by John Marsden
As for my treatment of Lee ... well, that was the one thing I still couldn’t face. My whole body burned with such a sense of loss and pain when I thought of what he’d done. Fi brushed it off too easily. I felt so betrayed. I felt so angry. I felt I’d lost him.
We got to our familiar old campsite without me having made a decision about anything. And the struggle of thoughts and feelings in my head was suddenly washed away in the flood of emotion as we walked into that little clearing. This had become the centre of my world, the one stable place, the only safe spot left in the Universe. These days, this was home. It felt good to be back.
I gazed around it fondly, lovingly. I wanted it to be just as we’d left it. I didn’t want a single leaf to have dropped from a tree.
And it was pretty much like that. About time something in our lives was predictable. Sure there was a fallen branch here, more strips of bark scattered across the ground, a fresh scatter of possum poo just where Fi and I liked to sunbake. But our little stacks of things were still there: Fi’s and mine together, the boys’ in separate piles. And over near our fireplace, the bigger pile of billies, frypan, plates and mugs and cutlery, and our food supply. For the first time in our mad rush away from Stratton I realised that we had somehow to provide shelter for these kids. Lucky it was summer. We still had Chris’s things, and Corrie’s, and some of Robyn’s, that she’d left behind when she’d packed up. So there were two sleeping bags and four tents, plus some clothes. Would we ever tell the children that these were clothes worn by people who’d died? It wouldn’t bother me to wear Robyn’s and Corrie’s stuff, but to the kids Robyn and Corrie were strangers, and if I were them I wouldn’t be too thrilled about wearing the clothes of a dead stranger.
Anyway, there wasn’t time to worry about that yet. Food was our first priority. I was surprised at how much was left. Lucky there was though. With ten mouths to feed we’d be putting a lot more work into keeping up the supply.
We chose a nice selection of freeze-dried, and some biscuits, and the last of the chocolate, then checked out the measly medical supply in Kevin’s pile of gear. The strongest stuff we had was Panadeine. It wasn’t much for a broken arm, but better than Panadol and definitely better than nothing.
Then, already, it was time to turn around and go back up the steep sides of the basin of Hell. We’d had no rest, but the kids would be getting desperate. So would Lee, looking after them. I was reluctant, unwilling. I had no energy, not a skerrick. There was nothing in my tank. It was like opening a forty-four and finding it empty. Yet somehow I had to get up that cliff. I grimly started putting one foot in front of the other.
Once you start a tough climb you should go right to the top. Never stop halfway. It’s all psychological of course. If you stop it’s so hard to get going again. You just promise yourself a rest when you reach the top.
That’s the way I’ve always done it. Especially during the last year.
Now though, my spirit failed me, and at the first of the big boulders I had to stop. I leaned against the rock, my head down, sobbing for breath. Fi sat on the other side of the track, head between her legs. I guess we were both pretty dead-beat.
Neither of us said anything for a while. Then it was ‘Are you OK?’ from Fi, and a nod from me.
After a bit longer I said, ‘Let’s go.’
‘Wait a bit,’ Fi said. I wasn’t sure if she was saying it for my sake or for hers. But I waited. Then she said, ‘You haven’t said anything ...’
I knew what she meant. I hadn’t answered all the stuff she’d thrown at me.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. I couldn’t. Every time I thought of answering her, acid burned through my stomach and short-circuited my brain, so when I opened my mouth nothing came out, except smoke maybe. I wanted to say something but I didn’t trust myself.
So we got up and kept going, each of us pretty unhappy with the other, I guess.
God it was a grind. I’d cooled down with the stop and now every metre was an awful struggle. The aches went right up the back of my legs. I could feel the muscles pulling and tightening. Pain stabbed through my bad knee. I was half tempted to knock off a few of Casey’s Panadeine. My steps got shorter and my feet stayed closer to the ground, so I tripped over every root and stone. I had to stop four more times before we got to the top.
