Vulture's Gate

by Kirsty Murray

  4

  SHOOTING NIGHTBIRDS

  Bo touched her gun and felt the coolness of it. She didn’t want to go out tonight but Poppy had taught her routines that were important. She took down her catskin shawl from the hook and slung it around her shoulders.

  Outside, the sky was awhirl with stars. Nightbirds soared above the sleeping desert, circling for prey. Bo spread the catskin on the ground and lay down. She looked through the viewfinder and rested her finger on the trigger. When the first wedge of black wing came into view, a dark shadow against the stars, she narrowed her gaze and fired. The nightbird plummeted to earth, landing with a dull thwack on the rocky desert plain. More black silhouettes flitted against the starry sky, trying to escape her bullets, but they were easy targets.

  She had the fifth nightbird in her finder when something caught her eye. Far away, on the edge of the horizon, a light flickered and then died. Outstationers. Bo’s skin prickled with unease. She remembered Poppy saying the landmines would keep the two of them safe, as long as they stayed inside their territory. But Poppy had been wrong. She pushed away the memory of his face on the night they discovered how vulnerable they were.

  As if to echo her thoughts, one of the mines blew. She felt it through the ground and heard the roar of the explosion roll across the stony desert. Someone was trying to cross the boundary of her hunting grounds.

  One step at a time, sweeping away her tracks, she backed into the opal cave. A telltale sliver of light seeped out under the doorway and she hurried to switch off every lumina in the burrow.

  Now she knew why she hadn’t wanted to go outside. A part of her had sensed trouble was near. Sometimes she knew things before they happened. A change in the weather days before it came across the desert. Where water lay, as if her skin scented it. Even if she couldn’t name the thing, she felt its impending arrival.

  ‘Woman’s ’twitian,’ Poppy had said. ‘’Twitian ain’t rational.’ He didn’t believe in it, but the night he was murdered Bo had sensed they were both in danger and she had been right. She knew she should always respect her instincts. Right now, her ’twitian was telling her to go deep, to get away from the surface where some form of sensor might pick up the warmth of her skin, and bury every sign of life in the deepest ground. She pointed the beam from her laser through a small window that overlooked the Wombator’s den. If she set him to work tonight, he would have a new, deeper burrow carved out for her by morning – but would his vibrations alert the Outstationers to her presence?

  She lay on her belly and then wriggled through a portal into the lowest room of the burrow, pulling a rock in place to jam the entrance. Against the back wall, her roboraptors were stationed in standby mode. She spread the catskin shawl on the ground and settled herself beneath the roboraptors, their bowed heads above her. It felt safer being here with Mr Pinkwhistle so close. She wrapped one hand around his foreleg, just to remind herself of the strength in the beast-machine.

  She tried not to think about the night the Outstationers killed Poppy. Remembering was like opening a wound, as if all the blood was running out of her into the desert stones. The hunting grounds had grown barren but Poppy wouldn’t hunt outside them. He thought they were safe inside the ring of landmines. Then that night, when they were on the very edge of their lands, the Outstationers crossed the boundary. What was the last thing Poppy had said before the murderers were upon them? ‘Scuttle.’

  ‘Scuttle,’ she whispered to herself. Poppy had taught her how to scuttle – how to disappear from view, how to move between rocks and hard places like water, like the silveriest skink. Bo knew how to scuttle. But she didn’t know how to stop the cavernous hurt opening up in her chest at the thought of Poppy. There was only one thing that would push it away.

  ‘Once upon a time in a faraway kingdom . . .’ she whispered into the blackness. She wanted to hear the susurration of the words, like a prayer, like an ancient telling that would make her feel safe. The words hung in the air of the opal cave. A moment later, another landmine exploded.

  5

  GAMBLING WITH FATE

  Callum ran one finger over the line of notches in the corner of his cage. Three months. Every single day that he had worked for Floss and Dental was marked by a tiny notch made with his front teeth. Now there were ninety-two toothy indentations.

  Callum had grown lean and wiry since his capture but he still hadn’t grown accustomed to the confines of his cage. As much as he hated being made to bend and spin in the circus ring, it was better than the long hours trapped in the freak show.

