‘What’s wrong?’ I say.
‘The bloody horse, it won’t come,’ he says. ‘I cannot make it move.’
Tajik looks at us and then at Prince.
‘You and Nathan,’ he says. ‘You share that one, okay?’
Nathan frowns. ‘Can we do that?’
Tajik nods, looks at me. ‘We will have to go slow. You can’t trot with such a heavy load. Danby, it’ll be best if you go at the front. Nathan, you behind her.’
Nathan shrugs off his rifle. ‘Hold this,’ he says to me. ‘Tajik, give Danby your gun and the phone.’
While I hold the weapons, Nathan triple bags them, adds the .38 from my waistband, and ties the bundle.
‘Let me take it,’ Tajik says. ‘So I can cover you when you cross.’
Nathan gives him the bundle and Tajik expertly straps it to the back of his saddle.
Keeping the guns from getting water logged is smart.
Except now we’re defenceless until we’re on the other side of the river.
TWENTY-SIX
I’m grateful for the dwindling light and steady drizzle as we step out of the shadow of the roadway. We walk the horses through the middle of the creek, past the porridge of bodies in the shoals, and don’t start breathing properly again until we’re farther downstream, free of the stink and back in tree cover.
The horses plod along for a while and we veer right when we hit a fork. A minute later, Tajik stops.
I guide Prince next to B-Lo.
The river reflects the fading clouds. Little whirlpools swirl close to shore, faster currents thread and ribbon farther out. But it hasn’t been raining long enough that we’re heading into white-water rapids.
‘What do you call a guy who swims in circles?’ Nathan says.
Tajik and I turn to him in the darkness. I can’t see his smile but I feel it.
‘Eddie,’ Nathan says.
I clamp my hand over my mouth, sides convulsing, see out of the corner of my eye that Tajik’s doubled over around Evan.
When we’re able to right ourselves, the river’s still there.
‘Will the horses really swim?’ Nathan asks, voice serious now.
‘Trust me,’ Tajik says.
I do. But we have no idea what awaits us in the black line of bush along the far shore. I picture a nest of Minions watching us. Jack enjoying our struggle before deciding to open fire. Maybe he really would cut me down and let me sink and drown. Maybe I’m full of myself for thinking he’d want to make my death more personal.
‘This will be fine,’ Tajik says, tying the reins through Evan’s backpack shoulder straps to stop my little brother floating away. ‘These are good horses. They are used to the water now. As far as they know, this is only more creek. So relax and trust them. Follow me and float free when we hit deep water. Okay?’
It has to be.
Tajik leans back in the saddle and urges his horse to step into the river. The water’s immediately up to its chest. They walk a little farther and then the horse drops as the river bottom falls away.
Nathan and I stiffen. But Tajik and Evan are okay, have become bobbing black figures off to one side of the horse as it arrows through the current. They drift a little but they don’t go down or float away.
I shiver and Nathan wraps his arms tighter around me.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
‘That’s increasingly,’ I reply through chattering teeth, ‘relative.’
I feel him smile against my ear.
‘Our turn,’ I say, lightly slapping my boots against the horse’s flanks. Prince doesn’t budge.
‘C’mon, boy,’ I urge, trying to sound like this is nothing. He takes a step forward after his cousin and the water laps my knees. Peering ahead, I can just make out Tajik scooping Evan out of the water and hauling him back into the saddle as their horse clambers up the far bank.
Then we’re in the river depths. Nathan slips into the water on Prince’s off side with a hand on the saddle and I float free to the near side holding the reins. It’s bracing, colder than the creek. Prince snorts, as though in distress, but I can feel his legs kicking strong and confident below.
As dark as it is, it’s hard to tell whether we’re making progress, or whether the three of us are just being swept downriver.
‘I’m gonna swim for it,’ Nathan says, launching himself forward to breaststroke ahead of us.
His shadow waits in waist-deep water and reaches out to take the reins as Prince staggers into the shallows. There’s a red K-flash from Tajik’s torch and together we lead the horse up to where he has tethered B-Lo to a tree branch.
We tie up Prince and flop on the grass beside Tajik and Evan, dripping, exhausted, exhilarated.
