Two Wolves

by Tristan Bancks

  Culpam Poena Premit Comes

  ‘Hey Mum, what does “Culpam Poena Premit Comes” mean?’ He stumbled over the words.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t speak Chinese,’ she said.

  Mum seemed to call any language she didn’t understand ‘Chinese’.

  ‘Dad?’

  He was looking in the side mirror on his door. ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘You guys are old. Didn’t you do Latin at school?’

  Ben was thrust back into his seat as Dad floored the accelerator, spinning the wheels, spitting gravel.

  They drove away. Fast.

  Ben looked at the reflection of Dad’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. Mum looked back at the police car sitting by the road. Olive opened her mouth and stared at Dad, thumb frozen in midair a few centi­metres from her face.

  ‘Wasn’t he coming back?’ Ben asked. ‘You left your licence.’

  Dad drove on, sitting up, arms straight, holding the wheel firmly with two hands now. He took a motorway exit a few hundred metres up the road. Ben heard the siren as they turned right at the bottom of the exit ramp. They sped underneath the motorway bridge and along a winding, narrow road, past fields of sugar cane. The siren sound was moving closer when Dad took a sharp left down a dirt track. It was a trail between two fields of tall green cane. Ben sat up and looked back as their car fishtailed.

  Dad turned right down another dirt track and slammed on the brakes, switching the engine off.

  Sheets of dust blew in through the open windows. Ben heard the police car dart by on the road. His heart pummelled his chest.

  Olive laughed. ‘That was fun.’

  They sat, engine off, sound of a crow aaarking in the cane nearby, siren in the distance, dirt settling all around them. For the first time ever, Ben did not ask a question. Mum sniffed and covered her mouth and nose with one hand.

  They sat.

  ‘Must’ve been after someone else,’ Dad said.

  The siren faded.

  ‘You got any of that drink left?’ Dad asked.

  Ben picked up the soft-drink bottle from the seat next to him and handed it to Dad, who guzzled it all and wiped the corners of his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘What do we do now, Ray?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Stay here for a bit,’ Dad said. ‘Then keep going up to the cabin.’

  Ben awoke to darkness all around as the car climbed a steep hill into rainforesty woods. Trees flicked quickly by. Tiny red eyes watched them from the blackness. Mum and Olive were asleep, Dad lit by dashboard glow.

  Ben stretched and groaned. ‘Where are we?’

  No answer.

  The car raced ever upward.

  Ben’s back and muscles ached. His neck hurt. They had been driving all day and he had fallen asleep after a drive-thru dinner of burger, shake and fries.

  ‘Dad?’ he asked again.

  ‘Nearly there.’

  ‘The cabin?’

  Silence.

  Ben sat, quiet and wide awake. The headlights sliced through the night, opening it up for a moment, then snapping it shut as they passed. He nervously touched each one of his fingertips to his thumbs over and over again. He had seven million questions surging through him but he did not know how to ask Dad without riling him.

  I’m me, he thought. Not this again, said another voice inside him. But if I’m me then who is everybody else? Ben often had these ‘I’m me’ sessions. It was usually when he was walking home from school or before he went to sleep. What does that mean – ‘me’? he wondered. He sometimes drove himself crazy with these thoughts. He tried to concentrate on the road, the headlights carving up the night, the flattened animal carcasses. Cane toads sitting up, tall and proud, then bam. Tyres. Pancake.

  Thoughts drifted out of the darkness. I am me. But, if I’m me, then who are Mum and Dad? Who are James and Gus? Are they ‘me’, too? They think they’re ‘me’. They call themselves ‘I’ just like I do. So how am I different? I’m in a different body but are we the same thing somehow?

  Ben’s ‘I’m me’ sessions always brought up more questions than answers. Each time he tried to capture ‘me’, it would disappear into the dark corners of his mind, like a dream he was desperately trying to remember. Where did his thoughts and ideas come from? Even the thought ‘I’m me’ – what was that? It felt like there was someone back there saying things that Ben couldn’t control. His mind flicked between sharp corners, darting animals, dashboard glow and ‘me’ until Dad suddenly slowed on a corner and took a left onto a dirt road.

