Two Wolves

by Tristan Bancks

  ‘Let’s go!’ Dad said from the doorway, panicked, edgy.

  Mum looked at him, still hugging Olive and Ben. ‘No.’

  The knock on the front door again.

  ‘Don’t say that. Come. Now.’ He grabbed her by the arm.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she whispered, shaking her arm out of his grip. They stood, looking at one another for a few seconds.

  Dad waved a hand toward the door. Mum walked into the hallway, one arm around Ben, one around Olive.

  ‘Don’t speak,’ Dad said as they walked up the hall.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Olive asked, ignoring him. ‘Where are we going?’ and ‘Why are we going so fast?’ and ‘Are you and Daddy in big trouble?’

  They hurried through the lounge room. Nan stood at the front door, waiting to open it. Ben had a pretty good idea who might be on the other side. Nan waved them on, telling them to move it.

  They went through the kitchen and out the back door.

  ‘Where’s the money?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Ben said.

  ‘Where is it?’ Dad insisted.

  Mum jumped off the veranda, holding Olive’s hand. Ben followed them, then Dad, who slipped a piece of old rope through Golden’s lead and tied her to a veranda post. He ran through the yard behind Ben. ‘Tell me where the money is,’ Dad said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ben replied.

  They reached the back gate.

  ‘Stop,’ Dad said in a fierce whisper. He looked up at the house and then opened the back gate and edged an eye out into the alley. Footsteps, heavy, maybe a few hundred metres away. Dad pulled back into the yard, eyes watering. He was out of his depth, Ben knew. Even more out of his depth than he was in day-to-day family life. Now he was in the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, with his feet set in concrete.

  ‘Come on!’ Dad whispered, moving to the gate of the old chicken pen. ‘Get in.’

  Grey, rotting timber and wire pocked with feathers from long-dead chickens. Ray Silver pushed his family inside.

  Heavy-booted footsteps in the alley, close now.

  Dad moved quickly to the back of the tumbledown chook pen. ‘Squeeze in here.’

  There was a thirty-centimetre gap between the chook shed and the rear fence.

  ‘We won’t fit,’ Ben whispered. Dad squeezed in, grabbing Ben by the t-shirt and dragging him into the thin space. Ben ate a mouthful of spider webs. Two or three police officers ran past in the alley, silhouettes flickering by in the gaps between fence palings.

  ‘Ray. It’s over,’ Mum whispered.

  ‘Stop saying that. Get in here. Now.’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ Olive complained.

  ‘Shhh. Do it!’ he whispered fiercely.

  The back gate squealed open as Mum and Olive shuffled into the space behind the chook shed. Olive first. Then Mum. The police officers entered Nan’s yard to the sound of Golden’s savage barking.

  Ben listened, ears sharp.

  ‘Are the police going to get us?’ Olive asked quietly.

  ‘Shhh,’ Dad said in an almost silent hiss.

  ‘But are they?’

  Cramped air, close breathing sounds. Things crawling on Ben’s legs. He thought of Captain Thunderbolt and Olive Kelly. He wondered if any of the great bushrangers had ever hidden behind a chook shed during their last stand.

  Listening. Soon the police were talking to Nan at the back door. Nan losing her cool, telling them she’s an old lady and to leave her alone.

  ‘We know that they’ve been here,’ said one of the officers in a voice that carried across the yard. ‘We’d appreciate it if you would . . .’ Some of what he said was lost in Golden’s barking. ‘. . . inspect the property.’

  Nan said something that Ben could not quite catch.

  He had the same feeling as when the police had come to the front door looking for his parents. And when the four of them had crouched under the cabin, the night they ran. Now they were wolves behind the henhouse.

  ‘You tell me where the damn money is,’ Dad whis­pered, his breathing measured.

  Sweat trickled down Ben’s temple. He thought of Pop’s words scratched into the diary. Two wolves. Good and bad. Which one wins? The one you feed. He felt a deep tickle in his lungs and he wanted to cough. He tried to swallow it.

  ‘He lost it,’ Olive offered.