I check my little brother. He’s saturated but breathing steadily. After all this, I’d hate for the cold river water to have brought him around just enough so Jack could zero in on us.
‘Nathan?’ I wheeze. ‘Can you check him?’
He slides across the grass, takes his rifle from the unwrapped bundle, and angles the torch so it lights my brother’s face. Evan’s eyelids don’t move. But he’s so wet it’s impossible to see whether there are tears on his cheeks.
‘He’s all right,’ Nathan says. ‘Still right under. That dose should hold him for another few hours. But the next one’s the last one. After that we’ll either have to be outside the radius—or happy to hang out with Jack.’
I nod as I shoulder my assault rifle and tuck the .38 into my waistband.
Tajik checks the phone. Clicks at it. Nothing happens.
‘It is dry but I think the battery is dead,’ he says. ‘Have you got Alex’s phone?’
My heart sinks. It’s back in the barn in Oscar’s pocket.
I shake my head. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t think of it.’
‘Goddamn.’ Nathan grimaces. ‘I didn’t either.’
‘Me either,’ says Tajik. ‘Sorry.’
I press my face into my hands and visualise the map.
‘Right behind us, these trees cover maybe a few hundred metres,’ I say. ‘Then there’s a kilometre or so of fields. Crops, best I could tell. Then Freemans Reach Road. That will be in sight of the bridge that’s just around the river bend. But once we cross that we’re into miles and miles of farmland. We keep Wilberforce Road to our right until we hit a lagoon. Then we need to cross it so another road, Sackville, is on our left. If we shadow it, and then West Portland Road, that’ll take us deep into state park bushland.’
When I open my eyes, Nathan and Tajik are staring at me.
‘Back at the grandstand,’ I say. ‘I memorised it.’
‘Good work,’ Nathan says.
What he’s kind enough not to mention is that I was the one who ran the battery right down.
‘How far is all of that?’ Tajik asks.
‘About thirty kilometres,’ I say. ‘But as straight as the crow flies it’s maybe fifteen.’ Not nearly far enough.
‘It’s not going to put us out of Jack’s radius,’ says Nathan. ‘But once we’ve put a bit of distance between us and his people we can get a car and cover some real miles.’
Sounds good to me. Tajik nods enthusiastically.
We mount up, clothes soaked and saddles squeaking, and pick our way through the trees, searching in every direction for telltale lights.
When we reach a farm pasture, Nathan hops down and snips the wire fence. We walk the horses between rows of cabbages. The rain keeps coming down. I wonder whether the downpour stretches across the city and is enough to put out some of the fires.
‘Look.’ Tajik points back through the drizzle towards the bridge.
Lights twinkle through the trees where Minions are doing whatever they’re doing. Prince snorts. My heart thuds. Then I relax because even if the sound carries it’s a perfectly natural noise for this part of the country.
‘Nothing to see here,’ Nathan whispers, and I laugh.
I’m relieved to see those Minions by th
e bridge because it might mean there aren’t pockets of them hiding in these farm fields ready to ambush us. I remember what Oscar said about the size of this territory and our ability to disappear into it. Not that it kept him alive.
A headlight carves through the dusk as a motorbike farts from the bridge and along the road that borders this farm. We lean down as much as we can against B-Lo and Prince. I hope if the rider glances our way he’ll only see vaguely horse-shaped blotches in the murky landscape. The motorbike sways this way and that around whatever’s in its path and then his red rear light floats away to be swallowed by the darkness.
When we reach the end of the field, Nathan jumps down to cut another section of fence away. East and west, there are no headlights. We cross quickly and Nathan opens a gate to the next paddock. When we’re through, he swings back up onto Prince in a fluid movement.
‘Getting real good at that, Duke,’ I say.
We walk the horses in silence, deeper into the countryside. Above us, the last light of day is gone.
Tajik climbs off his horse, opens another gate, leads us between rows of a crop that might be wheat. Whatever it is, the stalks reach up to the horses’ shoulders, providing good cover. Tajik switches on the flashlight, points it at the ground. There’s just enough illumination to see where we’re going. But I worry it’ll reflect up into the sky, brilliant as a lighthouse, attract Minions’ eyes, betray us to Jack.