  They’d been driving all day, criss-crossing the red-brown desert, searching for the next cluster of Outstations. The trucks rolled through silent country while Callum lay in his cage, bathed in sweat. Finally, they came to a stop on a gibber plain. Tango, the striped tiger-monkey, picked at his fleas and snarled at the small willy-willies that swirled past their encampment. The other chimeras shifted restlessly, making weird mewling sounds that sent shivers up Callum’s spine.

  As darkness fell, the chimeras began to pace in their enclosures. Tango rattled the bars of his cage. They were desperate to stretch their limbs in the ring but there would be no show tonight. The desert lay still and empty on every side of the encampment.

  Callum drew a deep breath and stretched his arms through the bars. If he could only find some way to forget how uncomfortable he was, a night alone could almost be a treat. He was tired of being thrown between Dental and Floss, flipped and tossed through the air from one speeding motorbike to another while an audience of drunken Outstationers hooted and roared, hoping to see him fall. He began to hum quietly – a ballad about sunshine, rain and wide blue skies – shutting his eyes against his prison and the company of the agitated chimeras. In his mind’s eye he could see Rusty sitting on the end of a bed with his guitar and Ruff in the doorway, nodding his head in time to the music and then joining in, his deep voice adding a rich harmony. Fighting down his emotions, he began to sing the song, trying to hold the vision of his fathers. His voice rang out across the stony desert.

  For a moment, he opened his eyes and looked out through the bars of his cage. The chimeras had fallen silent. Tango’s yellow eyes flashed and the monkey stretched out his arms, palms turned up to the sky. Callum understood. When he came to the end of the song, he started another and the chimeras sat quietly, their restless misery stilled by the music.

  It was only when he got to the end of his last song that he saw Dental’s beady black eyes staring at him from across the compound. Callum turned away and curled into a ball in the far corner of his cage. He had given too much away. He had let Dental see into his heart. Nothing good would come of it.

  The next morning, Dental opened the cage, undid Callum’s chain and whistled. ‘Hup, ya bloody mongrel.’ He knew it annoyed Callum but it was the same taunt every morning.

  As he was led into the Big Top to practise, he muttered his own name over and over. No one called him Callum any more. ‘Dog’, ‘Mutt’, ‘Mongrel’ was all they ever shouted at him. He was afraid that if he didn’t repeat his true name to himself, he would forget who he used to be and become the thing they called him.

  Dental whistled the tune that Callum had sung the night before and yanked Callum’s chain. ‘C’mon, howler,’ he sneered. ‘Sling us a tune.’ Suddenly he yanked the chain so hard that Callum was forced to the ground.

  Callum tried to stifle a whimper of pain. He knew that Dental took sadistic pleasure in watching him gasp for breath. ‘How many times have I told you not to treat the kid like that?’ shouted Floss, snatching the chain from Dental. He unshackled Callum and checked the marks on his neck. ‘We can’t afford to replace him. You break his neck like you did the last one and I swear I’ll have your kneecaps.’

  ‘You will, will you?’ sneered Dental, puffing his chest out like an angry rooster.

  Floss pushed Callum to one side and turned on Dental. ‘Listen, I bought him with my stash. You pay me, and you can do what y
ou like to him.’

  While they argued, Callum slipped through the flaps of the tent, and ran out into the wide, empty desert. There was nowhere to hide on the flat plains but he ran anyway, leaping over the pebbly ground, kicking up flurries of red dust, running full pelt into the harsh morning sunlight.

  He hadn’t gone far when he heard shouting and the roar of bikes approaching. But he didn’t stop running. He dived to one side as grit and dirt flew into his face. The sheer act of defiance made him feel alive even as the bikies circled him in a wide arc, letting him run himself ragged. They might punish him but he knew they wouldn’t mow him down. If they did, they’d have to buy another dog-boy.

  Wet with sweat and breathless with exhaustion, Callum fell to his knees. He covered his face with his hands and waited for the moment when one of the men would reach out and drag him back to the Big Top. He prayed it would be Floss but it was Dental’s heavy hand that fell upon his neck. With one swift movement Dental wrenched Callum from the ground and onto the tank of his bike. Then he leaned forward and a spray of spittle covered Callum’s neck as he hissed, ‘Floss plays the big man but never forget I’m top dog around here.’

