Bride in Flight (17 page)

Lexie stared.

At that moment Mark woke. Kirsty went in to him. She brought him out, said to Lexie, “Would you like Christopher up too? If he sleeps too long he won’t want to go down tonight. And Lexie, I’ll put your dinner on. I want you on the couch as long as possible, your ankles look so much better so it shows what rest can do.”

As she opened the bedroom door she felt the draught from the glass door at the far side. But it had been shut before! Lexie always snicked it, and opened the window. It led on to a porch.

In an instant her eyes had taken in the significance of the empty bed, the chair that had been pushed to the door so Chris could reach the handle. The imp! Lexie would have to turn the key from now on. It didn’t do, in an area like this, to have toddlers wandering.

He wouldn’t be far, his liberty would be of short duration. He’d be off the quarters, wanting chocolate from Jimsy.

She ran to the gate. Nobody in sight. She ran up the road, if you could call the rutted track between the houses a road, and turned in at the gate of the quarters. The sun was shining brilliantly on the sheets Jimsy had been washing. She ran round the clothes-line to the woodshed, calling as she went, “Chris? ... Chris?”

He wasn’t to be seen. Surely he couldn’t have gone down to the beach! She’d have to run back and tell Lexie. The thing would be to reassure her, say he was probably just hiding for fun.

Lexie had heard her voice, was at her gate, already alarmed.

Kirsty called, “It’s all right, Lexie, he’s got the door open and skedaddled. He’ll pop out of some hidey-hole any moment.”

“I should certainly hope so. The young brat! I didn’t dream he could reach that door, let alone turn that stiff handle.”

“He stood on a chair. Must have done it very quietly.”

“He’ll have to be spanked,” Lexie’s tone was very quiet. “This could be dangerous.”

Kirsty knew the thought of spanking Chris was a comforting one to Lexie. Punishing a child for naughtiness wasn’t so painful as rescuing him from danger.

“Let’s not panic, we’ll find him any moment. I wonder if he went into our place. I left the door open, Lexie, don’t run. You take Mark’s hand, I’ll do the running.”

Twenty minutes later, having searched the backyards of all the houses, they were both in a state of alarm.

They dashed over to the beach, Kirsty outstripping Lexie, but there was no sign.

Suddenly Lexie said in a voice that was too calm. “Kirsty, do you think he’s taken the track towards the bridge?”

Kirsty swallowed, remained silent. Lexie added, still too calmly, “Because if he was we’ve got to get after him right now.”

They turned uphill, Lexie letting Kirsty on. The track, a beautiful one, led through closely-grown forest trees and native tree-ferns, twisting away from the water till suddenly it took a sharp turn and came to the swing bridge, which none of the children were allowed to cross unaccompanied by adults.

They looked at the bridge. “He’d never cross it,” said Kirsty.

“Even the older children don’t like it, it sways so.” Lexie said slowly, her cheeks blanched, “I rather think Chris is just too young to be nervous, and he
is
a daredevil.”

They called and called, listened and listened. Suddenly Kirsty saw something at the far end of the bridge. A gleam of red. And realized something. Red Rabbit had been missing from the pillow.

Her heart lurched sickeningly against her ribs. She turned away quickly, saying, “Can I hear something?” so that Lexie turned with her. She put on a great pretense. “Oh, just a gull, I think. Listen, Lexie, I think it’s very foolish for both of us to be away. I honestly think Chris is round the camp and purposely hiding, the monkey. But he’ll get scared if he comes back home and we aren’t there. Then he really might wander. You aren’t fit to take the hill by yourself, not that it’s likely he’s gone up there, but we’ll have to make sure, so you go back and keep looking all around the camp. Explore all the sheds. He might have shut himself in one.

“I’ll go right to the top. He would tire long before he got that far. It’ll take a fair while, so don’t worry. If you find him ring Jimsy’s meal bell. If you don’t, say within quarter of an hour, I think you should ring Haast. Even if we bring people out on a wild goose chase, they won’t mind.”

Lexie, her face desperate, said, “You’re right. We can’t take risks, and you’d be faster than I am just now. I’ll beat that gong
and
Chris like nobody’s business if—when—I find him!”

As soon as Lexie and Mark turned into the trees Kirsty sped over the swaying bridge, hating its motion, clinging to the side ropes, till she reached the splash of red.

It was indeed Red Rabbit, his long ears lying forlornly over the side of the planks. Kirsty, horrified, stared down at the chasm far below. The river wasn’t deep, it splashed and churned over great boulders, but a child, stunned by a fall like that, could drown in the pools.

