Maroochy turns towards the hills.
‘We’re going over the hill? They’ll see us!’ I say.
‘Look at all those rocks. They’ll have trouble following, and there might be somewhere on the other side we can hide. There’s nothing this side, that’s for sure!’
And he’s right. Flat land forever this side of the hills.
The rocks in the hills are smooth and rounded off like giant sleeping sheep on the hillside. I’m not sure they’ll slow the bikes down too much, but we don’t have a choice.
Halfway up, bouncing and sliding on the uneven ground, grating between the rocks, we see them. The same white electric bikes as before. And they see us, coz they turn directly towards us.
I pull the handgun out of the pouch. ‘Hang on and keep the cart moving!’ I yell, and jump off the back.
‘Ella! No! They’ll get you,’ Emery says.
‘Not if they’re still chasing you!’ I say. ‘Don’t stop!’ And I’m doing the same thing that got Emery shot and beaten a few days ago, but I can’t think what else to do. We can’t outrun bikes and guns. So I huddle, one little black hoodie rock amongst a pile of grey ones, and hope they don’t see me in the gloom. I click the safety switch off the handgun that I can hardly hold, and hope that there’s something I can do.
The bikes get closer, and Emery’s right, they’re not keen to take on the rocks of the hill in the almost-dark. These aren’t knobby-tyred farm bikes, these are road bikes for smooth surfaces. The two riders get as far as the first pile of rocks and stop their bikes and get off. One of them pulls out his gun and they hike up the hillside, climbing over the rocks.
They draw level to me, and against the sky, even though they’ve still got helmets on, one of them looks like a woman. She stops and turns back to the guy behind her. I lift my gun and hold it tight in both hands. Line it up with her chest. Gotta hold it still this time. Hard to do with my head low so I still look like just a rock.
‘This is ridiculous,’ she says. ‘We should wait for daylight.’
My heart stops. Mum? I sit up. How can it be Mum, here, chasing us? Her helmet turns my way, for just a second, and her hand shoots out behind her and pats the air. She’s telling me to stay down.
The guy comes alongside her. I duck back down.
She waves her hand at the landscape away from me. ‘We could waste all night stomping around out here, when there’s probably a perfectly safe way over the hills further along. We just can’t see it in the dark,’ she says. ‘We’ll pick the trail up tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, well, we’re not gonna catch them on foot, are we?’ the guy says and turns around, boots scuffing on rocks as he sets off back down the hill.
Mum turns my way again. Holds up her thumb. And it’s all I can do to stop from crying out, to stop myself from running to her. I’m staring, staring, through the gloom, like I might never see her again. Like my eyes have to know the shadowy shape of her, in case she vanishes again.
There’s a yip behind Mum. The rattling of the cart. Rooch! Maroochy knows it’s Mum! She’s heading back to get to her. Maroochy always knows. Me, silent as a rock, begging Rooch to stop, to turn back!
Then a crack tears the night open, loud enough to stop my heart again. Is the guy shooting at Rooch?
A second later, Mum grunts, topples off the rock she’s standing on. I drop the gun. Like I did it. But I didn’t do it. It wasn’t my gun. Boots scuff as the man runs back up to the rocks next to Mum. I shove both hands over my mouth. I don’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Someone shot my mum!
Another crack and the man ducks, fires back uphill. Then he’s turning, listening for the sound of the cart, paws on rock, as the dogs scrabble away. The cart’s scraping like it’s tipped over.
The man lifts his gun. He’s going to shoot the dogs!
I search for my gun. Find it. Another crack rings out behind me. Emery! How is Emery even holding that rifle with one arm?
The man shoots back, scrambles down to Mum. She’s not making a sound. I lift the handgun, hold it as firm as I can, aim above his head, and pull the trigger. The gun bangs, flies up in the air. Slamming my hands and the butt of the gun into the top of my head. There’s no way I can even hold this handgun still with my skinny little arms. But the man runs. Bent over, he’s heading back down through the rocks. He gets his bike started and speeds off down the hill into the dark. A little pool of torchlight bounces around in front of him.
‘Emery!’ I shout, grabbing at the ache on the top of my head. ‘Stop shooting! It’s Mum!’ I scramble out over the rocks, not even waiting for an answer from Emery, coz I got to get to Mum.
