Me, surprised: ‘Are you gonna hitch out? It’ll take you at least a day to walk to the highway: you might meet Hemi coming the other way.’
Mick: ‘If I were you, I’d hole up in Takahera a few days.’
Ron: ‘No stress, chaps. There’s another way out.’
Me, intrigued: ‘Where?’
He waves a hand vaguely eastward. ‘Down the valley. It’s slow going, thick and trackless, but you can wade in the stream a lot of the way. At a certain bend, if you bush-bash across the northerly ridge, you hit farmland. Then it’s a matter of working your quiet way around the fringes and back to civilisation. I trialled the route years ago. Takes about six days. You don’t think I’d plant enough weed to flood the market and leave myself in a cul-de-sac, do you?’
Mick: ‘How did ya find this place, anyway? Studying the map, I doubt any other humans have ever set foot in here.’
‘A mate of mine used to hunt deer from choppers.’
Barry: ‘How about heading back to the pine? Is that track of yours the only way up the ridge?’
‘Yep. I tried to scout another — just in case — but the first one alone took me a good two months to build, and the next most likely location wasn’t half as good. Just wasn’t worth the hours, man. There’s a second route down, though. That was a piece of piss.’
Me, half-hearted: ‘Where is it?’
‘The valley behind this one, between here and the ridge down to Takahera. Walk upstream for about a k. Again, it’s tough going, but possible. When you hit the first streamlet joining it from the south, follow it. A lot of it’s waterfalls, but you can scramble up beside them. At the top of the ridge, past a little cave where the water sources, you’ll be at the top of a series of three cliffs that drop almost vertically into the Takahera River. In a sealed plastic bag, you’ll find a rock-climbing rope with hand-knots in it. There’s also a bolt to fix it to. That’ll take you to a shelf thirty metres below; you’ll find another rope on that. Then another. Then you’ll be in the river almost.’
Mick, checking his watch: ‘Hate to be the whip-cracker, gents, but I suggest it’s high time we got picking and packing.’
Ron: ‘Yeah, we’ll be hours stripping the buds, and even given the solidity of these babies, I reckon you dudes’ll be lucky to fit five pounds in each of those packs. Maybe you’ll be able to carry another five each in your rubbish bags. After my cut, you’ll be left with eighty-odd pounds between ya’s. Whatever, you’ll be making two trips, and I hope you’ve got torches because the second trip’ll be a dark one.’
Barry, basking: ‘Fear not, Ron, my man. The situation’s well in hand.’
Me: ‘Let’s do this thing.’
Sunday, 12 March, 5.57pm
Like a beast chained inside him, frustrated fury twitches and pulls at the muscles of Hemi’s face. Though he’s insisted on silence since arriving, the forest around them seems cowed all the same, as though it can smell the crackling fuse.
Livid but hushed: ‘Whadayu fuckin’ mean it ain’t got no juice? What did I say t’ yu back in Vegas?’
A hulking, bearded Maori eases closed the boot of a Commodore that’s seen better days. It’s parked behind The ’Dan, bumper to bumper. Over bare skin the giant wears a patched leather vest, his torso latticed in tattooing. In one hand he holds a torch. Defensive: ‘Yu said t’ bring my torch and t’ make shaw it ’ad good batrees. Well, it fuckin’ did. But it ain’t now, and I aint sa’prised, consid’reen tha bashing everyfing back ’ere got from yaw form-ya-la one driving. The switch musta got knocked on while yu flew roun’ sum corner. We just lucky the fuckin’ shoties weren’t loaded, else they wooda gone orf too.’
Hemi, incredulous: ‘Well, yu packed it all, Johnson! Why the fuck didin’ yu say something?
Johnson gives this thought. Shrugging at last: ‘Didin’ think of it. What’s the problem, anyway? It’s only six a’clock. Yu said it only took ’bout two an a bit hours t’ get t’ the weeds. Doan get dark till afta eight. Wool make it easy. We can walk fast as an’ get there wif heaps’a time t’ spare.’
