Bub dropped the sledgehammer and set off running.
‘It will be there,’ Sam said softly. Her face was dreamy.
Oscar followed Bub, but Sam hesitated. She wanted to go where she knew her wind would be—the thing they were all calling a monster. But she didn’t want them to see her with it. They’d been angry at her the other day when Bub and Jacob had brought Dan’s body back, wrapped in rubbish sacks. When they set Dan down under the jacaranda, the wind had come. People were crying, and it came as if it craved salt. Sam, standing among the stunned and weeping survivors, had let the wind turn her. It was like the wave pool at the aquatic centre—safe for anyone who could swim. It was airy and liquid and solid, all at once. It cupped her like a hand around a lit match on a windy night. And then Warren shouted at her.
There was a fall of stones behind Sam. Myr slithered down the bluff and fetched up against Bub’s metal stakes, where he stayed, rocking like a feather caught in the tines of fork. His force field deactivated. His feet touched the ground, and he came towards her.
Sam backed off.
Myr stooped to retrieve Bub’s sledgehammer and began to do what Bub had been doing—hammering the metal stakes into the ground at the right angle of bank and path. Had he been watching them work? Was he now lending a hand?
Sam returned her attention to the digger. It was motionless. She made out a figure in front of it, against the predator-proof fence, doing something to the gate of the reserve. She couldn’t see clearly enough through the settling dust to determine who it was. The figure paused to check its work, then hurried back to the machine and climbed into the driver’s seat.
Behind Sam the pounding continued. Myr was at work on the second stake, the one Bub had already hammered to the correct depth. He was driving it right into the ground. He’d done the same with the first—only a few centimetres of metal now protruded.
Sam asked Myr what he was doing—he was leaving nothing for them to tie the ladder to. He ignored her and kept up his assault. Sparks flew. The stake was visibly sinking. Sam saw a crack appear in the ground, growing with each blow.
Myr dropped the hammer and put his foot on one stake. He pressed it back, then leaned his weight on it. The crack widened. It snaked between one stake and the other. Myr wiggled the stake with his foot—it moved with a ripping noise. Myr lifted his foot then pulled both stakes out of the now wide crack. He used one to probe its edges, wriggled it back and forth at the corners of the gap he’d made. The gap looked like a mouth in a loose jaw, dropping open.
Sam again asked Myr what he was doing, and he continued to ignore her. He dropped the stakes, braced his hands and hips against the bank, and pressed hard on the path. The patch of ground by the crack sank, then tore loose, and came away. A whole shelf of earth tumbled down the bluff, in streamers of grass roots and a confetti of clods. The path had gone. The bluff continued to crumble quietly. Myr picked up the stakes and threw them down into the cove, then pitched the rope ladder after them.
Myr was on the far side of the gap from Sam—not that she had any desire to go near him. She wanted to know why he’d just done that. Why he wanted to make it impossible for them to collect their messages. But she knew his answer would be enormous, and something she couldn’t hope to understand. So she didn’t ask. She simply turned from him and ran back towards Kahukura.
Belle had spent her morning in the reserve, on the far side of the ridge, in a grove of old-growth totara and rimu. She was checking for signs of seeds on the trees, doing what she would normally do, had none of this happened. Doing her job.
Once they’d buried Dan, Bub had gone back to the clearing for the canister. He carried it to the spa and wordlessly presented it to Belle. When she saw what the canister contained she was so relieved she almost wept. Until then she hadn’t understood just how anxious her solitary watch had become.
The survivors were all upset about Dan. They’d guessed that Dan had killed himself because the balloon came without an answer—without a show of interest. But Belle had been answered. She’d asked for help, and packets of food had been packed up, and the balloon had found its way in on a gentle breeze. The world had wished her charges good health.
Belle calculated that the feed would do her kakapo for another ten weeks. She’d gone to the grove to see how much fruit was forming. If there was a good crop the kakapo wouldn’t just survive, but would flourish and breed. They at least would go on uninterrupted. Belle peered into the treetops and dreamed about a future—not her own.
