Fire Eye (16 page)

Decker congratulates himself about the way he is reacting to events. It was a good call to bring in the black fellas as back-up. He has been proven right again. He always makes the best decisions. Brad has been bundled into the back of the Patrol and Jesse is about to tie him to the seatbelt attachment on the B-pillar of the Nissan.

Jesse glances up through the windows on the other side and sees a plume of smoke climbing into the early morning sky. “Pa, look! There’s a fire out there!” `

Decker spins around, scans the horizon and spots the smoke to the northwest, a narrow white plume rising into the early morning sky. It climbs almost vertically in the stillness of the morning, an alien beacon in the wilderness. He watches it for a short time, scans the horizon for a full three hundred and sixty degrees and then looks back to the smoke. “Bloody fuckers might be gett’n careless,” he mutters. “Probably think hunters are out here. Maybe they found that bloody plane.”

He stands motionless, contemplating the smoke and what it might signify.
The headmaster and the bitch are careless.
Weakness gives them away,
he decides.
They found the transmitter but want a hot breakfast or coffee. Maybe they found that plane and are celebrating.
He’ll show the bastards.

“Jesse, bring the black fella here.”

Jesse drags Brad out of the Patrol to his father. Joe is still leaning against the Troopie, stunned by the turn of events. Behind his expressionless face he is thinking things through. If there is going to be any chance for Brad and him, he’ll have to play along with these white fella bastards until a chance, any chance, pops up.

Decker is still thinking about the best way to deal with the latest turn of events. Different plans rear up in his mind and he is getting confused. In the end he is taken by the thought of doing the whole lot of them at the same time, except the bitch who he’ll take his time over. “Jesse, I want you to look after the black fella,” he says, pointing to Brad. “I’ll take Joe and have a look at the fire. You follow at a distance and meet me there.”

“Okay Pa,” Jesse replies, unsure, but willing to do whatever his dad says. Decker is his hero and Jesse looks up to him as an example of how to deal with all the pricks in the world.

Decker walks over to Joe and prods him with the shotgun. “We’re going for a little stroll matey. Don’t try anything stupid or Brad will pay for it. We’re a team, so just do the right thing and everything will be just fine.”

Joe is well aware that everything will never be fine. His time and Brad’s are limited to the extent of their usefulness. He staggers off in the direction of the smoke, aware of the white fella behind him with the shotgun. They make good time across the red, pebble-strewn landscape. He hears behind him the sounds of Brad being yanked across the campsite and herded in the same direction. Brad’s agonised groans firm his determination to save his brother from these murderous white bastards.

From the bluff above, Jed watches the procession move out, one pair in front and the other pair trailing behind. The Aboriginal in the cuffs shuffles along as best he can in front of Jesse who carries a rifle slung over his shoulder.
So far, so good.
The plan is working. He’d been worried Decker would go alone and is relieved to see them all move out. He has gambled that the sociopath will want to maintain control and be tempted by the thought of an easy target.

He creeps backward until he is down slope enough to stand and get back to his bed roll. He doesn’t have a lot to work with. Undoing the laces from his boots, Jed slices two strips off his blanket and wraps them around his boot and leg, tying them off with the laces, applying techniques taught to him by a Kadaicha man on Cape York, a medicine man and enforcer of tribal customs and law. Where he would have used emu feathers wrapped around his feet to mask his footprints, Jed has to improvise.

He stands up and steps carefully across the ground, avoiding twigs or leaves that would break or bend and leave a trace of his presence. He approaches the vehicles from the rear, using them as cover in case anyone returns. He sees the fuel containers in the back of the vehicles and is tempted to burn them. He realises the best way out might still be with one of the vehicles so he refrains. Instead, he draws his knife and uses the tip of the blade to depress the tyre valves on the Patrol, deflating three of the tyres and slashing the last. He finds the portable air compressor, disconnects the air hose and hides it under a rock. Then he locates the wheel brace and undoes the spare wheel.