  Callum shrank away from Dental, clinging to the motorcycle’s tank. He knew that if Dental wanted to have his way, no one could stop him, not even Floss.

  Callum woke with a start as a hand groped his leg. He scrambled to a corner of the cage. In the darkness he couldn’t make out who was his attacker. All the circus lights were out, the canvas of the tents flapping lazily in the night breeze.

  ‘We got business, you and me,’ said Dental, shining a torch into Callum’s face and flashing his jagged teeth in a shark-like smile.

  He dragged Callum by his torque to one of the long, shining trucks that carried the motorbikes. He pushed a button and the side of the truck unfolded. Moonlight washed over the pearly-white tank and silver spokes of the biggest motorbike Callum had ever seen. Embossed on the centre of the tank was a blue heart edged with gold.

  ‘Beautiful, in’t she?’ said Dental, wheeling her down the ramp.

  Callum nodded. He knew it had to be a rare machine. None of the other bikes was called ‘she’.

  ‘We don’t use Daisy-May much. Too precious. She gets hurt and no one’s got the art to fix her no more. But she is one beautiful getaway machine.’ Dental ran his hand over the tank and smiled as he swung his leg over her. ‘Get on, woofer.’

  Callum shifted from foot to foot. ‘Where’s Floss?’ he asked ‘Why isn’t he coming too?’

  With one quick jerk, Dental yanked Callum into the air and then threw him down like a rag doll onto the front of the bike. He leaned forward, his long arms trapping Callum between the tank and his body.

  ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘To round up sheep, Dog.’

  Dental kick-started the engine and the Daisy-May started with a soft whirr. Callum gripped the seat with his knees. As the bike picked up speed, he lay down across the tank, hanging onto the warm, smooth metal with both hands. They were travelling fast, skimming over the stony ground. The wind felt like needles against Callum’s bare skin. Dental hit a button and a transparent blue hood rose up from the front of the bike and settled over them so they were enclosed inside a bubble.

  The desert whipped past. Callum remembered peyote bikes like the Daisy-May roaring along the highway outside the Refuge, and Rusty whistling, ‘He’s doing a Doppler!’ Maybe that strange tension in the air meant they were approaching the speed of sound. Dental leaned down hard, pressing against Callum. The speedometer nudged 1200 kilometres an hour.

  Beneath the blue hood, the air was rank with Dental’s body odour. When Dental stopped the Daisy-May at the gates of a silvery-grey outstation and raised the hood, Callum gulped down the sharp night air.

  Two guards stepped forward to run a weapons detector over both Dental and Callum and then waved the Daisy-May through the gates. They rode slowly until they came to an open square where hundreds of men sat around in groups, gambling at long tables. The air was thick with smoke from hookahs, pipes and cigarettes.

  ‘Does Floss know we’re here?’ asked Callum. It felt safer to bait Dental when there were other men around.

  ‘Will you shut up about Floss!’

  ‘You guys, you’re sworn brothers, aren’t you? Won’t he worry about where we’ve gone?’ he asked, watching as Dental’s face contorted with rage.

  The big man lunged forward and sank his jagged teeth into the top of Callum’s ear. Callum squealed with pain. Then Dental lifted him up so they were face to face.

  ‘Listen, poodle-boy. I’m not one of your dads. I don’t do sworn brotherhood. That’s for Colony mugs like your old men. I’m not out to save the bleeding civilisation. I’m out for me, Dental. Got it?’

  Holding his bloody ear, Callum nodded. Dental found a seat at the end of a bench and pulled Callum onto his knee, securing him firmly in place with one hand as he gathered up his playing chips. On the table were ingots of gold, silver and platinum, small clear bags full of pills and sticky substances, and small boxes of remnant technologies – microchips and computer hardware. Callum couldn’t follow what the rules of the game were but there were a lot of small white squares with black markings moving around the table. As the night wore on, little beads of sweat began to gather on Dental’s brow and drip down into his beard. He kept smiling his shark-tooth grin but it was clear he was losing. Callum felt a small rush of pleasure.

  Late in the night, one of the gamblers pushed a bulging green leather wallet into the centre of the table.