Being in love had somehow made Belle’s life lighter to her. If she had to die, then dying was just another thing she and Bub could do together. It would be easier together. And if the trees were full of fruit, then perhaps one of next spring’s little star-eyed chicks would be named Belle, and another Bub.
The grove was peaceful. Belle’s happiness felt permanent.
The hill was high and its stone crest tended to reflect sound back towards the bay but, after a time, she became aware of a noise, a roaring.
For the sound to carry so far it must be loud—a heavy engine, its gears chopping and changing. The roar was accompanied by clanks, and a twanging, like breaking wires. It was the sound of a machine savaging something metal.
Belle started back up the trail to the ridge.
She got there first. She ran into the dust that hung, as if hesitant, before the bush. The door of the utility shed was open, and Belle’s initial thought was that she was glad she’d made sure to close the storage bins, and wouldn’t have to wipe dust off the bagged feed. Then she registered an oddity. The mesh of the predator-proof fence was too fine for much dust to blow through, and the gates were made of the same stuff—so how was it that the billows of dust were coming towards her at ground level? She could hear an engine howling in the heart of the dust, and a ringing sound, a chain flexing, link adjusting to link—then a thrum, and metallic wrenching.
A gust of wind hit Belle’s back, and the dust blew away before her. She saw the fence, a broad, twisted ribbon of mesh pulled from its uprights, some of which were still firmly rooted, while some were skewed. Several had been dragged right out of the ground, concrete footing and all.
The predator-proof fence ran for half a metre below the ground—so had come out leaving a trench, like a knife mark in a wet cake. As the length of mesh came free, the chain slackened abruptly. The digger the chain was fastened to jumped backwards, tilted, then dropped with a thump. The digger had backed into Belle’s quad bike and nudged it over. The bike tipped, then began to roll. Belle followed it with her eyes and only then saw Theresa—her shaggy red hair and pale, resolute face. Theresa was running towards the digger. She saw the rolling quad bike coming towards her, and dived out of its way. But the bike hit a big tussock. It bounced up and veered right into Theresa’s dive. Woman and machine collided. The bike altered direction again, very slightly, but Theresa spun and tumbled, landing face down on the grass.
The digger continued to reverse, and its chain tightened again, singing. Another three metres of fence pulled free of the ground. Dust poured up the slope and forced Belle to drop her face and close her eyes. She was shouting, and her mouth filled with grit. It grated between her teeth. She opened her eyes again, shaded them with her arm, and squinted into the haze.
Warren was standing up in the cab of the digger, looking back at Theresa. He stayed there a moment, poised, balancing in the plunging machine, then jumped out and made off.
Belle’s eyes were streaming. She didn’t see where Warren went. She only watched the digger. It was locked in reverse, pulling steadily away. The fence resisted and the chain hauled the front of the digger down. It would rise up onto the toes of its tread, then its bucket would brace against the ground, and it would lose traction, slide forward, and fall down four-square again. Belle watched this bucking motion for a minute, then, at a point when the tread was squarely on the ground, she rushed at the mac
hine, jumped over the grinding, juddering tread, and caught hold of the frame of the cabin. She climbed in and tried to make sense of the controls. She looked for a clutch, a brake, before noticing the swinging keys.
She grabbed the keys. And, at that moment, the chain parted. The digger rebounded backwards. The chain recoiled and lashed, ringing, against the bucket. Belle grabbed the levers, curled up over them, and jammed her legs under the dashboard. The digger flipped right over and rolled, the chain winding around the bucket and cabin, its loose end lashing the ground. Belle was showered with chips of stone. Hanks of grass came in and thumped her, like fists in boxing gloves. She hung on grimly at the centre of the big, articulated metal missile. Then the engine stalled. The digger stopped rolling and came to rest on its roof, rocking violently. Belle’s knees slammed into her jaw, her teeth closed on her tongue, and blood filled her mouth. She gasped and actually felt her teeth slide free of her own flesh. Blood bubbled out of her mouth and ran into her nostrils and her eyes. It ran in a hot wash over her forehead and into her hair. She hung on to the knobs at the end of the levers, suspended above the dented roof of the cabin, her knees over her head, partway through the kind of backflip she hadn’t performed since she was seven and playing on the bars at primary school. The digger gave a final hiss and the bucket dropped—the hydraulics had lost pressure. One of Belle’s shoulders gave an agonising pop and she let go and fell onto the dented metal of the cab’s roof.
