he ran with his arms pumping the rhythm of his racing feet, and ahead
of him the train whistled mournfully and crawled out from behind the
Van Essen plantation.
It was crossing his front, still fifty yards away, slowly gathering
speed for its assault on the escarpment. He would not reach it, even
though Sean's coach was the last before the guard's van, he would not
reach it.
He stopped, panting, searching wildly for a glimpse of his father, but
the window of Scans compartment was blank.
'Pa! ' he shrieked, and his voice was lost in the clatter of the
crOssties and the hoarse panting of steam.
'Pa!' He waved both arms wildly above his head. 'Pa! It's, me.
Me, Dirk.'
Sean's compartment moved slowly across his line of vision For a few
brief seconds he looked into the interior.
Sean moved sideways to the window, he was leaning forward with his
shoulders hunched and Ruth was in his arms. Her head thrown back, the
hat gone from her head and her dark hair in abundant disarray. She was
laughing, white teeth and eyes asparkle. Sean leaned forward and
covered her open mouth with his own. And then they were past.
Dirk stood like that with his arms raised. Then slowly they sank to
his sides. The tension in his lips and around his eyes smoothed away.
All expression faded from his eyes and he stood and watched the train
puff and twist up the slope until with a last triumphant spurt of steam
it disappeared over the skyline.
Dirk crossed the railway line and found the footpath that climbed the
hills. Once he lifted his hands and with his thumbs wiped the tears
from his cheeks. Then he stopped listlessly to watch a scarab beetle
at his feet. The size of a man's thumb, glossy black and homed like a
demon, it struggled with a ball of cow-dung three times its own size.
Standing on its back legs, thrusting with its front, it rolled the
perfect sphere of dung before it. Oblivious of everything but the need
to spawn, to bury the ball in a secret place and deposit its eggs upon
it, it laboured in spent dedication.
With the toe of his boot Dirk flicked the ball away into the grass. The
beetle stood motionless, deprived of the whole purpose of its
existence. Then it began to search. Back and forth, clicking and
scraping its shiny body armour across the hard, bare earth of the
path.
Watching its frenzied search dispassionately, Dirk's face was calm and
lovely. He lifted his foot and brought his heel down gently on the
beetle.
He could feel it wriggling under his foot until with a crunch its
carapace collapsed and it spurted brown as tobacco juice.
Dirk stepped over it and walked on up the hill In the night. Dirk sat
alone. His arms were clasped around his legs and his forehead rested
on his knees. The shafts of moonlight through the canopy of wattle
branches had a cold white quality, similar to the emotion that held
Dirk's body rigid. He lifted his head. Moonlight lit his face from
