As he spoke, I saw a flash of light to one side of the cairn. A man appeared and then stood aside. From this distance it looked like Mr Cox who had bought our farm. He was wearing clothes, and it looked like he was carrying a massive great basket under his arm. Beside me the Dodger winced.
‘Is that Mr Cox?’
‘Yes. Cox, Hall and Beswick. They’re the Clan. Dad keeps trying to keep them off our property, but they just toss him aside. Sure, they pay well for the privilege, but Dad regrets the deal. I think we should wait til they are all through.’
Even as he spoke, another stocky, fully-dressed man appeared at the cairn out of the light-burst. Jasper put his head on the ground and hid his muzzle under his paws with a whimper. Sore. For the first time ever, the Dodger laid his hand on my dog’s head and spoke to him: ‘Poor wee beastie. It’ll pass.’
Hamish didn’t appear to notice. ‘That’s Beswick. I think his son is with him as well. Yeah, that’s him. Rod. Captain of the First XV. He’s a very creditable lock. Could play for Victoria if he wanted.’
Being alerted to something amiss each time the light burst, I thought I could identify it by this third time. The voice from the forest in the wind was keening softly. I didn’t feel it though. I could just hear it. At the fourth flash I could definitely hear the pain. So, traversing was not without its cost it seemed. Hamish was continuing.
‘I think Steve Hall’s the last. I thought he might have brought his young son, but maybe Dan’s too young at 12. Beswick only has daughters. They’re not interested in the family business. Happy to live off the profits though.’
The four men started moving off away from us to the other side of the Pass. This was the signal for us to start moving too. I followed Hamish and asked as we walked: ‘Where are they going then?’
The Dodger and Jasper stood and followed. They were close enough to hear Hamish’s answer ‘They’ve a field on the levels beyond the cairn. Looks like they’ve brought tools for harvest. Four of them can take a good amount of the seed back. Of course, by taking the seed back, they are making less available here for clothes and stuff. They get a good price for the plants back home that grow from the seed, but it’s a hybrid. When they plant it in our land, the plant doesn’t last into another generation.’
Ok, interesting, but now I had to concentrate on walking for a bit. It wasn’t as hard as it had been before our rest in the forest, but I still had to think about putting this foot down and then the next. If we’d had to walk straight up it would have been very steep, but the path climbed in a zigzag. I was close behind Hamish, but at each switch-back the Dodger looked at me. On the third corner, he caught my eye and then glared at my neck. I looked down. My bathrobe had ridden lower and the necklace was visible between the lapels. It didn’t seem that important anymore. As soon as we had finished this part of the journey and I was home again, the mystery of why my necklace broke the rules would be moot. But it mattered to the Dodger, so I pulled the bathrobe closed again.
Do you know, I would rather walk a kilometre on the flat than 100 metres up a hill. I think it’s the legs, and lifting the little tree stumps up and up and up. If I had thought about it, I would have wondered about the absence of pain in my thighs, or a stitch in my side, but this walking up hills business has been a perennial complaint of mine. Even on the farm when I was little, I stuck to the flat. So I was pleased when the path started flattening out. The short stretch of zigzag finished, and Hamish disappeared momentarily behind an outcropping of rocks. A little delay and then I, the Dodger and Jasper came through between the rocks in a group. The flat had given me enough energy to voice my complaints about hills to the Dodger, so we weren’t prepared for the ambush.
Hamish had apparently disappeared from the straight stretch of the path in front, so we stopped. At that moment, three men leapt out from behind the rocks and grabbed us. Jasper barked once, Enemies, and I started to yell, but a hand was clasped over my mouth. I tried to bite the hand, but this was impossible. A thick rope was tied around me, my arms being caught, then I was gagged. The Dodger I could see was not going quietly either, but our misspent youths reading books and playing music had caught up with us. The Dodger struggled against his captor, a dark-skinned young man with black curly hair, but he was soon tied with rope and a gag placed over his mouth.
I looked around for the third man. He was sitting quietly in front of Jasper, looking into his eyes. I thought that my dog would have given a better account of himself, but the man, also dark-skinned and black-haired, was unscathed. A growl escaped from between the dog’s teeth. I was surprised and disbelieving of the message that appeared in my head. I was wrong. Friends. The third man smiled and laid his open hand almost reverently on Jasper’s head.
‘Well, that’s a different story than when these guys were chasing us through the woods.’ Hamish complained as he was pushed towards us by a woman, who called quietly to the men. The language was nothing I had ever heard before, but it became clear what she had said when my captor shoved me, relatively gently, towards the woman. She was not at all gentle in pushing Hamish towards my old captor. The woman grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the clearing towards another rock. When I looked back I could not see the boys, but one of our attackers had taken off his back-pack and was emptying it. After this last comforting sight, my captor, complaining in the unknown language, kept me moving until we were well out of sight of the others.
