The Journey (11 page)

W
hen Spring came Argus and Adious were fit but lean and hungry. Jessie was the plumpest of the three of them, a serene and dreamy baby who rarely cried but chortled and kicked her little legs at the daily pleasures of life in the valley. But her life there was due to be interrupted. Argus had decided to resume his journey, to make towards his parents' home and bring his quest to a finish. Adious and Jessie were to travel with him as far as Conroy, a large town where Adious' aunt lived, not far from Random. At a later date they would either come on and join Argus in Random, or he would pick them up and the three of them would return to the valley, to take up more permanent residence there.

Argus went away for two days to negotiate with neighbouring farmers for the care of the sheep and the harvesting of their crops and vegetables. Argus and Adious would take little with them, as the handcart was too slow and awkward to tow. So the preparation for the trip did not take long. In the event, though, it was several weeks before they actually left: the weather remained unstable and both were a little reluctant to leave their safe and secure hut for the perils of the road. Argus in particular was somewhat perplexed how he would explain a wife and child — which, for all practical purposes Adious and Jessie were — to his parents.

Before they left Adious made a last sad pilgrimage to Jared's grave, laying on it the first wild rosebuds of the Spring. She stayed there some hours, and when she returned her mood was one of melancholy. Argus kept his distance and allowed her time to shed her sadness gradually.

The journey began. Argus stepped out with a fine vigour, sad to be leaving the valley, but excited to be on the road again, with fresh sights in the offing. It took him only a few moments to realise, however, that this was going to be a very different kind of walking. Despite the extra weight he carried he was too fast for Adious, who had Jessie in a pouch on her back. It took Argus several days to adjust, and even then there were times when he was so frustrated that he had to run ahead, or take an extravagant detour through a paddock.

The weather was good, but erratic, and they slept under bridges the first few nights because of threatening clouds. Jessie was fascinated by the whole exercise and gazed in speechless astonishment at each fresh sight they came upon. She was able to sit up comfortably now, and could even move around a little. It was one of Argus' constant delights to be able to bring little oddities to her from the fields and forests — objects that she could play with or eat or both. He brought her flowers and coloured stones, feathers and insects. If he could have brought her a wisp of mist from a cloud, he would have. The two of them, the young man and the baby, were deeply in love with each other.

After three days' walking they camped by a stream in a place so pleasant that they decided to stay there a full day. Adious was not used to doing so much walking and was developing blisters on both feet. They spent most of the day sleeping, eating blackberries and looking for birds' eggs, which were there in abundance. Around mid-afternoon, Argus' attention was caught by a deep silence that suddenly seemed to engulf the whole clearing. He looked across at where Jessie slept in the sun. Curled up snugly next to her, nestled into the warmth of her body, was a snake about as long as Argus was tall. It was black and thick and menacing even in its somnolence.

Argus' heart began to race. Moisture broke out on his palms at the same time as it drained away from his mouth. He needed no time to assess the dilemma. Indeed he seemed never to have thought so coolly and clearly. If he approached the snake, or made any movement to startle it, it was likely to bite Jessie. Yet if he waited too long, Jessie would wake up, and would kick about or cry out, which would also invite an attack. And then there was the further complication of Adious who was somewhere upstream. She might come back at any moment and unwittingly provoke the snake.

For five long minutes Argus sat and sweated. Several times the baby stirred and moved. Several times the snake restlessly rearranged its coils. In that short time Argus came to appreciate another of the grim complexities of life: the fact that no-one can refuse to be involved. Not to act is as deliberate as the decision to act. A small bird flew suddenly out of a thicket of blackberries and the snake lifted its sleepy head and followed the flight of the bird with vague interest. This reaction gave Argus an idea. What if he could make enough of a disturbance to make the snake uneasy, but not enough to panic it? He thought he could hear Adious singing to herself in the distance, and the danger posed by her possible approach forced him to act quickly. He picked up a stone and threw it against some rocks on the other side of the stream. The clatter it made caused the snake to raise its head sharply. Argus waited a minute and threw another stone in about the same place. The snake stirred and uncoiled half of its length. Argus threw a third stone but it fell in grass and made no sound. Just then Adious called out, ‘Argus! Argus!' The snake, for the first time, separated itself from the baby's body. Argus threw another stone and the snake glided off a few feet. Argus leapt out of cover at it and the snake, startled, slithered quickly away and was gone, like black lightning in the grass.

