Finally the link parted and Jamie was free of the pole. Cameron helped him stand, and supported him as he tottered on unsteady legs.
‘Come on!’ Throwing the hacksaw into the toolbox, Cameron headed for the door, with Jamie hobbling awkwardly after him. They’d only gone a few paces when Cameron froze.
‘Damn!’
‘What?’
‘Listen.’
Sure enough, in the distance Jamie could hear a familiar sound – an engine coming along the track towards the mine.
‘How long have we got?’ asked Cameron.
‘Eh?’
‘Until they get here – how much time?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Well, how long was it between when you first heard me and when I pulled up outside?’
Jamie tried to think. His mind was working better now, refreshed by the water and by being able to move freely again, but his memory of the events of the day was fuzzy. Things that had happened just a few minutes ago were a little like the desert landscape – somehow distant and near at the same time.
‘I’m not sure. I guess about . . . three minutes?’ It was a wild guess and Cameron knew it.
‘Wait here.’
Dropping the tool box and backpack, Cameron sprinted to a green Land Rover parked a few metres away. Flinging open the back, he grabbed a small bag and a plastic jerry can of water which he heaved out onto the sand.
‘Get that gear!’ he shouted, nodding towards the equipment he had dropped earlier. As though in a dream, Jamie obeyed.
‘Come on! Into the bushes.’
Cameron led them straight towards the scrub at the edge of the mine-site clearing. Crashing through, they ducked down into the thorny plants.
‘Cameron?’
‘Yeah?’ His voice was a whisper.
‘Why don’t we just wait and see who it is? It could be someone coming to help.’
Cameron turned to face him.
‘I doubt it. I can guess who it is.’
‘Who?’
‘Who do you reckon my dad’s going to call on for help when he finds out the car’s gone?’
There was no need to answer, because at that moment the approaching vehicle rounded the final bend and cruised into the parking area.
‘Damn!’
Both boys went dead still. Cameron’s guess had been right. It was Butcher, back in the police truck.
Jamie felt a sinking feeling return to his belly.
Leaving the engine running, the cop leapt from the driver’s seat and ran across to the hut. Jamie was again surprised at the speed with which the large man moved. The two boys stayed motionless in their hiding place and watched as Butcher disappeared inside. In a couple of seconds he reappeared, but now there was no rushing and no panic. He walked calmly across to the waiting truck and switched off the engine. The diesel spluttered into an eerie silence. Taking a few steps away from the Toyota, Butcher stood and turned a slow circle, surveying every centimetre of scrub.
‘Don’t even twitch!’ Cameron’s whispered warning was pointless – Jamie was paralysed.
Butcher finished his scan and turned his attention to Cameron’s car.
‘Oh, shit!’
‘What?’
‘The keys, I left them in the ignition.’
Butcher climbed in and started up the Land Rover. He drove it slowly round the clearing then floored it straight towards the second mining hut.
The rotted asbestos wall gave way easily beneath the car’s bullbar and a second later the Landie was parked inside, neatly hidden from any aerial search. The small cloud of dust that hung in the air where the car had crashed through slowly began to settle, but there was no sign of the cop.
‘Do you reckon he mighta hurt himself?’ The question was whispered hopefully, but before Cameron had time to answer, Butcher emerged from the wrecked hut, a bundle of cables in his hand. To Jamie’s alarm, he walked towards the edge of the scrub. Not right towards them, but pretty close. They held their breath.
The cop stopped, reached into his pocket and retrieved Cameron’s car keys. Grinning, he drew his arm back and hurled them as far as he could into the scrub. Cameron twisted, trying to see where the keys might land, but they vanished into the gathering twilight.
Butcher stood for a few more seconds, still and silent, like a snake poised to strike, and then he yelled into the vastness.
‘I know you can hear me, boys. Just thought you should know that, even if you do find the keys, they’re no use to you without these.’ He held up the bundle of cables and sockets. ‘Tell you what, how about you both come out now and we’ll all head back to Port Barren together. No questions asked, no harm done? Eh?’
His offer was met with heavy silence. Even the cicadas seemed to have gone quiet.
‘Fair enough. Can’t say I blame you. Still, worth a try.’
At last he strolled across to his own vehicle.
‘See you, fellas. Have a nice time.’
Two minutes later only the settling dust cloud was left to remind the boys of his presence.
twenty-two
‘Oh, man.’
They lugged the jerry can between them towards the hut.
‘What do we do?’
‘First we get all this gear inside, then we fix your wrists up, then we think.’
The water container was heavy. Jamie couldn’t imagine how Cameron had managed to carry the thing all the way across to the bushes on his own, but he guessed that panic helped.
Once they’d set it down inside the hut, Cameron handed Jamie the hacksaw.
‘You might as well work at trying to get those bracelets off, then I can bandage you up properly.’
‘Yeah, all right.’
Holding the saw awkwardly, Jamie began to rasp the blade across the bracelet still attached to his left wrist. The tool was big and unwieldy, though, and kept turning in his hand. Cameron watched for a few seconds, ‘Hang on a minute. Give it here.’ He started to fiddle with a couple of butterfly screws on the handle.