  ‘Is this it?’ Ben asked.

  Dad skidded to a stop. He nudged Mum.

  ‘I think this is it.’

  Mum stirred and sat up in her seat. Her jaw clicked when she yawned – a childhood collision with a wire fence. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m not sure but I think this is it.’

  Mum looked around. Trees. Dirt road. Dark. ‘Okay.’

  ‘I haven’t been here in thirteen years but I went through that little town with the water tank and the store with the metal cow out front, then uphill for about ten minutes and . . .’

  Mum thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know. I just woke up. Maybe it is.’

  Silence all around. Headlights trained on tree trunks. Eucalypts. Olive out cold. Ben waiting, nervous.

  ‘Well, should we go down and check?’ Dad asked.

  ‘It’s your family’s cabin.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘I mean that you’ve dragged us up here so you make the decision,’ Mum said.

  Dad waited a few seconds and then let out the handbrake. The car began to climb steeply downhill. Olive’s head was tossed around by every bump in the road. Trees crowded in overhead. Ben was alert and focused on the track diving into the valley. Questions about ‘me’ were left back on the tarred road. He wished that they were arriving in the day. Dad drove slowly, weaving to avoid pot­holes. Something shot out from the side of the road and bounced in front of the car. Dad hit the brakes.

  ‘What was that?’ Ben asked, squeezing his lip.

  ‘Dunno,’ Dad said. ‘Wasn’t a rabbit. Nose was too long.’

  ‘A bandicoot, maybe? Or a potoroo?’

  ‘What’s that?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Ben wasn’t too sure himself but there was no point talking Australian wildlife with Dad. It wasn’t his area.

  They plunged ever downward, the ridges and ruts in the road becoming deeper the further they dived. For five minutes nobody spoke.

  ‘Are we sure this is it?’ Mum asked.

  Dad didn’t respond.

  Ben figured that every future holiday could only get better than this. He clutched the broken armrest in his door and dug his feet into the floor. The nose of the car was pitched so far forward it felt as though they might somersault.

  Bang! The front right wheel dropped. They stopped.

  Dad opened his door and climbed out to inspect the damage. Hum of engine, chill of night and smell of fumes filled the car. The lights were trained on a sharp left-hand bend up ahead. A steep drop over the edge.

  ‘Do you think this is the right way?’ Ben whispered, careful Dad did not hear.

  Mum shrugged, chewing on the skin of her thumb.

  A minute or two passed before Dad got back into the car. ‘Can’t see a thing.’

  He released the handbrake and turned the wheel far to the left, his door still open. He revved hard and the back wheels spun, howling into the night. Ben prayed that they would get out of this but the car didn’t move. Mum sighed. Ben balled his fists, digging his nails into his palm. He wondered how Olive could sleep through this.

  The engine screamed and the wheels continued to spin. Dad turned the wheel to the right and the front of the car jerked suddenly up and forward. Dad slammed his
door and they lurched ahead, toward the sharp left-hand bend.

  Dad took the corner too fast and the back of the car slipped toward the drop, then corrected. Soon, bushes bunched in on either side of the car. Screeeeek. Branches scratching. Dad growled. The screeeeek went on, the night digging its claws into the paintwork, before a clearing appeared ahead and the bushes opened up on either side.

  ‘This is it,’ Dad said.

  A timber cabin came into view, hunched against the forest and darkness. It was built of long logs, twenty centimetres thick, running straight up and down from ground to roof. Just one dark window and a door next to it. Trees huddled low over the cabin just as Ben had imagined, the ridges in the corrugated iron roof choked with leaves.

  The car came to a stop. Dad twisted the key and switched off the engine.

  ‘I’m not getting out,’ Ben said.

  ‘Yes, you are,’ Dad said.

  Cabin. Dark, sad, villainous.

  ‘Are you really sure this is it?’ Ben asked.

  ‘Yes. I’m sure,’ Dad replied, a trickle of venom in his voice.

  ‘We’ll stay in the car,’ Mum said.

  Ben was quiet.

  ‘Big girl,’ Dad said under his breath. ‘Y’scared?’

  Dad knew that Ben didn’t like being called ‘scared’.

