Lonesome Howl Read online

  This mountain seemed a good place to come.

  Any excuse to leave.

  Wolf?

  Who cares.

  The only animal I knew

  was the one I wanted to escape from.

  And now?

  I’ll find us somewhere to shelter tonight

  and tomorrow I’ll take the long walk back,

  straight to the Jackson farm,

  and when Jake’s dad sees me running . . .

  well, everything he thinks about the Hardings

  will be right.

  Jake: the crow, and the cave

  A crow swoops down from the tree

  and lands on the cliff edge,

  not five metres away.

  It looks at me

  and lets out a pitiful squawk.

  ‘I know how you feel,’ I say.

  The crow spies something below and flaps away.

  That reminds me.

  We have apples, water,

  Lucy’s bread

  and the last of the sandwiches.

  Enough for the night.

  I gently touch my ankle.

  It’s almost swelling before my eyes.

  Lucy calls a loud ‘coooeee’ from above.

  She’s easing down the track,

  her hair bouncing.

  ‘Guess what I found?’ she says.

  ‘A doctor out on a bushwalk!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A luxury mountain resort?’

  ‘No, silly.’

  ‘A rescue helicopter!’

  Lucy laughs.

  ‘A cave. Just up there.

  It only goes a few metres into the cliff,

  but it’s dry,

  out of the mist and the wind.’

  I say, ‘I’d prefer a helicopter.

  I’ve always wanted a free ride.’

  Lucy leans down to help me up

  and says,

  ‘If you don’t stop joking

  I’ll break your other foot.’

  Lucy: in the dark, in the quiet

  He’s holding his foot

  making pathetic jokes

  and I’m sure he’s doing it for me.

  I know how much pain he’s in;

  how much it hurts when things get damaged.

  I put that out of my mind.

  It’s my fault for rushing, escaping, so quickly.

  Now I have to make it right.

  We’ll be okay.

  A night in a cave,

  in the dark,

  alone.

  I carry Jake’s pack

  and help where I can

  as he drags himself

  up the narrow track.

  When he rests,

  I hold his hand

  and he grips tight,

  steadying himself,

  breathing slow and heavy.

  ‘It’s not far now, Jake.’

  Wishing us into the cave.

  Jake: a few hundred metres

  A few hundred metres.

  An hour.

  Crawling,

  dragging,

  sweating

  and shivering

  in the mist.

  My fingers are numb

  from digging into the dirt,

  pulling myself along.

  Lucy walks beside me,

  leaning down to hold my hand when I rest.

  ‘It’s not far now, Jake.

  Not far.’

  I think of the cave

  and the cold

  and Dad in our farmhouse

  drumming his strong fingers

  on the kitchen table,

  waiting for me,

  thinking I’m lost somewhere,

  with a Harding.

  He’ll be wrong.

  I’m not lost.

  And I’m glad Lucy’s here.

  SEVEN

  The cave

  Jake: the cave

  The cave is narrow

  but deep enough for shelter.

  I drop my bag against the wall

  and slump back,

  exhausted from the slow climb.

  My foot throbs –

  an angry pulse.

  I cup my hands

  and blow warmth

  into my aching fingers.

  Lucy stands at the entrance,

  hands reaching to the roof,

  looking into the misty cloud.

  She’s thinking the same thing as me.

  Firewood.

  ‘We won’t be in darkness all night.

  I’ve got a torch,’ I say.

  She turns to me.

  ‘It’s too wet for firewood.

  We’d smoke ourselves to death.

  I’m not scared of the dark anyway.’

  I grin.

  ‘That’s good.

  Because I’m petrified!’

  Lucy says,

  ‘Fractured ankle,

  scared of the night,

  no firewood.

  Anything else I should know?’

  ‘A few things,

  but I’ll tell you later,

  when it gets really dark

  and the mist creeps in,

  and the wolf howls . . .’

  We both laugh at ourselves

  and our big wolf adventure.

  Jake: night

  Lucy sits beside me.

  We’re in this together.

  Outside the light is fading.

  We listen to the sound of water

  dripping off the cave entrance.

  I flash my torch

  at the wall opposite,

  waving it up and down.

  Lucy taps my arm

  and points at the beam.

  ‘What’s that?

  Your cave drawing of a wolf?’

  ‘No.

  SOS by torchlight.’

  ‘Very good, Jake.

  Pity there’s no one to see it,

  except me.’

  ‘You’ll do.

