by T. H. Moore
The elderly women motioned for the young girls to lie in the freshly dug earth. “Don’t be afraid, children. Do as we say.”
The other elder women walked over to the shelter, where several large pails stood. They each gripped a handle and dragged their pail toward the holes. When they reached the edges of the shallow holes where the girls lay, all the elders chanted in unison some words that were inaudible to Charles.
After a few moments, they stopped, and the leader said, “Remove your garments.”
The firelight barely reached the girls’ bodies. Charles watched their shadows disrobe before lying in the beds dug for them in the ground. The older women poured pails of water on the girls. They shrieked.
Charles felt a throb in his loins, which sparked the ache in his skull.
The women mounded dirt on top of the girls until only their heads poked out. They muttered blessings and stroked their faces with mud. When the last girl had received her baptism, the girls rose to approach the fire. Beige paste clung to their lithe, glowing forms. The girls whirled in a dance that allowed the flames to bake the soft mud into a hard body-shell.
The elders approached with bowls of pigment and painted red and white spots on their shoulders and breasts. They tossed sprays of white flowers and feathers over the girls’ heads and adorned their chests and arms with armor made from woven hair. For the final rite, the elders pierced each girl’s nose with a thin-whittled stick of birch bark. The girls accepted the pain without protest.
“You are a woman now. Go find your husband.”
One by one, the girls wandered back to the village road. Charles lay in the brush, awaiting the one he wanted.
She was one of the last few to leave the fire’s glow and the elder’s arms. He tracked her, timing his steps to match hers. Every crunch of dirt and gravel resonated in unison. He watched her hips, her calf muscles, her curved back. He was twenty-eight feet away, twenty-four, eighteen, twelve, six. She was so close that, if she had stopped, he would have crashed into her.
“Abaroo,” he whispered.
She dropped her bouquet of Buddha leaves and looked over her shoulder.
Charles swept her from her feet. He had meant for this first touch to be gentle, but he slammed her to the ground. She lay bare and unaware before him.
Charles’s migraine returned. He tried to ignore the pain. He pulled his clothing off, yanked Abaroo’s thighs open, and pressed himself against the unconscious virgin.
His penis refused his desires and remained flaccid. Determined, he stroked it and fingered Abaroo’s unwelcoming vagina. He pulled harder on himself, but his body refused to respond. He fingered the girl more vehemently. His forehead wrinkled, his temples tightened, and his jaw ached. The dull pain in his head intensified.
For several minutes, he tried in vain to rape the daughter of the man and woman who had saved his life.
The girl rolled her head and fluttered her eyes. Blood stained the creases of his fingers and trickled over onto his hand. She screamed, then fell back, unconscious.
The high pitch of the scream yanked Charles out of his tantric focus on his failing erection and back into the reality of the situation. He jumped on top of the young girl and covered her mouth with his hands, trapping her under the weight of his body.
The thin and panicked child again awoke and tried to fight him off, but Charles slipped his hands from her mouth to around her throat and squeezed in a rage. He looked around to see if the elder women had heard anything.
When he again looked down at the girl, he found her staring at him. She might have become a woman in the ceremony according to her village custom, but he could see in her eyes glittering at him in the dark that his molestation had removed all innocence from her soul. She gasped for air while despair and panic filled her eyes. Tears ran down the sides of her face.
Charles grew even angrier as he realized with every passing moment that, even after taking this incredible risk, he was failing to satisfy the urge undulating in his gut like ocean waves. Abaroo grew weak beneath his grip. He glared at her, furious. He needed her to fight. To get up. But she was falling out of consciousness again.
He raised his right arm in the air and brought it down hard on Abaroo’s face, pulverizing her nose. He did it again and again until blood spattered in all directions.
He paused, breathing hard. Her breath had grown shallow, her chest barely rising and falling beneath his thighs. This was the first time in his life, since he’d begun making other children pay for the life he’d been given, that he’d failed to consummate an attack.
He stared down at her bloody face and realized that in his frustration he’d hit her too hard. She was no longer breathing.
Even so, his penis remained limp. He had failed. Something was different. Something had changed.
Chapter 20
WHEN CHARLES RETURNED TO ELAINA, she was asleep. As he watched her, a gust of wind swept by, carrying an odor he had detected earlier while Elaina was ducked behind the brush they were using as a makeshift toilet. He traced the scent, and the aroma grew stronger until he found the discarded rag Elaina had used to clean herself.
The odor and color of the rag revealed what Elaina was trying to conceal. Her captors had left her with not only a bastard to carry but also gonorrhea.
He dropped the soiled cloth and walked back over to their camp, gathering the supplies before shaking her awake.
“What’s wrong?” she murmured.
“We have to go,” Charles insisted.
“You said first light,” Elaina groused. “It’s still dark. Leave me alone.”
“Now!” His voice was high, urgent. He hated the sound of it and loathed the fear that had knotted in his chest.
“Now? Why now?” She sat up.