  Dad popped his door.

  Ben popped his. The shhhhhh of water rushed into the car, a creek or stream nearby. Ben stepped out, quietly clicked his door closed and moved toward the cabin, half a step behind his father. He scanned the ground for snakes, every cell in his body pleading to return to the car. A frog croaked loudly nearby. Insects sang a never-ending song in the trees all around. The headlights cast monstrous, moving shadows of Ben and Dad onto the cabin. Ben felt a bite on his arm and slapped it. There was a call from deep within the woods to the right that sounded like a baby’s cry.

  ‘What’s that?’ Ben grabbed Dad’s tattooed arm and fell into step beside him.

  ‘Night birds,’ Dad said quietly. ‘I s’pose.’

  They arrived at the door. Ben looked back at the car. Mum was hidden behind the starry headlight flare.

  Dad tried the door handle. It didn’t open. There was a rusted metal keyhole. Dad swore and went to the window, trying to get the tips of his fingers into the cracks and lift.

  ‘Don’t we have a key?’ Ben asked.

  Dad did not respond. After a minute or two he banged his fist on the timber window frame and looked back to the car, squinting, his face bright white.

  ‘Can’t we get in?’ Mum called, her door open the slightest crack.

  ‘I’m thinking,’ Dad said quietly, then he disappeared around the side of the cabin.

  ‘Dad?’

  For a moment Ben could hear his father’s footsteps snapping twigs and leaves and then there was nothing. Ben went to the corner of the cabin and looked down the side. The ground sloped steeply toward the sound of rushing water. The back of the cabin looked like it was up on stumps.

  ‘Dad?’ he called into the darkness. Something moved on the cabin wall near his face. A spider, hairy, running up one of the logs. He jerked away, a strangled gargh escaping his throat.

  ‘Dad?’ Ben called, louder this time.

  Nothing.

  Ben took a few tentative steps down the side of the building. The ground fell away quickly and he slipped, falling on his backside. He jumped to his feet and climbed back up to the corner of the cabin.

  ‘BOO!’ Dad said. Ben screamed. Dad laughed. He had circled the cabin and returned to the front door.

  ‘I’m gonna have to kick it in,’ Dad said. He looked at the door like he was about to fight it, then rammed his shoulder into it, making no impact.

  He turned sideways, took two steps back. He lifted his right leg and gave the door an almighty kick, right next to the handle. There was a fierce wood-splitting crack and the door exploded open. Dad fell inside, coming down on his knees. The bush fell silent. Something scurried from the cabin roof into an overhanging tree. Dad stood and felt around for a light switch inside the doorframe. There wasn’t one. He shook his head and muttered to himself.

  ‘We bring a torch?’ he called to Mum, shielding his eyes from the headlights.

  ‘No,’ came the reply.

  ‘I asked you to get a torch from that garage,’ he said.

  ‘No, you didn’t.’

  ‘Well, I thought about it,’ he said to himself.

  Ben stood at the door and looked into the cabin. The headlights cut through the cracks between tall upright logs, lighting the room in long, thin slits.

  ‘Comin’ in?’ Dad asked.

  Ben could taste acid in the back of his throat. The cabin had a sickening stench of mould and dead things. He pulled the neck of his school shirt up over his nose. He wanted to be back in his bedroom with the comforting smell of his own dirty clothes and discarded cereal bowls. But Ben knew that when he was a police officer he might be called to places like this every night of the week. He needed to practise. He needed to ‘man up’, like Dad always said. He took a step forward. The cabin was a single room about five metres wide and four metres deep. Something scuttled into a large, open cupboard at the back.

  ‘We’re not sleeping in here, are we?’ Ben asked, furiously kneading his sweaty hands.

  ‘Where else are we going to sleep?’ Dad said, turning to Ben with a smile, a thin beam of light slicing his face in two.

  Ben began to wonder if he really had what it took to be a cop. Could he do this kind of thing for a living? Maybe he was destined to be a desk jockey back at the station, eating doughnuts, drinking coffee. (Ben thought dreamily about the half-finished jam doughnut on his bedroom floor.) Or maybe he could ditch the whole ‘becoming a detective’ idea and make stop-motion movies or design games or work for Lego instead. Ben stopped wringing his hands.

