Saving Abbie

by Allan Baillie

  Abbie bared her teeth and looked up at the leaves covering her hands.

  And dropped.

  Her injured foot hit a log edge-on, sending a shock scorching up her leg. She sheered sideways, jolted her ribs and sprawled across the logs. For a while she lay still, coughing a little as she panted. Then she closed her eyes, pulled herself to her feet and swayed.

  Abbie stood on a river of logs, moving slowly through the dense smog. She could not see the boat ahead, she could not see the branch she had dropped from, and the few standing trees she could see were ghosts in the fumes.

  She bent forward, placed the edges of her hands on the logs and shambled carefully towards the shudder of the engine. For a long time everything seemed to drag to a stop, with Abbie moving slowly, and the logs creaking slightly under her, and nothing else in the world changing.

  But eventually some large logs moved out of the smog, logs that were not in the water, but lying on top of other logs. These were the hardwood logs, the ones that would sink if they were rolled off the others. On the other side of these were the boat and Gadas.

  Abbie moved up to the hardwood logs and peered over the top. There were three sets of hardwood logs, a few normal logs, the rope and the boat. She could see the silhouette of Gadas on the top of the boat through the smog – but only just.

  She moved past the hardwood logs, stepping over the ropes that held them down, until only the towing rope separated her from the boat. She could see that a corner of the hessian cover had lifted.

  Suddenly she sucked air through her teeth.

  The small hand of Pebble wandered loosely at the edge of the canvas cover.

  Abbie looked up at the more distant shape of Gadas. She fingered her cheek, then hooted softly, little more than a sigh.

  Pebble’s hand stopped, stiffened and snatched at the canvas, pulling it aside. There were some bars under the canvas and one eye gleaming in the dark. The eye blinked and steadied. Then he hooted loudly, joyously.

  ‘Shutup, ape!’ Gadas growled.

  Abbie slid into the shadow of an ironwood log. Pebble hooted unhappily at the shadow.

  ‘Shutup!’ Gadas threw an empty bottle at Pebble. It bounced off the hessian cover into the river.

  Pebble shut up, but he kept staring at the shadow.

  For a moment Abbie stayed motionless behind the log. Then she slid out, as quietly, as softly, as a hunting tree-snake. Pebble stirred in his cage but he did not make a sound.

  Abbie flowed along the ironwood, past the lashings, past the last floating logs, to the heavy rope connecting the logs with the stern of the boat. She trailed a finger in the water that flowed past the ends of the logs and looked at the churning around the stern. She reached out, gripped the rope and pushed herself from the logs.

  She tried to stay on top of the rope, but it swayed under her. Her injured foot flinched, her ribs shivered and she swung underneath the rope.

  And into the boiling water at the boat’s stern.

  She could hear a roaring in the water, as if an enormous metal creature was rushing at her with its mouth open. She hesitated, then pulled herself along the rope, dragging her way towards the chomping creature. Her eyes were wide in terror but she could not see anything beyond the rushing turbulence.

  And then she was pulling herself up. Her head came out of the seething water and banged gently against the wooden stern. She shook her head clear and looked up at the post the rope was tied around. She reached high, grabbed the post and pulled herself out of the river.

  Pebble hooted softly and stretched with both arms towards Abbie. He pressed his face against the bars.

  Abbie flowed across the boat, leaving a trail of muddy water, and settled before the cage. She reached inside, squeezing Pebble’s head lightly while clicking softly with her tongue.

  She moved the hessian cover back from the cage and studied it. The cage was small, marked by rust and deep scratches, and one bar was slightly bent. She ran her fingers over it and shivered a little.

  You know this cage.

  That bar, she had given it that bend. And some of the scratches were hers …

  She could remember when she’d tried desperately to get out of that cage, to grab that bag of Mist and take her back into her jungle. But she couldn’t. She’d stayed inside the cage as the boat and its logs wound down the river, past the village and the tourist places, past the palm jungle, across the broad bay, to the roaring town …

  Abbie took her hand away from the bar and fingered the door of the cage. Knots were easy, even wire.