“It’s not safe for us here,” he said, pulling her to her feet. “Stay if you want, but I’m leaving. Good luck surviving pregnant and on your own.”
“Charles, what’s happened?”
He didn’t reply.
She sighed, shook her head, and grabbed the small bundle of clothes she had used as a pillow and stuffed them into the burlap bag.
He checked the cap on the gallon container of water he had taken from Oodgeroo’s kitchen and motioned for Elaina to hurry after him into the darkness of the Northern Territory. She obliged but still looked confused. Through the pitch dark, they moved swiftly in silence as Charles led them into the vast unknown.
“We’re going to keep moving north by northwest until we reach Darwin, just like we originally planned,” he said. “As soon as we’re safe, we go our own ways.”
“What the hell’s going on, Charles?” she demanded again.
He ignored her inquiries. After a while, Charles glanced over and read her expression to mean that she wasn’t going to let this go. He kept a hurried pace and hoped some sense of loyalty or faith would keep her moving with him, trusting him. Since he had saved her life, maybe there was room for such a thing, even if it would surely be temporary.
~~~
They traveled all night without stopping. Charles needed to ensure that he put as much distance between them and the village as possible before the sun rose.
Between his rewired libido and the migraines, he began to wonder whether his hyper-intelligence from the KPP procedure was more of a curse than a gift. It had been so long since he had enjoyed the comfort of one of his shales, and last night’s debacle increased his frustration. Hours of effort with nothing to show for it. Now they were retreating into the dark, hoping to cover their escape route. Once the girl’s body was found, they would hunt for him.
When dawn crept up, purple and rose, he turned to look at Elaina. She was pallid, with dark circles under her eyes.
“We can rest for fifteen minutes,” Charles said, averting his eyes from her. “Then we start again for two hours. Then we rest again
.”
She said nothing. Charles realized that he was also exhausted, but nonetheless, he quietly counted out the nine hundred seconds he had regimented for their rest period.
“And then what, Charles?” Elaina interrupted. “You expected us to walk around the clock? At some point, we must eat, drink, and sleep. This pace isn’t realistic.”
“I know. Just a little while longer, to put more distance between ourselves and the village. But until then, we rest for fifteen minutes after we walk a steady seventeen thousand and six hundred paces.” He turned away from her again.
“Seventeen thousand and six hundred paces?” she mimicked him, snickering.
“Of course,” Charles said. “It’s ten miles.”
Elaina opened her mouth but said nothing.
~~~
About halfway through the first 17,600 paces, they reached a high point on the land. As Charles and Elaina looked around the panoramic view of the landscape, they could see only dry, orange earth with specks of foliage. The best of the sparse vegetation were trees, perhaps the height of an adult, bearing only a few brittle leaves. To the east stood some small mountains. It was a bare but serene beauty, yet neither Charles nor Elaina could appreciate it.
Charles scanned the surrounding area for somewhere to rest, then looked at Elaina. The once rich tan tone of her face was now pale as she hunched over. He kept one eye turned in the direction from where they had come.
“You expect someone to be following us, Charles?” Elaina inquired with sarcasm.
Charles just kept rotating, his hand shielding his eyes. “There,” he pointed. “Just a little while longer. We’ll use some of our clothes and the blanket to create a canopy and get some sleep until nightfall.” He resumed walking, heading toward a small collection of brush and boulders.
She caught up to him. Her stare was piercing in the opposite direction of Charles’s designated area. “Why aren’t we going over there?” she asked, pointing at a large hill in the distance. “We can probably find a cave to better shield us from the sun there. And why in the hell are we resting during the day when we can see where we’re going? I’m tired of tripping on things in the dark.”
Charles sighed. “The temperature is going to rise soon, and fast. That hill you’re talking about is Uluru Rock. It’s the wrong direction, and four times farther than the brush. If we travel during the day, we’ll use more energy and consume more water and food. Trust me. In an hour, you’ll see what I mean.”
He was trying to be reasonable and keep his voice measured, but he could see she was reaching her limits of frustration.
Elaina stopped walking. After taking a few more paces, Charles looked back at her. She pursed her lips, hefted the supplies in her arms, and continued in his direction.
As he had predicted, they arrived in about an hour. They made haste creating their shelter as they raced the rising sun.
Even in scant clothing, the two perspired profusely as they struggled to sleep on the burning hot ground. Elaina was restless, unable to find a comfortable position. She rolled over and watched Charles breathing, unsure if he was asleep or just resting.
She sat up and reached for the water bottle to sneak a swallow or two. If Charles noticed a change in the level, he would be furious. When the first drops hit her parched lips, Elaina had to resist the urge to drink it all. She sipped while maintaining her peripheral vision on Charles.
Then she saw something moving in the distance. Elaina squinted again toward the horizon and saw a small band of men walking in a fan formation. They were carrying spears.
She placed the cap back on the bottle and returned it to its spot.
“Charles?” she whispered, crawling onto him while she shook his arm. Her eyes were wide and afraid.