It wasn’t just the exhaustion of the drive out of Stratton; it was also the effect of being slack in Stratton for quite a long time.
At least after we got to Tailor’s Stitch it was relatively easy. The spur was downhill of course. The hardest part was waking up Homer and Kevin. They had the decency to carry the food for us. We staggered and slid over the steep bits. And there were the kids again, all of them as asleep as Kevin and Homer, with Lee, the only one awake, sitting against a wattle tree gazing glumly at his child-care centre.
Chapter Five
At first I was quite impressed with the baby-sitting Lee had done. He seemed to be a good supervisor. Maybe it was all that experience with his little brothers and sisters. But we soon found out that he hadn’t done so well.
Things went OK for a while. If there was a danger sign, it was the way Casey and Darina hung around me as we ate. A few times they seemed about to say something but they’d hesitate and look at each other and at Gavin and then shut up. I didn’t think much of it, although I remember wrinkling my nose at how Gavin controlled them. It was like he was keeping an eye on them.
Casey’s arm seemed a bit better. The splint was doing its job and the Panadeine probably helped. Her face lost a little of its greyness.
At least everyone cheered up with the food. We lit a fire and fed it with dead dry wood so the smoke was virtually clear. It took only twenty minutes to cook the meal. That freeze-dried stuff sure was good. It tasted like regular food. I couldn’t imagine how long it was since these kids had a hot meal. They wolfed it. They wanted more, but there wasn’t any, and anyway, I was sure a big meal would make them sick after their semi-starvation.
What happened then was all the more amazing when you think what that meal must have meant to them. It goes to show that these brats had huge willpower. Of course they never would have survived in Stratton otherwise.
We decided to wait until late afternoon before moving up to Tailor’s Stitch. The idea was that we’d go into Hell after dark, when we could get over the ridge without being seen. Now that they’d had some food we thought we could afford that luxury, of waiting. Anyway, the more rest the kids got, the better. It didn’t cross my mind that they had any energy left after the wild and frightening escape from Stratton.
So I went off on my own and sat on a rock looking out at the treetops below. They looked like a nice soft cushion. I wondered if I could jump and land in them: if they’d hold me gently and softly, rocking me in the quiet breeze. I thought about the things Fi said, and wondered if I’d ever get back a sense of humour. Or is it like trust, virginity and Easter eggs: gone once, gone forever?
I wondered what the others were doing.
In fact they weren’t doing anything much. Same as me. Lee and Fi went to sleep. Homer and Kevin found a tree with a swarm of bees nesting in it, and chucked rocks at it. From a safe distance. Before the war Homer and I had a bad habit of shooting up wasps’ nests, but since the war started I didn’t feel any desire to damage or destroy anything outside enemy stuff. I don’t know why the poor bees had to be harassed.
Anyway, what it boiled down to was that everyone ignored the kids. I suppose we all thought someone else was looking after them. Or we thought they didn’t need looking after. I assumed most of them would be asleep again.
At around five o’clock I wandered back to the clearing. The only one there was Lee, who had just woken up, and was sitting on a rock looking very bleary, like most people do when they’ve just woken up. A moment later I saw Fi coming through the trees from the southern side. There was no sign of Homer or Kevin or the kids.
‘Where is everyone?’ I asked.
&nbs
p; ‘I don’t know,’ Lee said. ‘Gone for a field trip maybe. Studying flora and fauna.’
He was more right than he realised.
I still didn’t think anything of it until twenty minutes later when Homer and Kevin turned up. I looked at them, feeling quite surprised, and said, ‘Where are the kids?’
‘I don’t know,’ Homer said. ‘I thought they were here.’
We all got alarmed at once.
‘When did you last see them?’ I asked Lee.
‘When I went to sleep. They were here then. They were at the other end of the clearing, sitting on that green patch. They were just talking I think. I didn’t really take any notice.’
