Rural Dreams Read online

  ‘Get here,’ he said without letting go of Anna’s arm. ‘Come back into the light a bit where I can see you both.’ He dragged Anna back the way they came with Louise following, not sure how to help. The three of them stood on the rock ledge again and in the light the women could see that the man was around their age and strong. He looked closely at them both.

  ‘Been wondering when youse’d get up. Couldn’t be sure if there was a whole group of you in there so wanted to wait a little. Any more friends in there are there?’

  Louise tried to speak, found she couldn’t.

  The man spat on the ground. ‘Where’s Nicole?’

  ‘Clint?’ Louise gathered her wits. ‘You’re Clint?’

  ‘I said, where’s Nicole?’

  ‘Let me go,’ Anna tried to wrench herself from the man’s grip, but he held tight.

  ‘But how did you get here, did you follow us?’ Louise found her voice.

  ‘Went around to Nic’s mother’s place to see my kid. No one home, easy enough to get in. Stupid bitch’d written her whole itinerary on the fridge. Easy enough to hitch here, then got a lift with some old bloke who was coming to pick up his son. The son told me about this group of three women he’d met on the track. One hot, one fat and one ugly. No guessing which ones you two are.’ He stumbled on his footing, wrenching Anna sideways with him. ‘I’m a hunter, easy enough to see your tracks. Your little fire last night showed me the direction and found the path first thing.’

  Anna thought of telling Louise to run and hide. But where? And Nicole in the hut, all alone.‘What do you want with Nicole? Why don’t you just leave her alone.’

  The man pulled her in close to him and looked into her face. ‘She’s got my kid. She’s fucken taken everything.’ Clint’s eyes were bloodshot, his skin sweaty. His breath was heavy and he stumbled into her. It was a wonder that he walked this far.

  ‘Get what’s fucken’ mine,’ he muttered, yanking her back on the path toward the hut.

  Anna tried to sit down, slowing Clint’s progress and skidding on her backside. ‘Leave her alone,’ she tried to keep a low voice. ‘Just go, get out of here. You’re in enough trouble already.’

  Clint turned back on her. ‘Shut your fucken mouth!’

  ‘Just go now Clint, go now before this all gets a whole lot worse.’

  For a moment, Clint let go of her and facing him, she backed back into the sunlight of the cliff, the rocks hurting her palms. He looked down at her and shook his big head, confused.

  ‘How can this get any worse?’

  ‘You’ll go back to jail for stalking, for breaking parole.’

  Clint muttered something under his breath and took a few uncertain steps. A bird called from overhead and he swung wildly at it.

  ‘Just go now Clint, we won’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Not before I get that bitch,’ Clint began walking toward the path again, muttering about Nicole.

  ‘You prick!’ Anna stood up and called to him. ‘You leave her alone you arsehole. You leave her alone!’

  Without warning, Clint took two steps back to her, and bent down, slapping her hard across the face. Anna fell to her knees and tried to crawl forward, away from the cliff edge. In the corner of her eye she saw Louise, hovering.

  ‘Run!’ She called to her through blurred vision. ‘Run!’ Clint towered above her, his eyes red from whatever he was on. Louise edged sideway, but didn’t turn, didn’t run.

  ‘What a hero,’ Anna said half crying, her head thumping. ‘Such a strong man hitting women. You’re a loser Clint, you’re a...’

  ‘Shut up you fat fucking bitch.’ Clint swung his foot backwards to kick her and Anna grabbed at her stomach, bending down. But before he could connect his foot – Louise hit him hard in the back of the head with the fallen branch she’d been sitting on earlier. Momentarily dazed, Clint touched the back of his head and staggered on his feet before turning from Anna to Louise.

  ‘You bitch,’ he said slowly. ‘You stupid, stupid bitch.’ Unsteady on his feet, he lunged toward her. Anna scurried away on hands and knees as Louise stood stricken, Clint bearing down.

  ‘Stop!’ There was a cry from the path and Clint was stopped.

  Nicole stood in the canopy of small trees on the edge of the clearing. ‘Stop Clint!’ she called again. Louise staggered backward, collapsing on the rock. The sun pierced the clearing and Anna had to squint to watch Nicole. Her head hurt, her back hurt and she couldn’t quite believe what was happening.