The boy bent over and put his hands on his knees. He shook uncontrollably for a few seconds. But Jessie was awake now, and gurgling, and he could hear Adious coming towards their clearing. As so often, the ordinary and the commonplace filled the available space, and there was no time to dwell on the heroic. He picked up the baby and went to meet her mother.

T
heir slow journey took them along the top of a steep escarpment, giving spectacular views for many miles. Under gigantic skies swept with vast clouds the two small specks moved steadily westwards. The weather had held, and they were all brown and healthy. Jessie's lively eyes were testimony to their lifestyle. Water, soaking from the ground in numerous green crevices, was plentiful. In the distance the sun gleamed on lakes and dams scattered like mirrors across the countryside. A dreamy brown river, lined with trees, dawdled away from them in ever-widening bends.

It had been three days since they had seen any other people — two women on horses, riding hard, as though on an urgent errand. Argus and Adious had stood politely aside on the narrow track but had received neither acknowledgement nor thanks for their gesture.

Argus and Adious spent many hours now walking in companionable silence. They no longer needed words to express the awe they felt as a huge eagle lifted from the heath near them and flapped away, nor to express their amusement as two birds diving for a piece of apple narrowly avoided a head-on collision. They spent much of their time pulling faces and poking out tongues at Jessie, who gurgled with endless delight at these obliging humans who nonetheless always grew tired of the game before she did.

At night, beside the fire that was burning quietly down into coals, Argus wondered again at the fascination that glowing coals had for all men and women. Had life itself been born in molten rock and fire, and did man somewhere have a dim memory of this? Was it the duality of fire, its power to destroy and its power to give comfort, that fascinated people, who instinctively recognised the same duality in themselves? Was man afraid of fire? The fire burned with its greatest intensity as it neared the end of its life. That was when its heat was at its utmost, when it was at its most alluring. The young fire that burned raw gave little heat and held little interest.

Argus felt frustrated again at the inadequacy of his language which held no words to describe the colour of fire. Yellow, orange, red: they were the words most commonly used, but they were wrong. They failed to evoke the smouldering power of these glowing coals.

Perhaps it was the panther-like quality of the fire that held men in its thrall. Controlled, circumscribed, secured, this fire was kept within its bounds by a few rocks and by the boy's watchful supervision. Yet, like the panther on a chain, the restraint of the fire was an illusion. A moment's carelessness, the intervention of some other force, like wind, and the fire would snap its chain. Raging and foaming, it would leap at the throat of a dead tree, rip and tear through the grass of the plateau, and gorge itself in a savage gloating feast on the bodies of every creature in its domain.

Adious, who had been washing herself in a nearby spring, walked back into the light of the fire. She had not bothered to dress again, having always been much less self-conscious about her body than Argus. Her lithe and feline beauty struck Argus anew with its force. Her dark skin gleamed in the firelight, but her black springing curls absorbed the light like some kind of sombre night-time mystery. Argus took a piece of charcoal from the edge of the fire and with strong firm lines began to draw her on a slab of rock that had been at his back. He had never drawn much, and had never been very good at it, but now the lines flowed, like runnels of velvet. The charcoal was still warm in his hand as he drew.

Adious sat by the fire, eating an orange, not aware of what Argus was doing. She had torn the orange open and was biting into it, unconcerned about the spraying and spilling down her chin. Argus could not draw that, so he drew her at rest, lying on her side, a hand supporting her head. Yet it was impossible to portray her as relaxed; there was no mistaking the ripple of the muscles under her gleaming skin.

Finishing the orange, Adious rolled over, stood up and came to see what he was doing. She laughed, and became self-conscious.

‘Don't.'

‘What?'

‘You've made me look like an animal.'

Argus laughed and continued to draw, but he too had become self-conscious, and the lines now would not come out; they formed clumsy shapes.

