Vulture's Gate

by Kirsty Murray

  Kirsty Murray was born in Melbourne, the middle child in a family of seven kids. She spent years travelling around Australia and the world, trying dozens of jobs and living in different countries, finally returning to become a full-time writer. Kirsty is the author of eight novels. She lives in Melbourne with her husband and a drifting tribe of young people.

  OTHER NOVELS BY KIRSTY MURRAY

  Zarconi’s Magic Flying Fish

  Market Blues

  Walking Home with Marie-Claire

  CHILDREN OF THE WIND

  Bridie’s Fire

  Becoming Billy Dare

  A Prayer for Blue Delaney

  The Secret Life of Maeve Lee Kwong

  First published in 2009

  Copyright © Kirsty Murray 2009

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander St

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

  Murray, Kirsty.

  Vulture’s gate / Kirsty Murray.

  ISBN: 978 1 74175 710 1 (pbk.)

  For secondary school age.

  A823.3

  Cover and text design by Ruth Grüner

  Cover images: James Nelson/Getty Images (crows in field), Jason Walton/istockphoto.com (barbed wire), AskinTulayOver/ istockphoto.com (birds), Paul Tessier/istockphoto.com (vulture), sn4ke/istockphoto.com (kids)

  Set in 11.2 pt Adobe Caslon Pro by Ruth Grüner

  Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  CONTENTS

  1 THE END

  2 ROBORAPTOR GIRL

  3 LIQUORICE STRAPPED

  4 SHOOTING NIGHTBIRDS

  5 GAMBLING WITH FATE

  6 LOST AND FOUND

  7 TJUKURPA PITI

  8 THE FIRST CUT

  9 A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

  10 LAST GIRL ALIVE

  11 THE WRECK OF THE REFUGE

  12 EVIL ANGELS

  13 THE HIDDEN VALLEY

  14 MOLLIE GREEN

  15 NATURE’S WAY

  16 FITCHER’S BIRD

  17 GATEWAY TO THE UNDERWORLD

  18 BLACK WATER

  19 THE FESTERS

  20 ROC’S DISEASES

  21 DANCING WITH THE FESTERS

  22 LIFEBLOOD

  23 SHEEP FROM THE GOATS

  24 MATER MISERICORDIAE

  25 THE HARMONY ENHANCEMENT

  26 GIRLFRIEND

  27 BREAKOUT

  28 LIVING WITH LI-LI

  29 HUNTING DOWN A DREAM

  30 RIPENESS

  31 SONS OF GAIA

  32 CAGED BIRDS

  33 UNDER THE WALL

  34 THE BOUBOULINA

  35 FLIGHT

  36 ONCE UPON A TIME

  For Roxane Walker

  1

  THE END

  Callum felt the rumble of roadtrains, and froze. Black shadows skittered across the blinds as a convoy pulled up outside. Outstationers. If only he hadn’t insisted on staying home alone. Instinctively, he dived for the floor.

  The red neon sign at the gates of the compound flashed a warning across the surrounding desert, but Callum knew his fathers were still miles away.

  Inside, the Elvis Presley cuckoo man jumped out of his clock and crooned the hour. Fighting down his fear, Callum crawled across the black-and-white tiled floor towards the kitchen, heading for the safety of the security apartment. Beneath him, the ground trembled. Above, the ceiling buckled and Callum covered his ears to block out the sound of Molotov cocktails exploding against the compound roof. One by one, every alarm in the Refuge was triggered, screeching against the invasion.

  As he pushed open the swing door to the kitchen, still keeping low to the floor, he heard the first crash. Someone was around the back trying to force the rear entrance. Metal grated against concrete. Any minute and they’d be through the second set of doors.

