by P. J. Sky
I should have scrubbed that out long ago.
She thought of the salt plains, hauling heavy buckets up the hill to the quartermaster.
One more mark against my name, what’s it gonna be worth today Ari?
Her shoulders and the back of her neck still ached where she’d carried the metal yolk. With her left hand, she felt the little indent at the base of the back of her neck, smooth and angular where the yolk bit.
How many buckets of salt did I haul up that hill? I shouldn’t have even been there. I should have been in the city.
Ari thought of her bedroom in the city. Wrapped up in the darkness, between clean sheets, she’d watched the coloured lights twinkle along the spines of buildings.
Ari exhaled slowly. The heat in her gut began to subside. She opened her palm and, with her forefinger, she separated the two black lashes. As the light caught them, they released the slightest hint of blue.
Blue like Starla’s eyes.
Long ago, Ari had the vaguest memory of her mother once wearing something like these. She remembered the sweet, perfumed smell of her mother’s dressing table. She remembered drawing shapes in the spilt purple powder on the table top.
How many days had passed since then?
More than Ari could ever count.
Ari lifted one of the lashes between her thumb and forefinger and held it to the light. It was so delicate, like it might easily crush between her calloused fingertips, and so light she might not be holding anything at all.
Could I ever wear something like these? In some other life, somewhere in the city?
The idea was almost impossible, but only almost. To live the life she remembered, all those years ago. To live a life like Starla’s. A life where she could want things, just because. Like the beads. Like the porcelain. Like the lashes.
The life she deserved.
So Starla might be saved. Water might be found. The city might still be entered. The salt plains could be forgotten, along with the hunger and the thirst and the absence of any kind of future.
She could have her future back.
But there was still the danger. What good was all this hope if she was dead? Going up against whoever was following them was just plain stupid. Ari didn’t owe Starla her life. Ari didn’t owe her anything. But she’d dragged Starla out here and abandoned her in the wasteland. That was her doing and her failure.
The lump grew in Ari’s throat. She closed her fingers over the lashes and kicked the gravel with her boot.
“Dag it,” she said aloud.
Dag it all.
Then the air was broken by the crack of a gunshot.
∆∆∆
Starla closed her eyes and her mind drifted in and out of consciousness. She listened to the warm breeze drift around the rocks. The dog snuggled up against her thigh.
He should have a name, she thought. A dog needs a name.
Now Ari was gone, the dog allowed her to evade any nagging feelings of loneliness. She would sleep, then come up with a plan. All was not lost. She had shade and she was her father’s daughter. So far, as they always had, events had worked themselves out. Sleep was what she needed now. Rest and recuperation. And anyway, Ari would probably be back soon. Let her go off and sulk somewhere. The girl probably needed a little time out. Perhaps they both did. Somewhere, at the edge of consciousness, Starla thought she heard a low, warbling sound, rhythmic and lulling her to sleep.
Starla awakened to the sharp, agitated sound of the dog barking. Her heart froze.
What am I doing, alone in the middle of the desert?
Her hands began to shiver.
She clambered out from under the rock. Her head spun and her throat was dry. Her heart thumped erratically beneath the thin wall of her chest. The dog, perched on the top of a large, smooth boulder, stood alert, barking into the emptiness.
What does he see? Are there dingoes?
She pulled on her boots. Against the stiff leather, her blisters stung, and she balled her toes. She slung the empty canteen over her shoulder. The dog kept barking.
She cried, “What is it dog?”
Crackkk.
Starla’s heart jumped.
The sound of the gunshot echoed around the rocks. She looked back up the rock face.
The dog fell silent. Like a puppet whose strings had just been severed, its body crumpled. Leaving an angry red smear, its limp form slipped down the rock and came to rest in the dust.
Starla froze.
Three figures emerged over the rocks and began their descent. Starla recognised the bright red armbands. A scrawny young man brandished a large gun. The man with the milky eye. The other two, stocky and neckless, carried sticks like truncheons. The open sun reflected on their round, polished scalps. They looked like twins.