He moves over to the Troop Carrier, a wreck of a vehicle but still surviving, a good advertisement for Toyota. He decides to up the stakes so this time he slashes all the tyres, then jumps onto the tray and does the same to both spares. Whoever makes it back here will have the use of one vehicle only. He picks up the spare, left hand gripping it through the axle hole and supports it under his arm. He is about to leave the scene but stops, resting the wheel on a log, and goes back to the Patrol. He is tempted to grab some food and other items but knows he can’t carry much. He opens the tail gate and scans the contents. The laptop catches his eye so he opens it, pulls out his knife and rams the brass hilt into the screen. Whatever Decker is trying to do with it isn’t going to happen. He doesn’t have time to discover whether there is a back up of some kind.

He opens a carry bag for a quick look and rummages around, finding a passport, no, a pile of passports, held together with a rubber band. He flicks through them. Nigel Decker and then another with the same picture but under the name Matthew Strong. And another, Stephen Smith. The next one is Jesse Decker and the last also has a picture of Jesse under the name Joshua Strong. Jed is impressed. The man is organised and obviously has contacts. He tosses the passports back in the bag.

The diesel in the jerry can is tempting, but vehicles are life out here so he refrains again from burning them. He sees an open box of shotgun shells, together with three more unopened packets of five. Then a box of rifle cartridges catches his eye among the mess in the back. Their short, fat shape grabs his attention. They are stamped .223 Winchester Super Short Magnum. He notes they are loaded with forty grain projectiles. It is a hot, long-range cartridge. The choice of calibre is interesting. Jed decides it suits the personality of the man who is hunting them—‘I’m better than all of you and will dominate everything around me!’

His choice has one minor flaw. The cartridges are loaded with fragile varmint projectiles that can disintegrate against a hard target. He puts one in his pocket for future reference. He also notes that four shotgun shells are missing from the opened packet. Decker has fired two so he guesses he still has two more with him. The .223 WSSM box has six missing, enough for a bolt action rifle. He lifts all the boxes of ammunition, along with a litre bottle of coke and a billy can. He also takes a blanket to replace the one he cut up and stabs his knife into the plastic twenty litre water containers in the back. He spies some boxes of fruit and nut bars and grabs a few, wrapping his goods in the blanket and throwing it over his shoulder. It’s time to leave. He’s been here too long already!

He lifts the wheel and heads along the edge of the billabong. At a certain point, he stops, drops the wheel against a log and buries the boxes of cartridges in a clear patch of sand, brushing the spot with a branch and marking it with a rock. Finding a patch of thick scrub, Jed hides the wheel, then works his way around the billabong toward Alex’s nipple. A tempting, but inappropriate thought! He checks for any trail he is leaving and is pleased to see there are no visible footprints. The dust and gravel leave no clear trace of his movements, but he continues to take care not to step on any twigs or grass.

The hill is further than he estimated. He pushes his way through the scrub, being careful not to break any branches. In spite of his best efforts, he steps on some twigs, cringing at the sound of every snap, but time is pressing. Disabling the vehicles took longer than expected and he wants to reach Alex quickly. It was a risk to send her off on her own but she seems capable enough to manage. He is going to find out soon enough.

The hill looms up ahead through the scrub sooner than expected. Distances can be hard to judge through the scrub when approaching jump-up country. What appears to be a large hill may rise only a small distance above the ground. The conditions throw normal judgement out the window. As he approaches the foot of the hill he slows to a careful stalk, scanning cautiously to the front and either side. She should be on this side of the hill but could be on the north, west or southern flanks. He stops to check the direction from which Alex should have approached and continues his slow progress. Scanning the rock and sandy gravel around him, he tries to pick up any sign.

Ahead is an exposed rock slab. Sand and gravel have filled in shallow depressions in the rock surface. He sees a broken twig on the ground, a pebble upturned and the faint outline of a footprint impressed into the gravel. He stops to predict the line of the track.

