I laugh. ‘She’s smart.’
Emery smiles. ‘Yeah, her great-great-grandfather was one of the first foreign people to come to Australia. He was a camel herder from Afghanistan. She says she’s got the blood of a camel trader in her veins. If you lie to her, she says she can smell it. She points at you right in the nose and says you smell like camel dung. Don’t lie to her, Baby Bell, if you know what’s good for you.’
‘No way!’ I promise. Already I’m terrified of his gran.
‘Anyway, Ba said that all this land used to be full of fields of grains way back before any foreigners came to Australia. He says our people used to harvest it with long blades of sharpened stone and grind it into bread, even before the Egyptians. So he travelled around until he found some of the old grains and talked to people about the ways to store it, and he’s been saving it and growing it ever since.’
‘Really?’ I ask. ‘Will he still have it? Or will it be all dead from red fungus too?’
‘I don’t know. We experimented making these clay store mounds like the old ways until we got it right and that last summer, before the grass died, before the city shut down. Even though Ba was sick, we got a whole pile stored. I don’t know if he kept going.’
‘Maybe it was safe in the mounds you made.
Maybe it’s still there?’ And I’m secretly hoping that means there’s warm, fresh bread waiting for us at Christmas’s. I can’t even remember what bread tastes like no more but that don’t stop my tongue from licking my lips and my stomach from growling for it.
‘I made one into an anthill shape for a joke, and Ba made me make them all into anthills. He said he didn’t want people stealing them, and who’d be stupid enough to steal an anthill?’
‘So what if he didn’t tell anybody? They could still be there, sitting round, people thinking they really are just anthills!’ I shout because the wind is so loud now. Roaring and slapping at the tent.
‘This is why we should’ve come up here ages ago. We should’ve come straight up soon as the grass died, before the city got locked down and then ran out of food,’ Emery says.
I’m thinking if we did, maybe Emery wouldn’t be hurt, and we wouldn’t have to ride the dog cart for weeks, all of us so starving, but we would’ve still had to leave Mum behind.
‘You’re right,’ I say. ‘We didn’t know Mum wouldn’t come back in time.’ I burst into tears. I’m thinking of all the things that happened to us, and how angry Emery was back home when we were waiting so long for Mum, and how close his grandparents’ place is now, and him not knowing how they’re going all this time, and it’s all too much. ‘You were so mad!’ I say. ‘I heard you telling Dad we had to go. But he couldn’t. I couldn’t. Coz Mum.’
‘Shh, Bell.’ Emery rubs my back. ‘We’re a family. We shouldn’t be leaving anyone behind. I’m sorry I said it.’
I sniff. ‘Really?’
‘Yep.’ He smiles. ‘Now I’m only mad that I got hurt and you gotta take care of me, and your mum’s gotta rescue Dad. I wanna be the hero.’
I dry my eyes and put my head on Emery’s chest, listen to his heart thud, don-dom, don-dum, hard to hear over the whacking and flapping of the tent walls. ‘You already did lots of hero stuff, you need to learn to share.’ There’s a wild howl of wind, high up above us. The dogs all sit up. I sit up too. All of us looking up at the tent roof, listening to the wind. I wanna open the door and look outside, but this noise, this whining from the sky, it’s terrifying. It’s like the sky is trying to suck us up.
I grab the loop at the centre of the tent roof and pull it down. Even though the dogs are yipping and yowling and complaining like mad, howling back at that sky, I pull that tent roof low, squashing the dogs to their bellies. The loop jumps and burns at my fingers, the wind trying to lift up the tent. The branches we stacked around the tent scrape and bump, like the wind is tearing them off. Emery reaches up his good arm and grabs the loop too, as the wind gets up to roaring like an angry monster, and dogs go squirming and panicking over us, toenails scratching, looking for somewhere to run. Dust streams in through the vents. We cough and squint, blinking dust, and so do the dogs, coughing and yipping and squirming to run away.
‘Sit! Drop!’ Emery yells in his loud mean voice, and five dogs get lower. Wolf presses his head under Maroochy’s belly, like he can burrow to safety under her.
The wind is so strong, our tent is a kite, and all that’s keeping us from sailing away is a few tent pegs and the weight of us and five big dogs. None of us heavy enough, it seems. We’re all too skinny.