Hemi, scathing: ‘Oh, yeah, an’ then what? What if we walking fast along that shit track, making a huge racket, and come across ’em on their way back? They’ll get a sweet jump on us. Anyway, unda the bush it’ll be dark as by ’bout seven-thirdy! And what if we doan meet ’em? What if we get there just bafaw dark an’ can’t lay our ’ands on ’em strade away? Yu bet they’ll ’ave torches. We’ll be fuckin’ blind!’
Johnson, scoffing: ‘So? Steve’s tha only one we gotta sort out quick. The ovas are only a buncha bawl’ead kids.’
Head back, chest puffed, Hemi’s tirade is little short of a haka: ‘So what, yu fuckin’ meat’ead! We noe they got one shooter! I noe that dead Ron cunt’s got a .22! By now they probly got Wallace’s shotie as well! And yu can bet yaw fat arse they all got torches! Wifout torches, in a forest at night, they could be Smurfs an’ they’ll still fuck us easy as!’ He punches the fender of his car hard enough to lose skin. ‘If yu ’adn’t bin out fucking that ugly hore yu said yu’d stopped rooting, I coulda found yu before morning and got ’ere early!’
Johnson, indignant: ‘’Ow was I t’ noe yu’d need me? Yu neva told meda stay close. I ain’t a fuckin’ psychic.’
Waving a fist in disgust Hemi storms away from him, towards the older Holden, from the inside of which comes the sound of industrious foraging. With the heel of his workboot, he kicks a dent in a door then demands: ‘What’ve yu found, Dusty? Any battrees or torches?’
With typical zest, Dusty thrusts his head from a back window. ‘Found sum good stuff so far, chief. A bottla piss. Heapsa smokes. Tapes an’ shit. Bita food. Condoms. No torches, though. Found a coupla small battrees, but they look fucked as.’
Since relaying the news to Hemi and being ‘pressed’ into service, Dusty’s been in seventh heaven, bouncing like a speed freak, grinning and snickering, chanting gangsta rap tunes. And once they found Johnson, completing the trio, watching him load three shotguns into the Commodore, Dusty’s animation had doubled. His antics soon exhausted the goodwill he was owed by a surly Hemi, however, and, told as much, Dusty slackened his ebullience studiously. Extremes aside, though, Hemi’s powerless to tarnish the glint in Dusty’s wide gaze.
Hemi: ‘Fuck it all!’ Elbows on The ’Dan’s roof, he holds his face in his hands for close to a minute, breathing long and hard.
Straightens at last, returning to Johnson with firming purpose. ‘All right. We got noe choice but t’ take ’em here. It should stool be a clean hit. They’ll climb the bank here, exactly where they left from, ’cause it’s tha only way up it for fuckin’ ages. We can ’ide in the long grass overlooking it. If they come back soon, we’ll see ’em from miles away, and if they come back afta dark, we’ll see their torches from miles away. And the thieving liddle cunts woan see us till it’s way too late. Get those shoties loaded and show Dusty ’ow they work; we outta time: they cood show up any second.’
Had a person once insisted that future events would conspire some day to leave me jaded with the sight of enormous, seedless, Cannabis sativa buds, I’d’ve advised them never to shit before an exam. Yet, on reflection, it would have been my own IQ in risk of depreciation by bowel movement.
I once grew a ten-inch dope plant on my window-sill that failed to flower and left me feeling the Maggie Barry of druggiedom. At the moment I’ve the beginnings of a callous on my palm from the grip of the secateurs I’ve wielded all day on my campaign to liberate Bud from Stem.
The lads and I once scored a $20 tinny from a seller in the ghetto, opened it, learned it was composed of a single bud, and were so impressed with the thing we rushed back to Mick’s and took photos of it. About two hours ago I lost count of the number of buds felled that were longer than my leg.
When breaking up resinous dope to be rolled, I used to be in the habit of afterwards wiping my fingers with the tobacco paper in order that no stoning potential be lost. Earlier, I scrubbed my hands an
d forearms in the stream and grimaced when, after three minutes’ effort, they continued to pong like a Dutch coffee shop.
I once stole from a friend’s car a two-ounce bag of leaf, made a hundred bucks off it in a schoolyard deal, and strutted like Marcellus Wallace for the next three days. At present I’ve enough gear on my back, in the rubbish bag cradled in my arms, to lay a down-payment on a fucking house.