The man with the milky eye raised his gun. “Ya won’t give us no trouble now. Ya not gettin’ away this time.”
Starla started to shiver. She looked about, searching for some kind of escape. The boulders rose up on all sides. She had no weapons. She tried to move but her legs felt like lead. Her eyes fell back on the lifeless dog. She raised her hands.
Chapter 12
Gingerly, Ari peered over the top of the boulder. Red armbands. The big fella’s men.
If they don’t kill you Ari, they’ll send you to the ore mines.
Ari pushed the thought from her mind.
The party were making their way back towards the railway tracks. Starla stumbled with her head down, hands bound behind her back. A man walked behind, his gun raised. Every now and then, Starla would slip and one of the stocky men who walked beside her would grab her and pull her back up. Ari couldn’t see the dog.
Keeping low and careful to stay out of sight, she followed them across the rocks. All the while, she considered what to do next.
It’s my fault Starla was captured. I shouldn’t have left her under that rock. She was my responsibility. And if she’s anyone’s hostage, she’s mine. My way into the city. But what am I gonna do about it? I’m out numbered and out gunned. But I can get ahead of them at least.
Nimbly, she moved from rock to rock. By late afternoon, as she slipped back down onto the railway tracks, by her own approximation she was well ahead of the party.
She followed the tracks a short way back until she came to a battered, dusty vehicle. It looked ancient. Its open body, raised high off the ground on four chunky tyres, was covered in welts of red rust. Behind the wheels, long grooves cut into the red dust. Ari placed down her bag and climbed onto the vehicle.
Inside were four canvas seats, and a large bay at the back covered by a hinged steel plate with a padlock. Taking her fire-starter and blade, Ari broke open the lock. She lifted the lid.
Inside, two red jerry cans sat side by side. Ari twisted open the cap of the first and a strong, metallic smell emerged. Fuel. Replacing the cap, she tried the second, it didn’t smell of anything. She heaved it forwards and gently tipped it. Clear liquid splashed the canvas. Ari’s heart leapt. Water. She twisted back the cap, heaved the jerry can over the side of the vehicle, and lowered it to the ground.
She found a bag full of some kind of dried meat and threw it over the side of the vehicle too. In the corner of the bay sat a small rucksack. Ari knelt and opened it. Inside, held together with a rubber band, she found a pack of dogeared playing cards. Stars, hearts, people in crowns. Ari had seen the big fella’s men playing games with cards like these, but she didn’t know how to play. There were shirts and bits of old rag. Ari felt around for anything useful like a knife and her fingers found a small, hard box that rattled in her hands. It was wooden and its scratched surfaces looked old. Ari lifted the hinged lid. Embedded under the lid was a mirror.
It had been a long time since Ari had seen her reflection.
A jagged crack separated the two sides of her face. She inspected her blotchy, tanned skin, baked hard and drawn around her eye sockets and cheekbones. Her teeth looked yellow, a large chip in her left incisor.
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br /> At the bottom of the box was printed a picture of a girl in a big, blue dress with long blonde hair, a silver crown on her head. Across it rolled several spent bullet casings.
Ari snapped the box shut.
Ain’t got no use for a mirror anyway.
She stroked the fine bristles on the top of her head.
Ain’t got no use for you either. It’s too hot for hair.
Rising, Ari twisted open the cap of the other jerry can. She tipped it over and let the red liquid spill out over the interior of the vehicle. The strong, metallic smell stung her throat. She slipped back to the ground, re-shouldered her bag, and moved the water and meat behind a nearby rock.
Ari rooted inside her bag and pulled out Starla’s dress. In the late afternoon light, the blue fabric shimmered. She tore away a strip of fabric. When she returned to the vehicle, an evaporating haze had formed above the spreading fuel. Ari doused the fabric in the fuel and retrieved her fire-starter and flint. Two good strikes and the fabric burst into hot flames. She tossed the burning rag into the vehicle.
