The Balance Omnibus

by Alan Baxter

  The ragged stranger stood and stared at the broken end of the stick for several seconds, his gaze accusatory. Once again he patted down his pockets. After a moment he drew the large Bowie knife out and stroked its blade gently. It was obviously something that he held in higher esteem than his own person. He inserted the blade into the gap between window and door, began jiggling the knife, trying to free the lock. For a minute or two he worked away at the door, worrying one side of his bottom lip with his teeth in concentration. His anger began to grow as he got no result. It was quite apparent to Isiah that there was an awful lot of anger in this man, barely suppressed. The suppression of that anger was lost as he gave up. Standing up straight with a growl of fury, he reversed his grip on the knife hilt, the blade pointing towards his body. He drew back his arm and slammed the rounded end of the knife hilt into the window with a strength that seemed disproportional to his wiry frame. The window burst inwards, thousands of tiny, glittering squares showering across the dashboard and driver’s seat.

  Filthy pulled up the lock inside the door almost hard enough to rip it free and wrenched the door open. He leaned in and brushed the broken glass off the seat and dash, leaving it in a pile like miniature ice cubes on the gravel road. He got in and started the engine, thick black smoke bursting in a roiling cloud from the exhaust pipe. With spinning tyres and a spray of gravel the car slewed in a tight u-turn and roared off along the uneven road, bumping and bouncing crazily as it went.

  Isiah waited another few seconds until the car was a couple of hundred yards away, then stood from his hiding place. Keeping his mask in place, though holding it less tightly, he began to run through the trees at a preternatural pace, his feet sure, dodging between trunks and ducking branches. He caught up to within about twenty metres of the car and held his pace, trailing the pluming cloud of dust and spraying water as Filthy roared towards the main road.

  It only took a few minutes to reach the asphalt, though it must have taken several years off the life of the already aged Ford. Without even pausing to check for oncoming traffic Filthy skidded the car out onto the road and floored it. Isiah knew that there was a town some thirty miles away in that direction, but his destination could be anywhere. As Isiah cleared the trees at the end of the gravel road he slung out his consciousness, Anchoring a small part of his mind to the vehicle, a mental tracking device. He could have marked Filthy in the same way, but would certainly have been sensed. He just hoped the man would stick with the same car until he reached his destination. All the time the car didn’t get too far away Isiah would be able to feel it. If it got beyond his range he would lose it, but the Anchor would remain and he would be able to sense it once he came within range again. However, it was the person and not the car that was most important and Isiah wanted to keep up if he could.

  With a sigh and a slight shake of his head he began to sprint after the car. He had simply Travelled here and had not considered that he might need a car to trail someone. Still, he could sprint at speeds far in excess of normal people with his heightened abilities, though he could only keep up speeds like that for a finite amount of time. Keeping his mind on his Anchor he concentrated on his breath and set himself a pace. Hopefully another car would come by and he could convince the driver to help him, whether the driver really wanted to or not.

  He had run for some miles, keeping as close as possible to the Ford, when he got a lucky break. A sign posted a truck stop just ahead. It was not long before he reached it. Filthy had driven straight past, barrelling on towards his destination. Isiah slowed to a normal pace and jogged into the car park, breathing hard.

  There were a few large trucks parked across the back of the gravel lot, but only two cars. One was a small family compact with a baby seat strapped in the back. Isiah let his mind wander into the diner and felt a woman and child in there, the woman changing the baby in the bathroom. He couldn’t take her vehicle in good conscience. So the decision was made. The other car was a station wagon, quite good condition. As Isiah strolled towards it he probed into the engine and electrics with his mind and triggered the ignition. Popping the lock as he got within a few feet he pulled open the door and jumped in. He saw a man in a suit frantically waving a half eaten sandwich at him through the plate glass window of the diner as he sped away, back out onto the highway. Concentrating on the Anchor he had put on the Ford, he accelerated hard, trying to make up lost ground.

