The Rain Heron

by Robbie Arnott

  What’s the point in me getting better?

  Before he could answer, she walked away.

  45

  ON THEY DROVE. The landscape did not vary from the rock and grass, occasionally dented by a lake or pond—patches of metallic water that looked like they had never held a current. Everywhere the sky was huge and wide. Its dusty-blue dome stretched further with each passing day. Clouds rarely fluffed by, and if they did they were small and insubstantial. Yet the nights still sang with rain. By morning the ground was drenched, the sky again empty.

  This endless prairie of rock and sky began to unstitch Daniel’s mind. The time they’d spent on the road became unclear to him, as did the distance they’d come. The days blended into each other. Clear skies gave way to dark rain, then returned as high blue fields. There were no towns—no houses or sheds or signs of human habitation. All that anchored him was the truck, his squad mates, the wax-pocked gleam of the bird’s cage. It occurred to him that if it weren’t for these reminders of his soldiering—if instead he were alone in this wide-skied, silent world—he might leave the hard comfort of the highway and stretch his legs out over the tussocks and boulders, the greys and beige greens, all the way to the edge of hazy blue.

  During those hours in the truck he thought often of the day when Harker had recruited him. He tried to recall what he’d done when she’d walked past the row of medical students, asking questions about their studies, their families, their beliefs. But no matter how hard he strained, all he could remember was how scared he’d felt, how sure he’d been that he was about to die, how much he missed his parents and their green, tree-spotted fields.

  He knew she’d lingered on him, that day. Her eyes had settled on his shaking face. But what she’d seen in him—some capacity for kindness—and what he’d said to her remained out of reach.

  While he grasped at these memories, Lieutenant Harker did not speak. In her silence she made it easier for him to forget her wound, her unmaking. The scout and the private didn’t talk to him either, or to each other unless they had to, but it was his lieutenant’s lack of contact that had the strongest effect on him. Not fretting about her injury prevented him from castigating himself for his own behaviour, and further sent him out into the colours and textures of the plateau. Half-dreams dominated his thoughts. Nothing was good, and yet nothing got worse.

  And just as it was Lieutenant Harker who had unchambered him, it was Lieutenant Harker who ripped him back down to the high earth.

  They woke up one morning dry and cold—the first sign things had changed. Daniel, the scout and the private emerged from their tents and did not find the usual wet field of steaming puddles; instead they entered a world of whiteness, interrupted all over by flecks of familiar rock and grass. The light bounced into needles; the cold air clutched at skin. They blinked at the brightness and shivered in their jackets, before stepping with cautious awe out onto the snow.

  The private found words first.

  Is it meant to be like this? At this time of year?

  I don’t think so, said the scout.

  He was rolling grains of snow into pellets, touching them against his cheeks.

  Daniel huffed, turning crisp air into fog. He began walking in slow, vague circles, breaking the snow’s contours with his boots, waiting for the delicious plunge that accompanied stepping into a drift of unknown depth. Around the camp he wandered, plumbing the length of his ankle, his shin, his knee, hunting the head swirl that came with each drop. Soon he hit the jackpot: a thigh-deep bank of snow. Down he sank, cold and fast, and that little bounce of vertigo came as a pure swipe across his mind, stripping away everything but giddy fear. Up he clambered and down he plunged: numb, empty, gasping.

  Moisture clagged at his sock. He heard a zip—little metal teeth, tethering and untethering—and looked up to see that Lieutenant Harker had come out into this fresh scene. She began disassembling her tent. He ceased his antics and began picking his way towards her, stepping on pieces of revealed rock and frosted dirt. On his way he began pulling together what he was going to say, something to do with the weather, a question of whether it was due to the bird or the general unseasonality the country had been experiencing, but then he noticed the smell—a foulness in the chill.