The loop in my and Emery’s hands leaps and jerks and finally tears from the tent. The tent bends sideways, the pole bent over our heads, banging hard against my shoulder, hurting. Then it snaps, and the ends go bouncing and smacking at our heads. We get down, me with my arms out, over the dogs, trying to keep them still, hoping they don’t get even more spooked by being slapped by those tent sticks. The branches outside the tent crack and slide over us, scraping my back, and fly off.
‘Are you okay?’ I yell at Emery, who’s curled around Maroochy’s head, him maybe thinking that if she’s calm, all the other dogs will be as well.
‘Yeah!’ he yells.
We crouch that way for ages. Just hanging on. Me, wondering why the wind has turned on us as well. My back gets heavy. The tent sucks in on us. Dirt lands on the tent, squashing it, making it flat, reclaiming its land, and the wind lets up a bit.
‘It’s okay,’ I yell, breathe, cough. ‘It’s okay.’
I sit up, but a massive roar crashes down on us and I’m pushed back over the dogs. The tent rips! My hair flies up, and I’m clinging to Wolf with one arm and Emery’s legs with the other, my eyes shut against the dust, my face buried in Wolfy’s fur. A sleeping bag slides out from under my legs and it’s off into the wilds. The dust stings and burns at my neck and hands and I can’t feel the other dogs anywhere, it’s like they’ve been blown away, but I can’t let go of Wolf or Emery, to find them, or open my eyes with raggedy bits of tent whipping at my head, dirt rasping at my face. And then the wind drops, slams at me a few times, then gives up.
The howling moves away across the country. Dirt falls, pattering on my back like a soft rain. And we are left alive once more.
I let go of Emery’s legs and wipe my eyes. Dirt falls from my hair. Emery is okay, sitting up. Wolfy sneezes beside me. Stands up and shakes, adding another cloud of dust to the haze. The other dogs come running back to see if we’re okay.
We crawl from the ripped and broken tent. The dogs gallop around, getting rid of their fear by sniffing everything to see it’s safe, and sneezing coz there’s still too much dust and wind. I slap the dirt off my clothes, cough some more, help Emery stand up. We look around. Dust hangs like a fog across the land.
‘We’ll go,’ Emery says, hauling the dog cart back upright with his good hand from where it’s tipped over, wedged against a scrubby tree.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘I was going to say tonight we should go, but look how we can’t see into the distance, we’ll go now, no one will see us.’
‘But Mum said tomorrow!’
‘We’re out of food, we’ve lost our water bottles and our tent. We should move while we can.’
I look around. All that’s left on the floor of the torn tent is Emery’s sleeping bag, the rifle, and the pile of harnesses, where he was lying. Emery saved them. I didn’t save a thing, not my hoodie, not my sleeping bag, not even the pot or water bottles.
I move off in the direction of the wind thinking I can find the water bottles, maybe, the pot, my sleeping bag... but everything is a haze of red dirt.
‘We can spend time setting up camp again, or we can move, Ella,’ Emery says from behind me. Then, ‘What do you think?’ Like he meant it to be a question not an order.
I wonder how long we can last, the seven of us, sitting here, waiting for Mum and Dad, with no food and no shelter. I nod. ‘I’ll scrape out the hole so we can have a drin
k first,’ I say, and stumble off towards the bank.
It’s hard to see where the hole was, and when Maroochy comes, I scrape at the ground and ask her to sniff, and finally she picks a place and starts digging, and it’s our hole, just collapsed in a bit, with dirt blown over it.
We all get a drink, me and Emery down on our bellies, lifting the water to our mouths with one hand. It’s like I can’t drink enough for what’s ahead. I shove a bit of tent pole into the hole, right in the middle, so that if Mum does come back this way, she’ll find it.
Then I harness up the dogs and clip them into the gang rope. Roll up the sleeping bag and stow it in the basket, along with the rifle. The pouch on the handlebars still holds the knife and the lighter and a few other things, but we haven’t got much left...and our map is gone.
‘How will we stay on course?’ I ask.
Emery squints at the dust ahead. ‘I think I’ll know from here.’
