【荆棘鸟】第九章 03

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the irony¹ of it was thatthe rain had brought a dank chill into the air, and once more abright fire burned in the marble hearth².“What do you think, Bob?” Jack³ asked.“I think it’s high time we went looking for him. He might be hurt,or he might be on foot and facing a long walk home. His horsemight have panicked and thrown him, he might be lying somewhereunable to walk. He had food for overnight, but nothing like enoughfor four days, though he won’t have passed out from starvationyet. Best not to create a fuss just now, so I won’t recall the menfrom Narrengang. But if we don’t find him by nightfall I’ll ride toDominic’s and we’ll get the whole district out tomorrow. Lord, Iwish those PMG blokes would get a move on with those phonelines!”Fee was trembling, her eyes feverish⁵, almost savage⁶.  “I’ll put on a pair of trousers,” she said. “I can’t bear to sit herewaiting.”“Mum, stay home!” Bob pleaded.“If he’s hurt it might be anywhere, Bob, and he might be in anysort of condition. You sent the stockmen to Narrengang, and thatleaves us mighty⁷ short for a search party. If I go paired with Meggiethe two of us will be strong enough together to cope with whateverwe find, but if Meggie goes on her own she’ll have to search withone of you, and that’s wasting her, not to mentione me.”Bob gave in. “All right, then. You can have Meggie’s gelding;you rode it to the fire. Everyone take a rifle, and plenty of shells.” 

 

They rode off across the creek⁸ and into the heart of that blastedlandscape. Not a green or a brown thing was left anywhere, just avast expanse of soggy black coals, incredibly still steaming afterhours of rain. Every leaf of every tree was frizzled to a curling limpstring, and where the grass had been they could see little blackbundles here and there, sheep caught in the fire, or an occasionalbigger mound⁹ which had been a steer¹⁰ or a pig. Their tears mingledwith the rain on their faces.Bob and Meggie headed the little procession, Jack and Hughiein the middle, Fee and Stuart bringing up the rear. For Fee andStuart it was a peaceful progress; they drew comfort from beingclose together, not talking, each content in the company of theother. Sometimes the horses drew close or shied apart at the sightof some new horror, but it seemed not to affect the last pair ofriders. The mud made the going slow and hard, but the charred,matted grass lay like a coir-rope rug on the soil to give the horsesa foothold. And every few yards they expected to see Paddy appearover the far flat horizon, but time went on and he never did.With sinking hearts they realized the fire had begun farther outthan first imagined, in Wilga paddock. The storm clouds must havedisguised the smoke until the fire had gone quite a long way. Theborderland was astonishing. One side of a clearly drawn¹¹ line was just black,glistening tar⁴, while the other side was the land as they had alwaysknown it, fawn¹² and blue and drear in the rain, but alive. Bobstopped and drew back to talk to everyone.“Well, here’s where we start. I’m going due west from here; it’sthe most likely direction and I’m the strongest. Has everyone gotplenty of ammunition¹³? Good. If you find anything, three shots inthe air, and those who hear must answer with one shot each. Thenwait. Whoever fired the three shots will fire three more five minuteslater, and keep on firing three shots every five minutes. Those whohear, one shot in answer.“Jack, you go south along the fire line. Hughie, you go southwest.I’m going west. Mum and Meggie, you go northwest. 

 

Stu, followthe fire line due north. And go slowly, everyone, please. The raindoesn’t make it any easier to see far, and there’s a lot of timber outhere in places. Call often; he might not see you where he wouldhear you. But remember, no shots unless you find something, becausehe didn’t have a gun with him and if he should hear a shotand be out of voice range to answer, it would be dreadful for him.“Good luck, and God bless.”Like pilgrims at the final crossroads they straggled apart in thesteady grey rain, getting farther and farther away from each other,smaller and smaller, until each disappeared along the appointedpath.Stuart had gone a bare half mile when he noticed that a standof burned timber drew very close to the fire’s demarcation line.There was a little wilga as black and crinkled as a pickaninny’smop, and the remains¹⁶ of a great stump¹⁷ standing¹⁸ close to the charredboundary. What he saw was Paddy’s horse, sprawled¹⁹ and fusedinto the trunk of a big gum, and two of Paddy’s dogs, little blackstiff things with all four limbs poking²⁰ up like sticks. He got downfrom his horse, boots sinking ankle deep in mud, and took his riflefrom its saddle scabbard. His lips moved, praying, as he picked hisslippery way across the sticky coals. Had it not been for the horse and thedogs he might have hoped for a swaggie or some down-and-outwayfarer caught, trapped. But Paddy was horsed and had five dogswith him; no one on the track rode a horse or had more than onedog. This was too far inside Drogheda land to think of drovers, orstockmen from Bugela to the west. Farther away were three moreincinerated dogs; five altogether, five dogs. He knew he would notfind a sixth, nor did he.And not far from the horse, hidden as he approached by a log,was what had been a man. There could be no mistake. Glisteningand shiny in the rain, the black thing lay on its back, and its backwas arched like a great bow so that it bent²¹ upward in the middleand did not touch the ground except at the buttocks and shoulders.The arms were flung apart and curved at the elbows as if beseechingheaven, the fingers with the flesh dropping off them to revealcharred bones were clawing and grasping at nothing. The legs weresplayed apart also but flexed²² at the knees, and the blob of a headlooked up sightless, eyeless at the sky. 

