Two Wolves

by Tristan Bancks

  I’m me, but they are me too.

  ‘Stop!’ said a loud voice as a head appeared through the hole and a sun-bright torch beam landed on them. Ben grabbed Olive by the hand and they scrambled out from under the cabin. He swung her onto his back with his school backpack and they started toward Mum and Dad. At that moment a police officer ran down the left side of the cabin, cutting them off from their parents. Without thinking Ben changed direction, Olive clinging to his back, and ran steeply downward. He could barely make out the tree trunks. It was like running blindfolded. He simply had to trust. He felt the trees rather than seeing them.

  ‘Ben. Olive!’ Mum’s voice, desperate-sounding.

  Bang! Doors slamming and shouting from the cabin. Three, four voices. The other police officers would be running to the door and down the hill after Ben and Olive. The officer who had cut them off from their parents was thudding heavily through the pine forest behind them and off to the left. Ben didn’t know if the cop could see him now.

  Sam Gribley would have left earlier. He’d be eating turtle soup or making acorn pancakes downstream somewhere. He wouldn’t be in this mess. I wish I was in a book, Ben thought. Things are easier for characters in books. Things turn out okay. But this did not feel like it was going to turn out okay.

  Bad plan, said another voice.

  Shut up, he thought.

  His head collided with a low, thin branch but his feet kept moving forward. He hit the ground, falling on his back and onto Olive. The base of Ben’s skull hit something hard and there was a bright, white flash that stopped everything.

  ‘Police!’

  That word ejected him from the moist night ground, dizzy and hurting. He ran again, saying, ‘Come on! Come on!’, and Olive followed, holding his hand. Adrenaline bolted helter-skelter through their bodies, the back of his skull ached. The police officer’s torch beam was still off to the left, but closer now, stumbling down through the trees.

  Bad plan, bad plan, bad plan. They were the words running through Ben’s head as he pulled the raft down over mossy boulders and into the darkness toward the creek. The rocks were difficult enough in the day and impossible in the black of night.

  Just as he felt the front of the raft hit the water, Ben slipped on a rock, banging his tailbone hard. A yelp escaped and pain screamed up his spine, but he stood right away. No time to stop, no time for pain. Ben pushed the raft into the stream. He looked back up the hill and saw two torch beams probing the trees like lightsabers.

  His feet sloshed into the shallows and he realised that he had no idea if the rebuilt raft would float with a human on it. He prayed that, this time, it was seaworthy. Ben made a silent vow that if he made it out of this alive he would learn to swim. He wondered if prisons had swimming pools.

  ‘Get on!’ he whispered and Olive climbed onto the raft, clutching Bonzo by the ear as she crawled to the front. The raft wobbled from side to side.

  ‘Spread your weight. Spread out and hold this.’ Ben passed her the bag of money. He held the raft steady, pain shooting up from his tailbone, and guided it into the middle of the dark, flowing creek. Knee-deep, waist-deep, chest-deep. The water was black ink but for a few patches of moonlight poking through the tips of the tall hoop pines.

  The cold numbed the pain in his tailbone. Voices slashed through the darkness. Threats. Where were Mum and Dad? Caught?

  A second torch beam was flying down the incline toward the creek now, spraying light through the trees. Ben swam, kicking hard with his legs and holding the front corner of the raft. Olive lay still and flat, the water lapping over her shoulders and legs. He knew that she couldn’t swim well either. She hugged Bonzo and the bag of money.

  The current took them. Ben wanted to laugh and cry at the same time – laugh with nervousness and fear, cry with the knowledge that he was escaping from his parents, from the police.

  Two torch beams painted moving tree shadows all over the rock wall on the far side of the creek. Hulking, sinister shadow puppets. Ben paddled along next to the raft, trying not to make a sound. The creek moved quickly and Ben concentrated on steering away from the line of rocks jutting into the middle of the stream.

  He began to feel that maybe they would get away with this, when a shot went off and his body crackled with adrenaline. Ben looked back and saw that one of the torch beams was creek-side, fifty metres upstream. Were they firing at him and Olive?

