by Clare Moleta
Li stopped.
Stokes said, We don’t have an operator or a patcher now. Mira’s training up pretty good but she’d do better with help.
She turned to face them. No. I’m going east.
Across the range? On foot?
Rich said, She’s taking our ride.
* * *
There was some argument. The mosquitoes liked the idea of a second vehicle.
You’re getting a medic, Rich said. She gets the transport.
Why hadn’t she known he would do this? They’d never discussed it but she’d thought of the phone as hers, unquestionably. The vehicle was his. His independent means to get to North if things didn’t work out with this crew. He was giving that up for her. Even though she’d used him and he was talking about her like she wasn’t there. He kept helping her and helping her, like the act of helping meant something and she didn’t know how to thank him, didn’t even know what she was to him. Was she some form of Rachael that could still be saved? Or one of the others on his list? Or was she him, before he gave Rachael up?
Things were rearranging in her brain: speed, distance, time. One new update. She would drive across the range and into time again, through time. To Matti.
* * *
Shaun had everything. Working together, they cleaned the plugs thoroughly, wiped out the tubes and the air intake, changed the oil and the coolant, checked the fuses, the battery. Shaun replaced a couple of worn piston rings in the cylinder block. He conferred with Stokes and then half-filled the tank with diesel.
I don’t know if that’s gunna get you over, he said, but it’s all we can spare.
They worked all through the clear cold of morning while the others got the fire going again, brewed tea and made damper. She looked up now and then at the range in the distance, flickering bluely in the air above the fire. Stokes and Eileen sat talking to Rich while he dressed an ulcerated sore on Eileen’s arm. He’d taken the tent down, packed up his gear. Lucas was cleaning and oiling the shotgun. Mira threw sticks for the dog while she powered up the phones with a hand-cranked charger, and then the dog left the game and went to Rich and lay looking up at him. Dev was repairing a torn pack. The new guy crouched a little way from the fire, cleaning and polishing everyone’s boots. Now and then he looked across at Mira and Li saw he was even younger than she’d thought.
Shaun said, We’ve got him on the shit jobs till we see what he’s good at.
When they were done, the engine started first try. Mira brought Li’s phone over, fully charged.
Shaun wiped his hands on a rag. There’ll be ice on the road further up. Don’t rush it – you’re sitting high, easy to flip and roll.
There was no message from Chris and when she called she got his answering machine again. I told you before, she said. They’ll just put me in a queue till my credit runs out. So I need you to do this and I’m going to wait for you to call me back.
It was early in the afternoon now, a thin grey wind coming up, and she had a great need to start driving. But Stokes asked her to eat with them first, and when she looked over, Rich was looking back at her, so she went and sat across from him at the fire, between Stokes and Shaun, and listened to them talk about the howler, about supplies, and the route they were taking to North this time. Rich was sketching or writing something on a piece of paper between mouthfuls. Mira came and sat beside the new guy and then Dev squeezed in between them with his plate. Eileen started laughing and Mira said, Dad! Seriously? And Stokes said, Dev, Dev, give it up, bro. You can’t fight love.
The dog lay quiet on the edge of the circle, watching them eat. Li saw how they had knitted together without Jasmine, how easily Rich would fit. She got up and cleaned her plate and went back to the vehicle.
Stokes brought her gear over. She put her hand on the pack and was walking again, in pain and dust, dry-throated, sick with fear. Jerked clear of the memory.
He said, I heard your kid might be alive.
I’m going to find out.
Good. That’s real good. He hesitated, as close to awkward as she’d seen him. I looked for my folks for a long time, he said. Kids don’t give up easy.
She nodded, hoisted her gear into the back.
Your waterbag’s full but we couldn’t find any fish. And, ah, we’ve all been wearing your clothes. Sorry bout that.
She remembered the way she’d thought about him, about all of them, in Transit. They would’ve taken them off me anyway, she said.
There’s a couple of phone numbers in the top pocket, he told her. We could use you. Any time. We’re a family-friendly operation.
The last thing Rich gave her was the tent. He came up and threw it in the back with the rest of her gear. She looked at him, making sure.
I want it back, he said. And he put a folded piece of paper in her pocket.
The trees around them were noisy with wind.
Rich said, Why didn’t you tell me what happened with this mob?
I thought you wouldn’t bring me with you in case I fucked it up for you.
Li. He shook his head but he wasn’t angry anymore. You gotta have a bit of faith.
How long since they’d met? A hundred days, not even, back in that factory in Port Howell. He had restarted time for her in Transit and there were things she should say to him that she hadn’t worked out, but now she could feel the range like a magnet and everything else was background.
He took her hands, grubby with oil, turned them over and touched the shiny new skin. They healed up good, he said.
She shivered, though it was hardly even sensitive anymore. I should have thanked you for that.
You should have thanked me for a lot of stuff. You’re shit at it.
She shrugged. Sweet-talk. But her gratitude to him was an anchor.
If you find her. Or if you find out. Would you think about coming up to North?
She took her hands back. I don’t know.
All right. He nodded. Stokes gave you the numbers, so just let me know. About Matti at least.
