Tikaani finished his straight account of their journey, reaching the point where the boys had arrived at the front door of his house, but he didn’t sit down. He stood for a moment longer, looking at the floor, then he lifted his head to deliver his closing words. ‘Thanks to Beck, I learned how the land can feed and shelter me. I learned to give respect to the powers I cannot control and to use the powers that I can. I learned that if you fight the land, it can kill you – but if you work with it and understand it, the land will sustain you.’
His smile was bashful and wry. ‘None of this will be news to you. It should not have been news to me. Now I know.’
And with that he sat down, to an outbreak of approving murmurs and nods from the villagers. By Anak standards, Beck reckoned, this was a wave of rapturous applause. He leaned over to Tikaani.
‘Well done,’ he whispered.
Tikaani looked up at him, with glistening eyes. ‘Yeah. Thanks.’
Afterwards, Tikaani’s family and the two boys walked slowly back to the house. It took a while because people kept coming up and shaking Beck and Tikaani’s hands. Beck’s feet were dragging on the gravel roads.
Sleep now! He thought. Sleep, sleep, sleep . . .
But first Tikaani’s dad called Bethel again to check on the helicopter. He hung up and beamed at Beck.
‘They’ve got Al and he’s fine,’ he said with a broad smile. ‘In fact, he’s so fine they’ve got time to swing by here and pick you up. They’ll be here in about half an hour.’
The helicopter flew low over Anakat, hanging in the air like a giant metal wasp. Its engine rattled the windows in their frames.
Beck, Tikaani, Tikaani’s parents and about half of Anakat made their way down to the foreshore where the helicopter was landing. The blast of its rotor whipped up sand and spray into a cloud that stung Beck’s eyes. He hung back until he heard the change in pitch of its engine which meant that it was powering down. The rotor still scythed the air overhead but he ran forward, head lowered, and pulled open the cabin door.
And there was Uncle Al! He lay on a stretcher on the floor of the cabin, covered with blankets, and a paramedic fussed over him. A saline drip fed fluid into his arm and his face was pale, but there was no hiding the warmth of his smile.
‘Beck!’ His voice was barely loud enough to hear over the dying sound of the engine, but it didn’t quaver. ‘Tikaani too, of course. Thank you, boys, so much . . .’
But Beck was already hugging him, as best you can when a man is strapped into a stretcher.
The medic spoke. ‘Two minutes.’ He scowled at the boys. ‘I wanted to take him straight to hospital. He only got this diversion at all because he’s paying for it.’
Two minutes! The boys looked at each other. They had gone through so much together to get here. Now Beck was about to be whisked away, just like that. It felt odd. It felt wrong. You shouldn’t just disappear from a friend’s life like that.
But of course . . .
‘You’ll be back.’ Tikaani’s smile was brave.
‘Yeah.’ Beck smiled wryly. ‘Of course. I mean, we’ve still got to make that documentary, haven’t we?’
‘And those are my clothes you’re wearing.’
‘True. No other reason for coming back, really.’
Tikaani grinned. ‘None at all!’
He squeezed Beck’s hand and then backed out of the cabin and hurried away to join his parents. Beck strapped himself into a seat and peered out of the window. The pilot hopped out of the cockpit to slam the cabin door shut and check it was fastened. Then he clambered back in and the engine began to gather power again. Beck waved to his friend as the machine rose into the air and turned away from Anakat, over the inlet.
The land fell away beneath them. Village and inlet merged into the endless cover of fir trees. The mountains that had done their best to kill Beck and Tikaani were just a picturesque backdrop. Everything gleamed in the golden sun and Beck felt his eyes grow heavy.
He didn’t want to see Anakat go, but he blinked, and suddenly he had lost it. Where had it gone? It took a moment to locate the inlet again. The cluster of buildings was suddenly tiny. It must have been a long blink, he thought, and he could feel another coming on. Well, Beck told himself, you’ve got to blink, but make it a quick one . . .
And so he closed his eyes, and the next time he opened them they were circling the landing pad of Bethel’s hospital.