‘Oh, don't!' Adious said again, grabbing at the stick of charcoal to stop him. Argus fought back and in a moment they were locked in a fierce wordless struggle, melded together in sudden heat. Although they were both snuffling and giggling Argus felt that there was something acrid in the fight. He sensed from the strength of Adious' grip that she felt the same. They rolled in the dust, first Argus on top, then Adious. Adious sat on top of him and laughed down into his face. He laughed back, then did a quick roll that upset her and reversed the positions. It was a struggle, a battle, but for what? Argus did not know, but he panted and growled at her, determined to win. She twisted and kicked and they were lying side by side in the warm ashes at the edge of the fire, the girl's skin reflecting the light like copper. They rested for a moment, locked together, then the scuffle began again. But as it did so the tension was cracked by a thin wail from Jessie, who had awoken and was demanding attention.

‘You go,' said Adious.

‘You go,' said Argus.

‘No it's your turn.'

‘Go on.'

‘You go.'

‘You look after Jessie,' said Adious, ‘and I'll get some wood for the fire.'

‘All right,' said Argus, after a moment's thought.

But later that night, as he lay in peace beside Adious, looking up at the burning stars, he wondered at the tension that had flickered so quickly and been resolved so quickly. Their friendship had a sharp edge that he had come to like.

A
rgus and Adious continued on their way under a cloudless sky. The view was changing; they had left behind the cultivated flatlands that stretched out from the foothills below, and now wended their way above dense and wild country. At dusk they watched as a thousand or more small black birds plunged from trees at the top of the escarpment to their roosting places in the forest below. A litter of baby foxes, each with beautifully long flared brushes, scattered at their approach and ran, one of them with something furry held in his mouth. A mob of horses, feeding on the rough grass, moved uneasily as the small cavalcade went past, and stood watching until the travellers were out of sight.

Walking became difficult at times, over sharp loose rocks. For three days and three nights they pressed doggedly on above the great brooding cliffs and slashing gullies. On the fourth day they began to emerge into populated areas again, and to drop down from the ridgeline.

The country they were now in was only semi-cleared and lightly settled. There were many dark patches of forest which the track wound through tentatively. Farming in these regions seemed a desultory affair: the land had not by any means surrendered to the people. The people merely camped at its edges and made shabby incursions into the wilder parts. There were plenty of tubers to be dug out of the ground for food — some of them of a type that neither Argus nor Adious had seen before. Argus worked for a day on a small farm in exchange for fruit, but found his employer to be surly and ungrateful. Hurt by his attitude, Argus finished early and took his payment in an equally surly way.

‘Moods are contagious, personalities are contagious, everything's contagious,' Adious said to him that night as they lay together in their blankets, with Jessie dribbling on a piece of cord nearby.

‘Maybe,' Argus said. ‘Let's move on fast tomorrow. I don't like this area. It was good up on the escarpment. I liked being up there.' He lay back with his arms behind his head and looked up at the sky, but the dark trees obscured most of the stars and denied him one of his favourite night-time occupations. There was a rustle in the branches though and he thought he could see a small face and a pair of little black eyes gleaming down at him.

‘What is it?' Adious asked.

‘I don't know . . . something furry and small,' said Argus, peering intently upwards. He could see a long tail wrapped around a branch.

‘I'll find out,' he said and with a sudden impulse of energy leapt out of the blankets and swung up into the lower foliage.

‘Careful!' Adious called out, torn between laughter and anxiety. But Argus was now climbing confidently. Even Jessie had stopped playing and was staring up into the tree but all that could be seen was an occasional glimpse of the boy as he gained height rapidly. He could see the animal more clearly but then realised that there was more than one. In fact there seemed to be a treeful of them. But they showed no awareness of his presence. He was now three-quarters of the way up the tree and with reckless disregard for the consequences began to shake the upper branches vigorously. The animals, of a type unknown to him, reacted with varying degrees of alarm. Several ran out to perilous positions among the buds and tips but most stayed around the trunk. Argus moved up to another foothold and a certain amount of panic set in. At last one of them ran straight down the trunk and down Argus' back and leg, treating him as part of the tree in its headlong dash to safety. Argus chortled, swung around the tree and laughed.

‘What's happening?' Adious laughed up at him.

‘They're running all over me!' he yelled. ‘And they've got claws!' Several more followed their leader down. As the last one swarmed down the boy's back he gave a quick lurch of his shoulders and the little creature was flung through the air, tumbling and turning in a shower of leaves. Then he landed on a more substantial branch and swung his tail around it in a firm grip. He shook himself and ran off along the branch into the dark sanctuary of the foliage.