When he turned away, she remembered that she did have something for him.
Hold on. She opened the driver’s door, reached across the front seat for the Saint Anthony medallion. Held it out carefully.
Rich picked it up, looked at it with recognition and then pleasure. Lost things, right?
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is something up there.
He gave it back. I don’t know if I can take that. Don’t you need it?
She hoped he lived. Put it in his hand and closed his fingers over it. You already found her for me.
The map she’d carried from the lake and lost at the roadhouse lay open on the passenger seat, as she drove, the range its easternmost limit. Beside it was Rich’s hand-drawn map of the southern pass over the range, the lowest, least Weather-bound route, sketched from memory.
There was no sign of the howler’s passage this far east. Beyond the roadhouse where Rich had planned to meet the mosquitoes, she drove up an old river valley. Fire had gone through this country, but there was new growth among the blackened trees. Big rock formations and new colours, too, less red and scrub, more shades of blue and brown.
Rich had told her not to stop along this stretch between the roadhouse and the range. She passed warning signs about training exercises and unexploded ordnance. Now and then she saw an army vehicle in the distance, but the base wasn’t visible from the road. Sometimes a truck or a convoy of trucks, army or Company, passed from the other direction. Once a ute overtook her, the tray crowded with people and dogs staring back at her. Chris didn’t call and whenever she tried him it went straight to answering machine.
It rained heavily, cleared and rained again. The range was always there, but its snow-coated peaks came into view without warning. Li felt a high straining in her stomach. She didn’t know how to prepare for whatever was waiting for her. One new update on this claim. She watched the speedometer and saw distance and time folding together, clicking over.
Late
afternoon, the mountains closed in around her and she started to climb. Up and up, one tight curve after another with no reprieve. She was struggling with her walking boot now, wanted to take it off, but there was no safe place to stop. The road didn’t seem wide enough for anyone to pass her. She slowed to a crawl, keeping an eye on the fuel gauge and seeing it wasn’t going to get her over the pass. An orange light was layered across the valleys deepening into shadow below her. She felt the temperature dropping inside the vehicle.
Two hours later a truck came at her around a bend in the dark, across the centre line, lights on high beam. Blinded, she swerved left and braked hard and skidded out against the barrier. Sat, panting, at the side of the road until the tail-lights disappeared. Then she drove on slowly until she found a rest stop, backed onto a wall of earth and rock that gave some shelter from the wind. She was asleep almost before she turned off the ignition.
* * *
Cold woke her. She was stiff and groggy, and she needed to piss. She lurched out of the car and slammed the door behind her to trap whatever warmth was in there. The sudden drop in temperature was brutal. She was outside for less than a minute but by the time she got back in she was shivering uncontrollably and there were pins and needles in her fingers and toes. Stupid, stupid, not to have put more layers on. She started the engine again and blasted the heater, then fumbled urgently in her pack for her thermal gear – the top smelling of sweat and woodsmoke as she pulled it over her head. Gloves, balaclava, hunting cap. It was so important that she lived. She couldn’t work her fingers on the straps and buckles of her knee crutch, and she started crying out of rage but she got the thing off and got into her sleeping bag.
In a little while her body started to regulate. The shaking eased until she was able to get out of her boots and pants and pull on the thick socks and leggings. The smell of other bodies was warm and human. She unrolled her groundmat and got it under her. The rain came sleeting on the glass, filling the car with noise. She ate a packet of curried instant noodles, swallowed a mouthful of water. Killed the engine.
* * *
Later, she woke again in absolute certainty that Frank was there, just outside. Had she been dreaming about him? Her head was clear. The rain had stopped and it was quiet, the car windows iced over. She was very cold but not dangerously cold. She sat up and listened. Heard breathing distinct from her own.
Li cleared a patch on the window, flinching from the burn of the glass. In the moonlight she saw a dingo sitting still at the side of the car. White. Black-lipped. It sat upright with its front paws together, calm and enormously alert, brow furrowed in a long angular face. Clouds moved across the moon but when they cleared again, the dingo was still there. Under the shaggy coat it was almost skeletal. It must be able to smell her but it couldn’t get in unless she let it in. She touched her waist, where she’d kept the knife. Closed her eyes. She felt so close to Frank now. Not the stab wounds of memory, or the surrender of Transit, but something illuminating. She could almost reach him, almost make him understand. I didn’t know what else to do. There was no safe place. I made a choice and I lost her.
The dingo was still. She couldn’t believe how still. Only the tiniest movement of one ear, the ferocity of its attention. Every time I remember it I try and turn around, make myself turn, see what she wanted to show me. I can’t change anything.
In the dark behind the still, silent dingo there was howling. It rose and fell and rose again in waves of longing or warning. The dingo got up unhurriedly and padded away. Li pressed her ear against the frozen glass. Why would I get another chance? she asked Frank. I wouldn’t know how to do it any different.
* * *
The next time she woke it was early morning and raining again. The engine was slow to warm up and she got out to scrape ice off the windshield, bone-cold and stiff. Thought about the dry firewood in the boot, how she would build a fire tonight if the rain held off long enough. There was muesli in one of the army readies, she ate that and drank a little water. Took off her walking boot and put it on the floor on the passenger side. Before she pulled out she turned on the phone but there was no signal.
