Tankbread 02 Immortal (21 page)

“Carrying him will slow us down,” Joel warned. Else shrugged. Hob’s screams had only stilled when he fainted from shock and blood loss. The engineers and holders had moved quickly, responding to Else’s command to put pressure dressings on the wound. She needed him to live and recover, to be a walking example of the law of the group. If he didn’t die of an infection, then he might well serve a purpose.

They sat together under the trees, the rest of the group sleeping or sitting close together engaged in murmured conversations.

Else waved a fly away from her baby’s face as he slept in the space made by her crossed legs. “I have medicine and books at my house. We can keep him alive.”

“You got a powerful hate for this fella, aye?” Joel asked.

“Hate? No. I just compromised.”

Joel nodded before saying what was on his mind. “If you want to keep him alive, maybe you shouldn’t have cut his cock off?”

“He’ll live,” Else said. “I’m going to make sure of it.”

Rache approached, a grease-splattered banana leaf with thick slices of dog meat steaming on it. “I thought you might be hungry,” she said, offering the leaf plate to Else.

Else thanked her and ate quickly, the copper taste of fresh blood mixing with the strong game taste of the cooked meat.

“If you lead this lot back past your place, I’ll go and find some stuff that might help him live long enough to get you what you want.”

“I don’t want anything from him,” Else said, licking her fingers.

“Yeah, you want him to suffer,” Joel replied and stood up. “I’ll look for youse along the track to the house. If I’m not back by the time you get there, wait.”

“Thanks,” Else said. Joel nodded and vanished into the trees.

Rache came back and sat down carefully, as if waiting for Else to lash out with a knife at any moment. “Everyone’s wondering who that guy was,” she said.

“His name is Joel, he’s with Lowanna’s family, they’ve gone on walkabout. So he can take us to them.”

“What are we going to do then?” Rache looked nervous as she asked the question.

“I don’t know,” Else sighed. “You’re the leader, you tell me.”

“I’m not the leader. You made everyone think about Hob and what he had done. You . . . cut him.”

“I never asked to be the leader. I just want to go home and look after my baby.”

“On the ship, when there was a baby that the crew didn’t take, everyone helped. You can’t look after a baby on your own.”

The fresh memory of the dog sniffing her baby flashed in Else’s mind. She shivered and stared down at the tiny form wrapped in a blanket, sleeping against her legs.

“As long as they know I’m not in charge. I don’t want to tell people what to do.”

“If I ask, would you tell me? Help me be like you, so I can lead them and they will follow?” Rache shot a glance at Else, who nodded.

“Sure, I’ll be your advisor, but you can wear the crown.” Else scooped up the baby and cradled him against her chest. “We should get moving, while there is still daylight.”

Rache stood up. Moving amongst the group she touched shoulders as she passed, quietly encouraging them to stand up and get ready to move. Else watched as the holders, the engineers, and the fishermen responded. Rache would be a good leader. She just needed to be more confident about it.

Else stood up, falling into step at the back of the group. Rache glanced back regularly and Else indicated the direction with a casual gesture. Hob lay on a rough stretcher of lashed branches. Four people carried him, and he slipped in and out of consciousness as they made their way through the trees.

The people shied away from Else, giving her a personal space that she enjoyed. Even Cassie, who normally wanted to chat incessantly about baby things, ducked her gaze and stayed well away.

The journey to Else’s house in the forest took them until after dark. Else emptied her food supplies and they ate tinned fruit, vegetables, and dried meat stew, and the older ones spoke of long lost things like bread and peanut butter.

Joel came sauntering out of the darkness and crouched by the fire. Warming his hands in the glow he accepted a bowl of stew and, between bites, confirmed that Billy and Sally’s people had made camp and would wait for Else’s group to catch up.

“Good day’s walk for this lot, I reckon,” he replied when asked how far it would be.

Joel prepared a poultice of honey and leaf paste, which was applied hot to Hob’s wound. He bit through the stick jammed between his teeth as a gag against the pain. Else also administered a handful of pills from her scavenged stock, some crumbling from age, but they seemed to ease his suffering and Hob drifted into sleep.

Rache, Eric, Joel, and Else talked together as the camp settled down for the night. “Where are Billy and Sally going on this walk of theirs?” Else asked.

“Wherever. They hunt, move around, see new stuff and check in on sacred places,” Joel shrugged.

“I want to take them with us, all of us, and go to Mildura,” Else announced.

“Mildura?” Joel scratched his beard. “That’s a way down the road, aye?”

“We can find horses, or maybe some vehicles, fuel, that sort of thing. I once drove a steam train from Port Germein to Pimba.”

“Steam train?” Joel’s eyes crinkled over his grin. “I reckon you must’ve too.”

Else smiled at the memory. “I was much younger then.”

“My people are used to walking. We see more that way and usually get where we want to go,” Joel said.

“My people have been living on a ship for the last ten years. They aren’t used to walking long distances,” Rache said.

“Lot of horse riding happen on that ship?” Joel asked. Rache flushed, “Of course not, but if we can find vehicles, we can make them go.”

“You piss petrol then?” Joel asked.

Eric gave a cough. “I can brew something that should work for fuel. If I can find the right ingredients.”

Else spoke up. “There’s vehicles everywhere, plenty of farms around here with trucks and cars. Lots of garages and sheds. Keeps them protected from the elements.”

Joel didn’t look convinced, but Rache and Eric nodded their approval.

“What’s in Mildura?” Rache asked.

“Friends,” Else said. “A doctor. Technically she’s a geneticist. She has this plan to rebuild the human race by selective breeding.”