  It hooked into his nostrils. His eyes moistened and something bubbled in his throat. He looked down to see if his boot had disturbed something, but saw only snow and clean dirt. He had encountered plenty of snow, and it never smelt like this. Not in dancing flurries swirled by valley winds. Not in neat sheets that covered the slumber of winter fields. Not in yellow-brown banks beside boot-churned ditches, not in pinked slushes under bleeding limbs. These snows had only smelt like whatever had been mixed through their flakes, or like nothing at all.

  Lieutenant Harker lurched around—a movement even more uncharacteristically awkward than usual—and he saw the river of viscous yellow pus coursing down her cheek from beneath her bandage. It ran free and slow, mixed with shining globs of blood, blood such a vivid scarlet it could have been healthy. Bitter knowledge burned in her eye, which was etched with broken bolts of red. She stumbled. Her infection fell to splatter the snow in thick, mustardy drops. Daniel felt the retch building in his neck. Above them, the sun burned bright and free in its field of blue.

  46

  WHEN HE TRIED to treat her, she didn’t bother swinging a fist. She just pulled the gun from her holster. He expected her to hold it at her side—the sort of threat that would have ripped an insurgency to flapping tatters during the coup—but instead she pointed it straight at his head, in the same way she’d pointed it at the woman on the mountain.

  We don’t stop.

  But—

  No.

  She looked at the scout. He and the private were watching the exchange from the road. When he noticed Harker’s gaze he looked at his map, then at the sky.

  If nothing slows us down, we’ll reach the sanctuary this afternoon.

  Then let’s go.

  Harker shoved the pistol back into its holster, missing on her first attempt. The order awakened the training in the private and the scout. They grabbed at their tents, flowing into routine.

  Harker turned to Daniel.

  One more day, she said. You can handle that.

  The pus kept streaming down her cheek, her chin. Part of it rested on the jut of her lower lip, near the corner of her mouth.

  Daniel felt like jumping into the rocks. He wanted to tear open the skin at the hollow of his neck.

  It won’t be one more day. We’re days from anywhere you can get help. Weeks.

  One more day.

  That day passed differently to the previous ones. The world outside the truck did not deviate from its numb colours, its bumpy plains, but its contours were marked all over by cushions of the bright-melting snow, which brought a gleam and glare to the once-muted landscape. Things changed inside the truck, too. The private still drove, the scout still fiddled with his map, but where Lieutenant Harker would usually have dozed she was restless, fidgeting, unsettled in every way possible. Again and again she raised her hand to her bandage. Each time she stopped, her hand shaking, before her fingers grazed its lemony crust.

  Daniel became hyper-aware of Harker’s movements. Soon that awareness transformed into a kind of heightened empathy. Her discomfort became his. He felt the needles of her frustration, her anger, her pain. They were so close. Less than a metre of air between them, air heavy with the rot of her wound.

  When the smell of it defeated him—and it defeated him many times that day—Daniel made the private pull over, to let him splash the colours of his stomach onto the rock and snow. By early afternoon there was nothing but bile coming forth from within him: a foulness of his own.

  Afterwards he stood hunched beside the truck, hands slipping down thighs, eyes bleary and drenched, throat and mouth burning. In those hunched moments, the relief he felt at having finished dragging up his stomach lining allowed him a small window of clarity
. The effects of the days on the endless plateau, where his mind ran loose and idle, burned away. He could see the depth of his failure, the misery of their trip, the inevitable horror lying at the end of this day and perhaps every day that would come. He tried to imagine what they’d do once they were rid of the rain heron, but the past clogged his thoughts. His clarity was lost in the torture of the mountain woman, the flash of the bird’s beak, the thump of Harker’s bullet, the crack of her fist, the char of her antibiotics, the tributary of her infection. His farm came too, the bloating of the paddocks under rain, the stiff oil of a dirty fleece, the lilt of his parents’ words without the words themselves reappearing in his mind. What he’d done in the coup. What he hadn’t done. The sound of storms; the dampness of running rain. The clearing scent of pines. The sudden snow, stained a sick neon at his feet. At these moments, he felt sure that any future he found would be the same colour: a future of shining bile.

