Red Fox

by Fanning, Lara

  We run for at least ten minutes before finally coming to a typical high country bright green sphagnum bog, which is puckered with holes where wild horses have crossed it. I slog through it, sinking to my knees in the squishy moss and breaking the thin layer of ice that has formed in the muddy pools of water. The wild brumby horses that live in the Alps only cross these bogs if they have to, for the bogs are renowned for becoming very deep and impossible to escape like quicksand. I have every intention of continuing my headlong flight when Whil cries out, “Freya, stop! I’m going to suffocate back here!”

  I come to a halt on the other side of the bog, drenched and muddy. I suddenly realise how stupid it was to exert so much energy escaping someone who wasn’t trying to catch me. My lungs feel like they are about to burst, and I flop down on the driest patch of earth I can find, wheezing for air. I never thought I could run so far so fast. We must be three kilometres away from Seiger by now.

  Panting heavily, Whil plonks down next to me and then lies flat on his back. His chest rises and falls quickly in loud gasps. I copy him, trying to regain my breath. I’m concerned that when nightfall comes, and judging by the sun’s position in the sky it won’t be far off, wet clothes are going to be our worst enemy in the freezing cold Alpine nights. We need to make a fire before dusk is upon us or at least find somewhere drier to spend the night.

  I get to my feet and my legs wobble like jelly.

  Whil remains sitting and glances around the bushland, obviously as lost as Seiger planned for us to be. Seiger didn’t anticipate that I would know this area like the back of my hand. I have gone hiking and horse riding here since I was a little girl. I don’t know the Alps like my auntie does—she can walk through these parts blindfolded and know where she is—but I know the mountains well enough to escape them. Seiger said there was a fence surrounding us, but fences can be climbed. Additionally, if there are guards, they can be removed. The thought of killing a guard comes much too quickly and easily.

  I shudder.

  Obviously, this is what all of the bizarre lessons of survival at school were for. To prepare us for this sudden change, and to teach people to live in a new world; perhaps even create and expose some more Bs in the process. For whatever purpose the B group is needed.

  I start searching for a deer track. If wild horses have crossed over this bog, it means they will have a path somewhere leading to one of their grassy flats where they spend the evenings grazing. Those same meadowy flats are frequented by campers and horse riders alike. If we find the flat the horses use, we find the path those people use, which will eventually lead to the main road.

  In a thicket of shrub I find the horse’s path, which is a narrow, slightly compacted dirt trail. Without thinking, I take a step onto it, but then remember Whil and look back at him by the bog, frowning indecisively. We were both placed in B, stuck in the caravan together, and released into the bush as a pair, but in reality, I know nothing about the young man. He is a stranger to me, and I’ve never been one for making new friends.

  You have to look after him, my brain thinks. He is your only ally, your only companion.

  Clumsy and useless as he might be, my brain is right. I take a big breath to calm myself and regain some common sense—I need all the help I can get. Grudgingly, I go to him and give him a nudge with the toe of my boot. He looks up at me with clear blue eyes, and I can see the thrum of his fluttering heart beneath his shirt.

  “Come on,” I say to Whil half-heartedly, for I would prefer to be on my own.

  Determined to keep moving and find a better, more sheltered place to stay the night, I hold my hand towards Whil. He sits up, takes my hand and I pull him to his feet, though he uses his own strength for the most part.

  “We have to follow this,” I tell him, dropping his hand and pointing at the trail. “Let’s go.” He comes along, still exhausted but obliging.

  We start on the horse track. It is much easier to follow than making our own path as we did ten minutes earlier. The horses have cleared away the undergrowth and their path twists around boulders and fallen logs. I feel at home following their tracks. We are walking the trail of wild, innocent creatures forced to live in a strange environment, much like ourselves. The brumby stallions mark their territory by doing-their-business in the same place, time after time. We pass a few of the manure piles: some are fresh and steamy while others are old and mouldy. I inhale the scent of horses, which is in the air all around us, and I am comforted by it.