‘Mum!’ I scream, and my voice is wobbly, my arms are shaking, and I dropped the stupid handgun somewhere. Why does everyone in my family have to get shot! I’m crying coz it’s too dark to see properly. I’m afraid that I’ll touch her and she’ll be a dead mess of blood and bones. And I’ll never again get to hug her.
I find her leg. It moves. She’s not dead!
‘Ella!’ she says, and she’s scrambling right up.
‘Careful!’ I say, trying to grab her.
But she’s trying to grab me, she rips her helmet off and hugs me so tight and my face is buried in her neck and in her sweaty-smelling hair and I don’t care, coz this is Mum, and I’ve not seen her in eight months and twenty-four days, and I thought I’d never see her again, and here she is, wrapped around me so tight, I can’t even breathe in her sweaty-smelling hair no more, and I actually want to, coz it’s her, here, heart beating in her chest right alongside mine. She pulls me back and kisses me on my cheek and my forehead where it hurts from being hit by a gun butt, but I don’t care, and my other cheek and right on my lips, even! And I laugh.
‘They told us one of you was dead!’ she gasps.
‘Are you hurt?’ I ask.
‘No. Well, yes, I took a dive, but Emery didn’t shoot me. I faked it. For the record, don’t dive onto rocks. It really hurts even with a helmet on.’ Then she’s scrabbling around on the ground. ‘Where’s your gun?’
I head back up to where I was hiding. ‘Emery! Come out, it’s okay!’ I yell, coz I still haven’t seen him.
I find the gun and bring it back to Mum.
‘I want to make sure he thinks I’m dead,’ Mum says, and runs back to where she fake fell. ‘Get down! Ricochet,’ she says and ducks behind a rock.
I get down and she fires into the ground where she was lying, another crack through the night, and down on the flat the bike’s torch light swerves. He’s heard that.
There’s a scuff. Emery’s on the rock above us, outlined against the sky, the rifle hitched under his one good arm pointing down at Mum.
‘Emery!’ Mum calls.
And Emery bends, droops, lets out a sob. His outline shrinks back into a small boy, just like that.
He walks down off the rock.
‘How are you here? Is Dad with you?’ Then he gasps. ‘Did I shoot him?’
Mum wraps her arms around him carefully, not squeezy like me. ‘He’s not here. And you’re a really bad shot luckily. What have you done to your arm?’
‘They did it,’ I say. ‘Those men on the bikes. And shot his head, grazed a chunk out.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she says to Emery, and he’s sucking back the tears, big sniffs. He can’t answer. ‘As soon as I heard they found some kids with a dog cart, I got myself put on the bike recovery trip.’
‘You’re with those mean people?’ I ask.
‘Not voluntarily,’ Mum says.
‘Those mean people that hurt Emery and Wolf and been hunting us down?’ I say, and I hardly believe that my mum’s part of that.
‘Sweetie, they picked us up three days ago. Your dad and I stopped on the road to help some people with their bike. I made the mistake of telling them I knew about electric bikes and solar panels, and next thing you know we’re taken back to their camp and locked in sheds. I’m fixing their bikes and panels, and your dad’s saying he can
fix their petrol bikes, and can we stay with them, pretending we’re so grateful for them for letting us join them and looking for our moment to escape and catch up with you two.
‘As soon as they said they’d seen two kids and a dog cart, we knew it was you two. And when they said one of you was dead, it was all we could do to not break down and give ourselves away. They needed me out tonight to fix that bike you broke. They didn’t give me a weapon, but I would never have let that man catch you.’
‘And Dad?’ I ask.
‘He’s built himself a key and he’s sneaking out. I hope he’s gone before that guy gets back and tells him I’m dead,’ she says, and she’s staring out across the flats at that bike’s tiny lights getting smaller all the time. ‘Imagine that, thinking half your family is dead?’
‘What if we left the guns and the bike? Would they stop chasing us?’ I ask.
‘I think they’ll give it up now. It’ll take that guy three days to get back by the time he solar charges his bike. You’ll be too far away and there’s too many other groups out here. They’ll be busy working on keeping what they got safe.’
‘Do they got a whole pile of goats?’ I ask.