  Clint appeared to relax at the sight of Nicole. His arms slackened, his red face lit up in a foolish smile.

  ‘Babe,’ he said. ‘Where you been?’

  Nicole did not move from the shadows into the light. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Clint shifted on his feet. ‘Come to get you babe,’ he said. ‘Be a family again.’

  Nicole scratched her arm and looked at the ground.

  ‘Come on babe,’ he said. ‘Let’s go get Ty.’

  At the sound of her son’s name, Nicole’s head jerked up. ‘He’s not your son.’

  From far away, another gun-shot sounded in the hills.

  ‘As good as,’ Clint said in a new tone.

  ‘No. He’s not, Clint,’ Nicole said. ‘I don’t want you anywhere near him.’

  Clint’s face turned a deep red and his loose smile vanished. ‘Come with me.’

  Nicole hesitated.

  ‘Come with me Nic.’

  Nicole took a step forward.

  ‘Don’t go with him!’ Anna raised her head and Louise echoed her cry.

  Nicole held up her hand. ‘Go Clint, please just go.’

  Clint stepped toward her and grabbed her arm, holding her hand to his face. ‘You’ve got that ring on still. That ring cost me big time. It’s fucking mine, I told you to give it back.’ He wrenched her closer toward him. ‘Got the car, got the dog, got everything.’

  ‘Don’t Clint, please.’ Nicole bent low with pain. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Got everything. You got fucking everything. Give me what’s mine you greedy bitch.’ In one move he wrenched the ring off her finger. She fell back, half crying and holding her hand as he put it on his little finger and gave her a wave with it, leering. ‘I paid for it, it’s mine now.’

  ‘You fuck!’ Louise said, ‘got what you want, now piss off.’

  Clint waved again with the ringed finger. ‘I’m not going anywhere. We could have a little party here. I get my wife back and,’ he looked at Louise, ‘whatever else I’m owed.’

  ‘Don’t you touch anyone,’ Anna said. ‘I won’t let you.’

  Clint gave a short laugh. ‘Shut.The.Fuck.Up’ he said, tapping her stomach with the toe of his boot at each word. He turned to Louise, ‘Come closer so I can look at you.’

  ‘Run!’ Anna cried again to the other women. But before she could shout again, Clint kicked her hard – she felt a sharp pain in her thigh and held her hands up to brace for the second kick. The second kick landed on her hip bone and she moaned, curling down and bending low. As Clint aimed his foot at her a third time she saw a figure flash by, heard a brief yell and as she looked up, she saw Clint falling – arms outstretched and roaring, over the cliff edge.

  There was a moment’s silence, a freeze in time when Anna and Louise looked at each other, mouths an O of horror. Nicole backed into the cover of the trees again and was bent over, hands on knees. Anna rubbed at her cheek and tried to stand, found that she could. Louise was looking at the sky saying, ‘ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod’ and Anna thought she might be sick. She held her hands over her mouth. Her brain was a blur. After a few moments, and underneath the sound of Louise’s panicked cries and her own swirling thoughts, she heard something else.

  Anna held her hand for quiet. ‘Listen!’ she said. ‘What’s that?’

  A strange keening sound came from the other side of the cliff. A keening, then silence, then keening again. Nicole looked at the others in horror. Anna inched forward on her hands and knees
to the edge of the cliff, Louise behind her. Nicole stayed back. Clint was six or seven metres below, fallen on a narrow ledge, his arm outstretched and his leg at an odd angle. There was blood around the back of his head and he groaned in that high manner again, like a fox caught in a trap. Anna couldn’t tell if he could see her and he didn’t indicate that he had.

  ‘Jesus,’ Louise moaned. ‘What do we do?’

  Still Nicole didn’t speak.

  Anna cleared her throat. ‘We’ve got to help him. He’ll die down there.’

  Louise looked at her open mouthed. ‘What?’ she said. ‘You want to help him? Are you serious? He’ll kill us!’

