He didn’t cry out. ‘Right, what’s next? Ah…’
He limped my way, Red and Blue at his heels.
‘Bill? You with us?’
I groaned, gave him a pathetic thumbs-up. ‘Thanks for saving my arse, again.’
He looked at me strangely. ‘Don’t thank me, I didn’t do shit. Ruby put in the hard yards.’
I craned my neck again. Ruby was darting through the forest of twisted metal and broken concrete, beating out spot fires with an old blanket.
‘Cheers, Ruby.’
She turned at her name, smiled, turned back, kept working. ‘You owe me one,’ she yelled over her shoulder.
I let my head fall back. My legs were wet, my pants clinging to me. With numb horror, I saw that the gnarled tip of a broken branch was sticking out of my thigh. I stupidly leaned forward, tried to shoo away the flies buzzing around it. Barely aware of what I was doing, I tried to wrench my leg free.
The pain broke its banks and capsized me.
‘Bill?’
Once more, Tobe’s voice brought me back. I opened my eyes; he was squatting next to me, wrapping a makeshift bandage around my wound.
Blue ran up, sniffed at the broken branch.
‘Get out of it!’
Blue bounded off into the bush in search of her kin.
‘Here, bite on this.’ Ruby was standing over me, offering me a piece of wood wrapped in a dirty strip of cloth. ‘It’ll help.’
I relented. She crouched beside me and lay her hands on my shoulders.
‘You ready?’ Tobe asked.
I nodded. Tobe took a firm hold of my leg. Ruby pinned me down.
‘One, two, three.’
Tobe wrenched on my leg. I blacked out again.
‘Mate, this is becoming a bad habit.’
For the third time, Tobe’s voice brought me back. I couldn’t speak. The world was blurred at the edges, like it had been suspended in oil. I looked at the debris filling the riverbed, at the mangled mess of my left leg, at Tobe’s wounds, at the purple glow of dusk’s approach. These things were all hazy before my unfocused eyes. They meant nothing. The pain I had felt earlier was now somewhere far away, as light as a summer cloud.
‘Bill?’
I groaned, any other kind of answer beyond me. I smacked my lips, my throat dry. Tobe held a canteen to my mouth. I swallowed greedily.
‘More,’ I croaked.
Tobe tipped the canteen again. The fuzziness slowly started to pass.
‘You all right?’
‘What do you reckon?’
His smile shrivelled up. ‘I’m serious.’ He was never very good at sincerity.
‘To be honest, I’ve no idea. What did you do to me?’
‘Wasn’t me, mate. Blame her.’
He pointed at Ruby, who was methodically picking through the remains of our irreplaceable possessions.
‘Ruby!’
She turned to look at him.
‘What was it you gave Bill?’
A guarded smile crossed her face. ‘Just some herbs I found nearby. They’ll wear off soon, but I’ve got more if he needs them.’
It was the most I had ever heard her say.
‘You’re welcome,’ she yelled over her shoulder.
‘Ruby was good enough to pack your wound, too,’ Tobe added. ‘That’s another one you owe her.’
I had a close look. The hole had been cleaned and stuffed with thick green leaves that oozed a viscous fluid. I tried to thank her, but she had already dashed away to another blanket of debris.
For a moment, Tobe and I looked at each other without speaking, letting the ridiculousness of our situation sink in. We hadn’t even been on the road a day; from the cosy confines of the pub to a world of wreckage and flame in less than a turn of the earth.
We started laughing. What else could we do?
‘What’s so funny?’ Ruby called out.
She seemed unfazed by everything. I suppose if that was the only world you had ever known, then nothing was really that strange. Once again, I felt suddenly old.
‘It’s been a long day, that’s all.’
She didn’t understand that, either. We laughed a little longer. I decided to try to move.
‘You sure?’ Tobe asked.
I nodded, reached up, took his hand. ‘She’ll be ‘right.’
She wasn’t ‘right: Tobe heaved and I buckled.
‘You blokes are useless,’ Ruby yelled, striding over, carrying a long forked branch.
I finally made it up, wobbling on my good leg. Ruby passed me the branch. The fork was snug in my armpit; I had to stoop.
‘Aren’t we a sad bunch of bastards?’
Tobe’s question didn’t need an answer.
I couldn’t help staring at the gash in his forehead. When he caught me doing so, he rolled his balaclava down to cover it, wincing in pain. I could feel Ruby’s eyes on the back of my head. I tore a strip off my shirt to wrap the wound. She turned away, keen to get back to her hunt. Tobe followed her. I stumbled after them.
Ruby had done well—she had found plenty of stuff that wasn’t completely ruined, including a working rifle. But most of it wasn’t worth the effort. Crates of ammunition and a lot of tools—shovels, picks, axes, saws, crowbars—they were all too heavy to carry. A few jerrycans of petrol had survived, useless now that the transport was dead. Its water tank had been punctured; its precious cargo slowly leaking out. Luckily, Ruby had also found an intact crate of canteens. What she hadn’t found were any backpacks.
Once more, she saved us.
She snatched up a tattered hessian bag that had survived the fall. Without regard for sentiment, she started emptying it, dumping spare clothes at her feet. She dove into the pile, tearing some things apart, unpicking others, tying sleeves and hems together, occasionally reaching back into the bag to find something new to work with.
She eventually pulled out a long white dress wrapped in crumbling plastic.
‘That’s enough!’ Tobe yelled.
He snatched the dress from Ruby. You couldn’t read anything in her Mona Lisa smile. Tobe broke her gaze. She got back to work.
‘Want a smoke before we set off?’ I suggested, trying to distract him.
He was staring into the distance, crushing the dress in his hands. ‘Yeah,’ he said softly.
He squatted. I stayed standing, knowing too well that if I sat back down I would be done for. Tobe surprised me by pulling a crumpled joint from his pocket. It wasn’t really the best way to stay sharp, when you’re lost and injured and far from home. But I didn’t say anything—it had been a long day.
He lit up, took a few drags. ‘You want?’ he asked.
I gave in. We got a little stoned, slowly making peace with our predicament. In silence, we watched Ruby do her thing. If she minded our indulgence, she didn’t let on.
‘Ta-da!’ she shouted when she was done, bouncing to her feet. She held up three patchwork sacks, sleeves and pant-legs tied together as straps.
‘Good one.’
‘Where would you fellas be without me?’
Tobe and I avoided her loaded question. Fucked is where we would have been.
‘Come on, no use smoking the rest of the day away.’
We did as she said. Broken and hobbled, I was relegated to holding the sacks open. Food and water were the priorities; soon, the first sack was bulging with what Ruby had scavenged. Into the others went some spare clothes, some spare ammunition, and the precious wedding dress.
When Ruby helped me hoist a sack over my shoulder, I collapsed under it.
‘Dickhead,’ Tobe said, helping me back to my feet.
I gingerly looked over my mangled leg. It was okay, I hadn’t done any further damage.
‘Let’s try that again,’ he said with a laugh.
‘Piss off.’
Ruby quickly put a stop to our familiar ways. ‘Get your bloody act together! Tobe, give me your rifle.’