Of course, we didn’t learn any of this until much later.
bang! Sergio fired his pistol. When I heard Danny scream, ‘Don’t shoot at me truck, ya turkey!’, I realised how much ground I’d covered. Everyone else seemed a lot closer. We were all converging on the ute at top speed.
So why didn’t it move? Why didn’t the engine start? There are no keys, I concluded, with a sudden leap of the heart. We had him! He was ours! He couldn’t get away!
Chugga-chugga-chugga . . .
The sound of that engine put wings on my feet. I surged forward, desperate to catch our quarry. It was a savage, animal feeling that surged up from somewhere deep inside, triggered by the shouts and the headlong pursuit. Chugga-chugga-chugga. Danny’s truck was so old that it was easy to hotwire, though getting the ignition to fire was a challenge. Gary must have been frantic. Chugga-chugga-chugga. By this time I was so close that I could see him through the window, hunched over the steering column.
You might be wondering why Reuben didn’t just shoot out the tyres. I wondered that myself, later. I even asked him. He waffled on about Danny being a lunatic about his truck, but if you ask me, that was just an excuse.
The truth is, we all had to catch that truck. All of us. The whole pack. We were in pursuit.
Vrrr-oomm! As the ute lurched forward, I was about two metres from its rear wheel. So I hurled myself at the tailgate. It was a crazy thing to do – especially with a rifle in my hand. I could have killed myself. I nearly did kill myself. I was stuck there with my top half hanging over the tailgate and my legs waving in the air, like one of those tin cans tied to a newlywed’s bumper. God knows where I would have landed if the battered old tailgate had fallen open.
To pull myself up I had to drop the rifle, which landed in the back of the truck and began to slide around, banging against all the toolboxes and other junk that Danny had put there. (Some of it didn’t look too well secured.) The gun could easily have gone off and hit Sergio, who was clinging to one side of the truck-bed, trying to claw his way on board. But I wasn’t worried about Sergio. I was too busy keeping a firm grip. That truck was fishtailing wildly, bucking like a horse as it hit the worst bumps at top speed.
Gary was trying to shake us off.
‘haaaah!’ someone bawled; I’m not sure who. Danny, probably. He’d thrown himself at the front grille and climbed across the bonnet, using the bullbar as a foothold. I could see the top of his head bouncing above the cabin roof – or were my eyeballs doing the bouncing? They were certainly hard to focus. My teeth were chattering and my bones were vibrating and my neck felt as if it was about to snap. I could barely breathe because there was so much dust in the air.
Still, I managed to throw a leg over the tailgate. That was when I heard Sergio laugh. He was laughing like a maniac. And when the truck’s right wheels lifted off the ground in a heart-stopping swerve, he howled his appreciation.
Danny let loose an answering howl. He was braced against the bonnet, pitching back and forth, one hand wrapped around the radio antenna. His tyre jack was in his other hand, but he didn’t smash it through the windscreen. I don’t know why not. Maybe he didn’t want to damage his truck.
‘Shoot! Shoot!’ he screamed at Reuben, who was hanging off the passenger door. Despite Gary’s desperate attempts to dislodge him, Reuben had managed to yank it open – and would have wriggled inside if the shotgun hadn’t been slung over his shoulder. Its barrel had become wedged against the top of the doorway; every time he reached back to adjust the strap, we’d hit a bump and he’d have to grab the nearest handle just to keep from being thrown clear.
‘Ow-ow-owooo!’ Danny bellowed, as the truck zigzagged.
I was on my feet by then, groping for the rifle with one hand. The other was firmly clamped to the side of the truck. But before I could stagger close enough to help, a big jolt gave Reuben all the help he needed. The shotgun shifted, he let it slide down his arm, and all at once there was nothing standing between him and Gary.
I think it was the shotgun that freaked Gary out. To see Reuben climbing into the seat next to you would have been bad enough, but to see Reuben with a ten-gauge shotgun . . .?
No wonder Gary spun the wheel.
It was a dumb thing to do, at that speed. The truck almost did a backflip. Everyone in it was flung sideways.
As we tipped over, I took a flying leap into a billowing cloud of dust.
