When you’re being chased the only thing you want to do is keep running, but in the bush that’s stupid. As we careered downwards the ground became steeper, vines threatened to snare us, tree roots and loose stones made plays for our legs. It was easier for the hunters. They were less panicked, and this time it sounded as if they had learnt to pace themselves, following the sounds of our crashing. They would have caught us for sure if Rebecca hadn’t decided to stop running and hide.
She stopped suddenly and turned with a finger to her lips, then cut to the side, where a tangle of moss and creepers covered an uneven landscape of rocks and rotting trees. She found a hollow and ripped back the leafy covering. Then she was gone. We followed her as quickly as we could, Jonathon, Lisa, then me. Being at the back I could imagine what a tempting target I would make from above and waited for the sudden fiery pain of a bullet. But we had a good enough lead on them and I squeezed my way into the makeshift cave while our hunters were still battling with the bush high above us. It was an excellent hiding place, for two people. Four was definitely pushing it. We were squashed so tight I could feel other heartbeats vibrating through my body. I knew part of my back was still exposed but there was no way forward. The air quickly became hot and tasted of dirt and decay. I felt a beetle scratch its way across my head but I couldn’t move. With the darkness of the undergrowth and the land falling away in so many different directions, there was a good chance they wouldn’t find us.
They were still running when they came past us, spread out now, judging by the footsteps. It was a minute later before they realised.
‘Which way?’ someone shouted from below. ‘Are they heading in your direction?’
‘Don’t think so. Keep going down maybe.’
‘Nah, the little bastards have gone to ground. Look around.’
‘Should have brought Porker with me. Sniff ’em out no worries.’
‘Okay, shut up. We’re not going to hear them with you two going on.’ That was our cue to all breathe in at the same time. I felt the pressure around me increase. Suddenly I wanted to giggle, like it was some backyard game of hide’n’seek. Someone else was shaking, probably Jonathon. They were trying to kill us and we were fighting back the urge to jump out shouting, ‘ha, fooled ya!’ I was never made to be a hero.
They spread out and moved slowly back up the slope. With only three of them there wasn’t much chance of their covering the area properly. I heard them kicking at ground and breaking back branches, hoping to get lucky. One of them almost did. His foot came down so close to my nose I could smell it. I felt Lisa squeeze my hand. I didn’t know she’d been holding it. I squeezed back and the foot moved on, distracted by some other shadow. We heard them move away. Then I felt Jonathon struggling to get up.
‘Not yet,’ Rebecca whispered.
‘I’ve got fucken cramp,’ he replied.
‘So rub it.’
‘Jesus.’ But he settled back down.
‘So when can we go?’ Lisa asked.
‘When it’s dark.’
That took another two hours, split into regular intervals by the light on Lisa’s watch. By then I’d cramped up too and standing was painful. Straight away Jonathon was off, heading further down the slope.
‘Where are you going?’ Rebecca demanded.
‘Taking a crap, Mummy, if that’s all right. Don’t suppose any of you brought toilet paper.’
‘Sorry, left it with my hair dryer.’
‘Leaves it is, then.’ And he was gone.
‘Ah, actually...’ Lisa said.
‘Same,’ Rebecca grinned. We all headed off in opposite directions, but none of us went too far. There were worse things than lack of privacy just then. As bonding experiences go it was probably one of the tackier ones but somehow it worked.
‘Shiny leaves or prickly?’ Jonathon asked when I returned, last back. It was good to be able to smile.
‘So what’s the plan?’ I asked.
‘I think they’d kill us if they could,’ Rebecca said. ‘We have to be so careful.’
‘Do you think they’ve found Ms Jenkins?’
‘Dunno.’
‘We still do what we planned,’ Rebecca told us. ‘Straight out and tell the police.’
‘Yeah,’ Jonathon agreed. ‘So first we find a place to sleep. I’d advise against that little pile of rocks down by the fallen log.’
‘No, we move now,’ Rebecca corrected, just when I thought their arguments might be over.
‘What?’
‘If we walk at night and sleep during the day there’s no chance of them seeing us.’
‘There’s no chance of us getting out more like. What about the slips? What about not having a compass? And we’re all knackered. Bad move Rebecca. Very bad move.’
‘Do I have to hit you again?’
‘I’ll be ready this time.’
Rebecca turned to me and Lisa. Even in the darkness I could tell how tired she was and I felt sorry for her.
‘Come on you two. There’s a moon. It won’t be that bad. Don’t think about being comfortable, think about being alive.’
‘Yeah, I’m with you,’ I said.
‘You’re going soft,’ Jonathon told me and he sounded bitter.
