‘What’s goin on?’ I said.
‘They’re truckruttin. I’ve heard the stories, but this is the first time I’ve seen em doin it.’
She came closer to me, the warmth of her body next to mine. In the distance I saw the hunkering form of the big Brumby King, fat and black as night. It was circling a Silver Peterbilt. The sound was like wildfire roaring, and a screech like no human throat has ever passed. Blast of air horn. I snuggled into Isa and she was there too. The Brumby King crashed up against the silver, which bucked, wheels spinning as it slid around. The Silver whined and fishtailed away. It didn’t want it just yet and the Brumby King couldn’t force it. They tracked around each other in a slow circling dance, the booming beats rising up from the Brumby King’s sound system. Silver wasn’t gunna let the King in so easy, but the King was used to this game it seemed. It closed fast and sudden, they were right beneath us and Silver didn’t have nowhere to go. We saw everything as the Brumby King jammed itself against Silver, sparks flying from the panels. Silver was ready now, it scooted out from the side of the Brumby King, but then stood still. I could almost see the quivering and the shaking through the chassis. The King made a run up to a rocky ledge to get some air and mount up on Silver’s back axle. Silver bucked and revved its donk but the King crashed home. The two trucks was locked together now and the fierce gunning of donks settled slower as they moved as one in the smokey desert air. Silver were ready to receive the King now and with a grunt of its donk it cummed out its load into the dust. Even far away I smelt it sharp and clean as the smell of solvents and diesel fuel on the breeze.
Something happened to Isa, she was softer then. She was turned on by the truckrutting. A skew of little droans scampered out to where the Brumby King pumped its seed to gather it up and take it inside. Of course the trucks couldn’t mate like animals, so they’d got some helpers along to carry the parts. I put me arm around Isa and me face into her neck, smelling her earthy scent, it made me high. By this time Silver calmed down. It had come back in closer while the Brumby King took off now that it’d spent its load. The droans skittered around and with their feelers they gathered up the King’s issue and carried it inside the Silver. They were making a babby truck, mechin together their separate parts into a newmint truckmind for a substrate that would find a truckbody one day. But I was lost in the moment, feeling Isa up close, reaching inside her trucksuit and me mouth searching for hers, pressing closer and she closed her eyes and yielded. I felt her small teats and reaching further down, pulled the suit down and ripped at me own zippers too and the roar of the brumbies fell into the background as I fell into Isa. I was hard as stone and she was sopping wet between her legs and I slid in all of a rush of blood going to me head, blood storming through me veins. Isa’s voice caught in her throat as she took me and I bucked like that Brumby King till I cummed me load out inside her and the colours flared behind me eyes.
We laid together in the afterglow and this is the yarn Isa told: ‘The folks what lived in the gigacity, they had everythin any one could want. They had all the knowin of machines and truckin lanes and their world was a massive system what ran almost by itself. It became almost its own livin thing until the real livin things started on dyin all around them. Somethin happened to the system and it stopped workin in some places and then more and more the machines was breakin down and leavin the slave grid to look after them selfs. And the ground poisoned the machines and they started doin their own thing with no thoughts of the system of the gigacities. And the gigacities was poisoned too and now there’s no one that goes there. That’s how the people came to live in the scattered camps in the backroads lookin to the Wotcher for answers and a way to get back to the past.’
I was just lying there looking into her eyes as she spoke. I didn’t want it to end. Her voice was soft and flowing like the sounds of a creek. She went on.