  ‘Are you two okay?’ Mum called.

  They looked at one another through the gloom, Dad inside the cabin, Ben in the doorway. He squeezed his lip so hard that he almost drew blood.

  ‘Sorry. I’m sleeping in the car,’ Ben said. He turned, walked away, and ripped open the car door.

  ‘Big baby!’ Dad called.

  Ben threw himself onto the back seat and pulled the door shut behind him. It was warm and happy in there and it smelt caramelly, like Olive when she slept. He was never going into that cabin again.

  ‘What’s it like?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Ben said. ‘You’d love it.’

  Ben stood outside the closed cabin door, still wearing his school uniform from two days ago. Olive stood beside him, hair mussed up, holding Bonzo the rabbit by one long, grubby ear. She wore her uniform, too. Feet bare, as always. No shoe had been invented that was comfortable enough for Olive.

  Early morning light poked at the cabin through sky-high pine trees. Mum was passed out in the car, still parked in the sandy clearing in front of the small timber building.

  Ben’s heart went blump, blump, blump. He could hear his father inside. A piece of furniture scraped across the floor. He waited a few seconds before giving the door a little push. It swung open with a raaaaaaark.

  Dad stood on a chair in the dim light of the room, reaching up into the open roof area. Exposed timber beams ran from one side of the room to the other. No ceiling. Just the rusty corrugated iron of the peaked roof high above. Dad looked down at Ben and Olive.

  ‘Get out of here!’ He quickly covered something with a piece of black plastic. ‘What are you doing sneaking around?’ He jumped off the chair and stormed toward them. Ben and Olive backed away. He slammed the door in their faces.

  Mum sat up, woken by the sound, and opened her car door. ‘What?’

  Olive giggled.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ Ben whispered.

  ‘Dad being cranky. W
hat was he doing?’

  ‘Are you guys all right?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Yes, but Dad has poo in his pants. Again,’ Olive said.

  That almost made Ben smile but his pounding heart stifled the grin before it reached his lips.

  ‘What’s for breakfast?’ Olive asked. ‘I want sugar on toast. Can we have sugar on toast?’

  ‘We don’t have anything. There’s half a Kit Kat but you can’t have that for breakfast. We’ll work something out,’ Mum said, closing her door and lying back in her seat.

  ‘Can you hear water? Maybe it’s a river,’ Olive said. ‘Let’s go exploring.’

  ‘I want to go home,’ Ben said. He headed to the car as the cabin door opened.

  ‘We’ve got to clean this place out so we can sleep in it tonight,’ Dad said.

  ‘No. I want to go home.’

  ‘Well, you’re not. You’re helping me clean up. You think I want to do it? No, but some things in life just have to be done.’

  Ben looked into his father’s eyes, deciding whether or not to challenge him. Dad was still a good thirty centimetres taller than him – thin but strong, lean arm muscles tanned dark.

  Some holiday, Ben thought but he dared not say it.

  Dad went back inside. Ben followed and was smacked with the stench of mould and death. He looked around. There was a shelf on the back wall, jammed with things. Next to it, a creepy built-in cupboard with large doors yawning open. On the right-hand wall, a solid timber workbench and a rusty green trunk. Under the window, a small wooden dining table and chair. To the left, behind the front door, there was a torn camp bed with a grubby sheet and leaves on the floor all around it. Up high, a window that had been smashed. And the clump of black plastic sitting on a wide timber slat up in the roof beams.

  ‘Get to work. We’ll chuck most of it out,’ Dad grunted. ‘And don’t ever sneak up on me like that again, y’hear?’

  Ben nodded.

  ‘What?’ Dad snapped.

  ‘Yes, Dad,’ Ben said.

  He scanned the floor for rats, spiders, snakes.

  Over the next three hours, as the sun climbed high in the sky, they pulled everything out of the cabin and laid it on the ground in the clearing. Ben was forced to sweep, de-web, wash windows and throw stacks of old, mouldy junk down the side of the cabin. Dad wanted to get rid of most of Pop’s things.