  ‘He’s in no condition to do that.’ Anna took off her long sleeve top and wrapped it around her waist. ‘I’m going to have to climb down and see if he’s ok. I’ll try to contain some of that bleeding and then you can run to Patterson’s Hut and radio for help. I’ll stay here with Nicole, maybe lower some water down to him.’

  ‘No Anna, you can’t. Let’s just leave him here. Let’s just go.’

  ‘We’ll be no better than him then.’

  ‘Who cares? Who cares!’

  ‘Let the authorities deal with him,’ Anna said. ‘We’ve done nothing wrong.’

  In the background, Nicole hovered.

  ‘It’s the right thing to do Louise, and you know it. We’ve got no choice in it.’

  With Louise protesting, Anna began the climb down. It had been over six months since she’d last rock climbed – and never on a cliff this high without a harness. But there were ample places to place her feet and her hands gripped firmly at the rocks. This is what she was good at. She focussed on her grip, on the rock in front of her. She breathed in and out, in and out. She chose her footing, she felt the rock firm in her strong hands. She felt steady and thought of nothing else but the mountain.

  Above, Louise cried, willing her to come back up.

  Anna lowered herself down to where Clint lay on the narrow ridge, panting, his leg and arm twisted in strange angles and a thin line of blood coming from somewhere above his cheekbone. He tried to speak and she lifted his head in her hand. He looked like some character from an old ANZAC war film, strong body vulnerable and hurt. She began tearing the shirt from around her waist into strips to fashion rough bandages. The baby inside her twisted and she held her hand against the movement, closing her eyes for a moment. The doctor had told her she was having a girl.

  ‘You know what will happen don’t you?’ Louise was crying now – calling to her from the top of the ridge. ‘You’ll save him, and the story will all be about him. He fought in Black Saturday remember? The press will call him a good bloke and all his past charges will be forgotten. They’ll say he just snapped. He’ll be a fucking hero.’ Her crying was angry, but she was slowing down, resigned. ‘It’s you and I that will have to pay for this. You, me and Nicole. He’ll come out of it fine, they always do. He’ll hurt other women, Anna, you know it.’

  Anna rested her head on the back of the ledge. Her head hurt, and she felt a swelling on the side of her thigh. Her whole career had been built on saving people. Social work and rescues – there wasn’t much difference when it came down to it. The call-outs, the drama, the danger. She was used to it, used to always saving, saving, saving, no heroics involved. She felt a deep heaviness.

  ‘I was wrong,’ Anna said, firstly to herself and then to Clint. She felt his chest pocket, before patting the pockets of his jeans and pulling out a wallet.

  ‘Your baby will be born in prison Anna,’ Louise called through hacking sobs. ‘I hope you know that.’

  ‘I was wrong,’ Anna repeated.

  ‘Yes’, Clint panted and she leant in close to hear him. ‘But it’s going to be alright now. I won’t tell what the other girl did.’

  ‘No,’ she said slowly, her eyes squinted at the rising sun over the far ridge, ‘I was wrong about us being no better than you. We are better than you. You’re a violent, cruel arsehole. You enjoy scaring women. I don’t want men like you around when my daughter grows up.’

  She put the wallet into the chest pocket of her jacket and zipped it shut.

  His eyes looked up at her, first confused and then with a short shout, comprehending. She shoved him, gently at first and then with her two hands – and then by sitting down and pushing him with her boots, all the while trying to dodge his one flailing, protesting arm. Before she turned to face the sky at the final push, she caught a glimpse of an open mouth, a red gape as she shoved with her boots.

  Anna leaned back against the rock face and watched the sun above the mountains. Behind her, the rock felt cold and hard. Louise called to her from above and without answering, Anna turned and began the climb back up. Bits of rock flaked out from beneath her fingers and her mind swirled. One of her feet lost footing and she looked down to see the bush far below. The rock seemed to bend upward and away from her. In her head, she saw blurred images of falling figures, clutching at rock walls. Time expanded and narrowed. She forgot how to climb. She closed her eyes.

  ‘Anna!’ Louise called again, and she breathed, steadied, felt her hands firm on the rock once more.

