Blood Bond

by Green, Michael

  ‘We’ve got a passenger.’

  ‘What you talking about?’

  ‘There’s a young fella hanging onto my side of the boat.’

  The questioner stopped rowing. ‘What?’

  ‘Keep rowing,’ Ruby pleaded.

  The little girl in the boat scrambled aft from the forepeak and peered over the gunwale at Luke. ‘I’m Harriet, and this is Cocoa,’ she said, holding up her pet koala.

  Reluctantly, the other woman began to row half-heartedly, glancing past her companion at the white fingers gripping the side of the boat.

  ‘You’re mad. Corky will kill you. He’s already going to give us both a beating for leaving Sophia and Lily behind.’

  ‘Emily Jackson, do you think I’m stupid? I ain’t going to tell Corky about this young fella, am I now? What’s your name, boy?’ she added as an afterthought, peering at her trophy.

  ‘Luke.’

  ‘Someone’s bound to tell Corky,’ Emily warned.

  ‘I don’t intend to tell anyone I’ve got him.’

  Luke struggled to see over the gunwale. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well, Corky ain’t too happy about your brother, and he’s going to be even unhappier about you. I wouldn’t put it past him shooting you.’

  ‘He wouldn’t.’

  ‘He might well do,’ Emily confirmed. ‘You won’t be the first fella he’s shot over a woman.’ The seriousness of her voice made Luke suddenly wish he hadn’t jumped ship.

  Ruby saw the scared look on his face. ‘Don’t worry, lad, I’ll look after you.’

  ‘Me too,’ Emily volunteered.

  Ruby shot her a glance. ‘I’ll take care of him myself, thanks.’

  ‘Share him or lose him.’

  The scowl on Ruby’s face suggested she wasn’t pleased at the offer. ‘OK,’ she said grudgingly. ‘But we keep him to ourselves right? I’m not sharing him with anyone else.’

  Luke bobbed his head above the gunwale. ‘What do you mean keep me to yourselves? What are you going to do with me?’

  ‘You,’ Emily replied, ‘are going to be the filling in a Brisbane sandwich.’

  Both Emily and Ruby noticed the look of horror on the boy’s face and burst into laughter.

  ‘Don’t worry, lad, we’re not going to eat you,’ Emily assured him.

  ‘We might have a bit of a nibble, though,’ Ruby added. The two women began laughing again. It was obvious to Luke that they were enjoying a joke at his expense.

  ‘You ever heard of a Brisbane sandwich?’ Emily asked.

  ‘No. I don’t like sandwiches.’

  The women laughed again. ‘You’ll like this sandwich.’

  ‘Now, Luke, when we row past that headland over there, let go, swim ashore and wait in the mangroves. When it’s safe, cross the road to the park and hide in the bandstand.’

  ‘Hide?’

  ‘We’re not joking about Corky. If he finds you, you’re in real trouble,’ Emily said. ‘And if any of the other women find out about you, they’ll tell him and we’ll all be in trouble. Just hole up in the bandstand and keep quiet. We’ll be back for you after dark.’

  Luke’s head disappeared below the gunwale. ‘After dark! I’ll be starving by then. I’ll eat anything — even a Brisbane sandwich.’

  The two women started giggling again.

  It was fully dark when Luke, resting on the floor of the bandstand, heard the rustle of bushes announcing the arrival of Ruby and Emily. At least his clothes had dried out. As predicted, he was starving. ‘Got my sandwich?’ he asked.

  ‘Not long now. Follow us, and keep quiet.’

  ‘Can I see my brother?’

  ‘He’s pretty busy, that brother of yours. Don’t think he’ll want to see you for a day or two.’

  ‘Busy? What’s he doing?’

  ‘You’ll find out soon enough.’

  Emily and Ruby led Luke from the park to a deserted house near the beach, around a hundred and fifty metres from the bungalows occupied by the rest of the community. They quickly ushered him up the stairs to a bedroom and pulled the curtains before lighting a candle. The flickering light revealed that both women were bruised about the face. Emily’s lip was swollen and cut.