  But she found a padlock.

  Abbie looked hopelessly beyond Gadas and his boat, into the swirling smog of the river. Pebble was going to the roaring town.

  He would be taken out of this cage and put into another cage in the shadows of a house close to the lapping water. She remembered being in the second cage for a long, long time. She had measured the days by the movement of a narrow slit of sunlight on the wall and by the feeding times. A dead-faced woman came to her cage with watery milk and old fruit at sunrise and sunset.

  Then Gadas brought another man who smelled of salt and beer. This new man shone a torch into her eyes and prodded her through the bars, then nodded at Gadas and went away. That night he came back with another two salt-smelling men and opened the cage. He put a collar and chain on her and the men took her hands and led her out of the house into a quiet, dark street.

  They put her into the back of a car, took her for a short distance, then pulled her outside. The car had stopped in the shadow of a darkened ship. Abbie was led on board over a rickety gangplank, into the ship and down, down past gleaming dead machinery and into a deep hole lined with white bags and logs. A cage was lashed high on top of the white bags. They forced her into the cage and left her screaming …

  Abbie squeezed Pebble’s hand but she did not want to look into his face. She examined the padlock, tested its strength and shook her head. The bars? They were marked by rust but they were still solid.

  Pull at the bars? Remember The Mountain trying to release Cas from her cage? He failed and he was far stronger than her. And you cannot make any sound at all.

  Abbie looked at the bars. They were screwed into a metal base and a hardwood roof. The screws were rusty and driven hard into the sockets of the bars so she couldn’t get a grip on the screws with her teeth or her fingers. It was impossible.

  Pebble licked at the back of her hand.

  Abbie turned away to stare at Gadas’s slouching back, at the drums, the stove, the toolbox, the mess of ropes. There was nothing she could do.

  But …

  She looked back at the open toolbox.

  Harry. A long time ago, on a quiet afternoon under a broad-leafed tree, you were watching Harry next to the boy Ian. Harry was working with his tools. He was taking apart Ki’s old machinery.

  Abbie blinked and stared at the rusted screws. She bent over the toolbox and carefully, quietly, moved the tools around until she found a screwdriver. She moved back and squatted before the cage, her lower lip covering her upper lip in concentration. She placed the screwdriver blade into the screw slot and tried to turn it. Some flakes of rust peeled away but the screw did not budge.

  Abbie frowned as Pebble looked up at her in wonder.

  She put her heavy shoulder behind her arm, hurting her rib cage. The rusty screw squeaked loudly, but it moved. It came into her hand and she showed it briefly to Pebble before throwing it into the river.

  Gadas started to hum over the throb of the engine.

  Abbie heaved on the second screw. There were four screws holding each bar, two for the base, two for the roof. If three bars were bent sideways Pebble would be able to get out of the cage. The second screw was in Abbie’s hand.

  Pebble coughed. His eyes widened and he pressed his fingers over his mouth.

  Gadas stopped humming. ‘You like that, monkey? Eh?’

  Abbie hunched before the cage and looked down.

  Gadas looked
back, laughed a little and turned away. He lit a cigarette and went on with his humming.

  Abbie moved onto the bottom of the second bar, leaving the first bar still connected to the roof. The third screw came out with a ripple and Abbie threw it over her shoulder, making a soft splash.

  ‘Fish are biting, eh monkey?’

  Pebble coughed. The spasm shook his body.

  ‘Don’t get sick, monkey. I got money on you.’

  Fourth screw. Abbie was working on the third bar now.

  ‘What, the smoke getting you, eh? Ah, you oughta get yourself smoking these things, monkey.’ Gadas waved the red spark in the night.

  Pebble coughed and shuddered. Abbie looked up and reached into the cage, squeezed Pebble’s shoulder. But she kept working on the fifth screw.

  ‘See, smoke never worries me, monkey.’

  Pebble gripped the third bar, shook it in anticipation as the fifth screw came loose. But the excitement triggered a long retching cough.

