The Amber Trail (13 page)

Dig glanced around at the room.
“Well maybe if you can tell me where Max is, I’ll head over there
instead.”

“
Ha!” Girish snorted.
“Oh no. You won’t be leaving now. You’ve dug your own grave in that
regard.”

An emptiness balled in the pit of
Dig’s stomach. “Hang on,” he said. “There’s no need for that.” He
took a step backward, and the two men beside Girish dropped their
sacks of grain to the ground.

Girish paced again and shook his
head. He turned to Raj. “You see what you did? If you drop your
guard you create needless suffering.”

Dig took another step backward,
and Raj appeared at his shoulder to grab his arm. Dig tried to pull
it
away, but Raj held tight.

“
Hey Raj,” Dig said.
“Let go mate.”

Raj lifted his chin. “You lied to
me.”

“
I had to bud.” Dig
lifted his foot. “And sorry, but I also have to do this.” He
brought his foot down hard on Raj’s toes. Raj grunted and Dig
pulled his arm free, then turned and ran for the exit.

“
Get him,” Girish
shouted in a high pitched squeal. A scurry of feet followed him
toward the door.

Dig
pumped his
arms
and ran as fast as he could, skidding around the corner
of the office, before he straightened and headed for the opening.
Voices shouted behind him.

He burst into the sunlight and
skidded to a stop in the dirt. To his left, the path led away up
the ridge. To his right, the cluster of motorbikes sat together
beside the banyan trees.

Dig swore,
then
dart
ed
across the
patch of dirt toward the trees. He found Raj’s motorbike in the
collection of machines and sat down.

He stared at the controls for a
moment before he depressed the clutch and turned a small key on the
instrument panel. The bike hummed into life. He frantically turned
the bike around and faced it into the carpark. To his left, Raj and
the two men ran through the door of the brewery,
shouting.

Dig took a breath, then revved
the engine and dropped the clutch. The bike jerked forward,
fishtailing wide arcs left and right in the dirt. He struggled to
control it.

One of the men ran ahead of him
and tried to block his path out of the carpark. Dig wrenched the
handlebars to the right, but the man lunged and hooked a handful of
his backpack. The motorbike veered sideways, and Dig fought to keep
it upright
before the man’s grip broke. The bike
shot forward,
waver
ing
between
potholes in the dirt.

The engine roared, and Dig began
stamping at the gear lever. The bike jerked and spluttered, but he
held tightly to the handlebars and kept it pointed
forward.

He dared a glance behind
him
:
the group of men
gesticulat
ed
as they
dragg
ed a second motorbike into the middle of the
car park. Dig ducked into the headwind and pulled the throttle back
as far as it would allow, gripping it so tightly that his knuckles
turned white.

He followed the rutted dirt track
past the house, and then up the small rise to the old railway line.
He directed the front wheel between the tracks and bounced through
tufts of grass as the bike climbed the ridge.

The wind bit at his eyes and
whistled in his ears as he sped up the track. He concentrated on
the four foot of space between the two lengths of
rusted
steel below him, the looming wall of rock
ahead, and the black crescent of tunnel that approached. He hunched
his shoulders, ducked his head and pointed the handlebars into the
shadows.

The darkness enveloped
him
;
he frantically pawed at the
dashboard and flicked random levers, searching for a headlight. The
flickering strobe of an indicator blinked twice before the
headlights burst to life, illuminating a tight passage of water
soaked stone. The echo of the engine reverberated off the
walls.

Ahead, he could see the first
signs of the hornets circulating in the air, and he glanced down at
his exposed arms and hands. His grip on the throttle loosened; the
engine dropped in revs as he considered stopping. But instead, he
ducked low in his seat, tipped his forehead down, gritted his
teeth, and whipped the throttle back to full.

The first hornet bounced off the
top of his ear with a buzzing hum, and he flinched away. The second
hit him in the bridge of the nose and exploded—splatting liquid
internals into his eye. The third disintegrated high on his
forehead, and he felt juice track down his temple and over his
cheekbone.

Soon after, the air morphed into
a writhing body of insects. He ducked his head further and closed
his eyes to slits. The hornets were everywhere at once, pounding
into his knuckles, across his forehead, and into his elbows and
legs, a fluttering, buzzing wall of fury, breaking apart and
splattering through his hair and ears, innards dripping down his
nose and off the end of his chin.

Dig pressed his lips together and
held his breath, blinking rapidly
,
trying
to maintain sight of the rails ahead of him.

Then, as quick as the insects
appeared, they were behind him. Dig straightened and wiped at his
face, then spat—trying to rid himself of the sour taste on his
lips.

The rail line swung to the left
and the doorway of light appeared ahead. He gripped the throttle
with a renewed sense of determination as the bike broke out into
sunlight on the opposite side of the hill.

The rocky cutting dropped away,
and Dig spotted his pushbike still propped neatly against the wall.
He continued past it.

The ground between the tracks was
bumpier here, and he dropped his speed down a couple of notches. He
took a quick glance behind him, but saw no signs of his pursuers.
He nodded to himself and kept his concentration on the track ahead.
The rail dropped down and approached the river.

A vibration buzzed in his armpit,
and his heart raced. With wide eyes, he lifted his arm to examine
the loose fold of fabric hanging at his shirt sleeve. Inside the
shirt sat an unwelcome passenger—a fat, writhing, hairy hornet of
brown and yellow, with stinger extended.