But for the spectre of the botanically cuckolded Hemi, our day would surely have been one of fanfare and horseplay. Instead, once rhythm was established, we toiled like priests at an orgy — heads down, near silence reigning, manning an armed lookout in shifts.
Now, in keeping with this, we four bandidos find ourselves strung along Ron’s ‘path’ like VC along the Mekong. Steve has point, twenty metres in front of the rest of us. His hands alone are free of green encumbrance, cradling instead Wallace’s former shotgun. Barry has reclaimed his ‘pistol’ and seems to have more faith in its safety catch than I: thrust down his waistband, the bolt is home on a chambered round.
Traversing the long, low valley between Ron’s domain and Takahera ridge, the ‘path’ is in evidence only where the thick bush is inconceivably navigable: a chainsawed branch here, the odd ditch spanned by small log. For the most part, travel consists of squeezing between tree trunks, closing eyes and blundering through thickets, scrambling over giants toppled by time, sometimes under, sometimes just swearing at those placed to thwart either tactic.
Barely burdened, the contemplation of strife distracting, the inward journey had been arduous enough. Now, arms otherwise occupied, the need for haste pressing, my barked shins, torn hands, scratched face, ragged lungs and I would sooner be elsewhere.
But my companions voice little complaint, and though, as we cross the stream at the valley’s centre, begin the trudge uphill, I feel the Demon Asthma building in my chest, pride has me reluctant to call rest even long enough to fetch the Angel Ventolin from my pack’s interior. That I’ve recently filled my pack from near empty to eruption point, and can’t recall the position of thine Holy Inhaler — or even its presence, for that matter — further discourages me from the potentially messy attempt. Perhaps more forbidding, though, is the knowledge that were I to launch the arduous search and taste no success, my fickle mind would make a sudden and large contribution to the Demon’s campaign-fund.
So I labour on, half shielded by half ignorance, ruing the 10,000 cigarettes I’ve consumed in the last few days, wincing at each fresh, breath-sapping obstacle.
But by the time we enter the shadow of the cliffs topping Takahera ridge, approaching the deep split by which we’ll cheat them, the inhalations my chest manages to heave seem sufficient to slake oxygen needs for only an eighth of the time it takes to exhale and breath again.
My ego endures a death by suffocation: I inform the others of my predicament. Barry calls Steve back — I certainly can’t spare breath for it.
Distressingly, a hurried search of the pack’s side pockets unearths no chemicals that might be of use. I sigh, unzipping the motherlode.
And five long minutes later, I’m forced to concede that the then dispensable Saint Atomiser was overlooked in the morning’s commotion, remaining in The ’Dan’s glovebox.
I play little part in the quick discussion which concludes with myself lying prostrate a ways from the path, encircled and pillowed by contraband, with Barry and Mick bound again for Ronland and further packhorse duty, with Steve on a medical mercy dash, into the murk of the bisecting cleft.
I choose preserving wind over the calling of farewells.
As sometimes happens — as seems inconceivable while pining for pharmaceuticals — relaxed breathing time soon makes inroads on the hunger in my chest. Indeed, within an hour I’m weighing the pros and cons of breaking out the Winnie Reds. In the end only shame at capitulation stays my hand.
An hour and a half later, as Steve becomes officially overdue and my level of incapacitation starts to seem a little laughable, I begin to assess my options as far as returning to action goes. Steve had been convinced of his ability to return to the car and back within ninety minutes, and though by my reckoning the journey is more like an hour each way, my familiarity with Steve’s athleticism leaves me in no doubt of his claim. Reasoning that leads to the postulation that something unforeseen has befallen him. Something like a twisted ankle.
Or …
I choose not to delve the ‘or’.
Neither do I choose to follow Steve through the cleft, though I’m growing surer of my ability to ward off the asthma at least long enough to make the car, albeit in a possible stagger. I’m worried what Barry and Mick might do if they return to find me missing. I guess I’m a little conscious of the ‘or’ as well: my vulnerability in picking my way down the ridge without a gun, or even the breath for a sprint in a given direction.
And even if — worst-case scenario — Steve’s delay is due to some breed of human intervention, my reverence in his competence, in his strengths and talents, is so unequivocal I just know he’s rolling with the punches.