  ‘You can’t cover a bet like that, can you? I reckon you’re out of this round, stranger.’

  The other gamblers began pushing forward bags of pills and ingots of metal. The dealer checked each bid carefully before accepting them.

  ‘I’m not out yet,’ said Dental. He reached into his jacket, pulled out a clear bag filled with a sticky black substance and tossed it at the dealer.

  For a long, silent moment the wizened man sniffed through the contents. Then he threw Dental’s stake back to him, shaking his head. ‘Too piss-weak.’

  ‘Not so fast. I got a sweetener here that’ll round the bid.’ He grabbed Callum by his torque and lifted him onto the table. ‘Heard you say how you like howlers around here. Heard your last one met with an accident. This one’s a treat. He can bend too. Put him to any use you want. He’s worth a lot to me. Good little performer. Take him as my stake.’

  ‘He’s a bleedin’ runt,’ scoffed one of the men.

  ‘No, he’s a little beauty. Still got his baby-boy voice – sweet, like.’ Dental shoved Callum into the centre of the table. ‘Go on, Dog, howl,’ he commanded.

  Callum looked into the faces of the Outstationers and felt his throat constrict. For an instant, he thought of doing as he was told. But he had a creeping feeling that life would be even worse at this outstation than with the circus. He stayed mute.

  ‘Sing, you pig-child,’ said Dental, jumping up onto the bench and shaking Callum by his neck. Suddenly, in a flash of inspiration, Callum knew exactly what he should do. It was a trick that had always scared his fathers. He contracted his stomach muscles and forced himself to belch so loudly that saliva and vomit filled his mouth. Then he let it drool over his lips. At the same time he furrowed his brow and rolled his eyes back in his head until he knew only the whites were showing.

  By the time Callum had finished the trick, the gamblers were backing away from him, as if he was diseased.

  ‘Damn you,’ said Dental. Quick as a ferret, he pulled a small blowpipe out from behind his ear and shot three darts, one into the face of each of the nearest gamblers. As panic ensued, Dental swept all the bids from the table into the folds of his black leather jacket. Grabbing Callum with his free hand and kicking chairs and benches from their path, he jumped back onto the Daisy-May. He slammed Callum down on the tank, shoved the stolen winnings into a saddlebag and gunned the accelerator.

  Men were shouting
and sirens wailing as the Daisy-May tore through the streets of the outstation, ploughing past the guards at the gates. They opened fire as the Daisy-May shot out into the desert. The bike shuddered and lost speed. Callum turned to see Dental’s face contorted in pain as he fumbled for the switch that would bring the protective blue hood over them.

  Callum knew this was his moment. All the months of learning to bend, of making his muscles stretch and flex in the ring, could finally serve him. Before he could feel afraid, he turned onto his back and lay flat against the tank, his legs curled against his chest. Grasping the handlebars of the motorbike with both hands, he employed a version of a stunt where he would put his feet against Floss’s chest and then spring into a handstand. Now he put both feet squarely against Dental’s chest and kicked out with all his strength. The Daisy-May careered to one side. Quickly, Callum struck again, this time bringing his heels sharply into Dental’s chin. He saw a little spurt of blood as Dental’s lip was pierced by his own front tooth. Then Dental was gone and the bike was fishtailing along the desert road with Callum hanging on wildly.

  The sirens of the outstation grew louder as Callum flipped himself over. He could hear the roar of vehicles in pursuit. He gripped the handles tightly with both hands and let the throttle out. As the bike picked up speed, he lowered his body until he was lying flat along the seat, until he felt he was melding to the machine. To the west lay the circus, to the east, the Outstationers. He gunned the accelerator and turned the Daisy-May southwards.

  6

  LOST AND FOUND

  Bo watched a silvery-grey dawn creep over the eastern horizon. Keeping the roboraptors clear of the minefield, she paced the boundary until she came across the exploded landmine. The remains of an Outstationer and his broken vehicle lay scattered across the ground. She hung her head in a moment of silent respect, as Poppy had taught her. Then she scraped a shallow grave for his remains and set about laying a replacement mine further afield, marking out the distances between the old mines and the new, ensuring that nothing could cross the boundaries of Tjukurpa Piti without warning.