  Nobody spoke until three o’clock, when the landscape finally shifted, after days of uniformity. A forest pushed through the rocks and loam. The trees were small, with pale trunks and thin branches that wore waxy blue leaves the shape of small ovals. Daniel stared through his sickness and recognised them as cider gums, and thought how strange it was to see them collected so tightly together. The road fed itself between their trunks, and as they drove through along it their world was dappled by the shadows that dropped from the ghostly trees. For half an hour they drove like this, covered in broken light, until the forest was split apart by a small road that swung off the highway, signalled by a faded, inscrutable signpost.

  The scout pointed towards it.

  Turn there.

  The private swung the wheel, and the truck’s tyres swapped asphalt for yellow gravel, although not for long. This new road was more of a driveway. It led into the trees, which clung tight to the road as it curled and bumped. After a few minutes they reached its end: a cattle grate, and beyond it a group of buildings, hemmed on all sides by the cider gums.

  The gateless driveway ran through a low stone wall. Beyond it loomed the buildings, uneven in shape, height and structure. The private drove through and they came into a compound that made little sense. Sheds of corrugated iron. Some white-brick houses or admin blocks. High fences, built with ornate iron detailing—enclosures, perhaps. A large, concrete-walled structure with a domed roof of glass sat furthest back, against the gums. It all seemed randomly thrown together, with no central design or discernible layout.

  No lights were on; nothing moved behind the fences, or beneath the curve of glass. The sanctuary was clearly still abandoned. The private let the truck come to a stop in a gravelled turning circle that sat in front of the nearest building.

  Daniel waited. Beside him Harker mopped pus with a stained sleeve, flinching with each careful swipe, and he felt his pulse quicken, his throat squirm. He tried to imagine what they’d do when they had to turn around, and all he saw was the green splash of his bile. He supposed they’d keep driving, look for a general to report to. That might take them across the entire country, from one far border to the next. To the freezing south, to the hard heat of the north. Always hiding the bird. Always watching Harker deteriorate.

  He wondered when she’d fire her gun again. Where she’d point it.

  A banging sound intruded on his thoughts. Lieutenant Harker had stumbled out of the truck. She grabbed her pack and the cage, and began walking towards the lightless building. The soldiers looked at each other, hesitating, before all three exited the vehicle. When they began to follow her, she stopped and turned.

  Thank you for your work. You have carried out your orders. Now return to high command.

  She turned again, kept stomping over the ground. It was ridiculous, perhaps suicidal. But at the sight of her retreating Daniel felt suddenly, deliriously free. They could leave. She might die, but they could leave. It was not a conscious thought, and he felt awful for thinking it, yet it filled him with a dark, weightless thrill.

  There was a creak of metal on wood. A door opened. A figure came out of the building that Harker was approaching. The private walked back to the truck, his steps hurried and eager. The scout stared as Harker put the cage down and swayed on her feet, then he too returned to the truck, still staring at the cage, worry on his face. The figure from the sanctuary walked forward.

  Daniel could hear Harker panting. Her back was to him, so he couldn’t see her reaction as the stranger came closer to her. It was a man. He was young, wearing civilian clothes, and he had ruddy cheeks and soft, floppy hair. Words passed between him and Lieutenant Harker. The stranger had ignored the cage, and was reaching out to touch her face with a cloth he’d pulled from his coat. Daniel waited for her to strike him, waiting almost gleefully for her unpredictable wrath to fall on someone else.

  But instead she swayed on her feet, before collapsing into his arms. The man caught her weight on his shoulder.

  The scout and the private waited in the truck. Daniel turned to join them. He was finding it hard to breathe, and for some reason he couldn’t see properly. He wanted to get in the vehicle, to leave. He opened the door. But instead of climbing in he began gasping, and wiping at his eyes, and rummaging through his first-aid kit. Then he was marching towards the man his lieutenant had fallen onto.