Argus, his fun finished, came down reluctantly. It was one of the few times that he missed the company of a boy his own age. He was aware that most of his friends had been adults, like Mayon, or girls, like Temora and Adious. He had gained much from these friendships. In fact he was wise enough to recognise that through them he had gained in ways that placed him far ahead of most of his peers. Yet he would have liked someone to wrestle and roll around with, someone who could race him up a tree or outswim him across a dam. Instead he contented himself with tickling Jessie and rolling her backwards and forwards across her blanket — thus arousing the wrath of Adious, who had been assiduously lulling the child to sleep.

Argus was still restless but with no outlet for his energy he was forced to crawl sulkily back under his blankets, while Adious, still grumbling, came in beside him. It was only a few minutes before she was asleep: Argus watched the rise and fall of the blanket over her and the stillness of her dark cheeks. He sighed and looked up at the tree again, but could see no sign of life.

An hour or two passed. Argus lightly drifted in and out of sleep but was never sure whether he was asleep or awake. Then a branch cracked in the darkness and he was sure that he was awake. He lay still, his heart pounding. He had heard many sounds during many nights in many strange places but there was something deliberate and watchful about this sound that set it apart. This was danger. Beside him Adious stirred a little and murmured something about ‘hurting, hurting'. Argus wished he could quieten her but realised that any attempt to do so was likely to cause her to make even more noise. He lightly pushed the blankets aside and waited. Suddenly the stillness of the night was torn apart, so quickly and dramatically that he was made helpless by shock.

He did not know where to start. Things were happening everywhere. There were dark shapes rushing at him, a wave of them. They were big and, although he was ready to believe that they were evil apparitions, his rational mind told him that they were men. He flinched from the expected attack but it did not come. Just as they appeared to be about to fall on him they paused, grabbed at something on the ground and swept it up. For a moment they seemed hesitant, caught as a wave can sometimes be caught at the moment of its breaking. Then, as Argus began to struggle to his feet and Adious beside him began to stir into wakefulness, the men faded back into the darkness. Argus felt some kind of relief, as he registered the possibility that he might not be attacked. He was on his feet now, peering after them. Assuming they had stolen some of their few possessions, he cast around on the ground. It took him another infinitely slow moment to realise what they had taken.

‘What's happening?' Adious asked, rubbing her eyes.

‘They've taken Jessie,' Argus shouted, about to lunge out after them but realising in frustration that he would have to put shoes on first. That took another maddening moment. Adious was making sounds of horror. Then she was stumbling past him, pulling on her boots as she ran.

‘Take the path,' Argus gasped. ‘I think they went through the trees, so we might gain on them.' He plunged forwards, behind Adious, who was the only other person he could see or hear. He was too desperate to feel anything. He caught up with Adious and they ran silently on together, for three or four minutes. Then they paused to listen. There was nothing. Then, perhaps, for a moment, there was something. A thump, quite a way to the right, and in front of them. They ran towards it and found a narrow animal track. Following it they came to an old fence and swung themselves heavily over it. Argus landed on all fours with a crumpling noise that sounded like the one they had heard just a few moments before. He was up and running again, travelling more easily now that the initial shock was over. In the distance, through the dark trees, he imagined he saw the glimmer of a lantern, but it was gone again quickly and he was not sure. As he ran on he began thinking of the terror that Jessie must be experiencing, and that forced him to find more speed and stamina. In front of him, grim and silent, ran the mother. Argus wondered as he went what he would do if and when he caught up with the attackers.

Sick fear churned in his stomach, as if he had eaten a mixture of porridge and rotting fruit. He could hear Adious' breath start to come hard, louder, and with a pumping sound. He put his head down and ploughed on. His head began to roll from side to side and his arms were chopping down harder. A bird suddenly started up out of the dense dark grass beside the track, with a clatter of wings and a hollow series of short cries.

Unexpectedly they came to a road which was wide and well-made. They paused irresolute for a moment and then, without discussion, turned to the right and ran steadily along it. The change in surface and surroundings gave them a new burst of energy, which sustained them for perhaps twenty minutes.

