by Tony Birch
‘What’s a tor, Jesse?’ she asked, scratching the tip of her nose.
‘The tor is a killer marble. An assassin. When you’re playing marbles it’s the one you have to capture to win the game. If you don’t hunt it down and kill it, the tor will take you out. It’s like the king in a game of chess.’
She looked at the stone gripped between my fingers. ‘A marble is round,’ she said. ‘The ones you’re throwing are flat. They can’t be tors.’
‘They are. At least this one is. When I break the world record, it will be this stone that does it for me.’
‘But it won’t be yours. That stone you’ve got will be at the bottom of the dam somewhere. You won’t get it back. Even if you dive for it.’
‘Well, Rachel, when you want something bad enough, there’s always a price to pay. The tor will sacrifice its own life for its master. That’s one of the rules of the game. And I’m the master,’ I said, puffing my chest out.
‘But who are you playing against?’
I looked across the water to the naked statue. ‘Dickless, there. He’s the champion from Rome.’
I threw my arm back, pitched the stone and watched as it skimmed the surface.
‘Seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . ten . . . That’s a new record, Jesse,’ she squealed and clapped her hands together. She picked up the camera and pointed it at me. ‘Let me take a picture of the champion then.’
I turned side-on to the camera and flexed my muscles. My arm was sore from all the throwing. I sat next to her and poked at the bed of mud under my feet with the sharp end of a twig as my body dried in the sun. My skin was covered in silt and scum. Rachel had mud caked between her toes.
‘You’d better clean those feet before Gwen gets back. She won’t want you putting that mud all over the back seat of the car.’
‘But the car’s already dirty. It always is.’
‘Maybe. But I reckon we’ll have to sleep in it again tonight and I don’t want dirt and mud in my blanket.’
‘How long will we be here for?’
‘Dunno. Depends if she finds any work in that town.’
Rachel wiggled her toes. One or two clumps of mud fell to the ground. She took the twig from me and started drawing something in the mud. It looked like a house.
‘When will she, when will . . . Mum be back?’
She had mouthed the word deliberately. Mum. I hadn’t heard her say it in ages. I shrugged my shoulders.
‘I dunno. Soon I hope. Maybe she’ll have something decent for us to eat.’
My stomach rumbled at the thought of proper food. ‘We should get back. She might be waiting for us.’ I dragged my foot through the mud and tapped her on the side of the leg. ‘And don’t call her Mum, Rachel. You know she don’t like it.’
‘But she is my mum. And she’s your mum too. Sometimes I think you’re smart, Jesse. And sometimes you’re silly.’
She looked at me and laughed. ‘You look silly right now. You’ve turned green as a frog.’
I watched as she finished drawing her house. It had a dog in the yard and some flowers in the garden. She was now onto a stick-figure girl standing outside the house.
‘I know she’s our mum, but don’t waste your time calling her that.’
‘But why can’t I call her Mum? Other kids are allowed to do that. It’s not hurting anyone.’
‘Maybe not. But she don’t like it. It makes her feel old, she says. Makes her angry too. So don’t you call her nothing but Gwen, or you’ll be the one who ends up hurt. She’s in a shitty mood already, with no smokes and no money. I don’t want her starting on us when she gets back.’
Rachel wouldn’t look at me and busied herself with another drawing while whispering ‘Mum, Mum, Mum’ under her breath. She’d drawn another person standing next to the house. She tossed the stick to the ground and stood up.
‘Jesse. There’s just one shot left in the camera. Can you please take a photo of me?’
She sat on the end of the boat with her arms folded across her muddy t-shirt while I took the picture.
There was no sign of Gwen at the car. We ate four packets of biscuits each, which left just two packets, and shared the last bottle of water. My favourite biscuits were Scotch Fingers and Rachel loved the Monte Carlos. She broke her biscuits in half and licked the icing away with her tongue while I bit straight through mine. It was the way we’d always done it.
When she’d finished eating she took the blanket and pillow from the back seat of the car. She spread the blanket on the ground, on the shady side of the shipping container, and lay down with her pillow and Comfort by her side.
‘The blanket’ll get dirty there, Rache. Make sure you shake it before it goes back in the car.’
‘And Jesse, you make sure you put your clothes back on. If somebody comes and sees you walking round with just your underpants on and green hair we’ll be in trouble.’
There was nobody around to get into trouble from but I put my clothes on anyway. By the time I’d dressed she was lying flat out on the blanket, asleep, with her arms stretched out. I’d only just taken the last swig of water and was already thirsty. The only water we’d come across had been the dirty tap water in the shed. I headed back to the shed with some empty bottles.
I tried the tap again and let the water run for a bit. It was just as dirty as it’d been earlier. The water in the bottom of the toilet bowl was clear. I flushed it a couple of times, dunked the empty bottle and held it under until it was full. I sniffed at the bottle a couple of times before I took a sip. It was cold and didn’t taste too bad, so I filled another two empty bottles and stood them in the shade outside the shed door.
I looked over at the stack of plastic drums. I was about to open the one with the sports bag in it and changed my mind. I went back to the car, grabbed my binoculars and walked down to the road. The blacktop was shimmering and dust was blowing around, but there was no sign of Gwen. I headed back to the shed.