“Are you going to stand around all day? We’ve got a plane to find!”

There she is, sitting on a log in a shadow with scrub behind her, holding a broken piece of greenery between her knees to break up her human outline. He hasn’t seen her, only twenty metres away!

Impressed, Jed says, “You’ll make a good hunter!” Breaking up her outline and sitting still is a basic bush craft hunting skill. She’d got him! By forgetting to look through the vegetation rather than at it, has missed seeing her. It is a small but crucial mistake he files away. “Have you been waiting long?” he asks to mask his admiration.

“I was about to call missing persons! What have you been doing?”

After the morning they have been through, Jed has the handle on her. “I stopped for a cappuccino. A crappy blend and lukewarm. They need lessons on coffee out here.”

“Typical man. You didn’t bother to bring me one by any chance?”

“Sorry Alex, they were out of takeaway cups.”

“Next time, I want one too, double strength, one sugar, skinny and in a mug. No second chances!” She tosses the branch of scrub aside and stands up.

Jed likes that. They are out in the sticks, no food or water, with a psychopath after them and she can still stir him. No one has ever done that before. He is excited and stimulated by it but the thought of Decker somewhere out there reminds him to stay focussed. “We have to move. Sit back down,” he orders. To his surprise she does so without question.

Dumping his bedroll and blanket, he kneels in front of her. Jed slips his knife out of the scabbard and cuts two wide strips off the blanket he used before and two narrow strips. As he takes her foot in his hands, he cradles it for a little longer than necessary enjoying the brief physical contact, before tying the strips of blanket around her boot. He repeats the process with her other foot.

She notices the way he lingers when holding her foot but says nothing.

“We are going to be ghosts, or at least try to be. The wrapping will hide your footprints from anything but a careful inspection. We’re out of here and going for the coast and your plane. Bloody Decker can wait his turn!”

“What were you up to back there?”

“I let the air out of some tyres, disabled the pump and slashed some other tyres but left enough wheels to fit one vehicle. I hid one of the wheels so they can’t get mobile. I also slashed their water containers and hid some boxes of ammunition. I was tempted to burn the lot but we may get a chance to use the vehicle.”

“He’s going to be really pissed off! You’d better stay out of his way or he’ll really make you pay.”

“That’s the plan. We’ve evened up the odds a bit. You did well Alex.” The compliment is genuine. Nothing more needs to be said on that point. They have meshed as a team, strengthened by mutual respect. “We’re going to work our way northwest to the coast, forty-five degrees to the setting sun. We’ll leave dealing with the swamp until we get a bit closer. There’s still almost a full day ahead of us. Nothing like being woken early. Let’s go!”

They move out with Jed in the lead. Alex copies Jed’s walk, stepping carefully to avoid sticks and tussocks. Out of the blue he hears a command. “Stop!”

He stops and turns to see her standing legs apart, hands on hips and eyes peering out from behind the blonde strands falling over her forehead. “Is there any particular reason why you took point?”

Jed has no good answer for that. He took the lead automatically.

She watches him stand there, legs apart, bedroll and blanket slung over his shoulder, right hand resting on his hip above the pommel of his knife, thinking,
Why not Alex?
She is standing in a similar pose, facing him, looking very much in command, unbrushed blonde hair falling down over her eyes half hiding an expression he cannot ignore.

“You know the way as well as I do I guess! Point is yours!” he concedes. He watches her step to the front, look up at the sun and back at the hill to get her bearings and walk off to the northwest with no comment. He follows without a word but double checks the direction using his watch as a compass. He isn’t surprised to find that she is spot on.

When Decker and Joe arrive at the fire, smoke still billows up into the morning air. There is no sign of anyone. Decker rages and swears and at one stage Joe is worried he will blast him senselessly with the shotgun. He stays still and quiet until Decker’s rage works itself out. His eyes scan the ground around the fire, noting the faint footprints, disturbed ground where firewood has been gathered and the faint imprint of a knee where someone knelt by the fire to coax it into life.