  It wasn’t long before he eased off on the accelerator as the rusty, dented Ford appeared before him around a long bend. He settled back in the seat and began cruising, keeping a fair distance back while keeping Filthy in sight. As he drove he let his mental Anchor dissipate, no longer needing to take the risk that it might be noticed. It was unlikely that it would be, given its subtle nature, especially on an inanimate object like a car, but safety came from watching all the little details.

  Isiah could see Filthy in the driver’s seat, his greasy hair whipping back around the headrest from the wind through the broken window. He was smoking a cigarette, his hand occasionally appearing at the window, flicking the ash. This road had another twenty miles or so before it reached a small town. It was unlikely that the town was Filthy’s final destination, only having a population of around two thousand people. But the town also lead to Interstate 94. That was about as far as Isiah’s research of the area had gone; he had had no reason to think he would be cruising across Montana in his search for the Sorcerer, yet now it seemed he would. And if Filthy was going to be travelling far then this stolen car might become a liability. There was bound to be a police check out on it already. It was hassle Isiah could do without. Still, when they reached the next town maybe Filthy’s plans would become a little clearer. Isiah reached for the radio and flicked it on. The cheap speakers crackled and hissed over the sound of rock and roll, Eddie Cochrane lamenting the lack of a cure for the summertime blues. Isiah smiled, tuning the station in a bit more clearly. You got that right.

  When they reached the small town, Filthy pulled into a diner. As Filthy drove into the car park and pulled to a stop, Isiah cruised by. He flicked out another mental Anchor, again to the old Ford. He pulled up the stolen station wagon at the curb around the corner and hopped out, mentally re-engaging all the locks as he walked away. Other than inconvenience the man with the sandwich should suffer little for the impromptu loan of his car.

  Isiah walked around the corner to the diner and strolled in. Guitar music piped through cheap speakers tickled his ears, too quiet to make out properly. He wanted to make sure that Filthy was going to stick around for a while. He was coming out of the bathroom as Isiah entered, tightly locking down his aura, carefully avoiding eye contact. People would rarely remember details of people they saw at the best of times. If no eye contact was made the person might as well have never even been there. There was a stand of newspapers at one end of the counter which Isiah began to casually peruse. As he did so Filthy drew up a stool at the counter and sat down, staring at the countertop. The waitress, her face doing nothing to hide her apathy towards her job, wandered over, notepad in hand. ‘What’ll it be?’ Her nose wrinkled when she was close enough to notice Filthy’s lank hair and dirty coat. Fortunately he had pulled the coat sleeve down over his scarred arm and blood soaked rag of a bandage. His hands were free of blood also, if not completely clean, no doubt the result of his recent visit to the bathroom.

  Filthy looked up at the waitress, his eyes lingering unconcernedly over her breasts as he sought her face. ‘Gimme a steak sandwich with the lot, rare. I feel the need for red meat.’ He leered as he spoke, but the waitress just curled up one side of mouth in disgust.

  ‘Anything to drink?’

  ‘Coffee.’

  The waitress nodded, her pencil scratching at her pad, and walked away. Filthy stared at the countertop again.

  Isiah selected a paper at random and walked to the till at the end of the counter. He smiled at the waitress. ‘Just the paper thanks’

  Outside the air was
fresh. He looked left and right along the road. An old lady passed by, pulling a shopping trolley behind her. Isiah stepped up to her. ‘Excuse me. Do you know if there’s a service station nearby? Perhaps one that sells second hand cars?’

  The old lady looked up at him, her eyes suspicious. ‘Old Jed has a station right on the edge of town. He often has some wreck or other there for sale!’ She cackled at her own joke. ‘He’s a good man, mind,’ she added.

  Isiah smiled, nodded. ‘Maybe I’ll pay old Jed a visit then. Where exactly would I find his place?’