The bed wasn’t hollowed out enough to have swept him away ... if he had fallen here, she would see his body. Her whole being was a prayer for Lexie’s sake, for Mac’s, for Christopher. She searched every feature of the riverbed with her eyes. Those huge boulders further down acted almost as a dam, but there was no body there, therefore he couldn’t have fallen, he must have trotted on.

If only she knew bush lore. If only she had a black tracker with her, if only Simon were here, or Mac. They would be able to interpret the signs. She must let instinct take the place of knowledge. At the edge of the bridge, before stepping off into the grey river sand, she dropped to her knees to scrutinize it. It was pockmarked and arrow-marked by birds’ feet, but ... yes, their pattern had been broken and disturbed here and by marks that could have been made by a small boy shuffling along making his usual noises like a tractor.

These marks had been made recently because it had rained last night, so the bird-tracks were today’s and no other children could have been here, they were all at the school function. Heartened, Kirsty went on, calling, calling, listening, listening. He just couldn’t have got far, surely. Yet they had taken so long searching the camp and he might have been gone some time before she discovered it.

The track, leading up the bank climbing the hill was reasonably safe, as long as he didn’t stray through the native beech,
mated
and
rimu
trees on the edge to look over. Water had such a fascination for children.

It was a steep climb, though Kirsty knew she was sweating with fear as much as exertion. She glanced apprehensively into various tiny tracks that led off, into the denseness of the bush, away from the water. How easily a child could be lost in that. How terrifying to be two-and-a-bit and swallowed up in the featureless crowding together of timber, the trees, starved of sunlight, straining upwards to reach it.

She didn’t explore any of them ... yet ... a child would probably want to follow this well-defined track, to see what was at the top.

The bush was thicker towards the top, shutting her into green walls of dimness, mostly undergrowth matted together, each side of the track so Chris would hardly have pushed through. It was like being in some under-water cavern; who would think that up there, on the crest of the hill where the cairn stood, would be glorious sunshine? She kept going doggedly, came out on to the bare top, was instantly dismayed. No sunshine, just darkly ominous clouds, the birds, flying in from the sea, gleaming silver against the inkiness. A sign of coming storm, birds flying inland!

She looked beyond and above, and the mist was already veiling the peaks, coming remorselessly down. Rain would sweep in from the Tasman soon. The perspiration turned icy-cold under Kirsty’s thin blouse. Five minutes before she’d not have dreamed it possible to feel cold.

Well, Chris wasn’t here, and not within cooee distance, either. She must get back, to get help, and quickly. She would only impede the work of the searchers if she too were lost, and she could so easily be if mist came in from the Tasman and the high tops.

As she sped down the track she kept calling.

As she turned a bend in the path, halfway down, where another track led into the bush, she saw it ... dusty, trodden on ... a little green jelly-baby.

Mark had had jelly-babies. He had taken some over to Chris that morning, a whole fistful, and they had staged a fight over the only black one. Lexie had cut it in half. He must have had some in his little pocket. Lexie had put him down in his little linen suit, with just a rug over him.

So he had turned off here! If only she had seen it on the way up! What time it would have saved. Time that could mean the difference between life and death.

That track led downhill towards the swamps. Kirsty knew, for Simon and she, unaccompanied by the children, had gone there once. Simon knew every inch of this territory. He knew the way round the swamp, had wanted to show her the magnificent view that could be obtained from a hill beyond, of the road pushing up towards South Westland.

She stood, torn by real conflict, by agonizing decision... to go back for help from men who knew the terrain, who were experienced bushmen, or to go on, knowing every moment was precious, that Chris, darling impish Chris, might be putting a foot this very minute on the bright green frogweed that hid the foetid depths beneath.

There was only one answer. They would have to track her as she was tracking Chris.

She knelt, and in the centre of the big path laid Red Rabbit. They would bring torches if the mist grew worse, and this was eye-catching. She took off the belt of her jeans, laid it at right angles to Red Rabbits, pointing down the fork. She got two bleached sticks, laid them at the end of the belt in imitation of an arrow-head, put stones along the length of the belt so it should not blow away. It was the best she could do.

The track was narrower, and prickly bushes clutched at her. Strange that when she’d come with Simon she, hadn’t minded the narrowness. Perhaps she had even enjoyed it, forcing them together. That had been in sunlight and they had been glad of the coolness. Simon’s hand had helped her over all the rough places, Simon who was sure-footed and eagle-eyed, trained to the wilderness, tough and hardy.