  Callum combat-crawled on his belly across the floor as the rear wall exploded inwards and pieces of debris hurtled through the kitchen. A cloud of dust and napalm-scented smoke billowed into the air. He glanced over his shoulder in time to see the grille of a roadtrain slam through the café’s outer wall, sending shards of glass and steel across the pink vinyl booths. Callum bit his fist to stop himself from screaming. Then he saw the back doors collapse, and men charged across the wreckage, shouting and hooting amid the wail of alarms. He scrambled to his feet and made a dash for the security apartment entrance. He punched the keypad. Nothing happened. The system had shut down to prevent invasion. He was locked out.

  Callum screamed, his throat raw with terror, as two men grabbed his arms and swung him into the air. They slammed his body against a wall and then reached for him again. Any moment now, they would smash his head against the ground and leave his broken body in the wreckage for Ruff and Rusty to find; a bloody signature.

  Someone grabbed his ankle and dragged him outside, through the smouldering debris. The last thing Callum saw before he blacked out was the Elvis cuckoo clock falling into the rubble of Ruff & Rusty’s Roadside Refuge.

  2

  ROBORAPTOR GIRL

  Bo put two fingers between her teeth and gave a long, low whistle. The roboraptors were a faint shadow against the horizon, keeping low to the ground as they moved in for the kill.

  Bo gave them enough time to finish off their prey and then whistled again to bring the raptor pack loping across the plain. As each one drew close, she touched it lightly on the skull and murmured its name – Chinky, Thumbelina, Cinderella, Silky. They bobbed their heads and ululated happily before scurrying into the underground bunker. Mr Pinkwhistle was the last to return. He dropped a feral cat at her feet – a thin, stringy animal, but at least it was freshly killed. Anything was better than the salted desert rat she had been eating for the last few days.

  She took the cat away from the burrow entrance and squatted in the dirt to gut and skin it. The hot, fresh smell of its flesh made her mouth water. She threw the skin into the branches of a hakea tree to dry, then scraped a hole in the ground and buried the inedible parts of the cat.

  By the time she crawled back down into the burrow, the roboraptors were in sleep mode, standing in a neat row against the rear wall of their den. Bo knelt in front of Mr Pinkwhistle and rested her hand on his blunt snout. Before switching him off, she stroked his spine until he began to emit a low, purring sound. The other roboraptors whined faintly in response, acknowledging Mr Pinkwhistle as the favoured hunter. Satisfied, she reached under the jaw of each one in turn and switched them off. The afternoon sun would have charged them fully and she wanted to make sure they stored the energy for tomorrow’s dawn hunt.

  Bo laid Poppy’s recipe book on the kitchen table. Her grandfather’s handwriting sloped across the paper like a horde of insects scurrying to the edge of the page. She smoothed the folio with one hand and twirled her meat cleaver in the other.

  Bo’s Cat Stew

  One cat, skinned
and gutted. Remove hind legs and rub with oil or fat – feral pig lard is best. Put in tin.

  Add bush onions and pigweed. Scrape bitter seeds from handful of bush tomatoes and discard. Add bush tomato skins. Chuck in lump of rock salt. Seal tin tightly, push up through flue hole so sun beats down on solar lid, and boil. You know it’s cooking at the right temperature when you can hear a rolling, bubbling sound against the metal base.

  Poppy had filled the margins of the book with little drawings and tips on where to find the best ingredients, how to thresh wild grasses, how to pickle desert fruits and salt meat to store for the lean times. Bo wished she had his voice stored as well as his words. With the roboraptors at rest and the stew cooking quietly in the solar flue, all she could hear was the thumping of her own heart.

  When the meat was tender, Bo took a plate and sat in the entrance of the burrow, gazing out at the bleached desert. The stew tasted sweet, salty and bitter all in the same mouthful. The sun sank lower towards the horizon. She shut her eyes and tried to imagine she was sitting next to Poppy and he was telling her what a good girl she was, what a fine cook, what a strong woman she would be one day. The westering sunlight felt hot against her face and she pushed her hands against her eyes to stop them stinging. It was only when the sun dipped below the horizon and the cool desert night began to fall that she wedged a rock into the mouth of the burrow and went back underground.