  At least you stayed, Lucy.

  Your brother,

  he would have left me here,

  alone, waiting until morning.’

  ‘Peter would have got lost hurrying home.

  You’d be a skeleton in a cave!’

  ‘Well then,

  I’m really glad you’re here.’

  Lucy smiles and goes to punch my arm,

  but I grab her hand and hold it tight.

  She wraps her fingers in mine.

  Neither of us wants to let go.

  Our hands drop gently between us

  and, for a moment, all I feel

  as I rest against my backpack

  is her warm hand in mine.

  Lucy: Jake’s pulse

  I don’t get any of this.

  We’re sitting next to each other

  in the vanishing light

  holding hands.

  If anyone tried this at school

  I’d slap them.

  What happens now?

  I’m glad it’s dark in here,

  to hide my blushes.

  Maybe this won’t be so bad.

  At least Jake doesn’t hate me.

  I lean back

  and I’m surprised to feel

  his pulse,

  beating steady through his hand.

  Or maybe it’s my own heartbeat?

  Imagine his dad walking in now.

  Imagine my dad.

  Shit.

  I don’t know who’d be more scared,

  me or Jake.

  To hell with parents.

  They’re not here.

  Not tonight.

  Lucy: in the sunshine

  Sometimes when I’m alone

  by Wolli Creek

  in the early morning,

  all I hear is a gentle ripple

  of water over rocks.

  I sit on the bank,

  close my eyes

  and time just drifts.

  Sunshine warms my body.r />
  I swear my heart beats slower

  and that’s all the movement I need.

  I read about meditation once.

  It must be like this.

  You switch off

  every bad thought and memory

  and all you know is warmth

  settling on you.

  I stay by the creek

  as long as I can.

  It’s my place,

  where no one can reach.

  Sitting next to Jake,

  his hand in mine,

  that’s like sunshine

  beside Wolli Creek.

  Jake: Lucy’s prayer

  ‘Jake?’

  Lucy’s voice is a whisper

  in the ink-black stillness.

  ‘Do you pray?

  At night, for things you want?’

  I can feel my heart,

  beating,

  tracing a blood line

  down to my throbbing ankle.

  I don’t answer.

  ‘Every night

  I lie in bed

  listening to Peter snoring

  in the next room

  and the dogs scuffling outside

  on the creaky verandah.

  I pray for impossible things.

  No more wars.

  No more floods

  or bushfires.

  Sometimes I list everything bad in the world:

  kidnapping,

  murder,

  terrorist attacks,

  car crashes,

  death by lightning,

  death by drowning,

  and I pray for it all to stop.

  I’m not sure who I’m praying to.

  But alone,

  on our shitty little farm,

  a minute of prayer can’t hurt.

  Look,

  it’s better than what my brother does

  in bed at night.

  Fart-bombs.

  Flapping blankets and giggling.’

  Lucy: my little world

  I’ve never told anyone

  what I just told Jake.

  About my prayers.

  I just blurted it all out.

  He listened

  and I think he understood.

  He kept holding my hand.

  As I was talking

  I wondered,

  am I horrible for being pleased

  we’re stuck here tonight?

  Is that bad?

  I’m sorry about his ankle

  and the hurt he’s got,

  but I’m glad he’s here.

  I feel like one of those Trobriand women.

  This cave is my island, my little world.

  It’s good.

  I just want to enjoy this feeling.

  This powerful feeling.

  Jake: the locusts

  I shine the torch

  towards the cave entrance

  and the impenetrable mist.

  I switch it off

  and we sit in the dark,

  our shoulders touching.

  ‘Do you remember the locust plague

  a few years back?

  After the rains,

  all the paddocks were green

  and the sheep were eating their fill

  for the first time in months.

  Remember?

  Then the locusts came.

  The sheep huddled under the trees,

  while the grass disappeared

  in a brown haze,

  like wicked magic.

  I was so angry

  I put on my cricket helmet,

  stretched mosquito net over the face guard,

  took my bat

  and stood in the middle of the paddock

  practising my hook shot

  until the bat was stained yellow.

  It was all I could do.

  Mum and Dad sat on the verandah

  watching their work go bad

  while I played cricket,

  and lost.’

  ‘What did they say, Jake?

  When you came in?’

  ‘Dad shook my hand,

  and Mum said,

  “Good innings, son!”

  And the next morning,

  Dad was out early on his tractor,

  unloading bales of hay in the paddocks,

  feeding his sheep,

  as if nothing had happened.’

