‘Never mind,’ Ishra said to himself.
The behemoth slowly pulled up alongside us, belching smoke. It was a jerry-rigged monstrosity held together by spit and string, the same as everything else nowadays. Awed, I silently watched as a hulking, diesel-powered engine car crawled past us. On its roof, a handful of Creeps in shapeless sand-coloured tunics kept watch from a fortified gun nest.
A dozen or so carriages snaked behind the engine car, each one sporting cracked timber walls and windows covered in mismatched boards. A long line of rusty shipping containers hung on behind them. The train was so long that it overhung the far end of the platform.
‘Wow,’ Ruby said, drawing the word out.
That was enough to break the moment—Tobe, Ishra and I all laughed a little. Ruby looked put out, but there was no way that we could explain our laughter to her.
‘Thank you, Ruby,’ Ishra said. ‘I will miss you.’
That didn’t just kill our tiny cheer; it desecrated its corpse as well.
The train stopped with a shudder, one of the Creeps in the gun nest rapping a rhythmic pattern on the steel roof beneath him.
‘Please, leave this to me,’ Ishra said.
‘No worries.’
Tobe spoke for us all; there was no argument there.
The door of the first carriage flew open. A dozen Creeps strode out, a tall and lanky bloke in the lead. Cocky and self-assured to the last one, none of the Creeps drew their guns. They ambled over, taking their time. Behind them, a last Creep rolled a stainless-steel supply box towards the ticket office.
‘G’day, Doc,’ the lead Creep said, lifting up the visor on his cumbersome helmet.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me …’
I had gotten it wrong; the lead Creep was a woman. But then, in full body armour with helmets on and visors down, they all looked the same.
‘Hello, Captain. How are you today?’ Ishra asked.
One of the other Creeps mockingly echoed Ishra’s rounded tones.
‘What’s this, Doc? A couple of holdouts, a cripple and a kid? That isn’t much of a catch.’ She laughed. Her eyes flicked over us as if we were nothing but meat. ‘Right, then,’ she said.
I wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run like the proverbial. Tobe caught my eye, shook his head slowly. Ruby stared at the ground. Tobe reached out with his good hand. One of the Creeps casually reached towards his pistol. Tobe ruffled Ruby’s hair and then raised his arms in surrender, grimacing in pain, wrestling with his sling.
Ruby said nothing, did nothing, kept staring at the ground.
‘So, Doc, what’s the story?’ the captain asked.
‘Well, it’s exactly as you said, apart from the “cripple” comment. We’ve got these two holdouts.’
Ishra waved at Tobe and me. We didn’t meet the captain’s eyes.
‘This young lady.’
Ishra waved at Ruby. She didn’t look up.
‘And your compatriot here.’
The bull-roo on the trolley didn’t even moan.
‘What happened to him?’
The rest of the Creeps were eyeing us warily, their hands now on their pistols. The fear I felt became ice; sweat drenched me without warning. Tobe caught my eye. He shook his head once again.
‘A dog attack, I do believe. Prior to the arrival of these three.’
Tobe smiled. I didn’t know why.
‘How bad is it?’
‘Well, the dog apparently savaged this poor man’s face. It’s doubtful that he’ll ever see again. He’s under sedation, and will probably need to stay that way until he can get proper help.’
‘Can do. After the camp, it’s express to the line.’
I whistled. Tobe groaned. The captain paid us proper attention. She dismissed Ruby and me almost instantly, but seemed to puzzle over Tobe. He smiled a broken-toothed smile, winked through his puffy eye.
‘G’day,’ he growled.
The captain humphed through her nose before turning away. ‘Load them in, boys.’
Ishra looked at us a last time. ‘Please, take care. William, Tobias, Ruby—know that you will always be in my heart.’
The captain’s faced curled with a question at the mention of Tobe’s name, but soon relaxed as Ishra thrust our transfer papers at her and snatched her attention.
‘They’re all yours,’ he said.
‘Thanks, Doc.’
The captain looked me in the eye and smiled, tucking our transfer papers into a pocket of her body armour.
‘Please, be kind,’ Ishra said to her.