  Dad didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, ‘Tell me that’s not true.’

  Ben said nothing. He was more afraid of his father than he was of the police.

  ‘That is all we have left now,’ Dad said. ‘They’ve frozen the rest of it. So please tell me that’s not true.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me Pop was a criminal?’ Ben asked.

  Their low voices were covered by Golden’s relentless barking.

  ‘Shut up with that,’ Dad whispered. ‘Tell me where it is.’

  Ben looked at him. Dad was sweating, shaking with fear.

  A couple of officers were moving back down through the yard now.

  Ben wondered what a bullet passing through his skin would feel like.

  ‘I’m scared,’ Olive whispered. ‘I want to get out.’

  Mum hugged her close. ‘It’s okay. It’ll be okay,’ Mum whispered. ‘Ray?’

  ‘Quiet,’ Dad said.

  ‘What sort of people are we?’ she asked.

  ‘We’ll be dead people if you don’t shut up.’

  ‘If I want to speak I will speak, Ray,’ Mum said, raising her voice slightly. ‘We have our children back. It’s over.’

  ‘I want to get out,’ Olive whispered. ‘This is not fun.’

  ‘We’re going to get out,’ Mum said, rubbing Olive’s shoulder.

  ‘Shut. Up,’ Dad wheezed.

  ‘No, I will not shut up. You shut up, robber man,’ Olive whispered back to him. ‘You wrecked everything.’

  Dad growled, as if he couldn’t help himself. He reached past Ben’s stomach and grabbed Olive’s arm roughly. She started to cry.

  ‘I’m done, Ray,’ Mum said. ‘You can’t control me any more.’

  ‘What?’ he whispered, breathless.

  Mum and Olive slid out from behind the chook shed, Mum holding her arms in the air. ‘We’re here,’ she announced and the police moved in.

  Ben squeezed out of the space and stood next to Olive, arms raised like in a movie. Mum stood slightly in front of them, protective. Ben turned, waiting for his father to join him but all he saw were sneakers and legs. In those final seconds of their life on the run, without a single word, his dad mounted the back fence, silently vaulted into the alley and disappeared. One clean, cunning movement.

  Police quickly surrounded the chicken pen, shouting at them, weapons drawn.

  ‘Out! All of you!’ An officer motioned to the wire gate of the pen. ‘Go. Now. Hands on heads.’

  ‘C’mon,’ Mum said. ‘Stay with me.’ Olive and Ben obeyed, filing out behind her. Another officer checked their hiding space behind the chook shed, but it was empty.

  ‘You keep runnin’, you’ll only go to jail tired.’

  Ben mumbled the words as he watched his clay characters run. Ben Silver, Sydney’s toughest cop, and the zombie thief stopped halfway down the forest track and the screen flickered to black.

  How is it going to end? He needed to know.

  Ben rested Mum’s laptop on his bed, stood and picked up the barbell again. He did fifteen curls. It was months since he had done any work on his movie. Now he was trying to finish it for an English assignment. His old camera had been ruined in the creek but he’d managed to rescue the movie.

  Ben flopped onto his bed and turned to an empty space a few pages from the end of his crusty brown leather notebook. The creek had permanently dis­figured it but he could still write
on its crisp pages.

  How will it end? he wrote. Sometimes the hero realises that the bad guy is inside him. Maybe Sydney’s toughest cop is the zombie thief. Maybe Ben Silver, the cop, in some weird way, is trying to arrest himself, to save himself?

  Dad and Pop, no matter where I go, are inside me, in my blood. Is it possible to outrun the blood you have inherited, to become somebody else?

  Ben looked out the window, confused. Light and breeze flowed in. The relentless whir of traffic on the highway out front. His room at Nan’s was smaller but brighter than in the old house. And he had to share with Olive, but that was okay.

  Every day for the past three months, part of him had missed being in the wild. Not the storm or the hunger or the ants or eating leaves and grubs but the air and the openness and the lack of straight lines.

  A knock at the door.

  ‘Yeah?’

  Nan popped her head in. ‘Your mum’s leaving soon.’