  Luke was alarmed. ‘Did Corky do that?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ruby said. ‘And judging by the mood he’s in, he’ll do a lot worse to you if he finds you. You’re to stay here out of sight until we think it’s safe to tell him about you.’

  ‘And that’s going to be a while yet,’ Emily added, touching her swollen lip.

  Not for the first time, Luke wished he’d stayed aboard Archangel.

  ‘Here’s your dinner,’ Emily said, handing him a plate.

  He was ravenous. ‘This is great — I thought all I was going to get was a sandwich,’ he said as he gulped down the meat and vegetables.

  Ruby laughed. ‘You’re still going to get one.’

  Luke was trying his best to look at the women’s bodies without them noticing his interest. In turn, they were making no attempt to hide the fact they were eying him up. Emily, who Luke thought had the nicer figure, walked over and stood close to him.

  ‘How old are you, Luke?’

  ‘Fifteen,’ he lied.

  ‘You ever slept with a girl?’

  ‘Yep, lots of girls.’

  ‘That’s good then,’ she said. ‘It’s time for your Brisbane sandwich.’ She took his hand, led him to the bed and lay down beside him.

  Ruby climbed on the other side of the bed and whispered in his ear. ‘This is the Brisbane sandwich, Luke. Emily, me and you in the middle.’

  He felt Ruby undoing the belt of his shorts. ‘I lied,’ he said suddenly. ‘I’ve never slept with a woman.’

  ‘You think we hadn’t guessed that? Bet you’re not fifteen either, are you?’

  ‘No,’ he said as he felt his shorts being pulled over his ankles.

  ‘Perhaps we should give him the Dunwich barrel test?’ Emily suggested.

  ‘What’s the Dunwich barrel test?’ he asked, half afraid he would pass the test, and half afraid he wouldn’t.

  ‘Well, if we’re not sure a young fella’s big enough, we stand him in the Dunwich barrel,’ Emily said as she unbuttoned his shirt. He felt her hot nipples brush against his chest. ‘If he can see over the top of the barrel, he’s big enough.’

  ‘And what happens if he can’t see over the top?’

  ‘We just get a smaller barrel.’ The two women started giggling uncontrollably.

  When Emily and Ruby finally left, Luke lay exhausted and sore, but convinced he was living in paradise.

  Paradise lasted for little more than a week.

  ‘Where’s Ruby?’ he asked on the night that Emily arrived alone.

  She put his food on the table and watched as he started to eat. ‘She’s crook. Some of the other girls are crook too. Corky’s blaming your brother.’

  ‘Crook? What do you mean crook?’

  ‘What you Poms call ill. So there’ll be no Brisbane sandwich tonight.’

  Luke was a little relieved. Being the filling in the sandwich was proving hard work — even if it was enjoyable.

  Emily wasn’t feeling well either, so she excused herself a little after midnight. She looked terrible the next night when she stumbled in, carrying a bag of dried food. Things were getting worse: everyone except Robert was very ill. Corky was delirious and threatening to shoot everyone. Emily warned Luke that whatever happened, he was to stay hidden. She was so sick she wasn’t interested in lovemaking but she promised to return the next night.

  However, she didn’t return, not the following night, nor the night after. The food she had left lasted for five days. Finally, early one morning, hungry and frightened, Luke crept out of the house and made his way through the gardens to the houses at the top of the beach, taking care to remain out of sight.

  He heard Corky’s voice before he saw him. ‘Dig, you lazy little bugger.’

  ‘I dug three yesterday and two to
day already.’ Luke was relieved to hear Robert respond.

  Luke crept along beside a fence less than a hundred metres from where the conversation was taking place and peered through a clump of bushes. Across the road on the grass strip near the top of the beach, he could see several mounds of earth, each with a cross on the top. His brother was standing in a hole, digging, while Corky sat on an upturned dinghy behind him, his rifle cradled in his arms.

  ‘What are you complaining about — it’s your fault they’re dead, you disease-ridden little bugger,’ Corky swore.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

  ‘So how come all my women are dropping off their perches?’

  The look on Robert’s face was even more petulant than usual. ‘If the women mean so much to you, why don’t you help dig their graves?’

  ‘You killed them. You do the digging.’