Charles startled and rose up to a seated position to look. His heart pounded at the sight of the aborigine search party headed toward them. He leapt to his feet and began pulling their shelter apart.
“What’s wrong? What did you do, Charles?” she asked. “What are you keeping from me? Whatever you did, it’s on you, not me.”
“If you want to take that chance, then go right ahead.” He glared at her. “But the supplies come with me. If they catch you, you won’t need them and I won’t be coming to save you, again.” He grabbed the supplies and walked off in a hurry.
She looked back at the search party to discover that they had picked up their pace and were headed right at them. Elaina shuddered from an immediate and visceral recall of the last time multiple strange men descended upon her. She scurried after him.
Charles looked back and slowed enough for her to catch up with him.
“Wait, where are we going?” she whispered. “This isn’t the same direction as Darwin.”
“We’re headed to Uluru Rock.” Charles pointed at the large hill that Elaina had spotted the day before. He glanced up to check on the search party’s progress. He opened the jug and gulped down a mouthful of water before passing it to Elaina.
“What if they don’t give up?” she queried.
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” Charles replied, his eyes narrowing. He didn’t want to tell her that they were in for a fight. After what he’d done, the search party were not going to give up.
When Elaina was looking down, he glanced at the men’s progress. Two of the fittest men from the group had surged ahead a hundred yards from the rest.
Charles explained that they needed to run the last fifty yards to the opening at the face of the mountain. She nodded. Then they shared what was left of the water and went for it.
Despite having little energy, they both dug deep and found a way to sprint. Charles entered first and pressed himself against the rock wall. When Elaina arrived seconds later, he pulled her close and positioned her out of view. She collapsed as she gasped for air. He peered through the entrance of the cavern to gauge how far back their pursuers were.
Charles noted that one of the lead men had surged ahead of the other. He looked right at Charles, and they locked eyes. It was Mandawuy. He pointed his spear at Charles and yelled something to the other men.
Charles turned back into the cavern, which opened into an even larger area, and pulled Elaina along with him. She stumbled back onto her feet as they traveled deeper into the cavern, soon disappearing into vast recesses of darkness.
“The only way they’ll find us is if they fall over us,” Charles said as he guided Elaina through a virtual pedestrian’s puzzle of rocks, stalagmites, and stalactites.
Moments later, they entered an enormous opening in the cavern. Ancient cave markings covered the walls. These walls rose to meet a ceiling a hundred feet above, culminating in a large hole at the top that allowed a glimpse of a blue sky littered with milky-white clouds.
Charles counted five different portals that likely led to even deeper caves. Not safe without supplies, he determined. He surveyed the walls around and above him. There were different levels of uneven rock that led to higher areas where small crevasses and caves had been naturally forged.
“We’ll hide up there,” Charles said, nodding toward the upper level. He removed his shirt and threw it on his back. He motioned for Elaina to do the same. “Now, run over the entire area,” he instructed. “Make as many tracks into the dirt floor as you can. We need to make them think we left. Put some that lead to those different exits.” Charles ran in all directions, Elaina followed suit, and they circled back.
Charles started climbing the wall. Using the protruding rocks as hand- and footholds, he scaled to a higher level of the rock formation. He reached the ledge, turned, and reached for Elaina. The power in her grip surprised him. He couldn’t help but marvel at her strength. Within a few minutes, they had reached a suitable hiding spot.
They maneuvered their way into the deep but tight cave, maybe four feet across and four feet high. Charles crawled i
n on his belly feet first, followed by Elaina. Charles reasoned that the darkness of the small cave provided the perfect cover. They had the vantage point to see what Mandawuy and his hunting party were doing without being seen.
Charles and Elaina each retrieved a weapon from the supplies and waited. With no room to spare, he pressed his back against the wall while she took up what remained of the cave floor on her stomach.
The lack of room forced their bodies to touch. Elaina could feel his stale breath with every exhalation, even through her thick head of hair. She heard his breathing intensify. Then she turned to glare down at him and his obvious signs of arousal as she moved away against the opposite wall. She clutched her weapon, her face full of contempt.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he reached down to adjust his erection. “I really don’t understand what’s happening. Ever since the surgery—”
“Shh!” Elaina hissed.
Their pursuers had just entered the cavern. Charles moved into the space that Elaina had evacuated and peeked over the ledge to spy on the aborigines.
Mandawuy paused and knelt to analyze the tracks in the dirt. Charles listened to the conversation.
“Look at the tracks,” Mandawuy said. “They lead into one of those caves exiting here. They couldn’t have gotten very far.” He pointed his long spear across the cavern toward one of the exits. He motioned the others to follow until he abruptly stopped to analyze the ground again.
“Their footprints lead everywhere like they’ve split up. You two go in that direction.” He gestured. “And you two go there. I’ll go in this one. Travel no more than two hundred paces and then return. Then we’ll determine our next move.”
“Looks like it worked,” Elaina whispered to Charles.
“Maybe,” Charles said. “We’ll have to see what they do when they don’t find us.”
