The Road to Winter (9 page)

I keep an eye on Rose, bringing damp cloths to put on her forehead. Sometimes she responds by making little noises or breathing in deep, but mostly she doesn't move at all. In the afternoon I wake her up and force her to drink. I've broken open the antibiotic capsules and dissolved them in water. She manages to keep it down, but the fever seems to be getting worse.

By nightfall, I'm exhausted and starving. I haven't eaten all day. I get a can of soup out of the shed, boil up some of the rabbit bones from yesterday to make a stock, and combine them all together. I add some salt to make it a bit more edible. When
it's all cooked I take a bowl into Rose and prop her up on the pillows. She tries to push me away but she's got no strength left in her body. She pulls the blanket up to her shoulders and holds it there while I spoon some soup into her mouth. It's like trying to feed a baby—she keeps turning her head away.

‘Come on. You've got to eat.'

‘Not hungry,' she murmurs.

‘Please.' I must sound angry.

‘Ah, Finn,' she says. ‘You don't know anything about me. You don't know what I've done. You wouldn't like me if I told you.'

It seems to take all her effort just to get this out.

I try to keep her focused. ‘We have to find Kas. She's relying on us. But first you've got to get better.'

Rose lifts her arm, puts it around my shoulder and draws me into her. My face is against her skin and I feel how hot and clammy it is.

‘Help me, Finn,' she whispers. ‘Just help me.'

She drifts off again, and I ease her back into the bed.

Out in the kitchen I sit and stare at the tabletop. Rowdy comes over and lays his head in my lap. I miss Mum and Dad all of a sudden, their adult way of making things right.

I remember Dad's story of the day I was born. Mum went into labour really quickly and they had to make a dash for the hospital in their old Kombi van. They only made it halfway when Mum yelled to Dad that he had to pull over, the baby was coming. He climbed into the back and sure enough, I was entering the world right there on the back seat. Dad picked me
up, made sure I was breathing and handed me to Mum. Then he got back behind the wheel and drove us to the hospital.

He first told me this story when I was only about six or seven, and he made it sound like a big adventure with a happy-ever-after ending. When I was a bit older, though, he told me more about that day. He said he didn't get emotional until we were safely in the hospital. Then it all hit him in a rush and he felt completely buggered. But when things were at their most critical he said he knew he had to keep a cool head. There was a job to do and he was responsible, though Mum always rolled her eyes at him thinking he was the one doing all the hard work.

I know there's a job to be done here and I don't have the time to get emotional about it. I need to clear my head. In the meantime I have to make sure Rose doesn't get any worse. And the weirdest thing is I feel like I have to make it up to her for all the bad things other people have done to her.

Dad's voice keeps ringing in my ears about the first thing you do when you have to make a decision—you put together a list. So I sit down at the kitchen table and get out a pencil and paper. There've been things stacking up that I've forgotten about. So I start with them.

1. The traps.

They're still up along the fence line where I left them yesterday. This'll be risky. The Wilders might have found them by now and realised I'll be back to check them. I wish I hadn't reset them when I caught my last lot of rabbits.

2. Food.

I can't keep drawing on the supplies in the shed at this rate.
I need fresh food. I haven't been looking after myself the last few days. I'll be useless to Rose if I get sick too.

3. Ray.

I haven't been out to see him in a couple of weeks. He'll be worried. If I check the traps first, I might get lucky and have a rabbit to take for him. I can trade for some veggies and I need to tell him about Rose, too. He'll have a better idea of how to look after her.

4. Kas.

I don't even know her yet but she's going to need help. Once Rose is well enough to travel she'll want to look for her sister anyway, so best to get organised for the trip and work out what I need to carry.

Somehow I have to do all of this and look after Rose at the same time. I'm not even sure she'd understand me if I tried to explain it to her. I consider slipping off and getting something done while she's asleep, but I don't want her to wake up alone again.

And then, of course, there's the thing I don't want to even think about. She's pregnant. At least it makes more sense of her story—the vomiting, what she told me about Longley, their escape and Ramage's mission to recapture her. I can't help wondering how she got pregnant. Was it a Wilder?

When I look in on Rose, she's asleep. She's pushed the blanket back and the sheet clings to her body. I get the cloth again and bring a bucket of water to her bed. She stirs when I start wiping her face, her eyes opening for a few seconds.

‘So hot,' she murmurs.

I don't know what to say so I keep dipping the cloth in the water and sponging her down. Her hand strokes her belly.

‘I didn't know how to tell you,' she says.

Tears well in her eyes but there's anger behind them too.

‘What am I going to do?' she asks.

‘I've worked out a plan,' I say. ‘I'll be in and out to see that you're okay, but I've gotta get things organised. I'm going to head out this arvo and see Ray. Remember I told you about him? He'll be able to help us.'

She's drifting off again.

‘Finn,' she manages to say, ‘you talk so much.'

A faint smile crosses her lips before she falls asleep.

Rowdy and I scout the long way again, out past the golf course that's gradually being reclaimed by the bush. It takes about half an hour to get up to the fence and this time I approach cautiously, staying low and crawling to take advantage of the bracken fern for cover.

Up closer, I signal to Rowdy and he drops to his haunches and waits. Everything's quiet. To my right I can see a rabbit in one of the traps. It's still alive, pawing at the ground with its front legs to try to escape the metal jaws. It's the only sign of movement up here. Even the wind has backed off; the trees are still.

I scuttle back into the scrub and make my way parallel to the fence until I find the tree from yesterday. Rowdy drops at the base of the trunk while I climb into the canopy. There's still no sign of life, no smoke from a fire and no body of the man attacked by Ramage yesterday.