For the first hour the road climbed and twisted relentlessly. It was easier managing the clutch with the boot off, although it felt strange, after so long, to apply pressure directly with her left foot. She craved paracetemol but she couldn’t risk taking her hands off the wheel, her eyes off the road. Anyway, the pills wouldn’t last. The headaches were just one more thing she’d done to herself that she had to live with. Except Rich didn’t think she’d been exposed long enough to do permanent damage.
So I won’t always be like this? she’d asked.
And he’d grinned that complicated grin. I wouldn’t’ve thought.
There was black ice and she had to slow, nervous about locking the wheels again. She was tensed all the time for the sound of trucks. Three of them passed her, two westbound and one roaring up behind her. She pulled over as far as she could and they bore down without making any concessions. It was a physical relief to come out onto an open stretch of highway, ribboning ahead through tussock and outcrops of rock, with an occasional tree or patch of trees. There was still a quarter of a tank. She’d seen no one on foot since she left Rich, but she felt confident that when she had to walk she would be able to.
A bird of prey spooled up up up on a current and then coasted, splitting the sky between the white of its belly and the grey above it. One new update. Matti should be dead, but Li could feel her again, thought she could, on the other side of all this rock and dirt.
* * *
The road climbed above the tree line. She’d never been this close to snow. Pulled her visor down against the glare and turned the heater on in short blasts to keep the temperature manageable and the windows from fogging up.
The highway hugged the cut face of the mountain now. When snowflurries blew across the pass she slowed to a crawl, barely able to see a metre ahead even with the wipers on. To her left was the gravel siding and then a metal and concrete barrier. Sections of the metal had been salvaged, exposing a broken fenceline behind it and then a high emptiness, a suspension, before white folds radiated up to the next peak. Li only saw this in grabs – mostly her eyes stayed on the next bend.
She heard the road train before it lumbered into view, taking up more than its share of road. She slowed, veered a little more to the left and then held her course, buffeted in the wake. The driver blasted the horn as they passed each other and she sensed him gesturing through the open window of the cab but she kept her eyes on the empty patch of road behind the last trailer. It wasn’t until she was safely past that she registered the Serkel logos along the side and remembered the matching logo on her driver’s door. It didn’t matter. He might radio back to his depot but he wouldn’t be turning around on this road.
Early afternoon, the gauge was very low now. She didn’t know how far it would run on empty but if she made it over the top, maybe she could coast part of the way down. She came out of the sunlight into the mountain’s shadow again. The wheel was wrenched out of her hands. She felt the back slew out, braked too hard and the tyres locked. Her face was hot and everything was slow. She pumped the brake, a useless instinct. The metal box began to spin and kept on spinning, building momentum. Mud sprayed up behind her. Li caught the wheel and held on. There was the far mountain and the near fence, snow, bank, road, a river of places. She leaned over the wheel, leaned into the current and swam for the bank.
There was blood running to her head. Cold air, the upward pressure of the seat belt, the work of breathing, smells of earth and diesel, a clock ticking too fast.
She opened her eyes. The windscreen frame in front of her was full of road but it was wrong, too close, and when she looked up she saw the bonnet. Upside down. No, she was upside down and the engine was still running. She breathed in the spilled fuel again and her focus contracted. Reaching out and up, she located the steering wheel and then the key ring with its Serkel logo.
Turned off the ignition. Breathed for a moment, checking her pulse, waiting for the pain to surface. Something was trickling from her cheek to her forehead and when she ran her hand through her stubble it came away red.
She reached down to brace herself on the ceiling before she tackled the seatbelt. The buckle strained against her weight and then gave, and she slumped onto the roof. Dragged herself out through the empty frame of the windscreen, and the gap between the bonnet and the road, into the open. She stood looking at the crumpled vehicle with the slip banked up half-way over it, glass and metal spewed across the road, right to the barrier. She saw how the barrier had caved at the point of impact, the drag marks, but she resisted the urge to go and look down, as if she might see a tiny vehicle crushed and burning on the valley floor.
She was intensely conscious that she was still alive. There were shards of mirror around her feet, she picked one up and held it in front of her face. Her pupils were dilated and blood was smeared in tracks down her cheeks and up into the fuzz on her head. There was a gash under her collarbone that accounted for most of the blood. It wasn’t deep but she was going to need to clean it up and bandage it or it wasn’t going to stop. That chain of events didn’t seem to affect her personally, though, in the same way that she had started to shiver but didn’t feel cold. Li tried to order things in her head. The first thing was to not keep standing in the middle of the highway. But she needed her stuff.
Her walking boot was upright metres from the wreck, as if someone had just stepped out of it. She limped over and put it on and then went back to the vehicle and managed to wrench the back passenger door open. Retrieved her knee crutch, then the rest of the gear, bit by bit, and carried it across the road to the siding. She pulled her balaclava down over her forehead and then dug out the first aid kit, cleaned her hands with snow and then with saline, cleaned the wound and covered it with gauze and adhesive.