Wilder Country

by Mark Smith

  Kas places her hands on either side of my face and turns me to her. She brings her mouth close enough for me to feel her breath on my lips.

  ‘I’m coming with you to the coast,’ she says. She’s smiling and crying and it’s like something lets go inside me, something that’s been caged up forever and now it’s free.

  Three weeks after Harry was shot, he’s able to sit up in bed and feed himself. He struggles with it but he’s determined to get some strength back into his body. He’s frustrated at not being able to work alongside the others but it will be a while before he’s fit enough to do that. Each evening I come into his room and give him a report on the work we’ve done that day—the ploughing, the sowing, the digging out of thistles and the fencing. He makes suggestions about what else needs to be done.

  Tonight, after I’ve given him my report, he stops and looks long and hard at me. ‘What are your plans, Finn?’ he asks.

  We’ve been delaying the decision to leave. It’s hard work here but there’s something comforting in the routine and in helping out on the farm. And there’s the company of people, too. When we return to Angowrie there’ll just be Kas and me, at least until JT, Daymu and the others arrive—though there’s no guarantee the No-landers will let them go.

  ‘We’re going back to the coast,’ I say. ‘When the sowing’s done here and you can get by without us.’

  ‘The work’s never done on a farm,’ he says, wearily.

  ‘I know, but it’s not—’

  ‘Not what?’

  ‘Home.’

  He leans back on his pillow and folds his arms. ‘And what about Hope?’

  ‘Kas and I think she should stay here. I doubt we’d be able to prise her out of Stella’s arms anyway.’

  ‘You’re right about that. I told you we lost a child? We both mourned her but I reckon a mother feels it in a deeper way.’ He scratches his chin. ‘Hope won’t bring Holly back but…’

  ‘We’ll only be a bit over a day’s travel away. We’ll come to visit when it’s safe.’

  ‘I’m not sure the world’s ever going to be safe.’

  I tell him about Wentworth, that there’s some order being re-established. That there’s even electricity.

  ‘That’s a long way from here, Finn. And who knows what’s happened with the virus. In the meantime, the Wilders are a bigger concern.’

  ‘But the Wilders are scattered. Some of the ones in Longley will’ve taken their chance and left while Ramage was away.’

  ‘They’ll reorganise. It’s the way of bastards like that. We’ll never be completely safe and neither will you.’

  ‘We saw Tusker up near Swan’s Marsh.’

  Harry shakes his head. ‘Even if you had killed Ramage, Tusker would’ve taken over.’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t think Kas and me are on his Christmas card list, either.’

  Harry laughs again, then grabs his side. When he settles he says, ‘But, remember, there’ll always be a family here for you.’ He puts his hand on my shoulder and pulls me into a hug.

  Our preparations to leave are stretched out over the next week. There’s not a lot we need to carry with us—travelling light will make the journey easier. More than anything else, we’re preparing ourselves for life on our own again. Rowdy is mobile enough to make the trip and Yogi will be coming too—we can use him to carry our gear and the food we’ll need. He’ll come in handy if we find trouble and need to get away quickly, too. We’ll retrace our route via the logging coup and Pinchgut Junction. It’ll be tough for Yogi with all the storm damage but Kas is confident she can get him through.

  On the night before we leave, a dinner is organised in our honour. Food is pretty scarce and we feel guilty about so much going into one meal but everyone in the community brings something. We’re all crowded into Harry and Stella’s place. When I look around the room I see the faces of all these people who’ve become our friends, adults and kids alike. The only ones missing are Vic and Will. It’s been weeks now and there’s still no sign of them.

  We are about to start eating when Harry calls from the bedroom.

  Stella and I walk into the room and find him sitting up on the side of the bed, his big feet planted on the floor and an old dressing gown pulled around his frame.

  ‘You weren’t gonna start without me, were you?’ he says.

  Stella and I help him up and shuffle him out into the kitchen.

  ‘Excellent,’ Jack says when he sees Harry. ‘We need a scarecrow for the corn field.’

  ‘Yeah. Stuff you too, Jack!’ Harry says.