So when he’s sitting with his feet in the basket, I push the cart out and yell, ‘Line out!’ then ‘Hike! Hike! Mush!’ and the dogs throw themselves forwards, feet scrabbling at the dirt until the cart gets moving. And here we are once again. Two kids and five big dogs, heading into the red dust, hoping it all works out. It’s just gotta work out.
By the time the sun dips low, Emery’s face is screwed up in pain, but he sits with his feet in the basket, squinting at the surrounding countryside, and asking me do I see a dirt road over that way, or a line of trees might be a creek that way. And when I answer, he says, ‘Gee a bit, Roochy, gee a bit!’ like it means something. He’s saying it through his teeth like his whole jaw is locked tight.
Finally he starts crying. ‘I can’t handle this bumping. Find me a shed or something. Get Dad to come back for me.’
‘Woah! Woah!’ I say to the dogs, and I get the cart stopped. Right there in the open.
‘I’m not leaving you, Emery,’ I say. ‘And anyway, you’re the only one who knows the way to the mushroom caves. We’re gonna keep going like Mum said.’
Emery crawls from the cart and lies groaning in the dust. I get the dogs to all have a sit-down too, they shouldn’t be running in the afternoon. They’re not built for heat.
‘Come on, Emery. Just a while longer, then you can sleep. We’ll do it bit by bit.’ I help him sit up. He hauls himself back into the cart.
‘Mush, doggos! Hike! Hike!’ I yell, and the dogs take off again. Trotting along real slow, tongues out and flapping, like they could go forever at this pace. Wolf though, he’s tired. Instead of throwing himself into the harness, he’s running along with his head down and almost tucked under Bear’s chest, like he needs to feel safe. I don’t mind that he’s not pulling, if he can just keep running and not ride on the cart making it heavier for the other dogs, that’s enough. And if Emery can just keep telling me where to go, that’s enough too. We’re all doing the best we can.
Dust gets whipped up in my face, and Emery keeps coughing until he stands up. The wind gets worse. Giant whirlwinds sail across the bare dirt and all the dogs are trotting with their heads down, sneezing now and then. I’m worried another windstorm will hit, but at least this wind will hide our tracks from anyone bad out here.
We keep going, down into ditches and up the other side, past sheds and farm buildings, me blinking the grit from my eyes, watching for any movement. The dust we’re kicking up swirls away to join the rest of the dust blowing around.
We pull into one farm that looks really deserted, and I try the taps near the sheds, but the pipes are dry. So we rest in the shade for a while and carry on. I’m thinking one of the dogs is going to collapse from dehydration for sure.
Emery’s back sitting with his feet in the basket, a bit floppy-headed, not giving any more directions, and the dogs’ toes are scraping in the dirt when I see a dam. There’s a twisty old willow tree, a nice high bank on one side, a pile of bulrushes and wild brown grass around the edge. The first actual grass we’ve seen in forever.
‘Haw!’ I say and turn the dogs towards it. I stop them under the tree and get off. There’s movement in the grass and I grab the knife and a stick from beside the tree and run over there. A snake! A big snake and it’s not very happy to see me. It lunges at me as I leap back. I’ve got the knife in one hand and the stick in the other, and I’m not sure what to do. This snake could feed the dogs.
Maroochy is barking behind me and Emery is shushing her and holding her back, and calling me back, telling me to get away, but I gotta kill the snake in case Maroochy gets to it and gets bitten. I’m no hunter. I don’t ever want to kill anything, but this snake’s not going to slither off into the dusty nothing.
I stab the stick down, trying to pin its head, and it lunges at the stick. I stomp my boot down right on it, but it dodges and lunges at my leg, gets a mouthful of jeans, and I get my other foot on its body straight away. I gotta keep it from moving, but it’s twisting under my boot. It’s twisting around to bite at my boot stomped down on its back. I knock its head away with the stick and stab the knife right through it, into the ground, then fall, off balance from shoving both feet and both hands in the same direction fast as I could. I land on my knees, watching the snake with the knife sticking from its head as it twitches and dies.
Snake for the dogs! I laugh, panicky tears running down my face. My hands are still shaking as I cut the snake into seven pieces. One for me and one for Emery too. I give each dog a piece and unclip them from the gang rope, ’cept for Wolf who I drag to sit on the sleeping bag beside Emery. I give them both a piece of snake. Emery looks at it and back at me, then he tears at the skin with his teeth, and chews at the meat just like the dogs are doing.