‘The Wotcher’s got its place in two worlds. It’s from the world of the past and the knowin system of seedin the gigacities but it speaks into the world of the backroads and the machines like flapples and robodogs. It’s a bridge. That’s why it’s so important and I wunna crack the Wotcher’s secret. Coz it’s got the knowin in there somewhere of how to reseed the system of them buildins what talk to each other grow together and generate the power of the world. Underneath all the bullshit, there’s the truth in the Wotcher of the past and if we can figure out the knowin we can find our way back to balance. Not like now where it’s all down to muscle and how much weight you can pull. But Smoov ain’t gunna give me the codes till he thinks I’ve earnt the right. Well I got a different idea coz there’s new kinds of life comin up outta the ground, you seen it in the slinky snake what bit me. It’s changed me, I can feel it. There’s a cracklin in the air whenever Smoov hits the linkmaker. I can almost hear the Wotcher in me own head now. I’m seein things more clear. Once I get the last codes of the Wotcher and I can hook with the right roadin crowd, hybrid animal or machine and I know it’s only a matter of time before I can lead the backroads folks to return to the gigacities. Smoov don’t like them thoughts though. Plus he never trucked with no notions of the Wotcher as a saver, he never thought the Wotcher were anythin but a messenger sent to message us with ways to make our lives better. It’s things everyone knowed all ready any way, he would just put them so as to be new and understandable.’
I was taken in by her voice and thoughts formed up in me mind.
I said, ‘Why don’t we go see the gigacities? We could find them and live a new life with them. Anyway we would have better chances by our selfs.’
‘Gigacities is poisoned ground now. No one goes there. And I still gotta lot to learn from Smoov for showin.’
‘He’s gunna go too far one time and I’m gunna get too hurt to road. If I stay I’m gunna die.’
‘I’m gunna be showman some day. I like you, Jon Ra, but if you’re gunna leave, I won’t stop you.’
I let her talk on a bit but inside I was dying. I knew then she was never gunna leave while Smoov was alive, no matter what she thought of a life with me. I dragged me feet in the sand behind as we trudged back to the camp for the show.
Chapter 7
When we got back, there was a bloke dressed in rags with a horse’s mane sewed into his cowl. He was chanting to the crowds. They were listening to him, he was calling them. We stood and heard as he told a story about a man with a horse’s head and black holes for eyes.
‘The prophet come in to town walkin talkin wonderment and the folks that seen him ran in fright from his fearsome head and his strange talk. He was a prophet spreadin the word. He said, “There’s gunna come a hand of fate to wash the sand from yer eyes and lift yer up outta the dust. You don’t hafta wait for patterns to form or listen to the showmans no more.” The horse’s head said it came to tell of a saver from the Wotcher that will save the backroads folks out from the brumbies and the disorder.’
One fella piped up from the crowd, ‘How come he got a horse’s head?’
‘He got the horse’s head coz horses is strong and faifull, he were a strong and faifull bloke. He had a mate ship too and he sailed the desert backroads with his mates, they was lookin for the Wotcher’s word from where it crackled. They heard the Wotcher was gunna come down to earth, it’d land like a flapple on a carcass and out would step a bloke who’d be a saver for us all from the brumby trucks.’
Smoov came on the scene then. He said, ‘Wotcher’s not somethin to be a saver. Wotcher’s got messages in patterns and lessons for us all to make a better life, that’s all. There’s no saver. Theres no bloke with a horse’s head, no mate ship in the desert, just a bloke tellin porky pies to serve himself.’
‘You think you’re a truth sayin servant of the Wotcher? Whaddaya know of it?’ said the preacher.
The crowd grumbled and mumbled, faces showing dark at Smoov.
‘I listen the Wotcher every night. I been puttin together the Wotcher’s signs and meanins for twenty-six wet and twenty-six dry and mate I
tell you, the Wotcher’s no saver. It’s a link to the past but it don’t care what goes on. It’s just spinnin high up above and sendin down messages to show a way of livin that’s better than all this, that’s all.’
The preacher shook his horsey mane and said, ‘There’s a mob of brumby trucks massin on the outside. They’re gunna come in and ride over everythin inside. All they want is death and destruction. We don’t need no truth nor lies nor messages. We need a saver from the brumbies.’
There were more murmurings from the camp folks. They were getting restless now. They’d been listening to Smoov a long time but their grumblings were for the idea of a saver. Smoov weren’t having no part of it.
He turned and said, ‘Wotcher’s the one thing left from them as what come before, it’s a key but we don’t know the right door to open. If you listen the Wotcher, you can see there’s something to take away, you can see the message. There’s patterns that form in the trancemissions, and there’s truth in them patterns.’
I looked at Isa.