  We eat dried meat, potatoes and greens and it feels like a feast. Before we start, Stella brings us all into a circle around the table and we link arms. I have Kas on one side and Willow on the other, her arm pulling me in close to her.

  ‘Lord,’ Stella says, the room hushed. ‘Bless our little community and the food we share tonight. And bless these two,’ she nods at Kas and me. ‘We love them and we ask that you look over them and keep them safe. Amen.’ Kas turns her head and presses her forehead to my shoulder.

  No one wants to leave after the meal is finished. They crowd around Harry, joking with him and talking farming. But he tires quickly and Stella and Jack are soon helping him back to his room. Finally everyone drifts off to their own houses, leaving Kas and me with Stella, Willow and Hope, who is bright-eyed with all the noise and conversation. Willow has hardly let go of my good arm, tugging me to ask all sorts of questions about rabbit trapping, crayfish and abalone diving. She makes me promise that when she’s a bit older, we’ll take her down to the coast for a summer.

  Later, Kas and I sit outside. ‘We should sleep,’ I say. ‘We’ve got a long day of travelling tomorrow.’

  She doesn’t say anything for a while. I’ve almost drifted off when she says, ‘I’ve never had anything like this before. It’s strange.’ She turns to face me. ‘We’re just gonna have each other down on the coast.’ She laces her fingers through mine. ‘Are you okay with that?’

  ‘Only for fifty years, or so,’ I say trying not to smile.

  ‘You mean until I’ve got wrinkles and saggy boobs?’

  ‘Yeah, and I’ve got grey hair and tuck-shop arms.’

  She laughs and I put my arms around her and hold her tight.

  The whole community gathers in the yard to see us off. It’s a clear, crisp morning, without a cloud in the sky. The sun has yet to top the ridge and a mist hovers over the paddocks. Yogi is saddled and laden with our gear. Rowdy hops around like a mad dog, eager to get going.

  We say our goodbyes, and Rachel hugs both of us. Jack shakes my hand the firmest, and James and Kate mumble their farewells. Harry has made his way out onto the porch and leans on one of the posts. He’s trying to keep his emotions in check but his voice wavers when he speaks. ‘You look after each other, now,’ he says.

  Willow can’t bring herself to look at us. Stella has Hope on her hip. She passes her to Kas, who lifts her up and kisses her. ‘I’ll see you soon,’ she says. Slowly, reluctantly, she passes her to me.

  Looking at her little face, I see so much of Rose looking back at me. Her hand curls around my finger. I kiss her on the forehead and give her back to Stella.

  Finally, Willow throws herself at me, almost knocking me over. ‘Bye, Finn,’ she says, her bottom lip quivering. ‘You’re my brother, now.’

  ‘And you’re my sister.’

  She nods her head and steps towards Kas, who struggles to pick her up. ‘You’re getting too big for this,’ Kas says.

  ‘Make sure you come back and see me,’ Willow says.

  Stella walks the first few metres with us, carrying Hope. She stops when we reach the gate into the top paddock and draws us both to her. ‘Willow’s right,’ she says. ‘You’re family, now. There will always be a home for you here.’

  She kisses both of us on the cheek and swipes a tear away. ‘Go now,’ she says. ‘Travel safe.’

  Kas leads Yogi through the gate and I follow with Rowdy.
When we reach the top fence we stop and look back down to the house. Everyone else has headed off to work but two figures stand in the yard, waving—Harry and Stella, supporting each other. Willow balances on a fencepost, her arms waving wildly and her mess of blonde curls flying in the wind.

  The journey home takes longer than we expect. Wherever our path is blocked by a fallen tree or branch we have to find a way of getting Yogi around it. Rowdy slows us down too. His wounds have healed but he’s lost a lot of condition. He struggles to walk for more than an hour without a rest.

  We spend a night in the bush just short of Pinchgut Junction. We get a fire going, and feed it through the night. There are still some glowing coals in the morning. By this stage we figure the hardest part of the trip is behind us, the rugged country along the ridge and the climb up the rock face with Yogi. He handled it better this time, but it was pretty sketchy for a while, not that Kas would let on. She reckons it was easier the second time round.