‘Lisa?’
‘Yeah, okay, but we have to stay close together. And heaps of stops.’
‘Right.’ Rebecca picked up the pack. ‘I think we should stay down at this level, head straight along, then up onto the ridge past Hell’s Gate. There’s another track over there, down off Marchant. It’s not maintained any more but I’ve been down it once with Dad. It’ll take us to the river. We can camp there, this side, away from the track. It’ll be slow, at night and with the slips, but we should make it.’
‘And if the river has dammed up?’ Jonathon asked.
‘Then it has.’
Tramping at night is slow and dangerous. Tramping at night with no torches, no map, no compass, with no track to follow and the whole place split apart by an earthquake, goes way beyond that. Fear kept us close; we were tripping over one another the whole time. With my arms held out in front of me, to fend off branches I couldn’t see, my balance left me. I shuffled more than walked, feeling for the ground ahead of me, going incredibly slowly but still keeping up. I don’t know how Rebecca kept her bearings. To me it felt like we were zig-zagging about, until I couldn’t even be sure which way was up. We walked straight over the first slip. We didn’t even realise until we were halfway across. It wasn’t the first bank we’d slid down but when we walked our feet sank and loose dirt ran over our boots like sand.
‘This is a slip isn’t it?’ Lisa asked, her voice full of fear.
‘Which makes this fucken stupid doesn’t it?’ Jonathon asked when Rebecca didn’t reply. Again there was no response; she just kept moving forward and we kept following her. I wondered if Jonathon had been right. Maybe this was the wrong call.
‘What’s the time?’ Rebecca asked at our first stop, when the ground seemed to have finally flattened out. We’d passed one more major slip, and climbed over it. It felt like I’d been stepping through the darkness forever, a million numb seconds.
‘Ah, half-past one.’
‘So we’ve been going for what, about six hours? Another four at least before it’s light. I think this is Marchant and the ridge we want is through there.’ Probably she pointed. I didn’t bother pretending to look. I knew she was just guessing. I hoped she was good at it. ‘We’ll make the river tonight, then it’s just one more night’s tramp and we’re out of here. How are you all feeling?’
‘You want the truth?’ Lisa asked.
‘Edit.’
‘I’m shaky. I think I might faint soon.’
‘I’m fucken thirsty,’ Jonathon said.
‘Marko?’
‘My head hurts, I’m sort of hungry but I also feel like throwing up, my feet are sore, just the usual.’
‘But you can do the next bit right?’
I thought about how badly I just wanted to drop to the ground and sleep, but that wasn’t what she was asking. ‘Yeah, I’m up for it.’
‘Okay then.’ Jonathon blew the words through his lips. I don’t think he wanted Rebecca’s job of leading any more.
‘Onward,’ Lisa said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘But if I fall asleep and my legs keep moving, don’t any of you bastards go waking me.’
I don’t much understand people like Mr Camden, who go tramping just for the fun of it. I’ve always thought a slog uphill should lead to some reward, like the downhill blast you get with mountain biking. With tramping, however, going downhill just brings a different sort of pain. Although Rebecca was sure we were following a track, the terrain we stumbled down was steeper than any track I’ve ever seen. At first we took it slowly, trying to remain upright most of the time, but soon gravity took over. That’s when it started to feel unreal, when all the struggling to stay awake, the worrying and the hunger, collapsed. We were sliding on our arses, grabbing at roots or branches for steering, navigating off the sounds of each other’s laughter, wrapping ourselves round the shaky thin punga trunks when we needed to stop, or aiming at someone and hoping they were firmly anchored. It was like being in the wind up on Bull Mound again; danger turned to fun for a moment as we ignored loosened rocks, sheer drop-offs and slips we couldn’t see. Not even worrying how our voices might carry. I was past caring. I only had energy left for movement, and for fun.
Only it wasn’t like that for Rebecca. Rebecca still had to lead, she still had to worry about where we were headed. It’s amazing we went so long without an accident. She’s the reason why. We were close together when it happened, close enough to see her disappear over an edge that had come up too quickly in the darkness, with just enough time to stop ourselves from following. It wasn’t a sheer drop, but steep enough for her to lose control. We heard her crashing down through the bush and we heard her swearing too. Then silence, and one last ‘fuck’ from somewhere below. ‘You all right?’ Jonathon shouted but there was no answer. Lisa led the way, cutting to the left until the ground became flatter. We called Rebecca’s name as we walked back down.
‘Yeah, over here,’ she finally responded, when we were almost on top of her. She was sitting up, Lisa’s pack still on her, her head dropped between her knees. We stood around, feeling useless.