Three were parts where the path had crumbled away altogether, the hillsides were always slipping here, undermined by water, and you had to clamber up the hill, slipping, slipping, and knowing that if you fell on sharp rocks or into the innumerable streams that chattered over the mossy stones below, you could break a limb. She looked fearfully into every one, afraid that below she might suddenly see Chris’s limp body, broken and crumpled.

She broke off branches as she went, leaving great white gashes in the mossy stems, to indicate to the men her way. Great trees lay crashed over the path, torn from their peaty pads by furious winds. Some you could clamber over, others you crawled under. Something that had been glorious fun with Simon.

Her voice grew hoarse with calling, it grew darker and darker. Kirsty knew a chill that had nothing to do with the drop in temperature. She was personally afraid of being lost, here in this forest that was like a forest in a nightmare under these conditions. The fear that was worst was the one of not finding Chris, but she must, she must ... he must not become a babe-in-the-woods. It was the swamp she most feared, the almost actively evil swamp that could tempt baby feet, then engulf them. She must be getting near it. This track ended there. Where she and Simon had skirted it, you had to climb over a mass of fallen trees to reach the other track that ran round the edge. So if she didn’t reach Chris before she got to it, it would mean he had walked right on into it. Since she had been here the edge might have become deceptively firm-looking.

She came to the last bend in the track; a vine, sharp with hooked prickles, slapped at her cheek, tearing it. She pushed it aside, her breath coming sobbingly, turned the bend, her eyes straining through the green twilight. There was the swamp, looking almost like solid grass at the edge ... and no Christopher.

She looked desperately at the murky sky in the clearing above the swamp as if for aid. The wind swooped down and buffeted her. She put a hand behind her, steadied herself against a tree, her eyes wild.

Could Christopher have turned off the path? Higher up? Was he deep in the forest? Had he come back? She had not looked for signs of a return, she doubted if she could have distinguished them.

She went right to the edge where two trees, huge giants, had crashed. How strange that with their weight they had not submerged, falling one on top of the other like that!

She looked across, saw why. Their huge, spreading tops had reached right across and were resting on the far side.

At that moment she heard it.

A child sobbing.

She closed her eyes. This must be a sort of aural mirage ... she had conjured up the sound she longed to hear.

Because it came from the far side of the swamp.

CHAPTER EIGHT

KIRSTEN made a terrific effort. She forced herself to free her mind from imagination. She must depend solely upon hearing to locate this.

It came again.

The relief almost made her black out. Then she called, “Chris, Chris, where are you? Chris darling, it’s Kirsty. You’re all right now, dear.”

At once floated back the answer, “Kirsty ... Mummy!” The more definite sound located him for her ... a blur of paleness against the bottle-green of the forest and in a direct line with the fallen beeches.

Her heart gave a sickening lurch. He was trying to run ... towards her ... towards the swamp.

“Stop, Chris! Stop where you are! Stop this very moment or you’ll fall in the swamp. Stay where you are till Kirsty gets you.”

The note of supreme authority in her voice, born of crisis, halted him dead.

Then she spoke reassuringly, clearly. “Chris, Kirsty’s got to come round the swamp to get you. It will take time. You must sit down and wait for me. Right there.”

He lifted up his voice and wept, “I want my mummy!” He got up, began to move towards her.

Kirsty halted him again, began issuing orders. She felt desperate. Her overwhelming relief had given way to the terror of knowing that at any moment he might sink in.

She realized that if she clambered around the edge of the swamp she would be out of sight of him, almost out of hearing, and it would take her all of half an hour. She would at times have to clamber up from the verge, into the forest, to avoid streams that fed the swamp, making detours to avoid arms of the bog that reached far back into the gullies.

If only help would arrive! If only someone else could clamber round to him while she kept him immobile by sheer will-power. If only he were older to reason with.

But there was just herself and Christopher in this whole nightmare forest, and the swamp lay between.

Chris was calling something, muffled by hiccupping sobs. By asking, him over and over to speak up, she realized he was saying for Kirsty to come over the little bridge. Then quite distinctly she heard him say: “Chris did. Chris came over the little bridge. Kirsty come over.”

Nausea swept her. It was the only thing to do ... crawl across those trunks. She didn’t dare go out of sight of the child. Even between the trees at the edge, where he was, were pools, matted over with fallen undergrowth, deep enough, Simon had told her, to drown a steer.

She considered it carefully. Now wasn’t the time to attempt anything too risky. She must simply decide what was the safest way. All comparative, anyway. No real safety in any of it. It was more a matter of what was least dangerous ... for Chris.

As soon as Chris knew she was coming, he obediently sat down to wait.