There was a scuffling noise. William slid in beside the digger, looked at Belle, then thrust his hands through the window, clasped her under her arms and hauled her out. He dragged her away from the teetering machine. He used his cuff to clear the blood from her face. Then he grimaced and subsided till his forehead was touching the turf.
Belle tried to say ‘Theresa’ and the part of her tongue she’d bitten through flapped against her lower lip. Blood poured out over her chin. She drew her wounded tongue back into her mouth and closed it, kept still, breathed through her nostrils where blood was already drying and stiffening. She couldn’t lift her right arm, so pointed with her left.
William looked, exclaimed, got up, and went to Theresa.
Jacob gave Sam some tweezers, angled the treatment room’s magnifier, and set her to picking grit from the graze on Theresa’s face.
Theresa was unconscious. Her right hip was coming out in black bruising and there was a long bloody slot in her right buttock where her heavy belt had been pulled into her flesh. The bike had caught on the empty belt clip where, in the early days, she used to fasten her gun. The bike had struck her and pulled her with it for a moment. Her pelvis wasn’t broken—as far as Jacob could tell—but he wouldn’t really know what state she was in till she woke up and could tell him where it hurt, and what could and couldn’t move.
Belle was sitting with Bub. He was holding a packet of frozen peas to her face. Jacob came over and asked Belle whether the Tramadol he’d given her had taken effect. She nodded. He had her open her mouth, and inspected her tongue. He warned her not to talk—she was going to have twenty-four hours on boiled water, and then be taking any nourishment though a straw. Jacob got Belle to brace against him, then he popped her shoulder back into joint. He gave Bub the sheet and some scissors and told him to make a sling.
Bub asked, ‘How’s William?’
‘He can’t run places,’ Jacob said. ‘I’ve told him.’
‘I’ll stay with him from now on,’ Sam said.
‘Well, actually, I need you to help find Warren. It’s a division of labour thing.’
Belle made muffled, throat-only protests, and Jacob patted her leg. ‘I can guess what you’re trying to say,’ he began, and had to look away from Belle because her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m going to give you a couple of sleeping pills and a good drink of water and send you to bed. You have to give your tongue a chance to heal. Bub—’
Bub glowered.
‘—you and Sam have to find Warren. We can’t just abandon him. William can’t exert himself. I shouldn’t put this on Oscar, and right now I have to stay with Theresa. I can’t leave her till she wakes up.’
‘Okay, okay,’ Bub said. ‘Once Belle’s asleep I’ll go and look. But that fucker better pray that Sam finds him before I do.’
‘Bub,’ Jacob warned. ‘He’s still my friend.’
Belle grunted and slapped one hand on the tabletop. Bub realised what she wanted. He found a pad and pen and gave them to her. She wrote Kakapo! Cats! Then stabbed the pen into the paper several times and cried so hard her lips unsealed with a sticky ripping noise and a combination of saliva and blood clots dribbled out of her mouth.
Bub stared at her. His face emptied of expression. Then he said, ‘It’s okay, babe. I’ll do whatever needs to be done.’
It was Sam who found Warren. She followed her wind to where he was. Her wind was being mild, she thought. Warren had summoned it, and it had come at speed, like a dog racing off to find a thing it has great hopes of—something to play with, or eat—something it then noses and rejects, before gambolling back to its master.
Warren was kneeling, defeated, in the disturbed leaves by the bloodstained tree where he’d found Dan and the balloon. When Sam came into the clearing the wind shifted from him and came over to her.
‘Hello,’ Sam said, to the wind.
Warren looked up. ‘Hello.’
‘Are you all right?’ Sam said, this time to Warren.
‘How could I possibly be?’ Then, ‘Don’t bother answering.’