‘What you reckon?’ I whispered.
‘The preacher bloke’s runnin his own program. He’s tryin to get the folks to believe in a saver to lift himself in their eyes and become more powerful. There’s many truths to the Wotcher and we’ve gotta make up our own minds about it. We gotta be our own savers, or maybe it’s me what can be the saver if I can crack the Wotcher’s code. I reckon the horse’s head bloke is a sign the high breds are comin into the world.’
Right then there was some wrestling and wrangling going on. People were getting rowdy, they didn’t like that Smoov were disrupting the show. They’d got a new showman in who was giving them something they wanted to hear. They were sick of Smoov and the other showmans who wouldn’t ever give them nothing they could understand. Someone called: ‘Git outta here, Smoov. Yer not welcome tonight.’
I thought Smoov was gunna chuck a wobbly, but he stood up straight and said, ‘I been comin for years. Youse know my comin and goins, I always do a good show for yer needs, show for meat and smoke and cactusflower grog. I know the ways of the truck and the road and I’ve been givin youse suckle on the Wotcher’s teat all this time.’
One of the camp blokes pushed forward. He was long scraggly hair and beard hanging down over hessian coat. ‘Smoov, there’s more to the Wotcher than what you can show. This bloke with the horse’s head, what word come into the camps around two months ago, he’s got a different story to tell. We wunna hear it. You can’t stop it, even if you don’t like it.’
‘Be careful of this horse’s head bloke, he’s sick, he’s crook with a evil virus. He’s given you tell what you wanna hear, not the hard work of the roadin highways.’
Temper Storm the head man moved up then and said: ‘Best off now, Smoov. Take yer kin and move it on.’
‘It’s gloomin darker, Temper, and we gotta show to do. We won’t be roadin now.’
‘Yes yer will, Smoov, yer gunna cause trouble if ya stay. I’m gunna give yer meat and smoke for the way, but yer on yer own now. Don’t come back around next time.’
Smoov wrinkled his face up and went to move the show gear.
‘Orright, Temper, I hear ya. I’m takin me childers and I’m headin off and I won’t be back and now there’s not gunna be no more shows for this camp.’
He sort of stopped a bit, waiting for someone to say he should stay. But there weren’t no one said nothing.
‘Suits us, Smoov,’ said Temper. ‘Road and be well.’
I thought Smoov was gunna do his block but he didn’t. He just turned tail and walked. The crowd closed in around him and I caught a glance of the preacher’s smug smiling face as the camp thronged around him to hear the messages of a saver.
There was an alarm right then, from the watch tower. The brumbies we saw that afternoon were massing for a raid and I thought on that Brumby King and what it wanted, and it’s hard to know how to defend against something like that, almost like trying to work out what a thunderstorm might want or why. It just was. It swallowed up everything in its track and doused it with death and like a thundercloud, it didn’t have no thoughts for what was left behind in the mud and the blood. So the camp folks were keeping their eyes out for that dust cloud, the sign of the Brumby King and its roading mob. They’d built fences and ditches and they’d hammered spikes into the road around, facing out. They’d laid grease traps and they’d buried bombs besides the road. But seeing that cloud on the skyline sent me cold. I don’t wanna ever see it again. It was the brumby mob moving fast, off road.
They weren’t coming in along the track where we saw them earlier. They were coming from the waste to lay waste. And then on the other side of the camp was another mob. In the brumbies were six rigs, led by the black beefy Brumby King itself and the new wrangled Silver Peterbilt next to it. Then there come the Left Tenant, white and blue and another blue on blue and the rest of the brumby mob followed by a crowd of droans buzzing about in their wake looking for whatever they could scab.
Looking closer at the other mob I could see it was just two indies roading. They weren’t part of the brumby mob, but they were gunna get caught up in the storm of the Brumby King. One red and white and one with purple patterning, roading partners roaming free. Their path was getting crossed with the brumby mob right in front of the camp. I stood watching, I couldn’t take me eyes off what was happening. The indies didn’t realise the threat of the brumbies or they thought they could take them, because they didn’t change course until it was too late and the brumbies were all around. The Brumby King took a fancy to the purple and so it crashed up against it while the Left Tenant and the other brumbies circled around and kept the red and white busy. The King wasn’t mucking around trying to mount with its donk, it wanted to wrangle the purple into its mob. Even though the red and white done its best to drive off the King, it was overwhelmed and outnumbered. It drove off by itself, to the westing while the King and its mob pressed on.