  3

  LIQUORICE STRAPPED

  Callum felt sore all over. Even his tongue hurt. The metal torque around his neck chafed endlessly and his ears were raw and bloodied where the Outstationers had cut out his microchips. But more unbearable than the physical pain was the emptiness he felt inside. After the violence of the kidnapping, he had expected worse to follow, but instead he had been left alone in the dark for days on end, only a sliver of light seeping into the back of the roadtrain as it rumbled across the desert.

  There were two buckets in the truck, one for him to do his business in and one full of brackish drinking water. Once a day, someone poked a crust of bread or a piece of salted meat through a slit in the door. No one spoke to him, no one checked on him.

  All he could do was sit and wait and hope that the Out–stationers were holding him ransom. Ruff and Rusty would pay to have him released. But deep inside, Callum suspected that the Outstationers had no interest in selling him back to his fathers. For months they had been conspiring to drive Ruff and Rusty away from the area, to rid the western desert of a last vital link to the Colony government. Without Ruff and Rusty’s Refuge, there would be no safe house for Colony men trying to trade with the remnants of civilisation in the west. Callum pressed his fists against his temples. He had to get back to his fathers.

  The door was wrenched open and hot sunlight washed over him.

  ‘Trading time, boy,’ said the Outstationer, unshackling Callum’s chain from the wall and dragging him onto the road. Callum stumbled along in the man’s wake, the soles of his bare feet scorched by the burning ground.

  A man in a shiny leather vest and dusty black leather trousers stood waiting. Flanking him was a ragtag group of desert wanderers whose clothes were stained with red dust. The leather-clad man stared at Callum from beneath bushy eyebrows.

  ‘He’s a good ’un, Floss. You won’t be sorry,’ said the Out–stationer, pushing Callum forward. ‘Been raised by a pair of proper fathers. He’s a real boy. Speaks nice. Keeps his nose clean. Guaranteed. This sort are worth training. You know I wouldn’t sell you a dud. Pig-boys only last until they’re fifteen but you’ll get years out of this one.’

  Floss opened Callum’s mouth and looked inside. He parted Callum’s hair and checked his scalp, looked into his eyes, and then twisted his arms behind his back.

  ‘Ouch!’ said Callum.

  ‘Bit of a precious petal, in’t he?’

  ‘Nah, he’s got enough grit. Cries a little, but that’s what you expect from the fathered ones. That’s what makes ’em worth having.’

  Floss pushed back Callum’s head, drew one finger along his jaw and smiled. Callum wanted to bite him.

  Floss handed a bag of a sticky black substance to the Outstationer and took hold of Callum’s chain. He led him through a ghetto of battered roadtrains and caravans to where a clutter of cages was assembled. Then he pushed him into a long, narrow enclosure on wheels and shackled his chain to the bars. Callum sank to his knees and smashed his chain against the metal floor in despair. The sound drew a cry of alarm from the occupants of the other cages. Most of the animals in the freak show looked like a cross between frogs and cats. Their back legs were smooth and amphibious but their forelegs were thick with fur. When Callum was small, he’d secretly longed to have a chimera as a pet, even though his fathers had told him they were illegal freaks. And now he was part of the freak show too. It made him feel queasy. If this outfit was trading in chimeras and boys, they were the lowest type of criminals.

  ‘Oi, dreamboy,’ said Floss, returning. He pushed the handle of a bullwhip into the cage and poked Callum in the ribs. ‘Get out of those rags and put this lot on.’ He threw a handful of clothes through the bars.

  Despite his misery, Callum was glad to take off his old shirt and jeans that were caked in dirt and blood. The new outfit was a pair of silky, black leather-feel pants and a black vest. He tried to rake his hand through his hair but it was so stiff with dust that it stood straight up in matted clumps.

  The cage was too small to stand in so Callum had to lie flat and wriggle into the close-fitting costume. With his eyes fixed on the roof of the cage, he could ignore the fact that Floss was watching him. When he was dressed, Floss opened the cage and tugged on his chain. ‘C’mon. Training time.’

