathers hanging from them. Kevin’s present was a burl bowl that I’d deepened a bit with sandpaper, but it was already such a good natural shape that it hadn’t needed much work.

It was a busy couple of days. Halfway through it I realised that there’d been a small miracle. Everyone was so busy, so caught up in the Christmas preparations that it was like the war had gone away. No-one even mentioned it. We were so involved in our little secrets that we didn’t have time to think about the bad and ugly stuff of the last twelve months. I thought proudly that my Christmas idea had already proved itself. Even if the day was a complete flop it didn’t really matter: our Christmas gift had arrived early.

Sure we kept checking Tailor’s Stitch for more signs of unwelcome visitors, but everything seemed quiet up there. We had two and a half days of peace, and that was the most precious present any of us could have asked for. All those Christmas cards talking about ‘peace and goodwill’ weren’t so stupid after all.

The kids did get genuinely excited. By the time our Christmas Eve arrived they were off their heads. Even Jack, who was about as emotional as a lump of Blu-Tack, got the verbal trots. Well, by his standards. When I said goodnight to him he asked if there’d be any lollies tomorrow, and went into a long boring description of all his favourite sweets from before the war. Natalie checked for about the fiftieth time that Santa could definitely find us down here in Hell, and for the fiftieth time I assured her it wouldn’t be a problem, as long as she realised Santa brought different presents for kids in the middle of the bush in the middle of a war. I thought it amazing and touching that in spite of their terrible experiences, Natalie devoutly believed in Santa Claus.