So here I am, sitting here today, and I’m not dead. Go figure. I jumped off that truck while it was toppling onto its side at about a million miles an hour, but I hit the dirt without killing myself. How did I do it? Don’t ask me. It all happened so fast that I’m not sure.
Maybe I should thank my quick reflexes. Or maybe I’m just lucky I hit bulldust instead of rock. That bulldust was like talcum powder; I was coughing it up for hours afterwards. Still, it was a lot softer than asphalt.
I know that I landed way too hard on one ankle. And even though I instantly sprang off it into a kind of lopsided forward roll, the pain was dire. What’s more, I knocked the air out of my lungs. I was winded. For what seemed like forever, I lay there gasping for breath in a cloud of dust as fine as smoke.
‘Ow . . . ow . . . ow . . .’
You know when you just have to writhe around for a little while, until the agony eases off? Well, that’s what I did at first, rocking back and forth, clutching my injured leg. Then I spotted Danny’s silhouette, looming out of the dust. He looked unsteady on his feet.
I saw why when he drew near. There was blood all over his face. His nose and mouth were bleeding, and so was the cut on his head. ‘Lotht a tooth,’ he mumbled, into his cupped palm. Blood dripped between his fingers. Flies were buzzing around his head.
‘Toby?’ said Reuben. ‘Are you okay?’
He was over near the truck, which was lying on its roof. From the careful way he was moving, I could tell that he’d hurt himself. But since he wasn’t limping or bleeding or nursing any particular part of his body, it was hard to work out exactly what he’d injured. His back, perhaps? His ribs? His shoulder?
His shotgun was nowhere in sight.
‘Where’s Sergio?’ I asked, grunting the question through clenched teeth.
‘I dunno . . .’ Reuben coughed as he glanced around. But Danny was the one who pointed.
‘There,’ he said.
Sergio was curled up in a patch of saltbush, some distance away. He was covered in scratches and whimpering like a puppy. There was something wrong with his arm. Even I could see that.
‘He’th all right. He’th breathing,’ Danny announced, in a thick, dull, gluggy kind of voice. I guess he must have been lisping because of his lost tooth. Or maybe it was because of his fat lip. ‘Where’th me rifle? Toby? Where’d you drop it?’
‘I – I dunno . . .’ I couldn’t see the rifle, though all kinds of other objects littered the surrounding landscape. There was an upended toolbox, a tangle of nylon rope, a tyre jack, a shovel, a tarp and a bag of kangaroo jerky, among other things. ‘It must be somewhere.’
‘What about that arsehole scumbag?’ Reuben wanted to know. He sounded immensely tired. ‘Is he still inside your truck?’
‘Mutht be,’ said Danny, scanning the area. Without another word, Reuben shuffled off to see whether Gary was still alive. Danny followed him, while I tried to stand. But I couldn’t put any weight on my injured foot.
I had to crawl over to where Sergio was lying.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, certain that I already knew the answer. ‘Did you break something?’
‘I – I dunno.’ He was gingerly holding his right forearm just above the wrist. ‘Maybe. My arm hurts.’
‘Can you wriggle your fingers?’
‘Kinda . . .’
‘Can you bend your hand forward?’
‘E-e-e-ow! God!’
‘Sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘Don’t bend your hand forward.’
He shut his eyes and groaned. I averted my own eyes, fixing them
instead on Danny and Reuben – who were crouched beside the upended truck. They were trying to peer through the driver’s window, which had cracked into dozens of little white shards. As I watched, Reuben gave the doorhandle above his head a firm tug.
But the door wouldn’t open. The roof was too badly buckled.
‘Is Gary dead?’ I asked, too dazed to care much either way.
‘Dunno,’ Danny replied. Then he said to Reuben, ‘I’ll knock that glath out.’
‘Don’t be an idiot.’ Reuben’s breathing was shallow. He winced as he straightened up. ‘We can’t drag him out over broken glass.’
‘Why not?’
‘Just find a bloody crowbar. Or a hammer, or something.’
While they were scouring the scene for a crowbar, I wondered dully what the hell we were going to do. The truck was totalled. The car was a write-off. We were stuck out in the middle of nowhere without any kind of transportation.