  As he approached, the stranger looked up at him, a fearful expression on his face. Daniel did not linger long enough to gain a true sense of the man. He just pushed the things he’d taken from his kit into this stranger’s hand and rattled off some brief instructions. Then, without speaking to Lieutenant Harker, Daniel returned to the truck, climbed in, and told the private to drive.

  47

  BACK ON THE road, the scout consulted his map before announcing that the closest barracks was in the same direction they’d been going. Daniel felt a throb of relief.

  Soon they had left the forest of cider gums behind. The plateau was again stark, open, bare. They drove with the windows down, and the fresh, snow-chilled air cleaned the smell of Harker’s wound out of the truck. Daniel felt his stomach settle, his throat relax. He stretched out on the back seat. Every now and then he would instinctively look over his shoulder, checking on the cage that was no longer there, and every time he noted its absence he felt better. At dusk they found the first houses they’d seen on the plateau, clinging to the edge of a wide lake. They were large, lodge-like, probably fishing retreats for wealthy people who had liked to kill trout while holidaying.

  They kicked in the door of the biggest house, found a feast of tinned fish and peaches, and slept in queen-sized beds. The night brought no rain. They woke to a snowless, smooth-stoned shore, the lake still and free of waves. Looking at the water, drinking a stolen cup of instant coffee, Daniel realised what he was going to do.

  They got back in the truck and after an hour of driving they descended from the plateau into unremarkable, unworked farmland, much like the land they’d travelled through after first leaving the mountain. They reached a small town, where they found the barracks the scout had mentioned. When they reported to the commanding officer, Daniel informed him only of the vague outline of their mission, saying the details were classified. The private and scout went to bathe or eat while the officer made Daniel wait as he spoke to a colonel, or a general, or whoever he needed to. Three phone calls later he nodded at Daniel, who said something about needing a shower and left.

  He walked past the bathrooms, past the mess, out into the parking area behind the barracks. There were no guards to stop him as he slid into the truck, twisted the keys the private had left in the ignition, and headed back onto the road.

  He drove for four days. It would have only taken two, but he took back roads and detours, staying away from population centres, any places he thought might be hosting military or rebel presences. He ate dry rations, drank river water, slept in his tent. Occasionally he saw groups of people and vehicles clustered in the towns, but other than a few rocks thrown at his truck nobody bothered him, and he
didn’t initiate contact with anyone.

  By the fourth day he reached a familiar valley. The road thinned. Swathes of green grass dominated the fields, and he was filled with relief. The stone-fruit trees held no fruit but looked sturdy and unmolested, and the fences seemed mostly intact. When he turned into the farm’s driveway, he noted that the sign—which announced the name of the property in an ornate font—had been knocked down, but he didn’t let it worry him; it had probably been the wind. He rumbled down the gravel, dodging the potholes and grooves that had not moved or changed. At the farmhouse the lights weren’t on, but that was okay—it was not yet dark, and his parents didn’t like to waste electricity. There were no cars, either, but they had probably taken them out into the fields, as they usually did while working.

  He parked and walked across the small lawn in front of the house, the only piece of land that had not been put to use. Beyond it, over a fence, was an empty paddock. At this time of year it should have been filled with green feed crop, but he did not dwell on the thought. His parents were always rotating crops.

  A shout from one of the fields broke the silence. He looked into the distance and saw two figures. They were too far away for him to make out who they were, what they were wearing, if they were men or women. They stood dark against the bare ground.

  Daniel raised an arm. The figures ran towards him.

  PART 4

  48

  WHEN I CLOSE my eye, I see her: the woman on the mountain. I used to see the northerner, but that was when I had both my eyes. Down my eyelids would fall, and down I’d see him go, thrashing, bleeding, the sucks and slaps of the tentacles dragging him under the reddened froth. I often grew angry that I wasn’t seeing my aunt. Not in the moment she died, but in better times: those shivers of my childhood that were coloured bright by her laughter. But while I could summon memories of her, they only came with effort. And when my eyes inevitably closed, I always saw the northerner, and what I’d done to him.