‘You okay?’ I asked. That was as far as my first aid skills went. She lifted her head and looked at me. I couldn’t see her face properly but I could imagine the exhaustion painted there.
‘I’m just so fucken tired, you know?’ she whispered. Lisa sat down and put her arm around Rebecca’s shoulders.
‘You’re fucken amazing, actually,’ Lisa told her. I moved behind them and sat down close on the other side.
‘Gee, I feel left out now,’ Jonathon mocked.
‘Plenty of room.’
‘I’m all right.’ He stood back and from somewhere produced a cigarette and a lighter. We sat in silence and watched the glowing tip, brightening and fading with every breath. When it was finished he flicked the stub to the ground and I started, like I’d been half-dozing in front of a television and the screen had gone suddenly blank.
‘We could just camp here tonight, if you want,’ Jonathon said.
‘Nah,’ Rebecca shook her head. ‘We have to get to the water. The river’s close now. I can hear it.’
I listened but couldn’t make it out, just the wind in the trees.
‘Do you want someone else to lead for a while?’ Lisa asked.
‘No, I’m just being soft. Come on.’ She stood up and we did the same.
‘Give us a sec eh?’ Jonathon asked. He took two steps to the nearest tree, supported himself with one hand against the trunk, and threw up. None of us asked how he was when he’d finished. Shocked, exhausted, past tired, past hungry, we all knew. If there’d been anything left in my stomach I would have joined him.
It took another two hours to reach the water, most of that spent back-tracking when we encountered a drop-off which was impassable. The path the waterway had cut through the bush was flooded with moonlight. It was like walking into the middle of a day after the near blackness of the bush. We looked around one another, all of us trying to pass off our exhaustion with a grin, no one ready to mention the next disappointment. The water we’d found wasn’t much more than a stream. It definitely wasn’t the Tauherenikau River. We were lost.
‘I’m sorry guys,’ Rebecca said, not needing to explain.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ It didn’t. We were too tired for things to matter.
‘Let’s just drink and find a place to crash then.’
I gulped down as much as I could from my cupped hands. The water felt heavy in my stomach but couldn’t fill it the way food would have. I tried not to think about how hungry I was becoming.
We quickly found a spot that would do for sleeping, a small area only a few metres square but flat at least, covered in clumps of cutting grass. Lisa made a groundsheet by laying out our packliners and she curled up in one corner.
‘Someone should probably keep watch,’ Rebecca told us.
‘Can’t, already asleep,’ Jonathon replied, collapsing next to Lisa.
‘Do we have to?’ I asked.
‘Three hours each.’
I knew how exhausted she had to be, having led the whole way. And I owed it to them, after being so useless. ‘Okay. Who do I wake next?’
‘Thanks Marko.’ She reached out and touched my arm, just below the elbow, and the feel of it made me want to hold her, or maybe just cry. ‘I’ll do the next one.’
‘No worries.’
I watched her join the others. There was barely room there for the three of them. Lisa was curled up foetus-like at the edge, Jonathon was in the middle on his back, and Rebecca was on the other side, turned into him, using his shoulder as a pillow. They were already asleep. In the first hint of morning it was a picture in need of something more than my memory to capture it. ‘Year 11 Outdoor Education Trip,’ it should have said, a photograph over somebody’s fireplace. In that moment of looking on I knew I loved them, all three equally, and the realisation of it threatened to choke me.
I didn’t know how I was going to stay awake for another three hours. We were on a terrace above the stream with a steep bank above us, so it was only the way down to the water that needed watching. I sat on a rotting branch and tried focussing on details, the exact structure of a curling frond in front of me, or piecing together a picture of the stream from the sounds it made, gurgling along its shallow bed, the silence of broad pools, the crashing of its tumbling waterfalls. My mind drifted quickly though. All it wanted was to shut down behind closed eyes. I tried standing and then pacing but my legs failed me and anyway there wasn’t room.
Finally I resorted to the one thing that might hold back sleep: I dragged to the surface images my mind had been trying to bury. Ms Jenkins’s last moments alive, and later, finding her body. And all the thoughts that wrapped themselves around those images, thoughts of how I’d failed, how twice I’d let everybody down. Of all the things I might have said or done, instead of hiding there silent, letting it happen. Of the coward I was, not even able to take my share of her weight. It ripped me apart, knowing that, but at least it kept me awake.
Then I discovered something else, something that could ease the pain. I took to imagining how it would be if I ever met that man again. I didn’t have his face, but I had his voice, and a sense of him, enough to play out scenes of revenge inside my head. Each was more horrible than the one before it, and with every dark imagining my load lightened, just a little.