Watching from the fence, the greasy camp boys went pale. There wasn’t nothin no one could do, it was just a matter of time before they’d be on us.
‘Carn,’ I said to Isa, ‘we gotta move.’
‘Wheres Smoov?’
‘He’s gone to sling his tote from the showgear. There’s no time, we gotta go.’
‘I’m not leavin till he’s given me the codes so as I can show in me own right. Anyways we would be killed out in the open.’
Maybe she was right but I didn’t wanna stick around, I felt the pull in me guts. We would die if we stayed. We had to go, but we’d already done too much talking, the heat was coming down. The first shots of rocks were falling down, launched like missles from the brumby trucks, they were raining pain and stone and shards of bone.
A crash right next to us and a brumby busted through the fence, wheels jarring through the shocks, engine screaming, dust flying, rocks falling and folks were running to get away. The panic hit me. I grabbed Isa’s arm but she still wouldn’t come. She pulled away and I just had to run to save myself. The air throbbed with the beating of battling trucksound, steady bass rumbling and horns tweeting and dripping with jammy delay.
The Left Tenant came on hard, howling and screaming diff and high pitched turbine whine cutting through the deep rocking grumble sound of the donk. And then it blasted a tune, a cranking dub that whipped the following brumby mob into a frenzy of high revving engines and the blat blat blat of exhaust brakes. Up come the Left Tennat’s own second, light blue frag patterns on dark blue, its vents wide open under blank view screen sensors as it sucked up all the air around to cool its searing manifold. Once they’d busted through the fence, they went all different ways through the camp looking for damage and destruction. The noise was terrible, dust and smoke in me throat and every breath was hard won from the thickening air. Camp folks screaming in panic and fetching up their gear, whatever could be carried. A dog ran past snarling and snapping, fear inside its eyes but angry outside.
Through the dust and smoke and bodies r
ushing here and there, all of a sudden I came face to face with Smoov, his eyes wild. He made to grab me arm and pull me back with him and I didn’t say nothing. It all happened so fast I just wanted to be done with it. All them pent up feelings came rushing out, Brumby King or not, I wasn’t gunna go with Smoov no more. I stepped sideways as he over reached and he fell into the space where I used to be and then fell down onto his knees. Between Smoov and the blur of moving bodies behind, I saw Crow. He wore a coat made from trucktyre and he had silver hair but you could see as how it had been black as night and his brown face was lined and white eyes that he looked in me eyes with a glare and I knew we were tied together on the roading. Fear hit me like cold water gulped too fast and settled in me guts, wanting to loosen me stools. The face of Crow twisted sharp, it was cold and hard like broken brick.
‘Do it,’ Crow said.
Smoov was down on his knees in front of me, he looked sidewise up and the sweat beaded on his face and runned down his neck. He didn’t say nothing, like he knew what was inside me, what he’d given me the power over him to do. Crow said: ‘Carn, you barstid. Otherwise you got buckleys of havin it off with the girl.’
He spat the end of his durry into the red dirt. In the chaos a moment of still. The jenny’s throb and the clear blue sky and high white cloud. Wind blowed from the east, sun overhead and way, way up a flapple rode updrafted. Folks moaned and dogs barked and the brumby mob ran them down and crying mouths were crushed under wheels till they didn’t cry no more. There was no home, no quiet place to shelter the storm. It was just whatever wits you had and I wished it was different but it weren’t. I slit Smoov’s throat with the shiv and seen the white line of fat under the skin before the red blood bubbled out and Smoov looked up into me face and gurgled but no sound came. Blood ran over his hands where he tried to hold it in over his new grin. He fell over onto his front and lay still while the red dust turned black.
Trucksong Page 5