‘We gotta learn to walk on our heads,’ he says and laughs, like he don’t think it’s funny at all to be chewing on raw snake.
‘Or turn into a doggo,’ I say, sitting down beside him.
‘Woof!’ he says, and tears at the skin again.
I think we’ve both gone a bit wild.
The snake skin is tough and warm, and the meat is disgusting, but my stomach is so empty it’s turning inside out with aching, and it’s telling me to put anything into it. So I try not to breathe in the smell, just tear little pieces of meat off the bones and chew and chew till it’s not anything but mush, and swallow.
The other dogs are finished, and they come edging around to see if I’ve got any scraps for them. I keep all the bits of skin and bone I can’t eat till the end, and share them out. Then all the dogs drink from the dam, getting mud up their legs, until they’re all black on the lower half, and stretch out under the tree next to us and sleep. We wade into the mud and drink too, chew on some bulrushes till our jaws are sore, then I sleep. Knife one side of me, rifle the other, and five big dogs. The wind flaps the tree branches around above us, but even that don’t keep me awake. I’m so tired.
I wake early with the first bit of light and climb to the top of the bank with Roochy and look around. The wind is still wild, parting Maroochy’s fur and blowing dust in my eyes, but dust is still the only thing moving out here.
I get the cart and the dogs ready to go again. I check their paws, and poor Squid has a split on his back paw that he’s been licking at but he’s not limping. I get out the knife and cut him a little boot from the front of my T-shirt and tape it together with a strip of enormous silver tape that I borrow from Emery’s arm.
Emery has dark circles under his eyes and his lips are cracked, but he gets another drink and climbs back on the cart. With the morning sun low and in our eyes, we set off again.
We go all morning. Just an hour and a rest and another hour and a rest. We sleep for a while in the middle of the day, in the shade of a big old tree, then we go on again, and I can’t hardly even keep watch. I can’t even get excited seeing there’s clumps of brown grass out here, pushing up through the flat weeds, struggling in the shadow of prickles, grass heads flicking against the cart coz I can’t steer round them. My head is so heavy, my arms hard to lift, my legs
ache to sit down. My throat is all scratchy dust. The dogs are trotting, heads down. All of us weighed down by dirt and dust and empty bellies. All of us thirsty and so dry we could blow away. But suddenly Maroochy swerves and growls and stops. I haul on the brake. There’s a man standing there, beside a pile of scrubby trees, with a rifle pointing right at us.
‘Where d’ya think you’re going?’ he yells.
Emery is on his feet in a flash. Still the big brother. ‘We’re just passing through!’ he yells. ‘We don’t want no trouble.’
‘Where are you heading?’ the man asks.
‘My ma’s place,’ Emery says.
‘Who’s that?’ the man asks.
‘None of your business,’ Emery says.
The man laughs. ‘Cheek like that I’d recognise anywhere. You Chrissy’s boy?’
Emery nods. ‘You know my ma? Is she okay?’
‘I seen her two days ago,’ he says. ‘She trades mushrooms and pumpkins for meat every now and then.’ He holds up his other hand and he’s got four possums hanging in a bunch by their tails. ‘We gotta eat what the land gives us.’
‘How far away are we now?’ Emery asks.
‘Maybe three hours walking,’ the man says, and he tilts his head and looks at the dogs. ‘Probably two for you if these bags of bones can keep going.’ The man unhooks two possums and holds them out to us.
I jump off and run and get them.
‘Thank you,’ I say.
‘You boys look like you been in the wars,’ he says.
I look down, the mud, the dust, the torn clothes, the snake blood, and I nod. ‘There’s mean people back there.’
The man nods too. ‘You should push on, see how far you get. You could almost get to the house tonight before it gets too dark. I’ll let the others know it’s okay to let you through.’ He takes out a mirror and flashes it at a distant hill. The hill flashes back.
I hang the possums over the handlebars and open my mouth to tell the man that Mum and Dad are right behind us, but then I look at Emery and he’s shaking his head.
The Dog Runner Page 11