We get to the far side of the field. Nathan cuts a hole in the fence. Then we swish through another expanse of something that looks like sugar cane. We come to a post-and-rail fence and follow it until we find a gate.
The paddocks are maddeningly slow.
Cover a few hundred metres. Stop to cut wire fence or find a gate.
Move on again. Stop again.
Move on again.
Stop again.
After doing this over and over, we squat in a field among watermelons spread out like alien eggs. Nathan hacks into one with his metal shears, hands us juicy chunks. I slurp mine noisily. We’ve agreed to conserve what’s left in the backpack. Not that two bottles of water, tins of tuna, some crispbread and a jar of peanut butter will last long. Other than that we’ve got the medical kit, a single saline bag for Evan and whatever ammunition is left in our rifles.
‘How long do you think it has been since we left the river?’ Tajik says.
‘Two hours, maybe three,’ I say. ‘Hard to tell.’
Prince nickers from where he and B-Lo munch their own pile of watermelons.
Nathan sits beside me.
‘How far do you think we’ve come?’ I ask.
‘Maybe six kilometres,’ he says. ‘I’m totally guessing about that.’
Maybe six kilometres. In two hours. Maybe three.
If we don’t go fast—much faster—then it’s going to be daylight and we’ll still be inside Jack’s radius when Evan wakes up.
‘Roo-row,’ Nathan says through a mouthful of melon, sounding like Scooby-Doo.
‘What?’
‘He said, “Too slow”, ’ Tajik interprets for me.
I don’t need to spell out the problem for these guys. Just suggest a solution.
As far as I can remember, the main road north is a few hundred metres away in the darkness. We haven’t seen a motorbike since just after the river.
‘If we risk the road, how fast can the horses go?’ I ask Tajik.
He spits seeds. ‘We cannot trot on a hard surface, not with two riders per horse. But they will walk at six kilometres an hour. They can do that all night.’
Nathan nods. ‘That’s forty kilometres by dawn.’
Tajik peers at me. ‘Is it worth the risk?’
I frown. ‘How much longer can we keep Evan under?’ I ask.
‘One dose left,’ Nathan says. ‘Maybe twelve hours.’
‘Then we don’t have a choice, do we?’ I stand up. ‘Let’s hit the road.’
Rifles and flashlights aimed low at the ground, we lead the horses to the next fence and slosh through muddy puddles until we reach an open gate. Peering along the road north and south reveals nothing but blackness. Tajik climbs into his saddle and I heave Evan up to him. Nathan holds Prince’s reins, waiting for me to mount.
‘Nathan,’ I say, touching his shoulder, ‘do you think you can ride backwards?’
Nathan folds his arms. ‘Duke’s a cowboy, not a rodeo clown.’
There’s just enough light that he can see my face.
‘You’re serious?’ he sputters.
I nod. ‘Chances are, they’ll come at us from behind. If you can give us the heads up, we might have time to take cover.’
‘Shit.’ Nathan looks for a second opinion. ‘Really?’
‘It is a good idea,’ Tajik says in the darkness. ‘The horse won’t mind.’
Nathan sighs. I help him up and follow. We squirm around bum to bum, play Twister with feet in stirrups, grips on reins and saddles and rifles.
‘Comfortable?’ Tajik says with a laugh. ‘Let’s go.’
We walk the horses along the shoulder of the road. Their legs swish wet weeds as we skirt along cars that loom one after the other in the drizzle. Nathan and I turn our heads and end up cheek to cheek for the second time tonight. Back at the barn it was in the wake of the death of a friend. Now it’s to see faces flashlit through car windows and open doors. Some are pale. Many are grey or blue or green.
I think of Nathan checking Goners on the street in Parramatta the morning we met and saying more than three-quarters of them were in pretty good shape after a day or two. But that was a week ago.
‘How many of them are still alive?’ I ask.
Nathan turns his head away from mine.
‘What is it?’ I ask.