Dig grimaced, then struck at the
fabric of his shirt, trying to force the creature out. But the
furry mass remained intact—now shimmering with a new intensity. It
stood with its abdomen curled up, trying to sting anything it could
get a purchase on.

Dig pressed his index finger
behind his thumb and gave the insect a solid flick through the
fabric. It shot out the sleeve opening and flew away.

Dig breathed rapidly as he turned
his attention back to the track, only to see the front wheel impact
hard against the rusted rail. He overcorrected and the tyre bounced
up and over the opposite
side
.

The bike trundled down the side
of the embankment, headed for a tangle of shrubbery on the edge of
the river. He pulled on the brakes and the wheel slid away in the
ballast before smashing hard into a bulbous rock. Dig catapulted
forward over the handlebars, arms splayed.

He crashed into a tangle of spiky
branches that tore at his arms and face. Something solid caught him
around the waist, rotating him sideways as the air rushed out of
his lungs. His shoulder slammed into the ground.

The bike fell beside him with a
whining clatter. The engine spluttered and cut out, and the air
filled with a sudden quiet, save for the ticking metronome of the
front wheel as it spun revolutions beside his head.
  

Dig tried to regain his breath,
but his lungs were frozen. For a terrifying moment he thought he
would suffocate, but then he managed a wheezing intake, followed by
a rapid series of short breaths. He could taste blood in his mouth,
and  rolled  to his elbows and spat into the earth. His
ribs screamed at him; his head rang with adrenaline; he closed his
eyes and waited for the pain to subside.

He heard the whine of a
motorbike, and turned to see a screen of broken shrubbery standing
between him and the railway embankment. He tried to crawl away but
his ribs protested.

The rev of the distant motorbike
increased—and through the screen of branches he recognised the
silhouette of Raj as he motored the machine along the track. Dig
ducked, but
the boy
passed by without a
glance.

The engine rumbled as it crossed
the river bridge and then rose up the far bank, heading for Hampi.
Eventually, the sound petered out until
Dig
was left with only the birds chirping in the
branches above his head.
He
stared at the
sky, taking deep breaths.

He
lay
there until the sun dropped low on the horizon. The clouds floated
past while the frogs croaked from the river bank. He considered
walking the rail line back to town, but didn’t want to risk meeting
Raj on a return trip. Instead, he wrapped an arm across his sore
ribs, and thought about his visit to the Banyan Brewery.

He considered Raj and his father,
the botanist—the man responsible for cultivating the high quality
hops. He thought about the remote position of the brewery and the
effort they made to export their goods.

How had his father developed a
relationship with these people?

And what about Max?

Raj’s father, Girish, had said
Max was at the docks, organising a delivery. As they were eight
hundred kilometres from the coast, the docks were a long way
away.

And what about Girish’s other
words:
Oh no, you aren’t leaving now!

All he had seen was a normally
functioning brewery, with no major difference to his family setup
at home—barring the fact that it was near impossible to
find.

Even worse, by turning up at the
brewery unannounced, and then making an escape, had he soured any
chance of salvaging the business relationship?

And was going home an option now?
They knew where Dig and his family lived. Had Dig’s visit triggered
some new repercussion?

He didn’t know, and his head
ached as he thought about it. Either way, he was likely now in
worse trouble than when he arrived in India.

He closed his eyes and tried to
block it all out.

Sometime later, he was woken by
the distant whine of a motorbike as it approached from the river.
The space around him had filled with shadows—the last remnants of a
sunset
burned
behind the
hills.

The motorbike dropped down a
couple of gears as it crossed the bridge, then powered up again as
it climbed the bank.
Dig
lay down amongst
the shrubs and waited for it to pass.

The bright headlight drove past
him, heading for the tunnel. Dig lifted his head and again
recognised the silhouette of Raj in the seat.

The whine of the engine took on a
hollow quality as it entered the tunnel. Then all was silent again,
save for the static of the river as it pushed past the columns of
the bridge.

Dig pulled his backpack to him
and gave the contents a quick check. He was surprised there seemed
to be little damage. He retrieved his water bottle and took a sip,
swishing it around in his mouth before he spat it out into the
dirt, then took a few long drafts.

He crawled across the undergrowth
to examine the motorbike. It lay on its side, twisted and broken,
with the front forks bent. The seat had popped open, and the
storage section had spilled out a worn pair of overalls and a
cracked bike helmet. Oil dripped from the engine, covering the
leaves in a thick ooze.

Dig gingerly pushed himself to
his feet, favouring his injured side, and took a few steps forward.
His calves
were caked in dirt.

He pushed his way through the
underbrush and climbed the embankment. As he stood between the
tracks he studied the rails as they dropped down over the bridge,
heading for Hampi.

Dig wanted to begin the walk
back, to reach Hampi, find a bus back to Mumbai, and a plane back
to Australia. He was already battered and bruised, and fatigue was
setting in hard.

But he didn’t. He had come this
far, and there was too much at stake to stop now.

He examined the base of the
embankment where he had crashed into the bushes. A gnarled branch
lay on the ground—as thick as his arm and a few metres long. One
end was freshly splintered, snapped from a nearby tree. Dig guessed
it had been ripped off by the motorbike during his
crash.

He shuffled down the embankment
to the branch, placed a foot on each side of it, then squatted and
lifted one end. It was heavy and awkward, but he managed to drag it
up the side of the embankment. When he reached the crest he laid it
out perpendicular to the tracks.

As he surveyed his work, he
thought back to the words of Raj and Girish:

—
Max is out at the
docks today, in the Goa office.

—
deliveries leave
most nights.