Yellow flames spread through the interior, licking around the seats and control instruments. Ari took a step back.
Then the vehicle exploded.
The force of the blast hurled Ari backwards.
∆∆∆
Starla saw the plume of orange flame peal into the sky. The explosion rolled around the rocks like thunder. The man with the milky eye raised the gun to her head.
“Where’s the other one?”
His one good eye bulged and his bottom lip started to tremble. His voice had a whine, like it had never properly broken.
“I told you,” said Starla. “She left me.”
“Where. Is. She?”
“How should I know? She left me. She didn’t care anymore. I told you, she’s gone.”
I’m not lying, thought Starla. She could be anywhere by now. I don’t see why she’d stick around, not with these guys waving a gun around.
In the man’s sickly thin fingers, the gun started to shudder. For just a moment, Starla wondered if he’d hit her with the gun barrel. There was something in the web of angry blood vessels around his iris, some restrained rage eager to escape. How long had he been holding onto his temper?
He lowered the gun barrel and kicked the ground. He looked at the other two men. “An’ what’re you two lookin’ at?”
Like mirror images, the men looked at each other and shrugged.
“So what’s your plan?” asked Starla. “To deliver me to the big fellow?”
“Well yeah, it just may be. An’ ya can count yourself lucky an all. Ya don’ really wanna be out ‘ere on ya own.”
Starla wasn’t sure which option was better, to try to escape, or to accept the relative security of these men and whatever awaited her with the big fellow. At least they probably had water. She looked at the twins. Stocky and neckless, across their bare, leathery chests, black blotches spread like spilt tar. These men seemed scared to touch her. When she stumbled, they lifted her gently in their big hands, as if to straighten some delicate flower that had fallen in the wind. Despite their size, they didn’t threaten her.
The man with the milky eye prodded her with the gun barrel. “So keep movin’.”
∆∆∆
Ari’s ears rang, and the rotten smell of burning fuel irritated her nostrils. Dazed, a stinging pain flowed up her left arm. She dragged herself to her knees and inspected her arm. On the inside, from wrist to elbow, was a fresh, red burn. Though tender, the skin hadn’t broken. It could have been worse. Ahead, thick black smoke spiralled upwards.
They won’t have missed that, thought Ari. And they won’t be going anywhere. Now they’ll be on foot, and they’ve lost their supplies.
Ari got to her feet and brushed some of the red dust and black flecks from her clothes. She limped back and recovered the water and her bag. She heaved the bag over her shoulder, lifted the jerry can, and hauled herself back onto the rocks.
She ate some of the meat and topped up her canteen. Carefully, she bathed her burn in some of the precious water. On contact, the hardened skin stung. She would have to ignore it. Where she’d fallen, a large blue bruise had formed at the top of her leg.
The big red sun slipped over the horizon and the dingoes began their long, haunting song. Ari placed her hand on her blade.
I’m one of you now, she thought. I’ve no dog, no gun, but tonight I join you in the darkness.
As the darkness grew, she left her position, kept her body low, and worked her way back over the rocks. Finally, she spotted four figures moving slowly towards her.
Starla’s probably tired, she thought. And she can’t move easily with her hands bound. She’s wearing them down and they’re getting sloppy. But I’m not. I’m like a dingo.
Close by, from somewhere among the nearby rocks, a dingo moaned. Ari froze.
It’s okay, she thought, tonight I’m one of you.
The figures had also stopped. Ari could just about make out muffled voices, but she couldn’t hear the words. Then they moved on.
Ari smiled.
∆∆∆
As darkness folded around them, and the dingoes began their chorus, the men pushed Starla on. At one point, a howl sounded close, and the men paused on the top of a rock. Starla squinted into the darkness, but couldn’t see anything.
“Bloody dingoes,” said the man with the milky eye.
We should have named the dog, thought Starla. He was a good dog, well behaved, and he was my friend. He deserved a name. And now there’s no dog to keep away the dingoes.