Fi ran over to have a look around, like a detective searching for clues. Homer stepped into the centre of the clearing and gave a few cooees. I didn’t like that because it was too much noise. We couldn’t assume the bush was safe any more; couldn’t assume unfriendly ears weren’t listening.
After a few tries he gave up and came back to us.
‘Where the hell are they?’ he asked irritably.
‘They must have gone for a walk,’ Fi said.
‘Gone for a walk!’ I said. ‘How could they be so stupid?’
‘Do you think they’re lost?’ Fi asked.
‘I haven’t got the foggiest. It just seems so weird. Surely they wouldn’t go off on their own again?’
‘Perhaps they’ve been abducted by aliens,’ Kevin said.
I hardly noticed Kevin, I was so annoyed, and preoccupied, trying to think.
‘Well, what are we going to do?’ Lee asked.
‘We’ll have to look for them,’ I said.
There was a silence as we thought about what that would mean.
‘We could wait a bit,’ Fi said. ‘See if they turn up.’
‘We don’t even know how long they’ve been missing,’ I said.
‘What’s the time?’ Homer asked.
‘Half-past five,’ Kevin said.
‘I don’t think we can afford to wait,’ I said. ‘We’ve got to find them before dark, or we’re really in trouble.’
‘Little idiots,’ said Kevin angrily. ‘When we do find them, I’ll have their guts for garters.’
No-one else said anything, so I assumed they agreed with me. I was about to suggest we split up and go in different directions, but then wondered if we ought to think a bit first. ‘Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.’
‘Where do you think they might have gone?’ I asked them all, but Homer especially.
It was Homer who answered.
‘I think they must have gone deliberately again,’ he said.
‘Why would they run away from us?’ I asked in frustration. ‘And where would they go this time?’ I pounded the trunk of the nearest tree with my fist. Suddenly I was shouting. ‘Bloody little idiots! Where are you? Come back!’
I made more noise than Homer’s ‘Cooees’. No-one said anything. They just looked at me. They seemed to be studying me, like they were scientists examining an interesting new specimen. I struggled, and got control of myself again. I said to Homer, ‘After what happened this afternoon I wouldn’t think they’d try it again for ten years. They don’t know anything about this area.’
He didn’t answer, just shrugged. Fi, who’d come back empty-handed, said, ‘I don’t understand them going into the bush unless there’s someone with them.’
I couldn’t help thinking Fi was talking more about herself. These kids were gutsy enough to do anything, but they were also really ignorant when it came to the bush. Being gutsy and stupid at the same time is a big worry. Not a good combination.
Anyway, we hadn’t come to any conclusions, and time was slipping by. ‘Well, I know they didn’t go that way,’ I said, pointing to where I’d been.
‘They didn’t come up the spur,’ Kevin said.
‘And they didn’t go up there,’ Fi said. ‘I was sun-baking at those rocks.’
This was exactly what I wanted to hear, because if I had to pick the most likely route for the kids, it was down a little animal track to the south. I picked it because it was downhill, because there was a defined track, and because it seemed to lead towards a clearer area, with fewer trees. For them, in their tired and confused state, it would have looked more attractive than going uphill or into heavier bush.
I headed off that way with the others following. The light was still good so I did my Aboriginal tracker impersonation, looking everywhere for the slightest sign. The track was very thin, disappearing in places, but mostly well-worn, sometimes even cutting a gutter between little banks of grass.
We got fifteen minutes along it with no sign of the kids, and I was getting worried. If this was the wrong way then we’d wasted a lot of time already. Then the dry hard surface changed. The track crossed a bit of muddy ground, where a spring was leaking slightly. There were hoof marks and trotter marks and paw prints. And a couple of definite heel dents, from small human shoes.
Now we could go for it. I put my head down and stepped up the pace. As long as we were following this track we could be pretty sure we were going the right way. And I was thinking that Homer must be right, they were deliberately running away. How else to explain the fact that they were heading in the opposite direction to Tailor’s Stitch?