‘You never know, I just might.’
Seventeen
The captain and her Creeps herded us along the platform. Or they tried to, at least—Ruby wouldn’t move. The captain reached out to push her; Ruby growled in her throat. It was a wild sound, rich and full of hate.
The captain took an involuntary step back.
‘Now’s not the time,’ Tobe said gently.
Ruby didn’t acknowledge him, but she started walking. Tobe scooped up our backpacks. The Creeps relaxed their hold on their weapons; two of them peeled off to collect their stricken comrade. We let the captain shepherd us on—I limped and Tobe walked in silence, shadowing Ruby. The captain stopped us outside an empty carriage. She threw the door open. Like a mob of sheep at the steps to the slaughterhouse, we stared dumbly at this latest twist of misfortune.
‘What are you waiting for?’ the captain asked. ‘Bloody Christmas?’
Tobe and I looked at each other. The captain—seemingly oblivious to my puzzled glance—jabbed Tobe in the back. That got him moving, and he gingerly climbed aboard. I stumbled after him, almost catching my stick in a crack in the carriage floor. It was gloomy inside, the windows boarded up, the only source of light the gaps in the rough-hewn wooden walls. Everything that could be salvaged had been hauled away, leaving the carriage an empty box designed to hold as many people as could be crammed inside.
The smell of human waste and fear hung in the air.
‘Nice,’ Tobe said, dumping our packs.
‘Lots of room,’ Ruby replied. ‘You could easy have a kick in here.’
She looked at us, smiling for what felt like the first time in a long time. Kids, they’re so adaptable …
She dashed a few steps ahead and kicked an imaginary goal. Tobe and I laughed, well and hearty. Playing to the room, Ruby then fell to her knees, accepting the imaginary congratulations of an imaginary crowd.
‘This isn’t a fucking holiday,’ the captain said, scowling. ‘Sit down and shut up, we’ll be leaving any minute.’
She left us without saying another word. A single Creep stayed behind, a nuggetty little ball of muscle, his eyes coldly watchful. I turned away from him, hobbled across the carriage.
‘Sit,’ the Creep said.
With some difficulty and a fair bit of pain, I sat.
‘This is bullshit,’ Tobe complained, turning to the Creep.
The Creep rested his hand on his gun. It was obvious that Tobe was thinking about making a scene, but he finally sat down as well. Ruby quickly followed suit. The Creep said nothing more.
‘I don’t reckon these fellas have much of a sense of humour,’ Ruby said.
‘Too right,’ I said.
Tobe smiled to himself.
The train started with a grinding chug that didn’t quite catch. It slowly became more rhythmic and we began to pick up speed. The carriage started shaking; the wooden walls groaned. A deep vibration rose from beneath the floor, drilling through us.
I lay on my back, used my pack as a pillow.
‘Nice time for a nap,’ Tobe muttered.
He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. I lifted my head, propping myself on my elbows. The Creep watched us, not bothered at all by the rough ride.
‘Ruby, you okay?’ Tobe asked.
I looked over at her. She was ignoring us and ignoring the Creep, transfixed by the presumably brand-new sensations she w
as feeling. She caught me staring, didn’t seem to care and suddenly leaped to her feet.
‘Ruby …’ Tobe warned.
But the Creep didn’t move. Ruby bent at the knees, slowly adjusted to the rocking of the train, held her arms out by her sides, started surfing it with ease. I lay back down. Tobe fell silent. Ruby occasionally shuffled her feet, repositioning herself to catch a rogue wave.
The train hauled itself across the parched earth, rocketing through crumbling towns, withered bush, burnt-out paddocks, and a ravaged pasture. We crossed empty rivers and yawning ravines. Cracks in the rusted metal ceiling let in slivers of blue sky, allowing us dazzling glimpses of the sun. Flickering shadows danced around us; dust drifted through the dry air. Through the gaps in the mismatched boards that sealed the windows, there were only flashes of darkness and light.
This dull monotony kept on. It lulled me, numbed me, but didn’t quite send me to sleep.
Time passed. It must have.