She took off her sandals. Her bare toes would give her more grip. Thank heaven she was wearing jeans, a skirt would have impeded her. She dared not attempt to walk, she might slip, turn giddy, overbalance. And the wind was rising. How Chris had done it, she did not know. It was just possible that a small child, not undermined by fear as she was, might have gone across erect.

She noticed that in the middle the great trunks were low in the water. She hoped they did not have a break there, a break or even a crack that might not take her weight. She crawled out on to the trees. She kept a firm rein on her imagination, edging along steadily, her face a little uplifted as she talked to Chris, trying to make light of it, lest, alarmed, he ventured towards her.

There was a horrible moment in the middle when the two trees parted a little, she was terrified they might start to roll and overturn. She had to crawl on to one, and it sagged beneath her weight and movement. Only one thing to do ... it was slimy and wet on the trunk here, where the bog had risen and receded, and it was too slippery to crawl over.

She let her legs go down into the icy-cold sucking slime and horror, and astride the log, sitting on it, she ferried herself over with her hands as levers, till the two trunks came together again and she could get back on her hands and knees.

After a few yards they divided again, so she repeated the performance, choosing the heavier one.

That had been a mistake. She had not realized what that dark lump was, washed up against it. It was a drowned red deer, sodden and swollen, and she couldn’t get her leg over it.

Sickness threatened to overwhelm her at the stench, but even more at the thought of the obstacle it posed. Kirsty gritted her teeth, lifted her foot, pushed against it. She was terrified, she didn’t want the resulting disturbance, to swamp the trunk, dislodge it. It moved, settled back, she pushed harder. It turned over, great antlers came into view for a second, it turned over again and disappeared with horrible noises into the black mire.

She forced the sickness not to overwhelm her. She was near and Chris might stand up and run to her any moment ... She kept on talking to him, praising him for being such an obedient boy, for staying where he was. She was dimly aware as she inched forward that over to the west lightning was cleaving the sky and thunder reverberating round the hills, but all her efforts were concentrated on reaching Chris.

Suddenly she was among the angled mass of branches. The last obstacle. She clung to the larger ones, pulled herself over and through them, praying they would not land her in a bog-hole. But the ground was firmer. She stepped across a rotten log, to the rising ground where Chris was still sitting, caught him up to her, folding him against her in wordless comfort as he sobbed.

His small breakdown was soon over. He scrubbed at his eyes, looked up into her face and said proudly: “Chris can open door handles now!”

At that moment the rain descended upon them. Not a mild autumn rain, not a steamy forest rain, but a rain that had swept across the bitter leagues of the Tasman and up from the South Pole. There was hail and sleet in it.

Chris burrowed his head into the softness of her breast. Kirsty gazed desperately round. No caves, no sheltering cliffs.

Some trees had fallen against another tree and there hadn’t been room for them to fall full length so they formed an angle. It was better than nothing. She crawled in. It was dry under the trunks, but wouldn’t be for long ... soon the whole hillside would be streaming with water.

His little hands were icy against her throat, his lips blue, his teeth chattering. He burrowed in. If only she’d had a cardigan to wrap round him. Wool, even when wet, didn’t strike as coldly.

She put him down on the leaf-mould, layers of centuries, said, “Chris, sit there a moment. I’m going to take off my singlet and wrap round you.”

She wriggled out of it, put her blouse back on. It was flimsy enough, goodness only knew, but it was better than nothing. Doubled, she wrapped it round his shoulders, knotted it in front of him, sat down with him on her lap.

She would have to make light of their adventure. She began to recite nursery rhymes.

“I want Mummy,” said Christopher.

“We’ll get going for home as soon as this rain eases off, pet. We’ll have to go round the swamp. The logs would be too slippery now.”

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The silence was almost eerie. Then other sounds took over, it had stirred the swamp up, there were horrible surging and sucking noises as if a bunyip were in the depths, thought Kirsty. The light was bad. It couldn’t be as late as it seemed, though it seemed hours ago that they had put the children down and enjoyed a cup of tea. She must get going round the swamp while some daylight Remained. Would this storm have cleared the mist? That would be something. She could see nothing for the height of the trees.

She noticed something. “Chris, where are your sandals?”

He pointed across the swamp. “Over there.”

That made two of them in bare feet. Certainly Chris’s little feet were used to it and he could walk on a track with utmost ease, but here, with those wretched clinging vines and prickly burrs, with sharp rocks and their feet already cold and blue, they would be in a bad way before they reached home. But as long as she got to the other side and the comparative easy access of the path there, she would not mind.