We were in a patch of thick bush now. Fed by the underground spring probably. The trees stood high and straight, white trunks draped with bark, as though they were undressing from the top down. The bark was incredibly noisy to walk on. I lost the track in thick undergrowth a few times, where it went under low vegetation. Then Homer went around me and on up a rise. I knew what he was doing, hoping to find the track further along and save us time. I kept looking around where I was, as insurance, in case Homer failed, but I was really pleased when after a few minutes he called, ‘Got it.’
We were virtually ignoring the others by now. Lee and Fi were as much help in the bush as a Barbie doll, and Kevin was bumbling around talking too much instead of using his eyes and ears. I ran up the slope to join Homer and we followed the path again, heads down, like dogs on the scent of a rabbit.
We travelled at a fast walk, sometimes a jog. We went for, I’d guess, half an hour, without any clues. Imperceptibly we passed from the thicker bush into flatter country, still timbered, but much more open. I wasn’t surprised to see a small mob of Angus grazing at one end of a large clearing. There was plenty of good feed around here, and another spring, to give them reliable water. Half the clearing was quite muddy and cut up by the hoofs of the stock. It was a big area; a real swamp. These cattle probably belonged to Colin McCann, who still had one of the old leases that let him run cattle on crown land. They were wild now though; like most stock that’d been left alone since the invasion. The nearest ones lifted their heads and watched us uneasily for a moment. Then they mooed their concern to the others and they all trotted off quickly through the trees. We were at least two hundred metres away, so they were being very wary. I pitied the poor person who one day would have to round them up. It’d be a challenge.
The trouble was that the track petered out in this country. It was kind of predictable – the roos and wombats and wallabies who used it didn’t need a track any more. They would have spread out and fed on the juicy green grass. I looked at Homer desperately.
‘What do we do now?’
‘Wait for the others to catch up. We need a breather.’
We’d been going quite a while and Homer was red-faced and hot. The others were out of sight but a moment later they appeared through the long grass, Lee leading the way. As we waited I tried to think of where I would have gone if I were the kids. Homer, looking at me, must have guessed my thoughts. He said, ‘They wouldn’t have gone through all that mud.’
‘True.’ I brightened up at once, thinking we should turn right and go in the opposite direction. But Lee, arriving in time to hear Homer’s comment, said, ‘Wait a second. If they have done a runner then at some stage they’ll try a few cute
moves to throw us off the scent. Don’t always assume they’ll do the obvious.’
He was right of course. I was a bit stuck then. I’d never heard of anyone tracking people who didn’t want to be found. The police must have had to do it sometimes, but it wasn’t a feature of daily life in Wirrawee.
‘So what do you think?’ I asked Homer again.
He answered slowly. ‘It’s no good racing away on a false trail. We should either split up or else look round for another clue.’
With darkness getting closer all the time I didn’t like the idea of splitting up any more. It might have been the logical thing to do, but we had to think of ourselves too. So I said, ‘Let’s have a good hunt around this area. See if we can find a sign of them.’
Fi and I went off to the southern end of the clearing. Lee and Kevin went in the opposite direction, into the swamp. If tracks were there they should be easy to see. Homer started searching the slope to the east.
As we looked, Fi and I talked.
‘What do you think they’re doing?’ she asked me.
‘I haven’t the foggiest. I guess they just want to be their own bosses. But honestly, it’s infuriating. We can’t let them run around here on their own. Especially poor Casey.’
Fi switched tack suddenly and said, ‘I’m sorry about what I said when we were going down into Hell.’
‘Let’s save it for later. I don’t want to think about it right now.’
That was for sure. It was too heavy altogether. We kept searching, but in silence.’ I was concentrating my energies on looking for some slight sign of human traffic.
We were out of sight of the others, and getting back into heavier timber, when I found what I was looking for. A perfect small footprint, in a cowpat, and beyond that, bits of manure in a line to the south-east, where it had dropped off the sole of the shoe. So we not only had proof that they had come this way, we even had a line to where they were going.