I climb down and walk back towards the rabbit in the trap. I'm about ten metres from it when Rowdy freezes. His ears are pricked and the hair on the back of his neck is bristling.

‘What is it boy?' I whisper, dropping to my stomach. Rowdy holds his position. I pop my head up just above the ferns and scan the paddock. Nothing. But as I drop down again, I see it. Just in front of the rabbit in the trap is a mound of leaves in a circle. I probably wouldn't have seen it if I was standing up, but at ground level I can see it's an unnatural shape and there are boot marks around it. There's a piece of rope snaking off to a tree branch that's been bent down and tied to a metal peg in the ground. It's a trap—and it's meant for me.

I don't know if they are watching, but I figure if they were they'd probably have made a move by now. I edge around the booby trap, scramble in to get the rabbit, free it from the jaws and quickly stretch its neck. I can't risk losing the trap so I pull it up, shake the dirt off it and place it carefully in my backpack, followed by the rabbit. The other four traps are all further along the fence so I follow it until I find them too. They're all empty, and I trigger each with a piece of wood and stash them in a hollow log, hoping I'm not disturbing a snake.

I can move freely again without the weight of the traps and
I make good time down into a gully before I pick up the trail that will lead me to the cliff tops and out along the coast to Ray's valley.

This is the quickest way to Ray's, but it's also the most dangerous. The track is exposed because the bush ends and the low heathland takes over a couple of hundred metres back from the edge. Anyone hanging back in the tree line will be able to see me, but I just have to take the risk.

The sun is starting to drop—I know I have to hurry. Ray may not answer my signal if I get there past dark. I'm not worried about making my way home at night; I reckon I could do the trip blindfolded.

It starts to rain, but it's thin and misty—not enough to hide me. Rowdy senses the danger and moves along close to my leg. There's a stretch of about five hundred metres that gives no cover, so we break into a steady run. The rain thickens and low cloud rolls in.

I'm getting used to operating like this, with adrenaline pumping through me. I used to get my thrills riding my bike down the steep tracks off the ridge or surfing big waves out on the point, but now it's just how I live, on edge, pushing against the fear the whole time.

It's tough going through the heathland, but we make headway, and after about half an hour Red Rocks Point appears out of the mist. Rowdy bounds ahead to the top and waits for me to climb up. The granite slopes back into the bush and pretty soon we're fighting our way through waist-high bracken. Eventually we find an animal track that leads inland. The rain has eased
and the sky brightens as the low sun finds a path through the clouds.

When I've come out to see Ray before, I've always approached from the other direction, coming down into the valley from the coast road. I'm a bit unsure of my directions today, but I figure if I keep moving uphill I can't go too far wrong. I have to find his place before dark.

When the trees start to thin a little, I make out the glint of corrugated iron on the other side of a creek that splits the valley. Rowdy and I cross over and keep low as we approach the clearing below a shed. I want to be sure it's safe before we go any further.

Coming from the north, there's a trip-wire set up, attached to an old cowbell on his front porch. But we're arriving from the coast and I'm not sure Ray's got any warning mechanism from this direction. The only reason he's survived so long here on his own is that his farm is cut off from any roads. It was the back block of a bigger farm up on the coast road. The scrub has reclaimed most of the other farm's paddocks, forming a perfect screen for Ray's place.

I ease through the fence and make a quick dash for the cover of the shed, Rowdy running by my side. From here I can see up across the furrows of the back paddock and the raised veggie beds closer to the house. It all looks quiet. There's nothing but open ground between us and the back porch—about fifty metres, I reckon. We have to make a run for it. Once I get closer to the house I'll call out to Ray so we don't surprise him.

I grab Rowdy by the collar so he won't get ahead of me
and we're just about to break cover when I hear the click of a shotgun being cocked.

‘You wanna be more careful, Finn. Someone'll blow ya brains out one day.'

‘Jesus, you scared the shit out of me.'

Ray lowers the shottie. ‘Why're you coming from the south, young fella? Not your usual way.'

‘Sorry, I had to come along the coast. Quickest way.'

He looks at me warily, sensing trouble.

‘You being tracked?' His eyes shift back to the bush beyond the fence.

I'm short of breath, gulping for air. He grabs me by the collar and pulls me back into the shed.

‘What's going on?'

‘It's Wilders. Half-a-dozen of them. Been hanging around for a couple of days since—'

‘Since what?'

Ray's the only other person I've spoken to in years, the only other person I can trust.

‘Can we go up to the house?' I ask. ‘I wasn't followed, I'm sure of it.'

He looks at me in the fading light and smiles.

‘Come on then,' he says, ‘you look like a drowned rat.'

We cross the paddock quickly, or as quick as Ray can go. I reckon he must be in his seventies by now and each winter he seems to get a little slower. He walks a bit like a crab, with his bowed legs keeping his body close to the ground.

Ray's house leans to one side where the stumps have given
way. There are exposed floorboards, an old combustion stove and chipped cups on hooks on a dresser that looks like it could fall apart at any minute. He stands the shotgun in the corner and eases himself into a battered armchair in front of the stove. Rowdy sidles up to him and Ray scratches him behind the ears. He's always had a soft spot for Rowdy.

‘Now, you'd better tell me what's going on,' he says.

‘There's a girl. She was chased into town the day before yesterday by a pack of Wilders. She's safe, she's at my place, but she's crook. She's got a bad cut on her hand and it's infected.'