But they’d made it. They had to. If they stayed here all night they’d die of exposure. They’d only gone a few yards when the lightning played again. Chris screamed. Kirsty picked him up. It was no use, she’d have to shelter under the fallen trees again.

Kirsty would never forget the hour that followed. When the lightning and thunder had ceased, the rain fell in torrents. She thought it would never stop. It would impede the searchers who must be setting out by now. It would have taken time. Lexie would have alerted them at Haast, but most of the men would be working away, though those who were in the township would come immediately, or go for others. But in this torrent of water all the signs would be obliterated. Even Red Rabbit might be washed into the gorge below, and that would mean they would not know what track to take.

But if this rain ceased and she could call loudly enough if they were on this side of the hill she could make them hear. And they would cooee too.

Christopher, quite unbelievably, had fallen asleep. He was keeping her warm where he lay against her, and no doubt deriving some warmth from her body, crouched over him, but her back felt as if it had turned into a stalactite, dripping with water in some underground cavern. There was no back to this shelter and the wind drove in. Her own body sheltered the child’s.

The rain had stopped. She must make the attempt now, if there was to be any light at all. She got up. She wouldn’t try to carry Chris. It was impossible, and the effort would keep his circulation going.

At first she had to test every step, then, gaining height, found herself on firmer ground, though it was so slippery she kept falling back, clutching at branches to steady herself.

They kept going. Sometimes Kirsty had to lift Chris, sometimes haul them up with vines she tested first. They swung themselves up by the branch of a
ngaio,
and Kirsten stopped in dismay. There should have been a tiny creek to cross—it was now a torrent. Fortunately it wasn’t pouring into the swamp, it fell the other side of an immense outcrop of rock. But she could not cross it.

Suddenly she knew what she had to do and do without delay before all the flooding creeks rose the swamp, She had to get herself and Chris—somehow—across that swamp on the fallen trees.

She said as calmly as she could manage, “Oh, Chris, I forgot about that creek. We’ll go back and cross the swamp. Only you’ll have to be very good and keep still. It’s too slippery to walk across now. It will be fun, though. Won’t they think we’re clever! Bet none of them have ever crossed like that. But I don’t want you to crawl by yourself. I’m going to tie you to me, and you must be very good and cling tight round my neck. Now Kirsty is going to take her blouse off and use that to tie Chris to her.”

She sat down on a fallen log, calm now with the knowledge that this was all she could do, straddled him across her hips, cuddled his face into her breast, turning it a little sideways so he could breathe and see. “Thank God,” she said to herself, “It’s a long-sleeved blouse.” Never had she tied better knots.

“Now, clasp your hands around my neck and we’ll go. I’m going to sit on the trees and shuffle over.”

Her legs were numb as it was, but the water and slime were even colder. But this time she found a way to get on to the trunks without forcing through the scratchy branches.

Before they moved off, she gave a lot of last calls: “Simon ... Simon ... Mac! ... cooee ... cooee ...!” but there was no answer. She dared wait no longer.

Only the strength born of desperation carried her on. A doggedness that would not accept defeat, a realization that this was the only thing to do.

She was coming to the bit where the logs dipped down into the water, and despite the fact that she had been thankful they were firm she now realized they were not as steady as before. The water was rising, naturally. Their weight would bear it down a little too, an increased weight.

She hoped it would not dip down too much. Her legs slid in a little further...

At that moment she heard the calls. She paused in her levering movements, said, “Chris, they’re coming, I’m going to yell!” And yell she did, non-stop.

The darkness at the other side of the swamp where the track vanished into the forest was almost black, but suddenly through it shone the beam of a powerful lantern, and came the sound of voices, Simon’s above them all.

“Kirsty, where are you?”

“Right at the end of the track. I’ve got Chris ... he’s safe.”

They rounded the bend and stopped short, aghast, unable to believe their eyes. About eight men ... Simon and Mac in front.

It went up like a rehearsed chorus from them. “Safe ... My God!”

They were like men turned to stone. They stared. In the patch of light, if the dimness could be called that, they could see Kirsty, in the middle of the evil swamp, astride a huge fallen tree, the upper part of her body practically bare, and lashed against her in some manner a small, lost boy. Her legs were immersed in the slime above her knees, and even as they looked, her hands came down to the trunk in mechanical fashion and she hoisted herself and Chris forward a few more inches.

Simon’s voice halted her. “Kirsty, wait. We’ll come and get you from the other side. Are you far from that bank? We can’t quite see. Could you shuffle backwards?”

“No, I’ve got to keep coming. You can’t get through. I’ll be right. I did it before to get Chris. The creek up there is a torrent. Don’t panic, I’ll make it.”