  Ben followed Nan into the hall. Mum was in the bathroom doing her hair. She wore high heels, knee-length skirt, white shirt.

  ‘Don’t worry. You’ll be fine, and you look gorgeous, love,’ Nan said.

  ‘Thanks,’ Mum said, looking at herself, puffing her cheeks, exhaling stress in a long, thin stream.

  She turned to Ben and gave him a look that was part-smile, part-apology. This had become her favourite look since everything happened. Ben did not like it much because he felt guilty too.

  She kissed Ben on the cheek and brushed past, heading up the hallway. She grabbed her handbag from the hallstand near the front door, checking her hair again in the mirror.

  ‘Wish me luck,’ she said.

  ‘Luck,’ Ben said.

  ‘Olive, love, your mum’s going!’ Nan called.

  Olive ran in from the backyard. She was covered in dirt from her new vegie patch. ‘I want to come.’

  ‘Not today,’ Mum said.

  ‘Where are you going again?’ Olive asked.

  Mum bent down to her level. ‘To court. You know that. Remember?’

  ‘Why are you going to court again?’

  This had been explained to Olive at least seven times.

  ‘Because I did –’

  ‘Because you did the wrong thing and you’re going to face the consequences but then you’re going to come home to us and everything will be okay forever,’ Olive finished.

  Mum let a smile creep onto her lips. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Will Dad go to court?’ she asked.

  Mum squeezed her hands. ‘If they find him. Yes.’

  Mum stood. Nan and Ben hugged her and she opened the front door.

  Olive ran off into the backyard. ‘Love you!’

  ‘It’s still not too late for me to come with you,’ Nan said.

  Mum shook her head. ‘I got myself in . . .’

  She squeezed Ben’s shoulder and looked into his eyes. ‘Whatever happens today, you know I never meant to do anything to hurt you. I know I’ve made bad decisions but I will try to make it up to you. I will try to be better.’

  Ben held her gaze and then she turned away. She went down the steps and along the front path in the sunshine, looking confident even if she did not feel it. She climbed into the rusty red hatchback, started the car, put her blinker on, waved and disappeared into the flow of traffic on the old highway.

  ‘Is she really going to be okay?’ Ben asked.

  ‘I hope so,’ Nan said, wistful. She sat down on the stoop. ‘I’m going to sit a while, wait for her.’

  ‘Won’t she be gone for hours?’

  ‘Possibly,’ she said.

  Ben watched Nan for a moment and left the door open. He headed for the backyard, guilt and bad feelings weighing him down.

  He went down the veranda steps. He had replaced the old ones with offcuts from the timber yard. It was a slightly wonky job, he thought, but at least they weren’t rotting any more. He walked down through the yard to the chook shed. He picked up the shiny claw hammer Mum had bought him from the hardware store a few days earlier and he continued with the job of dismantling the shed. James and Gus had come over and helped him with some of it. It was one of the first things he had vowed to do when they decided to live with Nan. He did not need to be reminded of that day.

  Ben had already taken down the chicken wire, removed the roof and the chipboard sides. Now he knocked out sections of the frame, the rusty nails squealing as he prised them out of the timber and threw them on a pile.

  As he worked he prayed for Mum. If she wasn’t okay, if the ruling went against her, even though the lawyer said it shouldn’t because the whole thing was Dad’s fault, then Ben would have to reveal his secret. He knew that.

  Ben flew steeply downhill, dodging rough, chocolate-­brown tree trunks, heavy boots sinking into pine needles and rich black soil beneath. Sun lit him in sharp bursts as he thundered into the valley. The water-rush became ever louder as he descended, filling him up.

  The creek looked just as it had – sun hit the surface in patches, revealing muddy-brown rocks beneath. Downstream was the waterfall that he and Olive had rafted over. And, soaring above him, the sheer sandstone wall on the opposite side of the creek.

