“Let’s keep going.” He sounds tired.
“I can walk now. I’m too heavy for you.” Rena is sweet. She’s trying to make it easier for Scott. The fact that he puts her down tells me he’s running out of strength as well. We leave our clearing and march on. It’s me ahead, Rena in the middle, and Scottie picking up the end when a cascade of shots crack in the air around us from the other side of the stream. How did they find us?
Scott cries out and holds his arm. Blood is seeping through his fingers. He looks at me and shakes his head.
“Nothing serious. Run, run. They are already crossing the stream.”
We rush ahead and bat branches aside. Quick. Quick. Out here we’re just moving targets for their shooting practice. The moment they cross the stream they’ll catch us.
Sudden sounds to my right make me freeze. They’ve found us and are breaking through the bush.
“Run,” Scottie shouts and picks up an arm-thick branch from the ground. Is he losing the plot now? Who’s crazy enough to bring a stick to a gunfight? That’s when a wild pig breaks through the undergrowth and charges at him. He rises to his full height and attacks the pig with the stick.
I guess pigs don’t expect strange beings running toward them with a stick. At least this one didn’t. It immediately does a U-turn back to where it came from. Scottie makes sure it keeps running by throwing his stick at its rear. When he returns to us, he drags Rena and me under the leaves of a large fern.
“With a bit of luck, the people following us will think it’s us and follow the pig.”
“Do you think they are that stupid?”
“They might be. Trained soldiers would’ve caught us ages ago.”
“They can’t be good scouts if they don’t recognize pig trails.”
“Haven’t you seen the trails? They are all over the place. We must have come upon a playground for pigs.”
Scottie’s voice is becoming labored. Chasing after the pig took a lot out of him. He gasps for breath and his face looks even more like a battlefield than it did before. I point at his bleeding wound.
“Let me bandage your arm.”
I try to tear a piece of material from my hospital gown. It’s harder than I thought it would be. Are these damn things meant to last forever? Finally, it rips and I get a decent strip off the seam.
Just before I finish bandaging his arm he slaps his hand to my mouth and points up.
“Listen.”
He was right, they must have heard the pig breaking through the bush and are running after it. I’m sure there will come a time when I see the funny side of this … I just don’t right now.
We get up and make our way in the other direction when Scottie pulls us behind a bush.
“I think I saw movement ahead of us.”
He gasps for air. We have to go sideways again and be very careful. We snake along the stream on all fours, hoping we are not giving away where we are. Ahead of us is a small suspension bridge crossing the steam. Scottie stoops and pulls me to him.
“Listen! That’s the main road.”
I heard nothing until he mentioned it.
“You mean the faint hum in the distance? That’s the road?”
“Yes, we followed the sun, so we must have run straight northwest. So yes, that would be the road.”
A few yards ahead is a small hollow formed behind a fallen rimu tree. He pulls us behind it. We duck into the ground and survey the opposite side of the stream for movement.
“Did we lose them?”
“I’m not sure. I’d rather wait and give it some more time. We should wait here until we’re sure. Then we can cross the bridge. After that, it shouldn’t be more than a quarter of a mile to the main road.”
We hover behind the tree. Each time there’s a cracking sound or a bird takes off flapping its wings, my heart stands still. I reach for Scottie and burrow into his chest. He pulls me closer and I know I’m safe.
Rena has fallen asleep leaning against us, her eyes busy behind her closed lids. I hope whatever she’s dreaming is not too scary.
“Do you think we’ll make it?”
“We are as good as there. If the gateway people were legionaries or otherwise battle-trained guards, we wouldn’t stand a chance. But going by their shooting and tracking skills, they are just civilians getting all excited about a manhunt.”
I rest my head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. All will be well. Careful not to knock his injured arm, my fingers glide over his bruised face while my heart whispers, I love you.
“You know, life with you will never be boring.”
That wasn’t the right thing to say. Scottie almost sits up.
“Don’t you think the shoe fits the other foot? Before you showed up at Wright’s I lived an ordinary life, by myself, with my horse in the bush, being bothered by nobody and nothing, hunting my rabbits and the occasional hog.”
Before I can launch my defense, I hear cracking nearby. I hold my breath and point to the side. He puts his index finger to his lips and we sink further into the hollow, all but merging with the forest floor. I move as close to him as possible, holding Rena between us, engulfed in his arms. He hisses when I accidentally touch his wounded arm.
“Sorry.”
Two men with rifles are pushing through the brush on this side of the stream. One, not much older than twenty years with a face covered in acne scars, looks at the ground. He must take himself for some kind of trapper who can read tracks. I doubt very much that his experience went past watching the two Crocodile Dundee movies. But he has a gun, and even an idiot can cause lots of damage with a gun in his hands.
The