  Fifteen minutes later Isiah pulled up across the street from the diner in a plain Japanese hatchback, in fairly reasonable condition. It was old, but had a good motor, and was unremarkable. Isiah was still smiling, amused by Jed’s confusion and suspicion at a man that would arrive at a service station, choose a new car and pay cash for it all within five minutes. Isiah’s mental scan of the chassis, brakes, suspension and engine has reassured him that this car would run without any particular trouble for at least a few months before any work would be needed. There had been a sign in the window asking for two thousand dollars. Isiah had handed old Jed two thousand in cash and asked for the keys and perhaps Jed would be kind enough to throw in a highway map and a tank of gas.

  It had taken most of the five minutes to convince Jed that he didn’t want a test drive, didn’t want to look under the hood, but just wanted to get away as quickly as possible. Jed had shook his balding grey head and wandered into the ramshackle building of his service station. He emerged a minute or two later with a folded road map, a set of keys and papers and a hastily scribbled receipt. As Isiah drove away he saw Jed in the rearview mirror staring at the wad of notes held in his hand. Money was no issue for Isiah. When you’ve been around for several hundred years investments and financial planning become second nature.

  Isiah looked in through the large plate glass window of the diner, Bottomless Coffee For A Buck. Filthy was there, eating his steak sandwich like he hadn’t eaten anything else for a week. The waitress was surreptitiously watching him, her face a slight grimace of disgust. Isiah settled back in the seat and unfolded his map.

  He was indeed right up on Interstate 94, which led more or less east to west across Montana. If Filthy was headed for the highway from here he had two choices. Left would take him to Billings, right to Miles City. There were plenty of opportunities to travel on from either of these cities if Filthy chose to, assuming he was even going that far. Billings even had an airport, Logan International, but there was an airport in Glendive too which was less than a hundred miles from Miles City and also in Circle and Ekalaka. In truth there were a million options and no way to second guess them all. At least Isiah now an idea of the area he was in. He would just have to wait until Filthy moved on and follow.

  It wasn’t long before Filthy climbed back into his battered Ford and pulled out onto the road. He headed straight to the Interstate and hung a left, towards Billings. Isiah settled back in his seat as he followed and turned the radio on.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ Faith held back the tears as she slammed the screen door and stormed up the path to the street. She could hear her mother calling her from the kitchen, her stupid, whining voice cracked with tears of her own. But she would not turn around. Her mother could jump in front of a truck and die for all she cared, she was sick of being treated like a child.

  As she turned the street corner, heading towards the bush, she let the tears flood out, safe in the knowledge that her mother could no longer see her. This walk to the head of the valley and the long, natural walk down to the creek beyond had been her sanctuary for years. Whether upset and furious or calm and serene, it was just right. The best escape.

  She shook her head as she wiped away tears with the back of one hand. Always fighting. Always shouting and screaming and slamming doors. Why couldn’t her mother understand that she was a person too? She had feelings, emotions. She had a mind, for fuck’s sake and a strong mind at that. She hated school because the teachers were so condescending to everyone, because the other girls were all such immature boy freaks or clothes horses. The boys themselves were no better, rev heads talking up V8’s and powerslides or sex starved perverts. Or both. No one understood her. She couldn’t communicate with anyone. The sooner she got out of this shitbox town the better. She loved the Mountains, she loved the bush and the natural vastness of her country, but this little town with its stickybeak residents and stifling Christian values was suffocating her. No one respected her pagan ways. Even her mother often called her a witch for studying Wiccan texts and the like, but her mother knew nothing. Her mother didn’t even know what a witch really was. So what if she was dark and brooding sometimes? Weren’t all teenagers like that?

  She needed to get down to the city, to be stimulated, to be challenged. Sydney was only an hour and half on the train. She could get back to her valleys and bushwalks any time she wanted. She needed something to prove that there was a life worth living out there.

  She turned from the street and headed into the bush on a narrow track. Not one of the publicised bushwalks the tourist guides listed but a bushwalk only locals knew about. She followed the track for a couple of hundred yards, then ducked under the blue gums, picked her way carefully across the grass and rock, keeping a casual eye out for snakes, taking heavy, noisy steps just in case.