  On reaching the top, she lay down exhausted and peered over the side while Louise paced. Low shrubs and bracken lay close to the broken body – far, far below. The silvery ferns covered it with lacy green and the bush closed in on itself, silent and immense. The mountain appeared unchanged, it made no difference to it what just happened, and for that she was glad. She wouldn’t need anything more from this place, had no need to interrupt its great beauty again. She would leave it to the birds, to the gums, to the insects and the ferns and the moss. Let the little farmhouse be overtaken and let the crab apples grow wild and prosper. She was done here. People like her were always asking something from the land, wanting it to yield, hide, prosper, enrich. She was done, she would never come back.

  Louise was in a bad way, on her way to hyperventilating and clutching her head as if it might explode. ‘Calm down.’ Anna spoke sharply and in doing so, helped to quieten her own fears. She placed her hand on the back of Louise’s shoulders and firmly pushed them down, forcing the younger woman to breathe deeply. ‘Calm down Louise.’

  Anna felt a pain in her lower abdomen which made her shout. She closed her eyes hard and clenched her fist. She saw red and black and thought she might faint.

  ‘Sit,’ Nicole’s voice was close. ‘You need to rest Anna.’

  Anna breathed hard. The bush seemed to swirl before her eyes and she took hold of the branch of a small snow gum to steady herself. The bush righted itself, righted her and she sat down on the warm rock. Nicole’s voice, when she spoke, was calm and low.

  ‘We can’t tell anyone, you know that. This is just between the three of us.’

  Louise stopped crying and nodded.

  ‘Clint was a bastard most of the time and the world is a better place without him. But we can’t talk about this to anyone, ever.’

  Louise spoke up, head still down, her voice shaky – ‘on his file it...’

  ‘What?’

  Louise’s voice sounded a little firmer, ‘On his file it says he’s from North Queensland. They’ll look for him there first up. It takes ages to even start to find someone who’s on parole.’

  ‘He got parole?’

  ‘Yeah – two days ago.’

  Nicole looked tired, ‘Jesus – and no one thought to tell me? You do-gooders, honestly.’

  ‘I’m sorry Nicole,’ Anna said. ‘That was my decision.’

  ‘Think you’re saving the world one poor woman at a time.’

  ‘I’m sorry Nicole, I really am.’

  ‘It’s over. Just forget it.’ Nicole shifted on her feet, ‘Clint had relations in New Zealand too, as well as a different surname some years.’

  ‘That’s something.’ Louise said. ‘I guess.’

  ‘We’ll have to go back to Baynton’s.’ Anna said. ‘We’ll walk on from there. No one needs to know we made this detour. My so
re hip from the fall when we lost the backpack, that’s why we took a long time getting back to the Snow road. We’re going to be ok.’

  The women stood up and followed Nicole back to the hut where in silence they began packing and after leaving the old farmhouse without a glance back – they began walking.

  The sun’s rays caught the whole valley and the trunks of the old snow gums gleamed in the morning light. The landscape stretched on, and when she turned around, Anna saw that the path they’d come on was already hidden in dappled shade. They might never have been here at all. After an hour, the women stopped walking. Louise stopped to retie her bootlace and as she bent down she put her hands on the ground and let out a small sob.

  ‘I can’t do this,’ she said. ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘Yes, you can Louise,’ Nicole said bending toward her. ‘You can do this, and you’ll be okay.’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘I know. You’ll be home soon.’

  Louise rubbed her nose and gave a half nod. Nicole knelt beside her and patted the younger woman on the back.

  ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘You’ve lost an earring.’

  Louise stared unblinking

  Nicole repeated, ‘You’ve lost one of your pretty earrings.’

  Louise felt her earlobe for the missing silver link, ‘So I have.’

  Anna after looking sideways at Nicole joined in. ‘Not sure why you’d want to wear dangly earrings on a bush walk, you lose them, you’ll never get them back.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Someone might wander across it one day.’ Louise’s voice was flat but she straightened up and started walking.

  ‘Unlikely.’

  ‘But not impossible.’

  ‘Bloody lawyers.’

  Anna felt her wedding ring, tight and secure.

  ‘The only ring I ever wore was the one that Clint took from me,’ Nicole rubbed her hand. ‘He took so many things.’