The low groan of the engine became a hideous scream, crashing us back to the dusty here and now. A moment later, the train slowed and the chug lost its rhythm. Tobe and I sat up; Ruby braced herself against a wall. She didn’t stop smiling, even when the carriage tilted sharply.
‘Hey, dickhead, what’s going on?’ I yelled at the Creep.
He didn’t answer, focused as he was on keeping his feet.
‘Are you bloody deaf?’
He still didn’t answer.
‘Let it go,’ Tobe said. ‘Trust me, he won’t tell you anything.’
‘Give me one good reason why I should listen to you,’ I said to Tobe, my stomped-down anger resurfacing.
He looked ready to argue, but then he shook his head. ‘Mate, come on, now’s not the time.’ He smiled sadly. ‘Please.’
My resolve crumbled, just like that. Well, maybe not just like that—we were locked in a wooden box on our way to be locked in the camp. It looked like soon enough there would be time for nothing but talk.
And for answers.
‘Did you feel that?’ Ruby asked abruptly.
I had no idea what she was talking about.
‘Quiet!’
I looked at her.
‘Listen,’ she said, lying flat, pressing her ear to the dirty floor.
I did as she said, registering that the chug had stopped its struggle. The train started to speed up; the carriage tilted again, throwing us forward.
‘And over we go,’ the Creep said, smiling coldly.
‘It’s a hill, that’s all,’ Tobe explained, bracing himself next to Ruby. ‘This fucking thing’s hauling a bit of weight, we were lucky to make it to the top. But on the flip-side, what goes up must come down.’
The train started to shoot forward, pushed along by the weight it carried. I fell, ending up on my stomach.
‘Maybe ‘hill’ was a bit of an understatement.’
I had more important things to do than indulge Tobe’s badly timed, so-called humour—the carriage shook hard, the engine screamed, we somehow picked up more speed. I gritted my teeth. Ruby’s cry of exhilarated joy floated above everything, high and bright.
I envied her, no matter our predicament.
After a long time, the carriage began to level out. A howl started; a dirty northern wind. I managed to lift my head, slowly remembering how to work with gravity.
‘You ‘right?’ Tobe asked.
I nodded, breathless and shaken. We were still moving fast, but at least the track had flattened. I looked around—something seemed different. But the answer wouldn’t come. I looked again, my face twisted with confusion. The Creep had disappeared, but I knew in my bones that it wasn’t his absence that bothered me.
‘Bugger me,’ Tobe said.
He was on his hands and knees, staring out at the world through a gap in the mismatched boards covering the windows. He seemed unaware that dust was blowing into his face.
‘What is it?’ I asked stupidly.
‘Come take a look. You too, Ruby.’
I started crawling in his direction. Ruby walked over, as surefooted as can be. She crouched beside Tobe and whistled low.
‘Wow …’
It was an awed ‘wow’, not a joyous one. I made it to a window, stared through a gap and was instantly blinded. I jerked away, fell back and then lay flat-out again. I rubbed my eyes. The red wash slowly faded. Once more staring at the ceiling, I understood what was different: the shadows had stopped dancing, bright light casting them away.
‘Come on, Bill.’
Ruby held out her hand. I took it, hoisted myself up, looked again, saw a blank stretch of land, a featureless white nothing.
‘What is this?’
I turned to Tobe, expecting to see a smile and a wink that let me know I had been fooled again. But this was no joke; he didn’t look away, didn’t stop staring out at the brilliant emptiness.
I looked back. I still didn’t get it.
‘It’s the Mallee, dickhead. Or the Wimmera. Take your pick, they’re one and the same nowadays.’
I froze. Now I couldn’t look away.
It was a desiccated void, thousands of acres of desolate pasture, all that remained of a land where cattle and sheep used to roam, where corn and wheat had grown tall and strong, where nature had run rampant and wild, where life had once thrived. All of that was now gone; all that was left was a barren dustbowl. What hadn’t shrivelled and baked had been uprooted and snatched away by the incessant wind, or buried by the sand that trailed in its wake. Not a tree or fence or outstation had survived—the land was completely flat, all the way to the horizon.
The sun shone bright off the seared earth. The whole world shimmered with heat-haze. It truly was a great white nothing, vast and borderless.