  The bark of the waxy Candle Bark trees is smooth under my fingers when I reach out to touch the trunks. Granite boulders and rocks littered throughout the bush are speckled with pale green moss and Bracken Ferns, some brown and dead and others dark green with life, sprout in the cracks between them. Decades worth of bark shed by the White Ribbon Gum trees litters the ground, covered in the finest layer of snow so the landscape looks like some fancy sugar-frosted desert. Mint green Old Man’s Beard lichen hangs in curtained drapes from most tree branches, some of it so thick and long that Whil and I have to duck to walk beneath it. Dark wallabies watch us as we go by, their delicate, handsome little faces turned towards us, wondering if we are dangerous. We aren’t, not yet. But when we get really hungry, then the wallabies might have a reason to fear us.

  I whistle casually as we go, knowing the path will take us to the main road and eventually to the farmland where my relatives live. Knowing Seiger is far behind and not in pursuit is a comfort. The only sounds around us are the sounds of nature. There is no screaming here. No gunshots—only kookaburras laughing in the treetops, the thump of a kangaroo’s heavy tail as it bounces away, and the occasional shrieky bark of a fox in the distance.

  “How do you know this area so well?” Whil finally asks after twenty minutes of walking.

  “I’ve come here at the end of every school term since I was a child,” I tell him openly. “My aunt and uncle live around an hour’s drive from here, I think. I’m pretty sure I know where we are. I suppose Seiger didn’t expect anyone to know much about the Alps and the tracks through them.”

  “Lucky I found you,” Whil says sincerely. I feel warmth working its way into my cheeks and blame it on the mixture of cold and exercise. “So why do you think they chose us to be in B?”

  I think for a moment and step over a large wombat hole in the middle of the path. Whil falls right into it with an oomph: he’s proving himself to be extremely clumsy. I don’t help him out, but instead watch him with critical eyes as he struggles out of the pit.

  “Seiger didn’t have to look at his list when he said I belonged in B,” I say, after Whil has recovered from the fall. We walk on. “So being in B had nothing to do with our test. It had to do with us attacking Seiger.”

  “Why? Why would they want people that are aggressive?”

  “I don’t know,” I reply, trying to sound indifferent, but I’m scared.

  Collecting up people who show signs of aggression cannot mean anything good. What are they planning to do with us? If we survive this test and can’t escape, do they plan on using us like fighting dogs? Will they throw us in a pit and hold us at gunpoint until we fight one another as some sick form of entertainment? Do they want us as guards to do their bidding? To kill innocent people like Seiger does?

  I snort inadvertently. They will never make me do that. I will never hurt people who are just like me. Who have suffered worse than I have because of this government. They are monstrous.

  “Whil, is there an Imperium anymore?” I ask. “Like there used to be in the old government? A top dog?”

  “I don’t think so,” he says. “I think they just have a group of Biocentrics that rule together these days. Probably so an Imperium won’t be assassinated. That way the system won’t come crashing down if the Imperium died. With a committee, someone would have to take out every individual member to make the government fail. I’m sure they expect people to revolt sooner or later and being eradicated is a big fear of theirs.”

  “Y
ou seem smart,” I say.

  He shrugs modestly. “Being smart doesn’t help much when you’re thrown out into the bush.”

  He’s right.

  We finally come to a clearing and I realise my suspicions are right. We are in the exact place I thought. We’ve come to a familiar high country meadow where the wild horses graze. It’s probably a good ten acres of cleared pasture, spotted with a few ancient looking gumtrees. Baby grass pokes its head through the thin snow and tussocks grow here and there. There are a few shallow wallowing holes where wild horses like to roll in the dirt when the weather is dryer. The clearing is lagoon shaped and surrounded on all sides by thick, high trees and low heathland. It feels like a safe haven here. I know there will be clean water nearby that the brumbies will use to drink. Food will have to be our prime priority. In agreement, my stomach rumbles noisily and I notice how weak my body feels from lack of food. Whil said I was put in the caravan yesterday but I could have been out longer than that. Who knows how long it’s been since I ate last?