  Lucy: the plague

  I remember the plague too.

  I was twelve.

  Mum and Peter were in town.

  Dad and I went out to round up

  the few sheep we had left.

  We spent hours in the paddock,

  running back and forward,

  chasing the sheep in circles,

  whistling at the dogs,

  locusts crashing into our faces.

  Dad got madder and madder,

  yelling at me;

  blaming me for the wandering flock,

  for the locusts,

  for him being stuck on the farm.

  I was running flat out

  trying to get the sheep into the shed

  with Martha and Winnie.

  All afternoon,

  running around the stupid paddock,

  chasing stupid sheep,

  getting splattered by stupid locusts,

  with my stupid father

  waving his arms like a madman,

  shouting abuse –

  not at his dumb sheep,

  or his worthless dogs,

  or the locusts –

  but at me.

  What was I to do?

  Somehow I got the sheep in the shed.

  I fell down on the hay,

  exhausted,

  while Dad kept swearing,

  calling me useless.

  I was twelve

  for God’s sake.

  What did he want from me?

  Jake: eucalypt

  We stop talking,

  exhausted by the climb

  and the memories of locusts.

  I drift asleep for a few moments

  but the pain stirs.

  I feel Lucy’s hand go limp,

  then squeeze,

  then go limp again.

  She’s having a dream,

  or a nightmare.

  I hold her hand firm

  to let her know I’m here.

  I think of the wolf,

  and how Dad’s story has led me and Lucy

  to this cave.

  I don’t care about my ankle.

  I’m glad we came here.

  Lucy’s body jerks

  and her legs flex

  as though she wants to run.

  I whisper her name

  but she doesn’t wake.

  I lean close to her hair.

  It smells of eucalypt.

  Jake: on hard ground

  My body feels numb

  sitting on this hard ground,

  helpless,

  waiting out the night,

  knowing the chance to find the wolf is gone.

  I feel my pulse race

  as the ache throbs through my body.

  Now it’s me who wants to howl,

  in pain and frustration at being stuck here,

  knowing that when I get home

  Dad’s going to blame Lucy

  and tell me again,

  the Hardings are no good.

  He’s wrong, but how do I convince him of that?

  There’s more chance of him

  believing the wolf is just a wild dog.

  He knows what he believes.

  It’s up to me to prove him wrong.

  Peter

  She’s run away, I reckon.

  Don’t you, Mum?

  She’s taken her bag

  and she took food.

  I was going to eat that!

  Maybe she’s not coming back.

  Are we going to look for her?

  Call the cops?

  Get a sea
rch party?

  Wow. That’d be really cool.

  She won’t be able to hide

  from no search party.

  We can get the dogs

  to sniff her clothes.

  They’ll lead us right to her.

  What do you think, Mum?

  It’s pretty late.

  We don’t have to go out in the dark,

  do we?

  Maybe we should wait till morning.

  She’ll come home by then.

  And why is Dad just standing

  in the back yard, Mum?

  Staring at the hills.

  Jake: stories

  Lucy wakes,

  pushing back her hair

  and staring out at the night.

  ‘Do you really believe

  we’ll see your wolf, Jake?

  Honestly?’

  I search long into the dark,

  and think, Not tonight,

  not in this cave.

  But I know she’s asking me

  if I believe in the wolf,

  believe that it exists.

  ‘When I was growing up,

  Dad loved to tell me about the wolf.’

  Maybe Lucy’s prayers are the same

  as Dad and his story.

  It’s what they hold onto;

  it doesn’t matter if they’re true.

  ‘So yes, Lucy.

  My dad saw it.

  That’s enough for me.’

  In the pit of my stomach

  I hope he’s right,

  but

  he was wrong about Lucy.

  Lucy: lies

  When Jake says that

  I get so angry,

  I want to shake him and shout,

  ‘Parents lie!

  Parents say what they want

  to get their own way.’

  I know it’s no use.

  Jake and his dad

  have their little story to fall back on.

  It’s not up to me to prove them wrong.

  Hell.

  I don’t care if it’s a wolf,

  or a wild dog,

  or a bloody ghost.

  To me,

  it’s an excuse to leave home.

  Jake can believe what he likes.

  Lucky him.

  I say,

  ‘Jake, if your dad believed in Santa,

  I guess you would too.’

  ‘Santa!’ he says. ‘Not real?

  How could you say such a thing?’

  For a moment, I don’t get it.