  He dug in and paddled hard. The dark shape of rocks and ferns stretched into the centre of the creek up ahead. He tried frantically to guide the raft toward the opening where the creek flowed quickly. He looked back and the torch beam was moving down the creek’s bank toward them. They would either be caught in the ray of the torch or stuck on the clump of rocks. Ben paddled, not caring so much about noise now, knowing that his life, both of their lives, may depend on getting away.

  He felt his body and the raft being sucked toward the small waterfall.

  ‘We’re going down,’ he whispered, warning Olive. ‘Down the drop.’

  ‘Okay,’ Olive said quietly.

  The water swept them toward the opening between the boulders and the edge of the creek. At the bottom of the small waterfall the water roiled and frothed and the foam glowed white in the moonlight.

  ‘Spread yourself across the raft,’ he said firmly, and she did.

  Ben edged around from the front to the back of the raft, his body still in the water. He knew that they would drop a couple of metres over the fall. He knew that the strength of the raft he had built and sheer luck would decide whether or not they made it. This was an impossible option but so was going back, giving themselves up, giving their parents up.

  They were powered through the gap in the rocks with a gale-force rush, down and over. Ben was airborne, trying to push the back of the raft down as he followed it. He waited for the slap of raft on water, for the raft to explode into a million splinters. He prayed for Olive and he prayed for himself and for the madness of what they were doing. His feet hit the surging broth below. The front of the raft tipped sharply forward and Ben tried to stop it from nose-diving into the creek. There was the slap and he sank beneath the water, losing his grip on the back of the raft.

  In and down.

  The raft was lost to him and his entire world was no breath, muffled roar of water, and blackness. Even with his eyes open he could see nothing and he had no idea which way was up and which way down. This was a relief from the fear and dread that waited for him above the surface. Nothing but darkness. For a moment, he wished to live down there in the netherworld, where nobody and nothing could get him. Except piranha. Ben had always been afraid of piranha. Even in swimming pools.

  Soon, fear for Olive and physical inertia pushed him up and out of the water. His face was covered with spray and he wiped his eyes and searched in the dark roar of the falls and he wanted to call out but he did not dare. He waited and he turned and he floated on his back and the creek shoved him downstream. He saw Olive’s head. She was trying to regain stability. Then he saw the raft. It was under her. She was on it. It had not tipped. It had held together. She was holding the bag of money. Ben kicked hard and he laid a hand on a rough branch on the edge of the raft and they drifted quickly down, saying nothing.

  The moon raised its head from behind the trees and for a moment he could see the soft glow of the creek and banks ahead. To the left was the tall rock wall and, to the right, overhanging trees. Ben paddled for the trees where there was cover from moonlight – shadows, reeds, rocks, darkness. Darkness would be his friend now. His skin felt cold but the paddling warmed his insides. He took a mouthful of creek water, mossy and gritty. He spat it out.

  They paddled quietly away from the demented roar of the falls and he listened, body tingling. He felt water in his ear. He tipped his head sideways and shook it out.

  He looked behind.

  Through the trees he co
uld see a torch beam scanning the darkness back where they had set off. They paddled on, drifting close to the right-hand bank under the cloak of shadow, listening to the cries and calls of the police officers behind and up the hill.

  ‘Why did the police come?’ Olive asked.

  Ben ignored her. There was a corner ahead, feeding around to the right beneath the overhanging trees. Where do creeks lead? he wondered. Do they lead to oceans or to a river? Into a lake? Why had he never learned this? How far would they go and which direction were they travelling?

  Sometimes his feet touched the bottom and he pushed off, away from the bank. He could float like this till first light if the creek flowed on. Four hours till light, Ben thought. Maybe five. His heart rate calmed and the adrenaline started to evaporate. He pulled his body up onto the raft. The shouting was distant now but Ben wondered if they were being followed. Surely two kids could not escape the police. What kind of training were these people getting?

  Just then, there were two more shots. One-two. The sound bounced off the tall stone wall.