‘What? Goats? No. Why?’
There’s a whining yowl in the darkness. ‘Gotta get the dogs!’ I say, and scramble down, arms out in front, picking my way between the grey rocks, searching for the dogs. Mum and Emery follow.
‘Roochy!’ I call, and she yips and yowls like she’s stuck and can’t get to me.
I run down to her, her big fuzzy black outline is bouncing and pulling, she licks my face and I run my hand along her harness and unclip her from the gang rope. She’s off to find Mum, but the gang rope goes straight down next, to Bear and Wolf, in a scuffling mound struggling on the ground. Bear’s wrapped up in the gang rope and Wolf is a quivering pile of dog on the wrong side of him, no space between them.
‘Poor Bear,’ I say, and unwind the rope, unhook his collar from where it’s hooked to Wolf’s collar, then he struggles back to his feet, and I feel him all over, pull his harness back straight and unhook it from the guy rope. I’m guessing Wolf panicked and tried to run before the other dogs could turn around, got on the wrong side of Bear, tangled them both and they both got dragged by the other dogs, afraid of the gunshots and the sideways dragging cart. Bear trots off to see Mum, so he must be okay. Squid and Oyster are sitting up, their white coats easy to see, showing me they’re fine in the darkness. Waiting like good doggos.
Wolf is a tangled, shaking mess.
‘Wolfy,’ I say softly. ‘It’s okay now, little Wolfy.’ Even though he’s almost as big as me. I run my hands along the harness line and unhook one leg. Then I just lie beside him, my hand on his warm back, feeling his thumping heart through his backbone, and tell him he’s a good boy.
Mum’s laughing coz Roochy and Bear are leaping all over her. Then she comes over, shines a tiny torchlight on us.
‘Is Wolf okay?’ she asks.
‘He’s afraid of guns,’ I tell her. ‘His ear got shot off.’
‘Poor, sweet Wolfy,’ she says, but Wolf moves away when she reaches for him. ‘I saw him when that guy found him and put a tracker on him. There was nothing I could do without looking suspicious, Wolfy, I’m so sorry.
‘I tried to slow that guy down so many times, but I just couldn’t figure out how to ditch him and catch up with you. Good move getting rid of the tracker.’
Ma’s facing Emery when she says that, her voice flowing over him, like it was Emery’s idea.
‘I took it and threw it under that house,’ I say. ‘I don’t think Wolf can run anymore.’
‘We’ll load him into the cart and get moving. We can’t stay here,’ Mum says.
‘The dogs are exhausted,’ Emery says. ‘They’re hungry and thirsty.’
‘There’s a creek ahead,’ Mum says. ‘We’ll go there and get them sorted and rested for a few hours, but then we have to push on and get away.’
It’s great to have Mum here with a plan, with two strong arms to help me right the cart and get it turned around, find all our spilled gear, get Roochy and Bear clipped back in. To help load poor broken Wolfy into the basket and help Emery sit there with his feet either side, to hold him calm while we walk it down over the rocks.
On the flat, Mum jogs ahead with Maroochy hot on her tail while I steer the cart, extra heavy now with Emery and Wolf in it. We get nearer to the creek, just a line of dark trees against the moonlit sky, and a smell of dampness.
Mum jogs back puffing and whispers, ‘Woah!’ to Roochy. She stops us and runs back to me. ‘Do you have a knife or something? There’s a roo,’ she says.
I grab the knife from the pouch.
Then she lets Bear and Maroochy off and they all run ahead.
I get off and gather up the slack gang rope and tug it over my shoulder along with Oyster and Squid, dragging the cart across the hard dirt, towards the yipping of Bear and Maroochy, and Mum calling to them in the dark.
‘Good doggos,’ I tell Oyster and Squid and rub their chins, coz they really want to be out there chasing roos as well, and they’re bouncing in their harnesses but they keep on pulling that cart with our injured pack family in it just like me.
Mum comes back, torch between her teeth, dragging a small dead roo, with Bear and Roochy nipping at its feet like it might get up and run again. It’s skinny but will fill these dogs up for now. It’s so good to have Mum back.