  By late afternoon on the second day we get our first glimpse of the coast, a line of deep blue on the horizon. The wind pushes the salt air up to meet us and I stop and fill my lungs with the smell of home. It reaches out to me, pulling me the last few kilometres. Kas senses it too. She’s stripped down to a singlet and shorts in the warm afternoon and sweat beads on her skin. She leads Yogi by the reins and smiles at me, shaking her head.

  ‘I see you, dog boy,’ she says, ‘sniffing the wind and walking quicker.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you don’t feel it, too?’

  ‘Not like you—I’m a farm girl, remember. I can barely swim.’

  ‘We’ll fix that over summer.’

  ‘You just want to see me in my undies,’ she laughs.

  ‘Never even thought about that.’

  We’ve been pretty casual about the journey up until now, confident that no one would have been made their way through to the coast while we’ve been gone. But as we get closer to Angowrie, we turn off the road so we can follow the bush tracks. We pass the ruins of the hayshed and the fence where I’ve trapped rabbits for the last three years. Finally, we reach the top of the ridge with a view over town. From up here it looks unchanged, the houses sitting down among the tea trees and moonah, the burnt-out shops along the main street and the big Shell petrol station sign standing above it all. I follow the river to its mouth where the even, breaking lines tell me the surf’s up.

  There’s no sign of life, no movement, no smoke, no noise—Angowrie looks just like it did when we left—dead, yet somehow alive.

  We walk cautiously down the hill to the bridge. As we get lower I hear the breaking waves echoing up the valley, a sound that brings a smile to my face. Rowdy pads along without a care in the world, happy to be in familiar surroundings. He pisses on every tree and gatepost, until he can’t have a drop left in him. We scout the bridge before crossing and quickly move up into the cover of the houses along the main road. I could navigate blindfolded from here. When we reach the driveway of the house in front of ours, we tie Yogi to a tree and follow the line of sheoaks to the back shed. From there, we get a clear view of the house.

  Straightaway I know there’s something wrong. Before we left we trashed the place to make it look like no one had been living here. We left the backdoor hanging by a single hinge and broke some windows. The door’s been rehung and plywood covers the broken windows. And there’s a wisp of smoke coming out of the chimney.

  Before I can grab him, Rowdy is at the door and inside. We hear the scraping of a chair on the floor and the door closes. I slide the rifle off my shoulder and check the bolt.

  ‘That you, Finn?’

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing but the voice is unmistakable.

  Ray steps out onto the porch and leans against the rail. ‘Took your bloody time,’ he says, a smile breaking across his weathered face.

  ‘Yeah,’ I say, trying to keep the excitement out of my voice, ‘we’ve been a bit busy.’

  I walk across the yard and he makes his way down the steps. I’m careful not to bowl him over but I hug him long and hard. ‘Shit, Ray, we thought you were dead.’

  ‘I feel like I am some mornings.’

  Kas stands beside us. I have to remind myself they hardly know each other—there were just the two days at Ray’s place when Hope was born. Still, he reaches out, pulls her to him and kisses her forehead. ‘Thought I’d lost you two,’ he says. ‘Come inside.’

  I never noticed the smell of my place before, I was so used to it. Now though, there’s the musty odour of damp furniture and wood smoke. It looks clean. Ray’s been here for a while.

  ‘I like what you’ve done with the place,’ I say.

  ‘Yeah, must have been a rough mob here before me. Left it looking like a pigsty,’ he says, his face giving nothing away.

  Kas struggles to understand this sort of conversation, the dry humour of it. She looks at one of us, then the other, shaking her head. ‘I never know when you’re being serious,’ she says.

  ‘It’s bloke talk,’ Ray says. ‘All bullshit.’

  He motions us to sit down as he stokes the firebox in the stove and puts the kettle on the hotplate. ‘I’ve been making tea from dried dandelion flowers. It tastes like cat’s piss but I’m getting used to it. I’ll make you a cuppa.’

  I’m still blown away that Ray’s alive. I’m so happy to see him but I want to know how he got here.

  ‘We went to your place, Ray. It was burnt to the ground. What happened out there?’ I ask.