She felt a sudden hatred for the man with the milky eye.
How could he take him away?
One of the twins spoke. “We should be careful boss. Maybe we should stop?”
“They’re only dogs,” said the man with the milky eye. “We don’t stop till we’re back at the truck.”
Then, from right underneath them, moaned the distinctive call of a dingo.
Chapter 13
Ari hunched down underneath the rock and did her best impression of a dingo’s call.
“Ahooooooowhoo.”
She stuck her head out, confident that in the darkness she was all but invisible. Right above her, the gunman swung his gun barrel into the darkness between the rocks.
Ari reached up, grabbed his ankle, and pulled him down into the crevice.
The man yelped. There was a crack as the gun went off. Briefly, both were illuminated by a hard red flame. One of the gunman’s eyes looked bloodshot, the other milky white. Ari plunged her blade into the gunman’s chest.
Then darkness. Ari’s ears rang.
The man fell backwards and Ari came down on top of him. She twisted the blade. His hot body wriggled beneath her. She pulled out the blade and plunged it in again. Briefly, she felt it grate against bone. A shiver ran up her spine. Then the blade found a route between the ribs.
The body gurgled. Now, she could just make out its features in the moonlight. She withdrew the blade and grabbed the gun. She backed off from the body, allowing it to disappear into the darkness and out of her mind.
The two stocky figures were clambering down the sides of the rock. Starla was left alone. Ari scrambled up onto the rock and began to undo Starla’s binds.
“Ari?”
“Shhh…”
She struggled with the knots, then used the sticky edge of her blade. Below, she could hear the men moving around the rock. One of them cried out. There were frantic scratching sounds, followed by a low growl.
“Bruce,” called out one of the men.
“Dingoes,” whispered Ari. “Where’s the dog?”
“Dead. Are you hurt?”
“What?”
“The blood.”
Ari shook her head. “It ain’t mine.”
Below, an anguished cry that barely sounded human was cut short.
An animal yelped.
On the other side of the rock, one of the men scrambled up and Ari
met him with the gun barrel.
“They got Bruce,” he said.
Ari began to compress the trigger.
The moonlight caught the man’s eyes and they looked like those of a child. Ari hesitated. The man let go of his stick and raised his hands. The stick slid off the rock into the darkness.
“They got Bruce,” he repeated.
Ari read his thoughts as if they were her own. He was lost and alone in a vast and unforgiving desert. Out here, there was no one to save him. So he did what he could to survive, played the cards he’d been dealt. Perhaps he wasn’t a bad man. Perhaps she wasn’t a bad woman. Ari took her sticky finger from the trigger.
This ain’t my blood.
From between the rocks, a huge dog pounced and sank its teeth into the man’s torso. He didn’t even cry out as he was dragged down into the darkness.
∆∆∆
“Okay, what now?” asked Starla.
Ari and Starla stood in darkness on the top of the rock. They could hear the dingoes prowling below. Ari knew it was just a matter of time.
“I dunno.”
“Thanks, by the way,” said Starla.
“For what?”
“Coming back.”
“Well, for now ya can save it. We ain’t out of this yet.”
Gingerly, Ari explored the gun. She’d never held one before. It wasn’t as heavy as she’d thought. She’d seen the big fella’s men carry them, as they patrolled along the edge of the salt plains. From down on the salt, the guns had always looked heavy and cumbersome. Now in her hands, it seemed light and agile. She wondered how many more shots it had. Maybe there were more bullets with the gunman’s body? Or back at the vehicle? Not that either would do her much good now.
I guess there wasn't much point in burning the vehicle.
Below, the whining had stopped. The world had fallen strangely still.
Starla whispered, “Maybe they’ve gone?”
Ari shook her head. “They ain’t gone nowhere.” They’d got the scent now, and no dog to deter them. It was crazy that a little mutt like that could ward off these monsters. Well, thought Ari, the big fella’s men came all the way out here with this gun. This thing better mean business.