I took the sports bag out of the plastic drum and picked up my bottles of water. I unzipped the bag on the bonnet of the car and took the gun out, still in its plastic bag. I laid it on the bonnet with the bundles of money, and started counting. There were twenty-five bundles, all the same size, each one tied with a rubber band.
I undid one of the bundles and slowly counted out forty fifty-dollar notes, some worn, some new – two thousand dollars. I counted another two bundles. They added up to the same amount. I retied the bundles and laid them in a row on the bonnet of the car, fifty thousand dollars.
‘What have you got there?’ I hadn’t heard Rachel sneak up behind me. She was staring at the money.
‘It’s treasure. It’s going to get us out of here.’
‘Where’d you find it?’
I didn’t see much point in bullshitting to her. ‘It belonged to Ray. He left it at the motel. So I took it.’
‘That’s a lot of money, Jesse. Won’t he be missing it?’
‘Yeah. I reckon he will.’
‘What if he comes for us, with that other man, Limbo, with the crying face? I don’t like him.’
I took the gun out of the bag and waved it about in the air, trying to put on a brave show. ‘They left this too. If they come after us, I’ll shoot them.’
‘No, you won’t. You don’t know how to shoot a gun.’
‘It wouldn’t be hard, I don’t reckon. I’ve seen guns fired lots of times. On TV.’
I pointed to where the bullets went. ‘This bit’s called a chamber, and they call this gun a revolver because the chamber spins around and around. I know that much.’
‘How’d you learn that?’
‘I saw it on Ripley’s Believe It or Not. They slowed the camera down as much as they could to show how a quick-draw expert can take his gun out of the holster and shoot
in just hundredths of a second. He did it with a gun just like this. A revolver.’
‘Has it got bullets in it?’
I stopped waving the gun around. ‘I hope not. But there’s some bullets in the bag.’
I mucked around with the gun for a while before I worked out how to slide the chamber out. I put a bullet in each hole and pushed the chamber back until I heard it click shut. I made sure to point the barrel down at the ground, for safety, like I’d seen on TV. I walked over to the silo, searching for something to aim at. Rachel trailed behind me.
‘What are you going to shoot?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe that dead sheep in the paddock?’
‘That would be horrible. The poor sheep.’
‘He wouldn’t feel it. He’s already dead.’
‘I don’t care. I don’t want you to. Don’t, Jesse.’
I pointed at the ‘Beware of Trains’ sign hanging from a strand of wire above the railway track. It had a reflective red light in each corner.
‘What about those? I bet I can knock one of those lights out.’
‘Bet you can’t.’
I stood with my legs apart and my shooting arm straight out in front of me. I aimed at the light in the bottom left corner of the sign and closed one eye. I was about to pull the trigger and stopped. My hand was shaking and I could feel my heart beating like a drum in my chest. I dropped the gun to my side. Rachel looked disappointed.
‘Go on, Jesse. Shoot the light out.’
‘Give me a sec. It’s not easy, you know.’
I lifted my arm again and aimed. I tried pulling the trigger but nothing happened. I looked at the gun.
‘It might be jammed. That happens sometimes.’
I found the safety catch by accident, released it and pointed the gun at the target again.
I don’t know what was more frightening, the deafening sound of the bullet or the feeling that an invisible man had grabbed me by the arm and thrown it back over my shoulder. Rachel was staring wide-eyed at the gun. The smell of the gunpowder itched my nose and made my eyes water. I looked over at the target. I’d missed everything, both the light and the sign. I looked up at the sky, in case I’d hit a bird by accident.
I took aim again, and held my left hand over my right and pressed downwards as I pulled the trigger. I heard the blast and a ringing noise at the same time. The sign was swinging back and forward. I could see a small hole of light between two of the letters. At least I’d hit something.
‘Got it.’
Rachel had both hands over her ears. ‘Can you put it away now, Jesse?’ she screamed. ‘That’s enough.’
I had only four bullets left in the chamber and didn’t want to waste them on more target practice anyway. I put the gun and money back in the bag, and hid it in the drum again.
The sun had fallen below the silo. Its shadow stretched across the yard. Rachel’s face was bright red and she was dripping with sweat. I offered her some water.
‘Where’d you get it?’
‘In the shed there. I ran the tap for a bit and it came clean.’
While she drank the water I paced up and down in front of the car trying to work out what we should do.
‘Rache. I don’t know if we can stay here another night. It might be best for us to go.’
‘Go where? What about Gwen?’
‘I dunno where. Some place where there’s food. And Gwen mightn’t come back anyway. Don’t see any point in waiting for her.’
‘Yes, she will. I’m not going anywhere without her.’
‘You will if I tell you to.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Fucken will,’ I screamed as loud as I could.
She threw the bottle at me, hard as she could. It hit me square in the face and hurt like hell. Straightaway I could taste blood in my mouth. I ran at her and tackled her to the ground before she had a chance to get away. I slammed her body into the dirt. She covered her face with her hands.
‘Don’t hit me. Please don’t hit me, Jesse.’