She clips Bear and Maroochy back in to the gang rope and says, ‘Come on then, let’s get these dogs watered and fed.’ And we head down into the line of trees. My face is in the water right away along with the dogs, even with Mum saying we should boil it first.
Then I set up the tent best I can in the dark, while Emery sits right next to Wolf, and watches the dogs drinking from the creek and coming back to hang around Mum while she cuts up the roo. Wolfy is just sitting there shaking like the world is too mean for him to ever stand up properly again. Mum with the little torch between her teeth to see what she’s doing cuts the roo’s throat and she’s bleeding it into the pot.
‘What are you going to do with the blood?’ I ask.
‘I’m going to pour it over the rocks where they think I was shot,’ she says. ‘And then they won’t come looking for me ever again.’
‘But what will they think when your body’s not there?’ I ask.
‘That you took me to feed to the dogs,’ she says.
‘What?’ I ask.
‘How bad has the world got since we left the city?’ Emery asks.
‘Not so bad,’ Mum says. ‘It’s just the gangs forming up, grabbing resources. Those gangs are dangerous. That gang is dangerous. All the farms close to the city have been trashed.’
‘We saw one,’ I say. ‘With goats.’
‘Oh,’ Mum says, and she hugs me tight.
Mum slices some nice thin bits of roo thigh and cooks them on a lighter flame so that me and Emery got some roo to eat too. Then shares out the rest of the roo between the dogs. Even Wolfy comes around a bit and eats a few chunks.
She sends us to bed straight away, telling us she’ll wake us in two hours. Then she puts Wolf in beside us to keep him calm and safe with his little bit of stinky meat. The other dogs she ties to the trees nearby.
It all goes silent except for the sound of dogs gnawing on bones, and we sleep.
A whir of an electric bike makes me sit straight up. Maroochy lets out a little yip, not a growl, so it must be Mum coming back. The sky is light now. Dawn’s not too far away.
We pull down the tent and pack it into the cart, which Mum hauled over to the other side of the creek, hook up the dogs again, even Wolfy, who seems to be a little better after his sleep.
‘It’ll do him good to focus on running, not worrying,’ Mum says. She pops pills from a blister pack for Emery and checks the graze on his scalp with her torch. ‘This is so deep!’ she says, poking around at the edges of my long-sleeve T-shirt. ‘I don’t think I shoul
d move this bandage until I’ve got something to clean it with. It might have to wait until we get to Chrissy’s place.’ She sighs and tilts her head at Emery. ‘You and Wolf ducked just enough, but you both could’ve ducked a little more.’ She grins, but there’s tears in her eyes and she looks at me and I nod, coz we’re both thinking how close those bullets came to stealing our Emery and our Wolfy away forever. Mum reaches out and grabs my hand and squeezes it, blinks away a tear.
‘Will Dad be okay?’ I ask, coz I just want for us all to be together and safe and the world feels too dangerous for any of us to be alone.
‘He will be. You know, he found me at the power station way out the other side of the city, and he convinced them to let me leave, and got us both back home to the apartment all through that crazy, falling-apart city on an electric bicycle! Then we charged it for a day and got out of the city, probably using the same bike paths you took with the dogs.’
‘We left the paths early,’ Emery says. ‘Too dangerous.’
‘Yes, you were right. We found an old petrol truck and your dad got it going, and we had the bicycle on the back recharging, when we ran into that group struggling on the side of the road with their electric motorbike.’ Mum shakes her head. ‘If we hadn’t had the solar roll and our skills with fixing things, they would’ve shot us too, I think.’
‘So how will Dad sneak away?’ I ask.
‘He was grinding a key from a piece of tin right from the first day, just by looking and recreating perfectly what he saw when they locked him in the shed every day. Such a talent for creating things. He pretended he was so happy to join their group, helping with every little fix-it job, they’ll be surprised to find him gone. And all their power walls disconnected, and their camp lights and alarms completely dead.’
I smile.
‘Emery,’ Mum says, ‘I need you on the bike. The shocks are better than the cart and I don’t want your brain or arm bouncing about any more than they have to. You really need a few days just keeping still to recover.’
Mum looks at me and I nod, coz I can manage all the dogs alone. Anyway, Rooch is just gonna follow Mum and Emery on the bike. It’ll be easy.
The Dog Runner Page 9