Decker finally comes to a standstill, shotgun by his side with the barrels pointing down and Joe senses the time is right to open his mouth. “One person, woman, came from over there,” he says, pointing. “Gathered timber to light fire then went walkabout, over there to the hill,” pointing once again. He has said his piece, not daring to move.

The words sink slowly into Decker’s brain and reason overpowers emotion. The black fella can read the story in the ground without even moving. Having to rely on a black fella makes his guts crawl but reason kicks in and takes over. “That’s good Joe,” he praises. “I like that! You’re making yourself useful. Perhaps you and Brad can go back home after this is over with no hard feelings.”

Decker goes over to the fire and kicks it to vent the last of his frustration then heads back to meet up with Jesse.

Joe follows. He has no choice if he wants to help Brad.

They work their way back with Jesse in the lead cradling the rifle in his arms, Decker strides along impatiently with Joe tagging behind to help Brad as he shuffles along in pain. They arrive back at the vehicles and it doesn’t take long to notice something is amiss.

“The fucking tyres are slashed!” Jesse calls out.

Decker looks up as he comes into the campsite and scans the vehicles. He storms over to the Patrol with its flat tyres, opens the tail gate and sees the remains of the water sloshing among the baggage and the smashed laptop. Ice-cold calm grips him as he walks around the Patrol. He notes the missing spare wheel, then goes over to the Toyota to count the flat tyres. The vehicles aren’t going anywhere.

Instead of rage, he feels an overpowering calm, a state he has never felt before. The calmness holds him in a vice-like grip, reining in his anger but not his growing desire to kill—to kill slowly and wash away the humiliation burning deep inside him.

Joe watches him waiting for the explosion, but it doesn’t come. He drops his head to avoid eye contact, watching with his peripheral vision, mesmerised by the transformation he witnesses taking place before his eyes. He has known some bad men in his time but they were easy to read, pent-up anger loosened by alcohol lashing out in predictable ways. Here he is watching a bad man cross an unseen line, taking badness to a new level. He is afraid—afraid for Brad, afraid for himself and afraid for whoever is being hunted out there.

He watches Decker break the shotgun to look at the two rounds in the chambers. “Jesse,” Decker calls, “How many rounds you got?”

Jesse is feeling lost. Things are not turning out the way he expected. “Six,” he calls back. “Five in the mag, one up the spout!”

Decker stands in silence with his head bowed, thinking. He blames the headmaster and the bitch for making a fool of him. He decides he is going to enjoy the challenge. They think they are smart but haven’t seen anything yet. The hunt is going to be good and the satisfaction well earned.

He sits on a log, considering what he has at his disposal and what he wants to achieve. He also thinks about the bitch and her headmaster and what they want to do. He stands and reaches into the Patrol to take out the map he stole from the headmaster’s house. On it are the coloured areas, the most likely locations of the plane. Two of the locations are close to where they are now.
Whatever they do,
he decides,
they have to come back here. The bastard hid a wheel so he hopes to use a vehicle as a way out because it’ll be a long walk otherwise.

He gets up and reaches into the portable fridge for a beer to help him think.
Bastard didn’t think of taking a beer did he? He’s a no hoper who just got lucky,
he consoles himself.
They’ll be out there with some muddy water to drink if they’re lucky and I’m back here sipping a cold beer!
A beer for breakfast, what a luxury!
“Jesse! Get the fire going and get us a decent breakfast. We got a big day!”

Jesse pushes Brad down against the Troopie but doesn’t bother tying him. He can’t go anywhere and Joe certainly isn’t going anywhere without him. “Sure Pa, what do you want? We got eggs, steak and bread.” He tosses some kindling onto the smouldering coals.

“Sounds good, just get it going!” Decker yells as he sips the beer. A plan is forming in his mind, as it always does. He has to think of everything as usual. Since the beer helps him think, he cracks another one.