 

For a moment Stuart’s clear, all-seeing gaze rested on his father,and saw not the ruined shell but the man, as he had been in life.He pointed¹⁵ his rifle at the sky, fired a shot, reloaded, fired a secondshot, reloaded, let off the third. Faintly in the distance he heardone answering report, then, farther off and very faintly, a secondanswer. It was then he remembered the closer shot would havecome from his mother and sister. They were northwest, he wasnorth. Without waiting the stipulated²³ five minutes, he put anothershell in the rifle breech, pointed the gun due south, and fired. Apause to reload, the second shot, reload, the third shot. He put theweapon back on the ground and stood looking south, his headcocked, listening. This time the first answer was from the west,Bob’s shot, the second from Jack or Hughie, and the third from hismother. He sighed in relief; he didn’t want the women reachinghim first.Thus he didn’t see the great wild pig emerge from the trees tothe north; he smelled it. As big as a cow, its massive bulk rolledand quivered on short, powerful legs as it drove its head down,raking at the burned wet ground. The shots had disturbed it, andit was in pain. The sparse²⁴ black hair on one side of its body wassinged off and the skin was redly raw; what Stuart smelled as hestared into the south was the delectable²⁵ odor of bubbled pork skin,just as it is on a roasted joint²⁶ fresh from the oven and crisp all overthe slashed²⁷ outer husk. Surprised out of the curiously²⁸ peacefulsorrow he always seemed to have known, his head turned, even ashe thought to himself that he must have been here before, that thissodden black place had been etched into some part of his brain onthe day of his birth:Stooping, he groped for the rifle, remembering it wasn’t loaded.The boar stood perfectly²⁹ still, its little reddened eyes mad with pain,the great yellow tusks³⁰ sharp and curving upward in a half circle.Stuart’s horse neighed, smelling the beast; the pig’s massive headswung to watch it, then lowered for the charge. While its attentionwas on the horse Stuart saw his only chance, bent quickly for therifle and snapped the breech open, his other hand in his jacketpocket for a shell. All around the rain was dropping down, mufflingother sounds in its own unchanging patter. But the pig heard thebolt slide back, and at the last moment changed the direction of itscharge from the horse to Stuart. It was almost upon him when hegot one shot off straight into the beast’s chest, without slowing itdown. The tusks slewed³¹ up and sideways, and caught him in thegroin. He fell, blood appearing like a faucet³² turned all the way onand saturating³³ his clothes, spurting³⁴ over the ground.Turning awkwardly as it began to feel the bullet, the pig cameback to gore³⁵ him again, faltered³⁶, swayed, and tottered³⁷. The wholeof that fifteen-hundred-pound bulk came down across him, andcrushed his face into the tarry mud. For a moment his hands clawedat the  ground on either side in a frantic³⁸, futile³⁹ struggle to be free; this thenwas what he had always known, why he had never hoped ordreamed or planned, only sat and drunk of the living world sodeeply there had not been time to grieve for his waiting fate. Hethought: Mum, Mum! I can’t stay with you, Mum!, even as hisheart burst within him.“I wonder why Stu hasn’t fired again?” 

 

Meggie asked her motheras they trotted⁴⁰ toward the sound of those two first triple volleys,not able to go any faster in the mud, and desperately⁴¹ anxious.“I suppose he decided⁴² we’d heard,” Fee said. But in the back ofher mind she was remembering Stuart’s face as they parted in differentdirections on the search, the way his hand had gone out toclasp hers, the way he had smiled at her. “We can’t be far awaynow,” she said, and pushed her mount into a clumsy, sliding canter.But Jack had got there first, so had Bob, and they headed thewomen off as they came across the last of the living land towardthe place where the bushfire had begun.“Don’t go in, Mum,” said Bob as she dismounted.Jack had gone to Meggie, and held her arms.The two pairs of grey eyes turned, not so much in bewildermentor dread¹⁴ as in knowledge, as if they did not need to be told anything.“Paddy?” asked Fee in a voice not like her own.“Yes. And Stu.”Neither of her sons could look at her.“Stu? Stu! What do you mean, Stu? Oh, God, what is it, what’shappened? Not both of them—no!”“Daddy got caught in the fire; he’s dead. Stu must have disturbeda boar, and it charged him. He shot it, but it fell on him as it wasdying and smothered⁴³ him. He’s dead too, Mum.”Meggie screamed and struggled, trying to break free of Jack’shands, but Fee stood between Bob’s grimy, bloody⁴⁴ ones as if turned to stone, her eyes as glassy as a gazingball.“It is too much,” she said at last, and looked up at Bob with therain running down her face and her hair in straggling wisps aroundher neck like golden runnels. “Let me go to them, Bob. I am thewife of one and the mother of one. You can’t keep me away—youhave no right to keep me away. Let me go to them.”Meggie had quietened, and stood within Jack’s arms with herhead on his shoulder. 

 

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