Yet two hours after watching him leave, with the punctual return of Barry and Mick, Steve’s deific status of imperishability has sappers well beneath its walls.
Learning of his no-show, in the gathering gloom of the forest the pair exchange a look that lays keen claws to my insides.
Mick, rueful: ‘There’s something you gotta know, man.’
When he’s done my asthma is forgotten, insides no longer scratched … rather lacerated.
Mick, distressed: ‘Look, Gator, I weighed it up, and I’m certain Lefty’s fear of Barry would’ve been too strong for him to grass us to Hemi or to the oinkers.’
I’m dazed not so much by their actions, as by their leaving me in ignorance. But recriminations are quashed by factors far weightier.
Barry, for once unsettled: ‘I reckon, too.’
I’m able to swallow my fright long enough to draw a similar conclusion. But …
‘But that doesn’t change the fact that Steve’s late enough for us to be sure something’s gone and fucked with his mission. It might be minor … and it might not be. Either way, he needs our help.’
Mick: ‘Yeah. I say we get down there pronto. We’ve got all night to lug the hooch; let’s find out what we’re up against.’
Me: ‘And let’s allow for the worst.’
Heading down the riverbed, keeping to the shallows and shoals, Steve makes good time, moving at a trot despite the pack on his back, the shotgun in his arms. This is hardly the first mercy dash Steve’s ever made for Gator’s inhaler, but it is the first in years.
As schoolkids, breaks invariably spent at sport or high-jinks, Gator would, on average of twice a week, reduce himself to a state of such breath deprivation the journey back to class was beyond him. In those days, owing to Gator’s ‘proclivity toward misplacement’, his mum forbade the removal of his inhaler from his schoolbag, and so it would fall to a friend to fetch, and return with, the stuff of life.
More often than not, Steve would invest himself with the grave charge, delighted at the chance to do his friend a service. Because, as much as he never would have verbalised it, Steve had had a large dependency on Gator in those days; almost deferred to him in fact. Gator it was who conceived the most rewarding fantasies for their rowdy bunch to enact. It was Gator who insisted on choosing even teams for sporting sagas, ensuring greater drama and gratification for all. It was Gator’s flair for schoolwork, for tales and history, for special projects and culture class, that manifested infectiously in Steve and others, leaving their days rewarding both in and away from class. And — of this Steve is convinced — helping equip him with a level of intelligence he may otherwise have found elusive.
Even though Gator had seldom presumed to give overt orders — to Steve or to any — it was understood that his dynamism and competency left him something of a leader. Steve had thus derived satisfaction from performing indispensabilities for his friend: helping patc
h Gator’s few vulnerabilities, finding methods by which to level the perceived debt between them.
Today, seeing Gator again at the mercy of his health, Steve had been quite thrilled by the reawakening within him of old instincts. Because, given the amount of water to have passed beneath the bridge since those days — much of it murky — the unambiguous purity of such principles is something Steve had given up for lost.
Though he can’t repress a grin at his mawkishness, as he crosses the river and struggles up the bank fronting the ‘carpark’, Steve begins to enjoy the nostalgic glow of a grave service half completed.
Throwing the shotgun up the bank’s final leg, hauling himself up after it, this and all else drowns in vertigo as he’s warmly greeted by a lazing Hemi.
‘Cherrrrrr, cuz! Ain’t seen yu in ages! What brings yu t’ these parts?’
Less cordial is the stare of the barrel of Hemi’s sawn-off.
Steve’s shock fades in a split-second; resolution hardens in his gut. But before he can act — throw himself to ground, snatch for Wallace’s shotgun — Johnson materialises from undergrowth a pace away, claims the weapon for himself.
Impressed: ‘Nice shotie, Steve. Looks just like tha one I lent t’ Wallace. Doan ’e need it no maw or nufing?’
Eyes leaping from one to the other …
Checkmate.
A situation from which no mortal could triumph …
… but Steve knows he’s not mortal.
Not in Gator’s eyes.
11
Sunday, 12 March, 8.18pm
From head to toe I’m drenched in the Takahera’s waters, and in the heavy gloom of the pine forest the bed of dead needles on which I lie offers little warmth.
This hoarfrost in my bones, though, this ice in my lungs, owes nothing to physics.
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