‘Did you bring your satellite phone?’ I asked Reuben, who shook his head.
‘It’s under the mattress,’ he croaked. ‘Back at the house.’
‘Under the mattress?’
‘Look.’ He stooped, very slowly and deliberately, to reach behind a bush. ‘Here’s the shotgun.’
It was the shotgun, all right, but part of its stock was missing. Reuben clicked his tongue over this damage; he said that the weapon was probably unsafe to use. Then Danny cried, ‘Goddit!’, and pounced on something. When he waved it at us, I saw that it was a crowbar.
‘How are we gunna get back?’ I demanded, still addressing Reuben.
‘We’ll work it out,’ he promised. He was moving away, so I raised my voice.
‘We don’t have a car, Reuben!’ I bleated.
‘Just hang on a minute. One step at a time.’
Reuben clearly had his heart set on pulling Gary out of the truck, so I turned my attention to Sergio, who needed just as much help as Gary did. Unfortunately, the only bit of pain relief that I could offer was a sling constructed from my T-shirt – which had to be ripped down the middle before it was long enough. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told Sergio, when he feebly protested. ‘I’ve got another one back at the house.’
Meanwhile, Danny was busy with his crowbar. When he finally popped the driver’s door, it shed sprays of broken glass as it swung open. The effort involved must have left him dizzy, to judge from the way he staggered backwards. It was Reuben who crawled into the overturned cabin, until only his feet were visible.
‘He’s alive,’ Reuben announced, after thirty seconds or so. ‘But he’s unconscious.’
‘Can you get ’im out?’ asked Danny.
‘I think so. Yeah. He’s not stuck under anything.’ A pause. ‘Ah, jeez. This is gunna be hard.’
There followed a lot of grunting and cursing. I guess it was quite a struggle, extracting a dead weight from that cramped little box – especially for someone with sore ribs, or whatever. When Reuben finally emerged, he was pouring sweat and gasping for air. He had his elbows hooked under Gary’s armpits.
As for Gary, he looked better than I’d expected. Though the knees of his pants were torn and bloody, his lolling head was still in one piece. It hadn’t been caved in or ripped off.
‘Whaddaya reckon?’ said Danny, flapping the flies away. ‘Ith he gunna wake up?’
‘I dunno.’ Reuben waddled backwards until his burden was well clear of the truck, then dumped Gary beside Sergio. ‘You two guys can look after this one for a minute. Me and Danny have to fix the car.’
Fix the car? I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘But—’
‘You got any spare petrol, mate?’ Reuben interrupted. He was talking to Danny. ‘Was that a jerry can I saw behind the seat?’
‘Yep. I’ll get it for ya.’
‘We’ll need soap and water too. And maybe a bit of tubing, if the fuel line’s taken a hit . . .’
It turned out that Reuben was a motor mechanic. When he started to ramble on about plugging holes in tanks, I suddenly remembered his oily overalls. Thank God, I thought, as he described how it was possible to patch up a petrol tank using a cake of soap mixed with water and bulldust. Luckily, there was soap in Danny’s glove box – along with a razor, a toothbrush and a small first-aid kit. What’s more, the water bottle was still half full. But the car was miles down the road, and I didn’t much fancy being left behind with only a first-aid kit to sustain me. What would happen if Gary woke up? What was I supposed to do if he tried to escape?
‘He won’t wake up,’ Reuben said flatly. ‘And even if he does, he won’t be doing anything. I mean, just look at the guy. He’s comatose.’
‘And if you’re that worried, you can find the bloody rifle,’ Danny growled. He was throwing soap and spanners and plastic tubing into a toolbox. ‘I want that rifle. That rifle belongth to me.’
‘I didn’t lose it on purpose.’ From the way he spoke, I could tell that he was wondering if I had. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Danny. He was such a fearsome sight, with his swollen nose and blood-caked mouth, that I decided to change the subject. There was no point getting him all worked up.
Instead I asked, ‘Did you bring your phone?’
‘Nuh.’
I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. ‘If there’s a phone in the car,’ I continued, ‘you could call an ambulance.’
‘An ambulance?’ Reuben echoed. ‘Out here?’