  There aren’t any horses on the flat, but I didn’t expect there to be. They take cover in the bush during the day and only come onto the grazing flats in the evenings and early mornings.

  “Where are we?” Whil asks, glancing around the picturesque place. The beautiful little flat is bathed in the golden light of late afternoon and it smells sweet—as if the scents of spring are rising from the warmer lower plains and into the mountains.

  We stay on the edge of the bush, hidden in the cover of the trees. The flat is too open and noticeably bare in thousands of hectares of bushland. I’m wary that even though helicopters and aeroplanes are illegal to fly, the government might sneak one into the sky to monitor us. After all, they’d apparently used a car to transport Whil earlier, and the guards had been equipped with guns. Both cars and guns are illegal. Do as the government says, not as they do. Already I’m becoming paranoid but not without reason.

  I find a dry log and sit down on it. “This is Native Cat Flat.”

  “How do you know?” Whil sits on the log, a meter away.

  “I’ve been here before. Horse riding. There is a track on the other side that leads to Native Dog Flat and there is a public road right next to Native Dog that will lead to my aunt and uncle’s place.”

  “Do you think they would have let your aunt and uncle stay?” Whil asks dubiously.

  “Maybe. It’s worth finding out if it gives us somewhere safe to stay.”

  I don’t know why I get the idea to go to my auntie and uncle’s. Why do I feel like they might still be there? Would the government have left them in their own house because they had very little impact on the environment? They own nearly two thousand acres of land and run three hundred head of beef cattle. They have their own vegetable garden, their own chickens for eggs and meat and can fend for themselves. That’s what the government wants us to do these days, after all. So surely there is a good chance that people who already lived in the exact way the government promotes would be spared and allowed to continue on as normal.

  They might have let them stay there. Or perhaps it is only wishful thinking. Either way, the flicker of hope I have of seeing them again—their familiar kind faces—will drive me towards their home.

  “And what are we going to do if we do escape? Go to live there forever?”

  I look at him, frowning and unsure whether he is doubtful of the plan or asking in total seriousness, and then turn away. He has a point, of course. What are we going to do if we manage to get out of this unseen arena? We could just stay at my relatives and hope we are never found. I don’t think I could stay there with the knowledge that my parents and brother are imprisoned elsewhere. Seiger said the A groups were being transferred to settlements. What does he mean by settlements and where are they? How can I live freely if they force my family to be slaves? But would I risk my freedom on the off chance of finding them—wherever they are?

  I throw Whil a sidelong look. His hands are folded in his lap, and he is looking at me curiously, waiting for an answer. Would he want to live with my aunt and uncle? Or go on a dangerous journey to find my family when he has his own to worry about? Either way, I know he won’t stay with me. For some reason, I feel a pang of sadness at that thought. How long have I known him? Maybe half a day? I fight the emotion back, sure I feel connected to him simply because there are no other people around, and sigh. Whil cannot become part of my life.

  “I’ll go into hiding, I suppose. And just live like the Aboriginal people used to.”

  “Right… and what shall I do?”

  I look at him and arch my eyebrows in question.

  “Can’t I stay with you?”

  “Oh,” I say.

  For his sake, I want to say ‘sure you can!’ but the words simply won’t come, and I sit there gawking at him like an idiot. He’s shown himself to be inept in the wilderness already, but that isn’t to say he won’t be helpful in a different, more domestic setting. Plus, I will need company if my aunt and uncle aren’t at home, else I might go mad. But then I realise that my delayed response isn’t due to me thinking logically about his companionship, it is something entirely different that makes me mute.

  I’ve met plenty of boys at my school before. Plenty of attractive, friendly boys that I don’t act like a fool in front of. Why is this one any different? He was a city boy, which was one difference. And the one who made me feel comfort and hope in that transport box.

  At my hesitation, Whil looks confronted. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t but I thought…”

  Finally, my voice works again but it sounds crackly and high pitched. “I just didn’t think you’d want to come with me.”

  “We should stick together,” he says, and he looks straight into my eyes.