  ‘Fuckers,’ he says, ‘excuse my French.’ He sighs and sits down opposite us at the table. ‘At the start of winter, three Wilders turned up. They were hunting for you two but when the storms hit they turfed me out into the shed and took over the house.’

  ‘Three?’ Kas says.

  ‘Yeah, why?’ Ray asks.

  ‘We met them when we went out to see you near the end of the winter,’ she says. ‘There were only two.’

  Ray looks past us to the stove.

  ‘They chased me off,’ he says. ‘Chased me off my own land, the bastards. But I killed one of them. Didn’t mean too. Got angry, that’s all.’

  ‘So they burned your house down,’ I say.

  ‘I don’t even know if they meant to. Thick as bricks, the other two. I reckon they knocked a lamp over.’

  He looks straight at us then, his head turned slightly to the side, questioning. ‘What happened when you found them there?’

  I look to Kas but her head is down and she runs a finger along the wood grain on the tabletop. ‘They won’t be bothering anyone again,’ I say, with a quick shake of my head so Ray doesn’t keep asking.

  He nods and gets to his feet. The kettle has boiled. He makes the tea and pours three cups. I take a sip. ‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘Cat’s piss.’

  We talk until the light falls away, telling Ray everything that’s happened since we left Angowrie. He smiles when he hears about Hope, and fumes when I show him the branding on my arm. ‘Treating people like animals! What’s the world come to?’ he says.

  Eventually, our stomachs remind us we’ve hardly eaten all day. Ray’s been tending my veggie patch in the house up the street and he’s discovered the chooks’ nest under the cypress trees.

  ‘Wasn’t hard to find where you hid the key to the stores,’ he says. ‘I haven’t used much but I had to change the gas bottle last week.’

  We feast on eggs, fried beans and baked potatoes. More than anything else, the meal brings me back home. I ate like this for two winters on my own and now here I am, back again and sharing food with Kas and Ray. Rowdy wolfs down a can of sausages in about ten seconds.

  With full bellies, our minds turn to survival again.

  Ray winks at me. ‘I reckon there’d be a heap of rabbits up in the farmland. I’d kill for a nice tender bunny cooked up with a few veggies.’

  ‘Abalone first!’ Kas says. ‘I want abalone.’

  ‘Crayfish. Mussels. Flathead,’ I say.

  It seems
like everything is possible again, that we’ll be able to do more than just survive. We’re pretty sure we’re safe, for the time being at least—we might even make it through the summer without having to worry about Wilders. And each day we’ll keep an eye out for JT and Daymu.

  After Ray has gone to bed, I take Kas out through the sheoaks at the back of the block. I don’t need a torch. I know every twist and turn in the track to the beach. I can just make out Rowdy ahead of us. He doesn’t turn to look; he knows where we’re going. Kas slides her hand behind my back and we walk arm in arm.

  We climb the steps to the platform as the moon rises out of the sea to the east. It spreads a pale yellow shimmer across the surface that looks like a path laid just for us. The glow catches the whitewater as the waves break along the sandbar to the river mouth. There’s barely any wind and the air is still warm. Now Kas pulls me along by my hand, down the dune to the open beach. When we get there she stops in front of me and smiles. She peels the jumper and singlet over her head and drops her shorts to the sand.

  ‘Come on, then,’ she says. ‘I might drown on my own.’ She turns and runs towards the water.

  I strip as quickly as I can and peel the bandage off my arm. She’s stopped at the edge, the waves touching her feet. ‘So cold!’ she yells, but I knock her off balance and she staggers into the water. The waves knock us off our feet again and again but we bob back up and hurl ourselves at them. Kas is squealing and laughing and so am I. Rowdy paces up and down on the sand, barking and snapping at the white water.

  The salt stings the burn on my arm but I know it’ll help it heal.

  Finally, we stagger back into the shallows. Kas is just ahead of me when she turns and opens her arms. Her body shines in the moonlight, glistening wet. I fall into her and I don’t think any force, no matter how strong, could pull us apart. She kisses me and I never want her to stop.

  We take our time to walk up the beach, me turning to follow each wave as it breaks on the bar. ‘I think I’ll have a surf in the morning, first thing,’ I say.