The time came, however, when mental willpower was simply not enough. The body began to give out, in ways that could not be governed by the mind. The muscles at the backs of their legs contracted, and their steps became shorter and shorter. Cramps tore at their tortured limbs. Sweat poured down Argus' face, and the constant flow of salt into his mouth made him feel sick. It ran into his eyes too, stinging them. He at last slowed to a walk, hating himself for his weakness, but Adious seemed glad of the excuse to stop running; they walked along quickly for a few minutes, hands on hips, gasping at the grudging air. Finally Adious stopped completely.

‘This is useless,' she said. ‘We don't even know if we're going the right way.'

‘What do we do then?' Argus asked miserably. There was no answer and he started trying to think objectively, to analyse the situation and work out the best strategy. Panic kept threatening to gum up his mind and he had to fight hard to muster some self-control.

‘It'll be light in a few hours,' he said at last, as calmly as possible. ‘We'd be better to rest and wait till then. We'll be able to see, and we'll still have some energy left. Besides, they'll have to rest too, unless they've got horses, and if they've got horses they'll already be over the hills and far away.'

They sagged onto the ground under a large tree and waited. It took some hours and they both dozed a little, although they would scarcely have thought it possible they could sleep. When it was light enough to distinguish the shapes of the trees from the grey sky, they rose without need of words, and began to move stiffly on their way. They walked a little, jogged a little, walked a little. Daylight continued to colour in the day. They followed the same road, for there seemed nothing else to do.

After about an hour they saw a man walking in the same direction as themselves. Carrying a spade and a bucket, he was clearly on his way to work. They ran up behind him, but he did not turn around until they were level with him, and even then he showed little interest, merely glancing at them.

‘Have you seen anyone with a little child?' Argus begged. ‘A baby girl, dark hair, dark eyes?' The man just kept walking, saying nothing, so that both Argus and Adious thought that he had not heard the question and might perhaps be deaf. But as they were about to speak again the man looked at them more searchingly. There was something surly about his expression and Argus inwardly quailed. But as the man took in their grimy, streaked faces and their desperate appearance, his face softened a little. He looked away and walked on but finally, after a fashion, answered their question.

‘You're on the right road,' he said gruffly.

Argus was about to ask more questions but Adious, perhaps sensing that they would get no more information here, was already running away. The boy quickly followed.

The morning took some time to settle into the pattern of weather that it would maintain for the rest of the day: cloudy and humid, white cloud becoming grey. Argus sweated, and struggled to keep going. As the morning wore on they both abandoned any attempt to run. Not knowing where they were going or what they were looking for they nevertheless could see no alternative to following the road.

Late in the morning they passed two girls sitting on a gate but the girls looked contemptuously at them and ignored their questions. The only relief came when they found a long fence overgrown with a vine that seemed to be some kind of wild tomato; it was heavily laden with fruit and the two ate ravenously. The vivid red tomatoes were the only things in the landscape that were growing strongly. Everything else was straggly and sour.

As they left the spot Adious found a handkerchief on the ground that she recognised at once as one that she had made for Jessie.

The discovery came at a crucial time. Somehow they had both ceased to understand the reality of what they were doing, of what was happening. The panic had never left them but it was becoming harder to remember that a successful end to the search would mean a reunion with Jessie. The frantic activity of the chase was obscuring its purpose. With a tangible clue in their hands they were infused with new energy and the search became focused again.

Quite late in the afternoon they came to a junction: not a true junction, because the road they were on was large and well-defined, whereas the track that joined it from the north-west was little-used. They had passed other such junctions before and ignored them, but this time for some reason they felt drawn to the narrow path, and stopped.

‘This way?' Argus asked, raising his eyebrows. Adious nodded, and they took the path without any attempt to discuss their reasons. They jogged at a steady pace but with increasing nervousness as their field of vision decreased.

The track wound upwards for a long time. An occasional sob of weariness escaped Argus' throat now, despite his best efforts to control himself. He was sweaty, staggering, scorched with heat and hunger. Ahead of him, grimly determined, was Adious, growing more morose with every passing hour. Argus spared a thought for whoever had taken Jessie, wondering how they would cope with the vengeful mother. He felt fortified by the knowledge that she was with him.