Danny simply snorted. So I tried again.
‘What about the Royal Flying Doctor Service? Couldn’t we call them?’ When no one answered, I became more strident. ‘Sergio’s got a broken arm! He needs a doctor!’
‘And he’ll get one,’ Reuben replied. ‘Once we’re back at the house, I’ll call Sanford. Sanford’s a doctor. He’ll know what to do.’
By now I was feeling sick (from the shock, I reckon), so I gave up and watched in silence as Reuben and Danny trudged off down the road. Danny was lugging the toolbox and Reuben had the jerry can; they were no more than ten metres away when Danny suddenly scooped up the pistol, which had been lying at the bottom of a shallow ditch. Though he didn’t turn around, he did hoist it above his head to give me a clear view of the thing. Then he tucked it into the pocket of his raincoat. ‘Rifle!’ he reminded me, in a loud voice.
I pulled a face at his retreating back.
‘What’s the time?’ Sergio croaked.
‘Good question.’ I raised Gary’s arm to study his watch. ‘Twenty to four.’
‘What happens if they don’t come back for us?’
With a shrug, I said, ‘If they don’t come back for us, I guess we’ll be eating Gary.’
Sergio didn’t even crack a smile. ‘They shouldna taken the water bottle,’ he complained. ‘It’s really hot. We could die of thirst.’
I pointed out that there was shade behind the truck. But when Sergio scrambled to his feet, I wouldn’t let him run for cover – not until he’d retrieved Danny’s tarpaulin. My idea was that we should spread out the tarp, roll Gary onto it, and drag him into the shade. Dragging him would be easier than carrying him, I said.
Sergio, however, didn’t see why we should bother about Gary. ‘Let him sizzle,’ was how Sergio put it. ‘I don’t care if he fries like an egg.’
‘You will if some judge says it’s manslaughter,’ I snapped. And we were still locked in a waspish argument about criminal negligence when all at once Gary moaned.
I nearly had a heart attack.
‘Oh my God,’ I breathed. His lips were moving and his hands were twitching. He was definitely coming to.
Sergio quickly stumbled off to search for the rifle, hissing with pain at every footfall. I reached for the discarded crowbar as Gary opened his eyes.
‘Gnaah,’ he muttered.
His blank gaze was unfocused. Though it drifted about, it wouldn’t settle on anything. I wondered if he had brain damage. It was the second time he’d been knocked insensible in less than a day; surely that couldn
’t be healthy?
‘I found it!’ Sergio cried, from the middle of a roadside salt pan. ‘It’s over here!’
‘Is it busted?’
‘I dunno. It looks okay.’ Sergio held up the rifle with his good hand. It certainly seemed to be in one piece.
Then Gary mumbled, ‘What happened?’
I studied him warily, my fingers closing around the crowbar. He still seemed out of it.
‘You crashed the truck,’ I replied.
‘Huh?’
‘You shouldn’t move,’ I added, with a sudden flash of brilliance. ‘You’ve got a head injury. If you move, you might damage your spinal cord or something.’
I was trying to stop him from running away. And I must have succeeded, because he just lay there for a while, blinking in the glare.
With his beard growing out, and his pants all bloody, and his shirt-tails flapping, he didn’t look like a police detective anymore.
‘So what do we do now?’ asked Sergio, hovering at a safe distance with the rifle tucked under his good arm. The other was still wrapped in my homemade sling. ‘Are we moving him or what?’
‘Nup.’ I winked. ‘We might hurt him if we move him.’
Sergio frowned. ‘Who cares?’ he said roughly. When I scowled, it only puzzled him further; his face crumpled into a confused, fretful, impatient expression. ‘What’s up?’ he demanded. ‘I don’t get it. You just said we had to move him.’
‘Yeah, but we’d better not.’ Wink, wink. ‘It could be dangerous.’
‘Why?’
‘Sergio, he’s got to stay where he is. He can’t move a muscle. He can’t leave.’
‘Oh!’ At last realisation dawned. ‘Right. Yeah. Gotcha.’ Sergio regarded me with more respect than usual. Before he could say anything, however, Gary spoke up.
‘Who are you?’ he whispered.