‘It’ll probably be easier with just the blade.’
Sure enough, without the bulky steel handle Jamie found it relatively simple to saw away at the remains of the handcuffs.
‘While you’re doing that I’m going to go and check the car. See if I can find anything useful.’
‘Useful?’
‘My dad’s a survival freak. He’s got all sorts of gear in the back of that car. Like the water.’
Jamie watched Cameron walk through the door, he had to stifle the urge to yell after him, to call him back. He didn’t want to be alone in the hut. He went and sat on the hard sand out front. In the west, the last rays of the sun were sinking below the horizon, staining the sky a deep purple. Around him, the desert was slowly coming to life. The now familiar scrapes and rustles were almost reassuring. He kept sawing.
The bracelets were a much tougher proposition than the chain had been. The steel seemed harder, less malleable. Every now and then the blade would slip in his sweating palms and nick his arm or wrist. When this happened, he jumped a little but gave no real sign of pain.
Jamie went back inside for a drink and was picking up the small water container when a beam of torchlight flashed into the room from behind him. For the briefest of seconds Jamie felt a small flicker of hope. He spun around. Cameron was there, holding the torch.
‘I knew dad had this hidden away in the back somewhere.’
‘Cool.’ Jamie tried to hide his disappointment.
‘I found these as well.’ A couple of plastic water canteens knocked together in his other hand.
‘Have we got any food?’ With his thirst slowly becoming satisfied, a throbbing ache in his belly reminded Jamie that it had been a long time since his las
t meal.
‘Yeah, quite a bit of dehydrated stuff, noodles and that sort of thing, some muesli bars, and a bit of fruit which I grabbed on my way out of the house.’
‘How about a bite to eat, then.’
‘No worries.’
Cameron disappeared outside and returned with a couple of apples and a bar of chocolate.
‘Here you go. Will that do?’
‘Yeah. Thanks.’
Gnawing hungrily at the fruit, Jamie felt he’d never experienced anything as good as the trickle of sweet juice running across his dry tongue and down the back of his throat.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Cameron. ‘I reckon our best bet is to lie up here for a bit, give you a chance to recover slightly, then to hit out north across the desert towards town. I figure we can make it if we’re careful.’
The plan sounded dubious to Jamie. He’d already experienced one day out here, and he wasn’t keen for another. He didn’t voice his concerns, though. Cameron sounded pretty confident. He seemed to know what he was doing.
‘There’s enough water in the jerry can for the two of us for a few days, if we’re careful.’
‘We can’t lug that can through the desert, mate. We barely managed to drag it across the clearing.’
‘Yeah, but if we lie up for a day while you recover a bit, keep drinking and fill up the canteens, then we’ll empty about half of it. I think we can jury-rig some sort of a harness or sled to drag it with us.’
‘Shouldn’t we just head back up the road?’ That seemed to be the more sensible option. He’d heard stories of people breaking down in the desert, wandering away from their cars and never being seen nor heard of again.
‘Too far. Here, look.’
Crouching, Cameron traced a series of lines in the sand with his finger – a rough map.
‘Here’s Port Barren, and this is the coast. We’re about here. It’s a great big loop to go by road from here back to town. It’s about a hundred kilometres to the main highway and then another fifty or sixty into Port Barren. I’m not too sure but I figure that straight overland it’s probably only forty or fifty kilometres. Two days walk.’
‘I dunno . . .’ Jamie remembered his night meandering between the patches of scrub just outside the town.
‘Trust me, we’ll never make the distance if we go back up the road. We’ll run out of water for sure. And if we don’t go, we’ll die here – no question about that. If Butcher hadn’t driven over the track when he brought you out here, then there’s no way I’d have found you; it was touch and go a couple of times. No one ever comes here, so our best chance is to head straight towards town.’
‘Whatever. We can decide tomorrow anyway.’
‘Fair enough. How you going with the handcuffs?’
Jamie showed Cameron his progress. He was about a third of the way through the first bracelet.
‘It’s a bit harder than the chain.’
‘Yeah. Let me have a go.’
‘It’s nicer outside.’
Sitting on the sand in front of the hut, Cameron used the torch to study what Jamie had done, then put the blade in the right place and got to work. There wasn’t the urgency of the previous occasion and it was easier having someone else do the cutting – the blade didn’t slip around nearly so much.
‘So how’d you know to look out here?’ The question had been eating at Jamie and this was really the first chance he’d had to ask it.
‘You’ll never guess.’
‘Try me.’
‘Robb.’
‘Eh?’
‘Constable Robb. The cop.’
‘How’d he know?’
‘He didn’t. Not exactly.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll have to explain from the start.’
‘Go on then.’
‘When the school went up, all hell broke loose. By the time they got the fire truck out of its garage the whole place was just about burnt to the ground. In the end, they didn’t even bother hosing it down, just stood around and watched it burn itself out. After that, there were people everywhere. Butcher hung around for a while, ordering people about, and then he told the whole town to go back to bed. Most people did, but after Butcher had left there were still a few blokes, miners mainly, standing around the school getting themselves worked up. Everyone thought you’d done it, and a mob went around to Archie’s place to get you, but he wouldn’t let them in.’