“What?” Eric asked.

“The important thing is that she is building a community. A safe place, where people can come together and work together. Grow food and live in peace.”

“What about the dead?” Rache asked.

“Peace is a state of mind. We can work for it if we want it badly enough,” Else replied.

“The dead will always be a problem. They don’t decay, they don’t change. They just want to kill and feed,” Eric said.

“Which means we just learn to live with them,” Rache declared and stretched until her shoulders popped.

“If you mean we learn to destroy every last one of them, then I agree,” Else said.

“Goes without sayin’,” Eric piped up.

“I always dreamed that there would be a place, somewhere in onland, that would be safe. Where the crew could never reach us,” Rache said.

“One day,” Else said. “One day we can make a place like that. We have to do a lot of fighting and a lot of killing to make it. Lot of people are going to die. Lot of people are going to lose everything.”

Rache reached out and took Else’s hand in both of hers. “Tell me it will be worth it,” she pled.

“If you want a peaceful future badly enough, you’ll do anything to make it happen,” Else replied.

“I want it,” Rache confirmed.

“We can start tomorrow.” Else stood up, lifting her son and carrying him inside. Lying down on the bed, she fell asleep with his baby noises cooing against her neck.

The rain came again before dawn, waking Else instantly and the baby a few moments later as the clouds opened and the water thundered down on the shingle roof.

Else dressed: jeans, boots, two layers of shirts, and an old oilskin coat with the hood pulled up over her head. The survivors had scrambled up when the rain started falling. They hunched miserably under the trees, nothing to protect them from the rain except a few scraps of cloth.

Joel stood in the rain, face turned up, mouth open, occasionally gulping like a dark-skinned fish. With the baby protected and her knapsack packed, Else sheathed her weapons and pulled the door shut on her house again. There might be no coming back to this place. She would miss her home, this place that had sheltered her during the long months alone while the baby grew inside her.

“Let’s go,” Else said and Rache jumped to rouse the others.

“Come on you lot, you’ll get just as wet sitting here as you will walking. There’s places to go and we can find shelter somewhere down the road.”

The group stumbled to their feet, grumbling about stiff muscles and hunger. Hob had survived the night. “He’s healing, going to be awhile though,” Joel said as he redressed Hob’s wound.

They fell into line, gathering their few children and supplies while two volunteers dragged Hob’s travois through the mud. A sodden troop followed Joel, Else, and Rache down the trail through the trees.

The rain drummed down on the ground and trees, making conversation difficult. They marched in silence.

One of the fishermen started it, a low rhythmic chanting, a work song with words of the net and the sea. A song of pulling together and getting the work done. The other fishermen joined in, and the holders soon picked up the words. They sang softly, afraid of attracting the dead with too much noise as the song murmured among the group. To Else, it seemed to bring them together, to give them a common purpose they had lacked on the ship.

“Sometimes I wonder if the rain will ever stop,” Else said to Joel as they walked.

“Rain is what gives the earth life. Rain is life. If it ever stops, it won’t matter what them dead fellas do. Everything will die.”

“Sometimes I think that would be better,” Else said. “If everything was wiped clean and the earth could start fresh.”

“Back to the Dreamtime,” Joel said, nodding.

“I’d like that,” Else sighed. The baby stirred in his dry cocoon under her raincoat.

Joel waved them to a halt later in the day, then ducked down and crept forward. Else hesitated, wanting to stay close to him but not wanting to put her son in danger. She crouched leaning against a dripping tree trunk and scanned the trees ahead. Joel reappeared a few moments later. His way of silently moving unnerved Else, and she reminded herself to learn all she could from him.

“Road ahead, old highway,” Joel reported as he sank into a crouch next to her.

“Any dead?” Else asked.

“No, it’s all clear. We need to cross it, get into the bush on the other side. Keep moving that way,” Joel indicated a direction that Else tagged as five degrees west of southwest.

“You wait here,” Joel continued, “I’ll go get the others.”

Else nodded and Joel vanished into the trees. She went back to watching the forest ahead. After a minute she rose to her feet and crept forward. Even here, in the cover of the dense bush, she felt exposed. Too many directions for death to come from. A low bank of exposed clay and sandy soil that squished underfoot in the rain marked the edge of the highway.

Else looked both ways. The broad expanse of old asphalt disappeared into the mist in both directions, a black river dotted with tufts of green grass pushing up through the ever-widening cracks.

The shifting rain made shadows, and it wasn’t until one of them moved against the rain that Else noticed the figure coming from the south. He was alone and moving with purpose. A wide-brimmed stockman’s hat kept his face in shadow. Else slid a blade from the scabbard on her back, noting that if the man approaching was an evol, he had been eating well. There was no shuffle in his step, no confusion of dulled senses in his manner.

If he was a survivor, he might have friends and that could be just as dangerous. Else stayed hidden, watching the man as he came closer and then passed by. She wiped the water from her eyes and studied his face before pushing through the brush and stepping out on the road behind him.

“You—” Else said and hesitated. The figure had gone. Joel emerged from the roadside scrub.

“You okay?” he called softly. Else shivered. She dreamed of the Courier, but seeing a vision of him walking in the mist was an eerie sensation.

“Yes,” she nodded. “We should keep moving.”

The survivors emerged from the bush, gathering behind Joel and peering out into the open ground.

“We go that way,” Joel pointed southwest again. Else nodded and waited while the group crossed the road.

“Does it always rain in onland?” Rache asked.

“No, this part of the country had a dry season and a wet season. This is the wet season.”