Sam said, ‘My old ladies would always say “Can’t complain”, whenever I asked them how they were.’ She then said to Warren what she’d always say to her old ladies. ‘But is there anything I can do for you right now?’
‘Well—I guess you could try listening to me for a change. Or rather you could make your pointless listening face, since you won’t follow what I have to say.’ Warren paused and looked suspicious. ‘That is still you, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. I’m Samantha. You have to come back with me, Warren. We’re all worried about you.’
‘I don’t believe it. There’s a whole lot of other things you’re more worried about. Same with those people.’ He indicated the place where the balloon had landed.
Sam said, ‘Jacob is very worried. He sent me.’
‘Oh—so it’s Jacob now.’
‘What?’ Sam was confused.
‘It’s Jacob who’s in charge.’
‘Why do you always talk about who’s in charge? He’s upset. I’ve found you, and you’re all right. Come back with me, Warren. Jacob isn’t angry.’
‘Do you know why I did it? Pulled down the fence?’
Sam was quiet. Warren would tell her anyway. People never waited for her to say she was listening, they just told her what was on their minds.
Warren gestured around the clearing. ‘Those kakapo are more important to the people out there than we are. And to Belle—the blameless Belle. When Bub brought in the feed, she looked happy. Dan was dead, and she looked happy. Imagine caring more about birds than people.’
‘We just found the wrong balloon for us. One that was just for the kakapo.’
Warren started shouting at her. ‘How thick can you be? There would have been messages with every balloon, if there were any at all! The people out there aren’t stupid, they just don’t care!’
Sam was a little alarmed by Warren—but she had been raged at by unhappy and confused rest home residents, so she did what she always did when dealing with them; she was firm, and gently scolding. ‘Now now, that’s quite enough of that,’ she said.
The wind thought it wasn’t enough. Sam could feel its attention wandering. It was passing back and forth through Warren and pushing him, like a cat bored and disgusted by a half-dead mouse. Sam was so puzzled by its behaviour that she said out loud, to Warren, ‘What’s wrong with your feelings?’
Then the wind suddenly gave a seismic twitch and began again with its momentous revolutions as Bub ran into the clearing.
‘I’m okay,’ Sam said. ‘Warren is just cross.’ Then, ‘Bub. You shouldn’t get overexcited.’
Warren retreated to the bloodstained tree. Sam saw that the blood seemed to be running upward. Then she realised it wasn’t blood—the blood had long since dried. It was a thick, glistening column of ants trooping up the tree trunk, to a dense, black gathering where the crusted blood and other matter was. The ants exploded away from Warren as he backed against them, then, in their confusion, began to climb into his collar and hair.
Bub advanced on Warren, stood over him, and raised his fist. It was only a threat, but Warren began to shout. ‘Yes, why not?’ He was weeping with fury. ‘I always knew it would come to this—you fucking bashing me!’
‘What do you mean?’ Bub’s anger was mounting. ‘Why specially me?’ Bub grabbed the front of Warren’s shirt and shook him, thumping him back against the tree trunk.
‘That’s right!’ Warren shouted. ‘I made your girlfriend cry. That’s all it takes for you, isn’t it? But when you were carrying bodies, I was too. What did Belle do? She carried a mop!’
Bub continued to shake Warren, really angry now. ‘It’s weeks since the burials, and all you’ve done since is climb in a bottle, and make Jacob miserable! And what do you mean saying “my girlfriend” as if Belle isn’t someone in herself? She’s gutted! She’s asked me to kill all the cats, for Christ’s sakes. The poor cats.’ Bub began to cry too. He slammed Warren hard into the tree, and then dropped him. Warren slumped, his head lolling.
Sam lunged at Bub and seized his arm. She pleaded with him to stop, and he did step back. He was up on his toes. It was as if he couldn’t set his heels down. His fists were clenched and bouncing. To Sam it looked as if Bub wanted more to show Warren that he wanted to hit him, than actually do it. She relaxed a little. She tried to think of something to say to coax Bub away. He’d calm down. He was Bub. Bub was good.