  ‘Hey, careful, maybe you’d be better with the cover off…’ Gadas turned fully. ‘Ah.’ He took his cigarette from his mouth and squinted through the smog. ‘What …?’

  Abbie looked up as the sixth screw moved under the screwdriver.

  ‘What! Get out!’ Gadas shouted and hurled his cigarette at Abbie. She jerked back and dropped the screwdriver.

  Gadas groped desperately around in his small cabin, looking for something.

  Abbie seized the bottom of the three bars in her right fist and wrenched them sideways. Pebble dived past the bars with a hoot of joy and clutched her body.

  Gadas was clanging, scraping something in the cabin.

  Abbie scrabbled to the post at the stern, clutched the rope with her feet and ran unsteadily down to the towed logs. She was flapping her arms by her side as if she was trying to fly. She steadied, and bounded past the first of the hardwood logs.

  Behind Abbie there was a loud explosion.

  As Abbie lifted her hand from a hardwood log, part of it splintered apart. She looked over her shoulder and saw Gadas hunched over his gleaming stick. She skittered down the river of logs, low and fast like a spider.

  There was another explosion but nothing around her was hit. The engine on the boat died and she heard the first logs crunching slowly at the stern of the boat. As she hurried over the logs she saw the ripples round them flatten and die.

  She stopped for a moment, sucking air into her lungs, and turned. The boat was distant now, just a blur in the early morning smog, but she could see that Gadas had jumped from the boat to the logs.

  He was faster than she was on the ground, even on the floating logs, and soon there would be an end to them. Nothing but muddy water.

  She scrabbled along, peering into the smog ahead. The logs were a road down the middle of the river, water either side, but they wound round a bend and after that they would run out.

  You are running into a trap!

  And Gadas knew it. A frantic run became a rocking jog, hardly faster than Abbie’s panting stagger. Abbie reached the bend, saw the end of the logs – no further away than two boat lengths – and whimpered softly. Pebble stared up at her in alarm and echoed Abbie’s anguish.

  But the logs were close to the bank. Not close enough to jump ashore, but maybe the water might be shallow enough to wade out of the river.

  Crocodiles? Never mind, they didn’t matter now.

  Abbie locked her eyes on the bank as she shambled off the logs and into the water with a heavy splash. She thrashed her arms and legs.

  Gadas roared in anger. Frantically, he began to run again.

  Abbie’s feet found the riverbed, but it was deep. The water was around her armpits when she stood up and Pebble moved from her side to her head. Neither of them could swim. She clawed at the mud with her feet, pushed the water behind her with her arms – and she began to rise from the river with each step.

  She was out of the water, dripping, clawing up the muddy bank, when she heard the running steps of Gadas on the logs behind her. She opened her mouth in fear and forgot the pain of her ribs and her foot as she hurled mud and clay behind her. She clutched a high clump of grass and pulled herself, in a long jump, to the top of the bank.

  Then the running stopped.

  Abbie turned back, and saw Gadas standing on the log, close enough for her to see his angry eyes. He was holding his gleaming stick in both hands and he was pointing it at her and Pebble.

  She tumbled sideways.

  The stick erupted and the long grass clump Abbie had held an instant ago disintegrated in the air.

  ‘Bloody ape!’ Gadas leaped into the water. ‘Should have come after you, made sure!’

  Abbie scrambled over the bushes to a tree, put the trunk between Gadas and her and climbed it like a long-nosed monkey. For twenty metres she climbed, until the wheezing slowed her down.

  But Gadas was thrashing through the bushes towards her.

  She reached for an overhead branch and swung quickly away from the trunk. Her weight brought the branch down to touch a neighbouring tree, so she flowed onto the second tree, onto the third … She began to recapture the rhythm of travelling through the canopy and left Gadas far behind. She could hear him still, in the undergrowth.

  Didn’t matter. You’ve got Pebble and the trees. You can’t be stopped now …

  But the canopy was thinning. She could see smoke ahead.

  You are going back to the black desert!

  She turned away from the river and from the thinning canopy.

  Gadas was still hunting her, and now he was not thrashing through undergrowth. He was running.