‘Louis is—was—a bit of a war buff,’ he says quietly. ‘We had a lot of time to talk about this when we were coming to get you—how long people could possibly last. He told me about Lady Be Good, an American plane that crashed in the African desert in World War Two. Eight of the crew parachuted out safely and tried to walk to civilisation with one canteen of water between them in the searing heat. They didn’t make it but they survived for days and one of them lasted more than a week and he walked over one hundred and seventy kilometres.’
Nathan falls quiet. The people in and around these cars haven’t expended much energy and weather conditions haven’t been extreme. Their reduced core temperature and slowed heartbeat and breathing should have kept some of them alive. I think the point of the story is there’s still hope.
‘So some of these people will be okay for a while longer?’
Nathan’s back arches behind me. ‘No. The guy who put in all that effort, walking and crawling through the desert? He still died. They only know how hard he fought because he kept a diary. The point is that even if he had twice the amount of water, walked twice as far, the outcome would’ve been the same because the desert was too big and help wasn’t coming. Same with these people. It doesn’t matter if they’re alive now. They’re dead.’
I wipe my eyes angrily. We should be the cavalry but we are riding by without stopping. We can’t help anyone without bringing death down on them and us. Even if we risked Lorazepam injections we don’t have IV fluids for rehydration beyond the one bag earmarked for Evan. Jack’s winning without even catching us.
‘It’s not our fault,’ Nathan says. ‘It’s his. Remember that.’
I can’t help feeling responsible.
The traffic thins out.
We pass a cheery billboard at the entrance to a go-kart track. Then there’s a sign welcoming visitors to a combination butterfly park and waterskiing venue. We amble by a cluster of houses and Tajik tilts his torch on a marker telling us we’ve reached the turn-off to the historic town of Wilberforce.
‘Which way?’ he asks.
‘Straight ahead,’ I say, pretty sure that’s right.
We bypass whatever old-world charms Wilberforce might have offered. I know we’re leaving the settlement
behind when the stench of death fades. As much as it can ever fade. Even after being saturated by the river’s rushing waters, I smell decay in my nostrils, in my clothes, in my hair. In my pores.
‘Refuge Island,’ I say under my breath.
How wonderful it would be to be on a warm beach, breeze sweeping across white sand from a jade sea, salt and sun bleaching everything clean.
There’s just enough flashlight to see telegraph poles stringing together useless powerlines outside the gates and fences of deceased rural estates. Orchards flank us for a while and their expanses of white insect netting spreads out like luminescent mist across the fruit trees. Then bush reclaims the landscape and the cars really thin out. Not so much that you could drive very far before you were blocked by a crash. But enough that we can keep the horses on the road rather than relegating them to the verges.
Tajik halts B-Lo at a sign that puts us eighteen kilometres north of Richmond. Road kilometres that is. Still, it’s progress.
‘How’s it going back there, reverse cowboy?’ I ask.
Nathan gently pokes his elbow back into my ribs. ‘The Duke abides.’
Tajik leads off. I guide Prince in behind B-Lo.
On we go. Tired, wet, cold. Seeing a zippy little four-wheel drive smashed on its side, surfboards scattered around, makes me think of my beach fantasy again. I smile that I’ve got such an urge to tell Nathan and Tajik about it. Isn’t it what soldiers do in war movies? Start yakking all dreamy-eyed about their fantasy escapes—and then blam they get a bullet. Even my reaction to trauma and stress is a cliché. I chuckle to myself.
‘What?’ Nathan says.
Who cares if I’m a joke?
‘You know what’d be great?’ I say. ‘Being on a—’ ‘Hold that thought.’ Nathan straightens behind me. ‘When did it stop raining?’
I’m suddenly cold to my core. I look around, as if somehow it might still be pouring down a few feet away. Tajik has his hand out, like he too needs proof.
‘I didn’t notice either,’ he says. ‘I wonder how long it has—’
‘Ssssh!’ Nathan hisses.
The hairs on my neck and arms spring up at the distant pulse that’s almost at the bottom limit of hearing. It’s more insistent every second, rising over our breaths, the shifting of the horses. Tajik kills his flashlight and we’re plunged into blackness.
The Last Shot Page 26