  It was a year since he had been here. Just over. He had thought about this place every day, every minute for a year. Yesterday, Friday afternoon, all Ben could think of as he sat in his classroom was the cabin, the creek, the trees, the feeling of this place. When the bell rang, he did not go to his locker. He walked to the front of the school where Mum was waiting in her old red hatchback. They drove till late, staying in a motel, then started out early.

  He sank the shovel blade deep into the earth. He had buried it beneath the small pyramid-shaped boulder so that it might be safer. But he had done the deed at midnight and a lot can happen in a year. What if robbers had dug it up? He pushed hard, dug around the edges of the rock and rolled it away. The soil was damp, easy to dig. He took off his jacket. It was early spring, lunchtime, and the air was hot and thick with the roar of cicadas.

  Ben’s shovel hit something hard. A chink of metal on tin. He dug and scraped till he could see the rusted green metal. He worked quickly to excavate his treasure, unearthing the old trunk and pulling it up out of the ground.

  He sat and looked at it for a minute, breathing heavily with the effort. He had waited this long. No rush now.

  Open it or I will, he heard Olive say in his mind. But he sat there and looked at it for another minute or two before he slowly raised the lid to reveal the rotten grey nylon sports bag with the black handles. He smiled, the guilt of what he had done fluttering away for a moment.

  Nine hundred and thirty-two thousand three hundred dollars.

  He looked up the hill to see if Mum was there. She had promised to stay in the car in the clearing, to wait for him. He picked up a wad of cash, bruising the notes with the black soil from his fingers. Was it so bad for a kid in his situation to have put aside an insurance policy for him and his sister? He had told a lie. A big lie. He had not lost the money at the bus stop. But didn’t he and Olive deserve the money, after everything that had happened to them? Even now, after telling Mum and agreeing that they would give the money back, he wondered if they could hold on to just a little of it.

  He held the money, felt the creek flowing by and the cabin up the hill looming over him.

  Creek, cabin, money.

  Like grandfather, like father, like son. Was it really possible to escape what was written in his genes? He could still just take the money and disappear.

  A great rush of wind blew through the gully, a wind that rustled the leaves on every tree and sent birds squawking in formation across the creek and high up over the rock wall. Ben looked around and breathed it all in. He had missed this place. He felt mosquitoes take his blood and he pulled his boots off, digging h
is toes into the cool soil beneath.

  He dropped the money back into the trunk and made his way down over the rocks to the creek. He cupped his hands, dipped them in the water, splashed his face. It felt crisp and good, waking something inside him.

  Ben thought of the night that he and Olive had run away from the cabin, from Mum and Dad, and of the deep hunger and pain and despair he had felt in those days coming up the creek. He thought of Olive lying, half-dead, in the darkness just downstream from here. And he should have felt bad about the place, but he didn’t. He knew now that everything bad would pass, and everything good. The creek flowed on.

  He splashed his face again and sat back on a rock, closing his eyes. He sat there for a long time, becoming so still he felt as though he had disappeared or had turned into one of the boulders he was surrounded by. Rocks that had been here forever. There was no ‘I’m me’. ‘Me’ seemed to disappear and this feeling was better than the money. Better than a trunk full of cash. This would have seemed ridiculous if it didn’t feel so true.

  His pulse was the pulse of the place and he knew, deeply, as the moments passed, why he had come back. He felt something beyond money and family, beyond himself. And he knew that he would not run. He would give the money back like he had promised Mum. He would leave it outside the police station in Kings Bay and walk away and never look back.

  In one blinding moment he knew how the story would end.

  This thought drove him up off the rock and he staggered for a moment and his head felt light and all the colours were vivid and his head pulsed with hot blood. He steadied himself and climbed up the rocks and when he was almost to the top he saw a person standing beneath one of the pines.

  At first Ben thought it was an illusion brought on by the sudden rush of blood to his head. It was a man, bearded and skinny, barefoot and wild-looking. He was holding the bag of money, the rotten bag with one broken black handle. He was holding it tucked under his arm just as Ben had done a year ago on his way upstream. Ben noticed that his left arm was heavily tattooed.

  ‘G’day, Cop,’ the man said.

  ‘Give me the bag,’ Ben said.