  ‘What was that?’ Olive whispered, grabbing Ben’s arm.

  Two shots for who? They were too far away to have been for Ben and Olive. So who were they for? They floated back out into the moonlight. No cover from tree shadows now.

  ‘Not sure,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe it was car doors slamming.’ He said it to soothe her, to soothe himself. He prayed for his parents. He prayed that what he had done – telling them about the police – had not led to the end of them.

  Ben lowered his head. He saw the reflection of the moon and stars in the water. He imagined that he could dive into that deep, dark sky and fall forever. He wished on the bright white moon, on the creek, on the darkness, that everything would be okay, that Mum and Dad would be okay, that he and Olive would make it out of this.

  In Ben’s stories, the good guys always won. But Ben didn’t know who the good guys were in this story. Or when it would end.

  It was the blades that woke him. The rotors.

  Chk-chk-chk-chk-chk-chk. That’s how it sounded.

  Ben tried to open his eyes but the early sun threw daggers and he closed them again. He felt the gentle bobbing beneath him and the sogginess in his shoes and clothes and he remembered. He sat upright. His eyes opened and he saw red. Blood red in the water. He pushed himself up off the raft and got to his feet. He was waist deep and could not see Olive anywhere. He shivered and he called for her but she did not respond and all he could hear was the chk-chk-chk-chk.

  ‘Olive!’ he shouted.

  Still nothing.

  Ben had his school backpack on from the night before. He grabbed the heavy sports bag and waded through the red water, leaving the raft in the reeds on the creek’s edge. He clambered up the steep bank and looked into the creek from above, praying that he would not see Olive in there. He didn’t know how far they had travelled or how long he had been asleep.

  He shielded his eyes and searched the sky. No helicopter. Not yet. But that’s what it sounded like.

  ‘Olive!’

  No response. He scanned the surrounding bush. It was muddy here. And rough. Not the shady, ferny coolness of the creek near the cabin. Harsher. No pines, just gums, eucalypts. Further down, some giant trees with enormous roots on the creek bank.

  ‘Olive!’

  Chk-chk-chk-chk. That sound from the sky. From a low mountain range behind him.

  Ben shivered with the cold and began to run.

  ‘Olive, where are you?’

  A high-pitched noise came in reply. A bit like a voice but he couldn’t be sure.

  ‘Olive!’ He ran and listened but it was hard to hear as the chk of the helicopter moved up behind him. He scrambled through the trees, over the hard, stony ground. ‘Olive!’

  Then her voice. ‘Ben!’ He saw her slight figure in a small clearing up ahead, waving both arms. ‘They’re coming to save us.’

  No, Ben thought. Not save us.

  The clearing was carpeted in dead, yellow grass. He ran to it as the helicopter came over the mountain range behind. He looked back and he could see it now, flickering in and out of the tree branches. The sound was so much louder. Olive was still waving to the sky.

  ‘We’re here!’ she shouted. ‘Here we are!’

  ‘No!’ Ben screamed, his voice drowned by the cutting sound of the rotors. He was close now, thirty metres from her. He could grab her and try to drag her into the trees but she would kick and scream and make it impossible. He had to capture her imagination.

  ‘Wave your arms, Turkey Brain,’ she said.

  ‘Let’s pretend we’re criminals on the run,’ Ben said in a loud voice. ‘Let’s pretend . . . that we have to hide from them.’

  Chk-chk-chk.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Come on!’ Ben said. ‘Let’s hide. Let’s make it fun. Let’s see if they can find us.’ He tried to hide the desperation in his voice, to not sound aggressive in his pleading. She would smell it. ‘We’re bushrangers. Pirate-bushrangers. Captain Thunderbolt and Olive Kelly. And they’re trying to steal our loot.’

  She was stuck then. He could see it in her eyes. It sounded fun but why didn’t Ben want to be saved?

  The chopper seemed to swing right over them. It was high but so loud, and Ben knew that they had been seen, had been found. This meant a whole lot of things that he couldn’t think about at that moment.