  Robert was close to tears. ‘I didn’t kill them.’

  Corky said nothing and Robert continued to dig. He was clearly exhausted. ‘Who’s this one for?’ he asked after a while.

  ‘Stop asking questions. Just keep digging.’

  Robert flung out two more shovelfuls of earth then climbed out of the hole and leaned on the shovel, his back to his tormentor. ‘That’s deep enough,’ he said defiantly.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Course it is. Didn’t I say it was?’ Robert shouted. ‘You want it any deeper, dig it yourself.’

  Corky raised his rifle and shot Robert in the back.

  ‘No!’ Luke yelled as his brother slumped forward into the grave. He began to climb over the fence but Corky pointed the rifle in his direction. He jumped back over the barrier as a volley of shots shattered the wood on one side of him. He set off across the gardens, leaping over fences and crashing through hedges. The sight of Corky reloading the rifle and setting off after him spurred him on. Fortunately he was the better athlete and soon disappeared from Corky’s view.

  Luke was terrified, but he recalled his Uncle Mark’s promise to return for Robert. Even though he knew Mark would be angry that he had jumped ship, he was sure Archangel would come back one day. He hoped it would be sooner rather than later.

  For that reason alone, he knew that despite the danger, he must stay in the vicinity of Corky’s settlement. He guessed Mark would make a surprise visit, and wouldn’t risk sailing Archangel into Rose Bay in full view. If the rescue party killed Corky and found the graves while he was away somewhere, they might assume he was also dead and leave without him. He considered leaving messages on the approach roads to the settlement but discounted the idea when he realised that if Corky found the messages, he would be alerted to Mark’s intention to return.

  His only other option was to shoot Corky before he was shot himself. Finding a firearm proved easy, finding ammunition impossible. In the period following the outbreak of the pandemic, ammunition stocks had been exhausted as the dwindling population in the area had hunted game and birds for food or fought one another to gain control of resources.

  Luke’s immediate concern was to find food. Without a loaded rifle even that was difficult, particularly since he had to continually keep an eye open for Corky. The second night after his brother’s murder he crept along the beach and stole fish drying on the racks at the top of the beach. He also set a simple, small, wooden plaque into the soil on the top of his brother’s grave. He had wanted to erect a cross, but he knew a cross would be seen by Corky and he didn’t want it ripped off and burned.

  The next morning, he watched Corky look suspiciously at the gaps on the fish rack. Later that day Corky collected the remainder of the fish and took it to what Luke assumed was his own dwelling. Fortunately, Corky didn’t notice the plaque.

  Two days later, Corky shot a kangaroo that wandered onto the beach. He hung the carcass from the bough of a tree and skinned it, cut off a leg and left the remainder of the meat hanging from the branch.

  Luke was starving. In the early hours of the morning, when the moon finally slipped behind the clouds, he picked his way stealthily through the gardens towards the carcass. He was already over the fence when the clouds cleared momentarily, illuminating him for a split second. A rifle shot rang out and he felt the pressure as the bullet whizzed past. Had he been a few metres further closer to the carcass, or had the gap in the clouds been a fraction larger, he had no doubt Corky’s shot would have killed him.

  From that moment on, watching Corky and knowing what he was doing at all times became Luke’s preoccupation. Corky carried his rifle constantly. His eyes were forever searching for his prey.

  Still Mark did not come, and Luke was forced to leave the area for brief periods to find food. Whenever he made a foraging trip he would also search frantically for ammunition, always without success.

  He lived the life of a guerrilla, never sleeping in the same place two nights in succession. He’d heard stories of Australia’s poisonous spiders and snakes and was terrified of being bitten, adding to the stress of his predicament. His territory became the few acres bounded by Wynnum Creek to the north, the ridge above Manly to the west, Lota Creek to the south and the sea to the east. He came to know it like the back of his hand.

  33

  The game of cat and mouse went on for days, then weeks. The lack of food, together with the nervous exhaustion of avoiding Corky and watching for signs of Archangel, began to take its toll. Luke decided he had to take action.