  I gaze back at him, mesmerised by the pale blue of his iris. For some reason, the two of us gazing at one another in the middle of the outback doesn’t feel awkward. I’m not compelled to turn away like I am with other people. Looking at him, I feel content and safe. I don’t feel like the world has just collapsed around me. All danger ceases to exist. I forget about my hunger and my thirst and the loss of my family and the death of my best friend. I only see him.

  We sit for a minute, just staring, before a noise sounds nearby our resting spot. Both of us look towards the noise of twigs snapping and leaves brushing over a moving mass. Something big and black pushes through the white budded tea-tree bushes on the opposite end of the flat. A long, dark face. Bright, kindly eyes half covered by a matted forelock. A thin but striking black brumby stallion works his way onto the grazing ground, nibbling at the short grass as he comes.

  I hadn’t noticed that the sky around us has begun to dim. In an hour, it will be dark and cold. Luckily the Alps don’t have any large predators so we can sleep safely knowing we won’t be attacked. Whil and I watch as the brumby walks onto the grazing flat, sniffs the air cautiously and then whinnies. Two mares, both with young foals at foot, follow their stallion onto the flat and the horses begin to graze quietly. It is difficult to think anything but peaceful thoughts while watching the horses graze as the sunset streaks the sky with soft pink and deep purple clouds that glow with golden outlines. The foals begin to play, chasing one another in circles and rearing in a mock battle.

  I’ve seen this sight before. It always warms my heart to watch the horses and leave them undisturbed. They positively fascinate Whil. He chuckles when the foals tumble in the grass together and guffaws when the stallion eventually trots up to them and clacks his teeth in warning. His offspring are being too rambunctious and noisy. The two foals squeal and race to their mothers for protection. Whil laughs.

  “Haven’t you ever seen wild horses?” I ask quietly.

  “No. They’re peaceful, aren’t they? Not like the old movies where they are always galloping around.”

  “They only gallop around if people chase them,” I say with a shrug.

  “Will they notice us?”

  “I don’t
think so. Not if we stay here. They’ll just move away if they see us anyhow. They aren’t aggressive.”

  Whil gives a sigh. “What should we do tonight? I’m hungry but there really isn’t enough daylight to set a snare.”

  I shake my head—obviously even in the city school they were taught survival lessons. “No, we will have to wait until morning.” I look up at the sky and there is a grey cloud cover just thick enough to hold in the warmth of the day so that we shouldn’t freeze in our sleep. “I think everything will have to wait until tomorrow morning. You don’t have matches or a lighter?”

  “No. I suppose we will just have to cope overnight without shelter or fire.”

  We continue to watch the horses until darkness falls and leaves us in a completely different, gloomy, world. I love the high country in the daytime but in the evening every shadow cast by the moonlight shining silver on the leaves frightens me. It’s too wet to light a fire. All of the loose timber is covered in a thin layer of ice and even if we found some dry wood and twigs, lighting it without matches would be impossible for us. Funny, in school they taught us how to kill animals for food and make snares from twigs and vines, but they never showed us how to start a fire without a lighter.

  Whil tells me he is going to lie down and get some sleep and I decide to do the same. Although I find a fairly dry patch of earth and a comfy clump of snowgrass to rest my ever-throbbing head on, my eyes snap open at the tiniest noise: from the snort of a horse to the scurry of something miniscule in the leaf litter. The darkness consumes me and hides the once comforting view of the flat and the peaceful creatures. I feel my body start to twitch. Electricity seems to course in my veins. My heart leaps as a mopoke owl begins a gentle hoot in the treetops above our sleeping place. My eyes dart from shadow to shadow, searching for something to be afraid of and my mind reruns a video of Clara collapsing on the ground and being shrouded in a pool of her own blood.

  After an hour of tossing and turning on the verge of a mental breakdown, I sit up and decide that tonight sleep won’t be an option. So I sit awake with my legs tucked into my chest and wait for dawn to come. The mopoke owl continues to call for hours, never receiving a reply.