  ‘All right,’ she said, disappointed.

  Ben grabbed her hand and they ran. ‘This way.’ They ran for the thickest trees, the heaviest cover. Maybe they could get away, Ben thought. Maybe they could escape the police for the second time in twelve hours. He knew how mad it was, how wrong. He knew that he should not be running from the police, that he should be waving his arms too. But if he was rescued he would have to tell the police what he knew. And if his parents were still alive he couldn’t give them up. He was running for them, what he thought they would want him to do.

  Chk-chk-chk-chk. The chopper was turning back toward them now. Ben ran for the trees with the enormous roots. There was no path. Low shrubs and bristly bushes scratched at his legs as he pulled Olive through. Dragged her.

  ‘Arrrr!’ Olive said. ‘They’ll never catch us.’

  ‘Arrrrr!’ Ben said half-heartedly, and Olive fell. ‘Whoops!’ He pulled her up and continued to drag her.

  ‘Slow down!’ she said.

  ‘We can’t. They’ll catch us and plunder our treasure.’

  Olive let out a well-practised cackle, the cackle she used when she was playing pirates on the trampoline after school. But they were not at home any more. Ben wondered if they would ever see their house again. He could see the thick brown trunk of a giant tree up ahead, the safety of its roots.

  The chopper paused and hovered a couple of hundred metres to their right. Ben stopped at the base of the old tree and flicked a look up. He could see the white nose and dark blue tail with ‘Police’ written diagonally in white. He had seen dozens of pictures of these choppers but never one in the flesh. He was running from the police. His dream of becoming a detective had all but slipped away now.

  The chopper was swallowed by the thick canopy of the tree. Ben and Olive nestled together, their backs against a fat, tall root. Hard green fruit lay around them in the dirt. Vines ran from the ground up to the branches, a tangled mess. The pair breathed hard, shoulders and heads heaving up and down, air filling and deserting them.

  Still that sound, the chopper hovering out of sight. So loud. The chk-chk-chk was more like a whoomp now.

  ‘Pretty fun, huh?’ Ben said.

  ‘Are we really playing pirates?’ Olive asked.

  Ben did not say anything. He was looking up through the branches, searching for their friend and enemy in the sky.

  ‘Then why did you say we were?’ she asked.

  Ben shrugged. H
e didn’t know why he had said it. How could this be the right thing to do?

  Ben squeezed his bottom lip hard and the shots from last night echoed in his head again. He was pretty sure the first one had been a warning shot. But what about the two shots as the cabin and the police and his parents had faded into the distance?

  Whoomp-whoomp-whoomp. It wouldn’t be long, Ben thought. The chopper would land. What would he say? Why did they run?

  Kids. They were kids. They were scared.

  What would the police tell him about his parents, about the shots? He was afraid of what might have happened to them. Maybe that was why he was running.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ Olive said.

  Ben closed his eyes, took a slow breath.

  ‘Maybe they have food,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to play pirate-bushrangers any more. Let’s tell them we’re here. Let’s get rescued.’

  Ben thought about it. She was only seven but she was smart and Ben often wondered if she knew more than him. Maybe we should get ourselves rescued, he thought. I mean, how will we survive out here alone? Could we make it back to the cabin? Where else would we go? He looked at the bag. The zip was slightly open. He could see the money, a green hundred dollar note on top of a pile. The grim-looking man with the moustache stared back at Ben from the note. Next to him cannons, images of battle. Ben looked up at the chopper, hovering. We should turn ourselves in, he thought. We should. But then it moved. Chk-chk-chk again.

  Ben stood and Olive too. She ran out from under the tree. Ben watched her go but the helicopter moved away quickly. Thirty seconds later, the sound was gone.

  And hope too.

  ‘What do we do now?’

  Ben shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Then why did you stop me waving to the police?’

  Ben shrugged again. But he knew why. To protect her from whatever happens to kids after their parents go to jail or die. Not die, he thought. The shots were not for them. His mind wavered.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she insisted.