I pinned my knees against her shoulders so she couldn’t move. I grabbed hold of her t-shirt. It ripped down the middle.
‘You stay here as long as you like then. You’ll starve to death before Gwen comes back for you. She don’t give a fuck about us. Me or you. Never has.’
I pushed my face against hers. ‘You stay here if you like. And when they come and find you, Ray and Limbo, they’ll skin you, Rachel. They’ll take a knife and skin you like a rabbit.’
‘Please, Jesse, don’t say that. Don’t. They won’t come.’
I stood up and kicked the dirt. ‘We can’t be sure of that. I’m getting out of here, whether you’re coming or not. I’m sick of dragging you around and having to look after you. And if Gwen comes back, let’s see if she can take care of you on her own.’
I left her lying on the ground, cowering and covered in dust. I threw our suitcase on the ground and took out my backpack. I stuffed it with the only jacket I had, the last two packets of biscuits and the two full bottles of water. I could hear Rachel crying but stopped myself from looking around as I zipped up the backpack. I suddenly wanted to cry myself. I put my head down and wiped my eyes to stop the tears from running.
‘Jesse.’
I looked over my shoulder. Rachel was holding a pink woollen jumper in one hand and a raincoat in the other.
‘Can you put this stuff in your bag?’
Her face was streaked with dirt and dried tears and her nose was running with snot. She even had dirt in her ears and her hair. She shook the raincoat to get my attention.
‘But before we go, Jesse, can we have one more go at the cards? Maybe they can tell us what to do?’
‘And after we read the card, will you come then?’
‘Promise, I will.’
I picked a tarot card with a picture of a castle being struck by lightning. It was on fire and people were tumbling out of the windows. The word ‘Tower’ was written across the bottom.
While the card meant nothing to me, Rachel was convinced it had something to do with the silo.
‘Jesse, you could take a last last look for Gwen by climbing to the top.’
It wasn’t a bad idea. Through my binoculars I’d have a view of the road leading to the town, as well as the highway.
A metal staircase wrapped itself around the outside of the silo. It was a big climb. I tightened the backpack straps, hung the binoculars around my neck and put a foot on the bottom step. The stairs shook from side to side and banged against the silo’s concrete wall.
‘Do you reckon it’s safe?’ Rachel asked, as she grabbed the rail with both hands.
‘Probably not,’ I called back.
I moved quickly around the outside of the silo. Rachel called out, ‘Jesse, hang on, will ya? Hang on,’ as she tried keeping up with me. I looked back but couldn’t see her, so I had to backtrack. She was hugging the railing with both arms.
‘You don’t have to come with me, Rachel. Wait at the bottom. I won’t be long.’
‘But I want to come.’
‘Well, you’d better get moving then.’
I sat on the step and waited for her to catch up. She was breathing heavy. Her camera was sticking out of her jeans pocket.
‘What’s the camera for?’
‘I don’t want to lose it. It’s got important pictures in it. If I leave it down there someone might steal it.’
I waited until she’d got her breath back and we started climbing again. As we went higher I told her that if Scout were with us now she wouldn’t be scared of heights.
‘You don’t know that, Jesse. You’re just guessing.’
‘No, I’m not. I reckon she’d be racing up there ahead of us.’
‘I don’t b
elieve you.’
Maybe she didn’t. But she did start climbing a little quicker and tried to look less worried. Pretty soon we’d reached the top and were standing inside a wire-framed box.
‘Hey, Jesse. This is like a giant birdcage. If we just had some wings we could fly away.’
‘Wish we could. We’d get home quicker.’
She pointed to a streak of cloud above us. ‘It’s beautiful up here. We’re close to the sky.’
I looked through a rotting gap in the timber floor, down to the ground, maybe eighty or a hundred feet down. The strip of highway that had got us here cut through the scrub, back to where the car had stalled on the rise the night before. In the opposite direction a narrow road left the highway and headed in the direction of the town Gwen had walked to. Behind us, over the back of the railway shed were the Great Pyramid, the Eiffel Tower and the Canals of Venice. I lifted my binoculars and searched the streets of the town. I could see an old woman sitting alone on a bench and there were people moving about, but no sign of Gwen or her red dress.
‘Is she there?’
‘Na. Can’t see her.’
Rachel pulled the camera out of her pocket and held it as gently in her hands as she would have held a small kitten.
‘I’ve got us in here. Me and you, Jesse. Forever.’
‘Good for you. I’d shove it back in your pocket if I were you. If you drop it, it’ll smash into thousands of pieces. It’s a long way down.’
She looked through the hole in the wooden floor. The colour faded from her face. She threw herself against me and held on as tight as she could. I wasn’t sure if it was the staircase shaking or her body.
‘Let go of me, Rache, or you’ll get us both killed.’
She took half a step back but kept one hand wrapped tight around my wrist.
‘Jesse? Are we still blood brother and sister?’ she asked. ‘Like you said we were, when we cut ourselves?’
‘Of course we are. Like I told you a million times already, it can never be undone. Our blood is mixed together and it moves around our bodies. Forever.’
‘What about if one of us was hurt and was cut and lost a lot of blood?’