‘Archie?’ Jamie found it hard to imagine the old man, whose door was always left open, refusing entry to anyone.
‘Yeah. He stood out on his front verandah, with the door locked behind him, and told them that the only ones getting inside were Lorraine and Robb. That settled it as far as the town was concerned. You’d done it. It got pretty nasty. They stood around arguing for ages, and then a few of them went off to look for Butcher again, but he was nowhere to be found all of a sudden. So they dragged Robb back out of bed and made him go and talk to Archie.’
‘What about Lorraine?’
‘A couple of people thought that they’d seen her around. Her car was still parked out in front of admin, but she wasn’t inside, and nobody could find her. In the end it didn’t matter. Robb went into the house and Archie told him that he hadn’t seen you since yesterday morning. The crowd outside went nuts when they found out. A few of the rednecks suggested that Archie was hiding you, and it was getting pretty ugly. Four or five of the mining blokes were threatening to kick Archie’s front door down, and Robb had his gun drawn, when Butcher turned up again out of the blue.’
‘When was that?’
Cameron thought for a minute.
‘This morning. At about eight, I guess.’
‘What did he do?’
‘When they told him that they thought Archie had you stashed inside the house he laughed at them. “Nah, Archie’s a good bloke. If he says the little bugger’s not in there, then he’s not. More than likely he’s gone bush.” There was still a bit of mumbling and muttering, but Butcher stood on the verandah of Archie’s place and told everyone to clear off. Said there’d be a town meeting in front of admin at three this afternoon to discuss what to do about you and the school.’
‘And they went?’
‘Yeah. There were still a few unhappy ones, but they all headed home. I was hanging about, waiting to see if I could nip around to the back of the house and see if you really were inside.’
‘You didn’t believe Archie?’
Cameron stopped sawing.
‘I just wanted to see for myself.’
There was a strange note of defensiveness in Cameron’s voice.
‘I didn’t get a chance, though. Butcher drove off to look for Lorraine and left Robb standing guard out the front of Archie’s place, “in case any of the lads, or someone else for that matter, decides to come back”. There was no way to sneak past Robb, so I was leaving when he spotted me and called me over. When I wandered across, he looks around, checking to make sure that no one’s watching or listening, and he says, “That was you with him in the boat that afternoon, eh?” I thought he was trying to tie me in with the school fire, but I couldn’t really deny it, could I? So I nodded, figuring that there wasn’t a lot he could prove anyway. And then he leans in close and says, “Your mate’s in big trouble. You know that?” I misunderstood what he was telling me.’
‘What d’ya mean misunderstood?’
‘I thought he was having a go at me, so I got a little bit nasty, told him they couldn’t prove you’d lit the fire. Though I’ve got to admit that with you disappearing and all I was beginning to wonder.’
‘Thanks, mate.’ Jamie’s face grew dark at the suggestion.
‘Well, put yourself in my position. School catches fire in the middle of the night and you haven’t been seen
for a whole day? It’s surprising that I didn’t just believe you were guilty straight away, like the rest of the town.’
‘What happened then?’
‘Now it gets interesting. Robb shakes his head. “That’s not what I mean,” he says, “You remember a coupla weeks ago, the admin windows? That wasn’t your mate either. I know. I was watchin’.”’
Watching. A shiver ran down Jamie’s spine. He remembered the solitary figure standing on the verandah of the admin building.
‘Who was it then? I asked. “The Sarge,” he says. I didn’t believe him at first, but he explained. Butcher won’t let him smoke when he’s in uniform, which is basically all day, so he goes for a stroll late at night and has a couple of cigarettes. He was doing this when he saw Butcher smashing the windows.’
‘Why didn’t he say anything?’
Cameron shrugged. ‘I didn’t ask. He probably would have, who knows, but he’s only a constable, and he’s got his job to think of. I got you off that one anyway, so there was no harm done and no need for him to annoy Butcher. I don’t blame him.’
‘But how did he know I was out here?’
‘He didn’t.’
‘I thought you said . . .’
The left bracelet of the handcuff came away from Jamie’s wrist. He massaged it gently.
‘Shit, that feels better.’
Cameron shone the torch on it. The skin was torn where the steel band had been pressed into it. The edges of the wound blazed an angry, inflamed red.
‘I’d better get the first-aid kit from the car and do something with that.’
‘Do the other one first.’
‘You’re the boss.’ Cameron used the torch to position the blade against the right cuff.
‘So, what happened then?’
‘Lorraine showed up.’
‘Eh?’
‘She came tearing up in that old bomb of hers, screeched to a stop in front of the house and leapt out. She said she’d just heard the news, and asked me if I knew where you were. I told her I didn’t, and then out of nowhere Robb chimes in, “Wherever he is, he isn’t close.” That made Lorraine go quiet. She took on this really strange expression, like she’d forgotten that Robb and I were standing there watching her.’
A New Kind of Dreaming Page 13