  Abbie looked down. There was no undergrowth beneath her. Nothing but the black tide of the desert and the singed brown lower leaves. She quickened her pace, looking three trees ahead, judging branches for weight bearing and how they would bend.

  The pain in her ribs was getting worse. But you can bear it, and the foot – forget it, you need it too much. You can still travel as fast as he can, maybe faster for a little bit. Then all you have to do is find a patch of thick canopy and hide while he goes past.

  For a moment Abbie felt better.

  Then she saw the flicker of orange through the smog.

  ‘Hah!’ Gadas shouted in triumph.

  Abbie swung two trees further on, and the flicker of flame spread to a deep arc, pushing a black-grey wall of billowing smoke before it.

  ‘Got you, you smartass ape! What’re you going to do now?’

  Abbie fumbled away from the triumphant shout, towards the flames. She clawed along a swaying branch with Pebble hooting softly on her side, clutching at the crown of a sapling at the edge of a small clearing, pushing herself from the branch.

  It was a bad mistake.

  The sapling was too young, too supple to support the weight of Abbie and Pebble and it swayed erratically from the arc of fire to the thrashing sound of Gadas approaching. The flames were close now, a roaring wall of red and yellow reaching the bottom of the high canopy, with thick dark smoke billowing around Abbie. She tried to control the sapling by tearing off clumps of leaves and pressing her body to the thin trunk but it continued to whip about, as if it was caught in a wind storm.

  Then Abbie glimpsed a solid dark trunk through the smoke and reached for it. The sapling threw her at the trunk and shook violently in relief at losing the load. She hit the trunk with a solid thud, before her arms and legs wrapped round it.

  The thick, immense trunk moved under her. She smelt the wood, dry and dusty rot. No sap for a long time. She looked up to see only a gnarled fist where there had once been branches sprouting from the trunk, when there had once been a canopy.

  A long-dead tree. A stag.

  Abbie felt the stag under her hands.

  A stick snapped behind her and Pebble clutched tightly at her side.

  She climbed quickly to the stumps of the branches, to the absolute top of the stag.

  ‘Getting hot, ape?’ Gadas shouted over the crackling of
the fire. He was very close.

  Abbie rocked on the stag, as if searching helplessly for a way out. To leap impossibly over the wall of flames, or fly from Gadas and his roaring stick.

  ‘Where are you, ape?’

  The stag moved towards the fire, separated only by the expanse of a hand. Then it stopped and moved back. Abbie flung her arms out as if there was a tall safe tree within reach. If only she could stretch her body a little more. But there was nothing but the swirling smoke and the fire below.

  ‘Nowhere to go, ape!’

  The stag swayed back to the flames and Abbie swung out from the trunk, pulling it after her. It stopped, yanking some of the roots from the damp earth before it tilted back. Abbie let the stag swing her to the vertical, but as it tilted she added to its momentum by hurling herself out from it again.

  Pebble stared through the smoke, seeing a high branch coming closer, and grunted in excitement. The stag snapped a large root and loosened the soil around it but still it tilted back towards the fire. Pebble hooted.

  ‘I can hear you, you stupid ape!’

  But next time Abbie did not throw herself out. The stag swung far over the fires, close enough for the hair on her arms to singe and for her to feel the heat. For a moment it stood still, then it trembled, rolled slightly and tilted back.

  ‘There you are!’ Gadas stepped into the clearing with the light of the flames playing over his face.

  Abbie held her trembling body to the trunk as it swayed towards the vertical once more. Then, when she could feel it stop and it began slowly falling back, she grabbed with her feet, reached for Gadas and his roaring stick with her arms and her body, and pulled the stag behind her.

  ‘Playing games now?’ Gadas stood in the clearing and pointed his stick.

  Abbie felt the roots snapping, and the increasing speed of the toppling stag.

  ‘What …’ Gadas hesitated.

  Abbie swung round the falling trunk.

  Gadas lifted his head from his stick and his eyes widened as the shadow of the stag swept across his face. His stick fired uselessly at the trunk.