  After a few minutes she came out from under the trees onto a promontory of sandstone overlooking the valley. A blue haze hung in the air, produced by the deep exhalations of the myriad gum trees, giving the mountain range its name. The trees were thick like a heavy, rough, dark green carpet right across the valley floor, then up the sloping sides until the sandstone rose out of the bush like a curtain, striated in colours, orange, brown, red, black. The bush began again on the flat top of the opposite side. These were mountains made in reverse, formed from an enormous land plateau, flat on top, with valleys carved millennia ago by raging rivers chewing slowly through the rock.

  Faith jumped down off the promontory and picked her way through the sloping scrub and fallen rocks towards the valley floor. This side you could follow all the way to the creek at the bottom if you knew the way.

  As she walked she thought over the latest argument with her mother. Once again it revolved around school. Her father would be furious when he saw her latest results, she didn’t care and her mother started yelling. ‘You’re not a stupid girl, Faith, so why do your results make it look like you are?’ What a bitchy, broken thing to say. Of course she wasn’t stupid. How did her results in such a ridiculous subject as Home Economics define her intelligence? Her results were fine in the subjects that had some relevance. English, geography, history, these things she enjoyed. Real subjects, applicable to the real world. But Home Economics was only good for pathetic full time housewives like her mother and there was no way in hell she would ever become like that. She couldn’t believe she had been talked into taking the subject in the first place. More to keep the peace at the time than anything else, but now it had come around to haunt her.

  And when she had said she might even quit school because it was no use to her in real life her mum had gone ballistic. ‘How can you expect to survive in the world without an HSC?’ Like a Higher School Certificate was a passport to wealth and security. Her brother and all his friends had HSCs and not one of them had a decent job. Cinema ticket collector in Penrith, a barman in Katoomba, a shop assistant in Leura. And those were the ones with jobs at all.

  It was at about that point that Faith had slammed the door behind her, but she had to admit there was one relevant point. Whatever she wanted to do, it was going to take money. And to get money she needed a job, a job that paid more than working part-time at the supermarket as she had been doing. There were dozens of things that she had thought about doing as a proper job but she had no real idea of how to get started. Though she failed to see how having an HSC would make that much difference.

  She wanted to get down to the city. Find
some real people, live a real life. She’d find something down there. Even if she started off in a café waiting tables, at least it would be in the city and she could keep looking for better work after that, find her way. Her brother’s ex, Gabby, had moved down to Sydney. She had a room in a share house somewhere. Faith had the number. She had rung Gabby a couple of times when she had first moved down there and Gabby was always happy to chat. Happy to bitch about the Mountains and the people there. If she turned up in the city and rang Gabby then she’d have a room for at least a night or two. Gabby would let her crash on the floor.

  She sat down on a rock under the shade of a gum tree. The bush smelled so good this time of year, even if it was tinder dry. She would miss it, but she realised that she had made a decision. Her heart began to beat a little faster. She was going to drop out. She was going to quit school, quit this shitty town and run away to the city. She would be eighteen in a few months and then there was pretty much nothing her parents or anyone else could do. She could certainly stay hidden for a few months, especially with Gabby’s help. Her job at the supermarket on evenings and weekends had helped her put away a few hundred bucks. She didn’t buy into all the clothes and things that girls her age were supposed to, she didn’t hang out at the mall in Penrith every weekend. She had money to get started. She would leave a note, slip away and catch a late train down to Sydney. She wouldn’t let on that she was going to contact Gabby. She would just tell people not to look for her because she wanted to go away and be left alone. She just needed a couple of days to get herself organised.

  Faith leaned back on her hands, letting the dappled sunlight through the leaves play across her face. Damn, it was hot today. But she felt good. She laughed, excitement rushing through her veins. I’m getting the fuck out of Dodge!