  One morning, about an hour before dawn, he lit a fire at the far end of a beach a few kilometres from Corky’s settlement. He stoked the fire with leaves and grass before making his way to a hiding place nearby. His adversary was both an early riser and a man of habit: each morning he would wander down the beach towards the point, rifle and bucket in hand, and check the net he had set the night before. After placing any catch in the bucket, he would carefully scan the horizon, the islands offshore and the beaches on the mainland with his binoculars. The care with which Corky searched indicated to Luke that he too expected Archangel to return.

  This morning was no exception. As Corky completed scanning the mainland beaches, he sighted the smoke from the fire Luke had set. Corky hurried in the direction of the smoke, rifle at the ready, with Luke following, keeping well back and well hidden.

  Luke halted at the southern end of the beach and watched as Corky continued along the sand towards the smoke. As he neared the source of the smoke, which was spiralling skywards from behind a house, Corky slowed and began creeping more cautiously towards the plume. Luke turned tail and ran as fast as his legs would carry him back along the road towards Corky’s house. He reckoned he had about twenty minutes before Corky realised he had been tricked and arrived back at the settlement.

  He burst into Corky’s house, found a rucksack and bundled in all the food he could find in the kitchen. Then, glancing nervously at his watch, he commenced the most important part of his mission — the search for Corky’s ammunition.

  Rummaging through a cupboard in the hallway he found a Bible. Despite having been in the church choir — chosen for his angelic looks rather than the quality of his singing — he was not particularly religious. But the Bible caught his eye. It had a very distinctive, leather-bound cover decorated with two Cs intertwined with the branches of an oak tree. It was identical to the one his grandmother kept at Haver. On impulse, he stuffed the Bible in the rucksack with the food.

  His time was almost up before he found what he was looking for — Corky’s stash of pistols, rifles and ammunition, hidden behind clothes in a wardrobe. He picked up one of the rifles then remembered that all he really needed was ammunition.

  Replacing the rifle, he reached down towards the pile of ammunition. The largest spider he had ever seen — at least two hand-spans across, including its legs — stood guard atop of the pile of boxes. Terrified, and unaware that he was confronted by a harmless huntsman spider, he picked up the rifle again, flicked the spider off the top of the boxes and slammed the rifle butt down on it. Still shakin
g, he removed a box of ammunition from the stack and tipped the contents into the rucksack before closing the empty box and hiding it in the centre of the pile. Then he carefully replaced the rifle and closed the wardrobe door. He hoped that, with both the weapons and ammunition apparently undisturbed, Corky wouldn’t realise he had found the stash.

  The search had taken longer than he had anticipated. As he reached the front door, he saw Corky running, puffing and panting, along the promenade towards him.

  ‘You little bastard!’ Corky yelled breathlessly as he lifted his rifle.

  A bullet slammed into the wall of the house. Luke turned and ran back through the house into the kitchen. Finding the back door locked, he climbed through the kitchen window. As Luke leapt over the garden gate, Corky burst through the back door.

  As he ran down the road, the rucksack banging up and down against his back, Luke began to wish he hadn’t stolen the heavy Bible. He had just reached the junction at the end of the street when a bullet hit the rucksack with such force that he was knocked off his feet. Surprised he was still alive, he scrambled to his feet. Another bullet whistled overhead as he turned the corner.

  He knew he could run faster than Corky, but not with a pack on his back. Unwilling to abandon the precious food and ammunition, and momentarily out of sight of Corky, he cut into a driveway and hid behind a hedge. He watched as Corky rounded the corner and continued along the road ahead, yelling obscenities. Suddenly Luke wished he had stolen a rifle rather than the Bible.

  He remained hidden for the rest of the day, watching Corky searching for him. Only when his pursuer had returned to his house, shouting a final string of threats, did Luke make his way cautiously to his favourite hiding place near the point.

  He was ravenous. He took food from the rucksack, gulped it down and then began to systematically sort through his spoils. He had already decided he would split his pickings, including the ammunition, into three lots and hide them in separate locations, just in case any of his hiding places was discovered.

  He picked up the Bible. It had a hole in it and was still warm where the bullet, lodged in its pages, had spent its force. He realised how lucky he was: the Bible had undoubtedly saved his life.