  Inside a silver-and-purple tent, three bikes were circling the ‘cage of death’ and another was looping giddily inside the rim of a giant wheel. The tent reverberated with the roar of engines. Callum groaned. Of all the businesses to wind up with, he had been sold into the meanest motorcycle outfit in the western desert. Ruff and Rusty had told him about the nomad performers that drifted from outstation to mining camp, causing trouble wherever they went, trading in drugs and children and remnant technologies. Despite their dark reputation, they could always find an audience. The Colony wanted to stamp them out but they never stayed long enough in one place for the Colony’s squadrones to catch them.

  Floss suddenly jerked the chain, hard.

  ‘Leave off,’ Callum snapped, holding the torque to stop it biting into his skin. ‘You’re hurting me.’

  ‘Ooo, a cranky dog,’ said Floss, laughing. ‘Okay, poodle-boy, time for you to jump through a few hoops.’

  Floss undid the chain and dragged Callum by the wrist to where another bearded giant sat astride an old-tech Harley Davidson motorbike. The two men could have been twins.

  ‘Here’s our new pup,’ said Floss.

  The other bikie looked at Callum appraisingly, then suddenly grabbed the front of his vest and lifted him off the ground. For a moment, Callum stared into his scarred face. Then the man threw him across to Floss, who caught him with one hand. ‘Nice weight, see?’ said Floss. ‘Easy to toss around.’

  ‘Okay, kid,’ barked the bikie. ‘Can you do a somersault?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Throw yourself in the dirt and roll, boy.’

  Callum shrugged his shoulders and looked at the ground.

  ‘Christ, Floss, I told you we wanted one that could bend.’

  Floss seized Callum by one ankle, held him upside down then shook him. Hard. Callum had to pull himself up like a possum and grab his feet so that his teeth didn’t rattle.

  ‘See, Dental, he’s got good reflexes. He’ll train up quick.’ Floss threw Callum down in the sawdust, knocking the wind from him. The pain in his ribs made him gasp. Then Floss pulled out an electric cattle prod. ‘What do you want him to do now?’

  Callum lay in the sawdust, curled into a ball. He would not give them the satisfaction of seeing him cry. But when Flos
s poked him with the cattle prod, a surge of electricity made him kick out in pain.

  ‘Get up,’ said Floss. ‘Tell us your handle, boy.’

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Your name, or don’t they give names to you cybrid jam-jars any more?’

  ‘I’m not a cybrid. I have two fathers.’

  ‘So what did they call you?’

  ‘My name is Callum.’

  The men rolled their eyes towards each other and snorted with amusement.

  ‘We’ll call you Dog. You’ll need a name that bites, not a fancy-schmancy baby-name. We’re a two-man show. Two men and a dog, that is. Youse our dog from now on.’

  ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

  ‘You chase after the bikes,’ said Dental. ‘We’ve got a few tricks we’re gonna teach you. First, we check your balance. You got no balance, we’ll sell you to the next Outstationer looking for dog-meat.’ He put out his wide, square hand. ‘Step up.’

  Callum gritted his teeth as he put one foot on Dental’s palm. He wobbled crazily as the big man hoisted him into the air.

  ‘Steady up and step across to Floss’ hand.’

  For the next half hour Callum practised stepping back and forward between them. Then they made him stand on their shoulders while they held his ankles. Sweat trickled down his neck as he struggled to stay centred. By the end of the afternoon, he could stand without them holding him at all.

  Dental lowered him to the ground and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a handful of tiny biscuits and threw them onto the ground in front of Callum.

  ‘You done well. Like I said, this gig is about balance. Once you can balance, then you learn how to bend. Like a liquorice strap. The last bonehead wouldn’t bend, wouldn’t train up proper. We snapped him in two. If you bend, you won’t break.’

  Callum stared at the biscuits lying in the sawdust and knew, despite his humiliation, that he would eat them. As Floss came towards him with the chain, he also knew that he would learn to bend, he would learn to survive. He would never let them break him.