‘What’s the Mallee?’ Ruby asked in a worried voice.
This time, Tobe and I didn’t laugh at her blissful ignorance. We didn’t answer her question, either. We didn’t need to. Even though she didn’t know the land by name, just by sight she knew to fear it.
Cruel and kiln-dry, it mocked us. A more deathly place couldn’t be found.
‘End of the line,’ I muttered.
Ruby’s face crinkled. It was such a youthful expression that I almost smiled.
‘Don’t worry about it, she’ll be ‘right,’ Tobe said.
Ruby snorted in contempt at his obvious lie. She looked back at the Mallee, choosing to lose herself in a ferociously magnificent sight rather than bow to something that should have frightened her stupid.
Once more, I envied her.
‘Fuck me …’ Tobe said, interrupting us.
‘What?’
‘Come look.’
I backed away from my gap, scooted next to Tobe, shoved him over, took his place. Nothing. I squinted, caught sight of it. Faint in the distance, a tiny dark line cut across the blighted plains, dwarfed by the colossal emptiness.
The line seemed to be moving.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’
‘Stupid boys,’ Ruby said. ‘Don’t you know anything? It’s a First Country caravan, probably heading to the coast to ride out the summer.’
My jaw fell open. How could they be there?’
‘Well, there’s a first time for everything …’
Tobe’s voice was flat. He still hadn’t looked away from the great white nothing, his eyes wide and bugging.
‘So, how do you like the view?’
I fell backwards in surprise. I looked around; the Creep captain stood on the far side of the carriage, her hands on her hips. Tobe slowly pulled himself away from his gap. Ruby didn’t.
‘I love this moment, when you fucks realise what’s going on,’ the captain said, laughing.
Her laughter was all the more wrong for how much happiness there was in it.
‘Oh, and by the way, our injured friend has been talking in his sleep. He’s been saying some pretty strange things … Tobias, I thought you might like to know that.’
She let the words hang. Tobe d
idn’t react.
‘Enjoy the ride.’ She laughed again, leaned back and tucked her hands in her pockets. She didn’t take her eyes off us. Saying nothing, we turned away and kept looking out at the land.
The wind roared on. The Mallee looked back at us, empty and eternal.
The first signs that the Mallee’s seemingly endless bleakness hadn’t actually conquered all were the occasional dead trees and some shards of broken wood. The train was moving so fast that at first they seemed mere tricks of the light. As we kept on, they gradually grew in number and size. We slowed a little as they became a constant fixture. Soon, all we could see were rows of crippled timber-framed things hemmed in by neat lines of more dead trees. Butted up close together, they were like the weathered skeletons of giant animals huddled together in death.
They moaned low as the hot wind blew on.
Shots rang out at one point, presumably from one of the Creeps in the gun nest. The train slowed. The captain disappeared, replaced by the same nuggetty Creep who had guarded us when we boarded.
And then the train stopped completely.
‘What’s happening?’ I asked the Creep, turning away from my gap.
He didn’t answer. I got to my feet. I stretched, worked the kinks out of my battered body, and snatched some water from the canteen in my pack. The Creep stayed silent. After an interminable wait, more gunfire split the air. Shouting followed; the train started moving again. I crouched, looked back outside. The timber-framed things had revealed their true nature; this far past the Mallee’s edge, the wind hadn’t snatched absolutely everything away—the skeletons were surrounded by the rubble of roofs and walls, of windows and furniture, of doors and floorboards. They grew increasingly less derelict the further on we pushed, eventually becoming weary suburban houses that had forgotten their better days.
‘Right, you lot,’ the captain yelled.
I hadn’t even heard her re-enter the carriage. I reluctantly tore myself away from the broken-down homes. Tobe and Ruby did the same.
Tobe almost shook he was so tense. Ruby’s dark eyes revealed nothing.
‘Come on, off your arses.’
The captain stood beside the nuggetty Creep, one hand resting on her pistol in a rather obvious way. Tobe and Ruby slowly got to their feet; I used all my effort to heave myself up, leaning heavily on my stick.
The Rain Never Came Page 16