When we came to a stop, the woman took off her backpack and started rummaging around inside it... I expected to see, well, I don’t know, possibly more ropes or a knife. What she pulled out was more frightening. It was a shirt and a pair of unisize, unisex yoga pants, pretty-well identical to what she was wearing. I was dumbfounded. In no way could I accept the offer implicit in the clothes. I won’t need clothes thank you because I am just going to walk up to the top of this hill, think about my mum and leave here. She stood up and offered me the clothes again. Now she began to talk to me. We were looking eye-to-eye so I noticed with the aesthetic word-smith inside me that her eyes were dark chocolate coloured. She had a round, attractive face: tanned skin, brown eyes, high cheek bones. For the first time I saw her as a person who could be motivated by something as simple as kindness. She waved her stick at me, indicating my bonds, and then shoved the clothes at me a third time. Message clear: ‘I will untie you so you can get dressed, but if you attempt to escape, I will hit you with this stick.’
She smiled and displayed a row of perfectly even teeth. Her age was difficult to tell, but I thought she seemed older than me and younger than my mother. She spoke more words, gesturing back the way we had come and then towards the bathrobe. Given the situation I think a free translation could have run like this: ‘Those fullas. They don’t know anything. Dragging a girl around the countryside in a bathrobe! They got no sense. I betcha they did it just so they could have a look at your ...’ or something like that. I nodded as she offered me the clothes again while mentally reserving my right to be back home in a few minutes.
She untied the ropes around me and handed me the harem pants, measuring them against me. A good length. The colour was that same neutral dirt colour that all the clothes seemed to be here. Clothes and fashion was not one of my things, but I think the fabric was a soft linen. No zip or buttons I noticed. I pulled the string tight around my waist. Comfortable. Roomy and airy. The top was next, and it was similar: no buttons or zips, just a fine string at the neck and a belt of the same material at the waist. I took off the bathrobe from underneath before tying the belt, thus maintaining an element of modesty. The woman did not take her eyes off me. Afraid I would escape no doubt. I handed my captor the robe which she inspected closely before rolling it up and placing it into her backpack. She stood again and indicated the rope and the stick in each of her hands: ‘Ok, I’ll go quietly.’ I said. She nodded. We left to rejoin the others.
When we returned, the Dodger was unbound and dressed in the same peasant/buccaneer style as I was. On him, however, the pants finished half-way up his shins. I noticed that his guard was only as tall as me. My captor apparently asked the taller of the men why he hadn’t given the poor boy his trousers. In response the former defended himself by showing her the emptiness of his backpack. She reached up and gave him a smack upside the head. He looked shamefaced. Hamish on the other hand, was looking stormy-faced. He challenged the woman about something, raising his tied hands and indicating the Dodger and me. She rejected his plea to be untied, rolling up the Dodger’s bathrobe and placing it in the taller man’s back pack. Then she organised us into a walking party. Two men first, then the Dodger and the woman, Hamish and myself and then the short guard. Jasper walked with the front men and the Dodger. I felt betrayed.
‘Can we ask what’s going on yet, Hamish?’ I asked quietly.
‘They’re taking us back to the village. She’ll get a reward for us. Well, me at least. She thinks you two are patsies. They don’t seem to sympathise with the fact that I have nothing to barter with if I can’t bring anything with me.’
I processed that. ‘You stole the bathrobes!’
‘You would have preferred to be naked? They were drying on bushes at the back of one of the dwellings. Clothing is pretty valuable here, with the Clan taking so much of the seed back to our world. There are fewer raw materials for the necessities here.’
‘Like clothes and houses and food?’
‘Not food.’ I realised as he spoke that I hadn’t eaten or felt hungry since arriving in the land. This was a bomb-shell.
‘No food. No need for food. How can you survive then?’
‘The land sustains you. That’s why it’s best to go barefoot. If your body is in touch with the land, you will be sustained. And healed.’
‘Wow that’s amazing. Everybody should get to come here. No more sickness. No more hunger.’
‘I told you. Only those related to the original travellers can come.’
‘So who were the originals?’
“McKenzie, Rhodes, Mossman. And of course Friday. There was another, but he never took up the option.’
‘What about the Clan? How can they come?’
‘Your family was responsible for that. You let them use the Gateway and as I said, once you are through, you can keep going through.’
‘I didn’t do anything. Why do you say it was me?’ My indignation was aroused, but there was something else that he had said that unsettled me. I would come back to it. He stumbled. I caught his arm, and in the process found myself looking into his eyes. Hamish looked back and smiled.
‘Here there is no difference. Your family. You.’ We stopped moving and I stayed swimming in the blueness of his eyes. I liked it there and Hamish made no effort to break away. I could read him I found. I imagined that I could see to the core of who he was, and that I would like the person there. I was drawn to him, and felt the reciprocity of that emotion blazing from a hidden place inside me. The guard behind us gave Hamish an unromantic nudge with his stick. Hamish complained in the language, but moved on, breaking the moment.
I fell back to regroup. This would not do. Head-boy at C’port. Tubby book-worm. He was without a doubt the first guy who had ever shown any interest in me of a romantic nature. Then again. Maybe it wasn‘t romantic. Maybe he was just keeping his hand in. There didn’t seem to be a lot of competition. So, I could live it up and hang the consequences, or be sensible now and give it up. Give what up? was clamouring to be heard somewhere deep in my mind. I’ve read too many books I decided.
So it was that I hadn’t noticed that we were headed back the way we had come until this moment. We were already at the zigzag. I looked down to see a stormy-faced Dodger on the next stretch. He had seen the whole episode and for some reason this made me feel guilty. ‘I really, really want to go home.’ I said to the world in general. Nobody responded.
