Li saw him thinking about the limits of what he could do. She imagined, for the first time, someone like this stopping to pick up her child from the side of the road. Because she was a child, not for what he could get because she was a child. She looked past him at the truck, the size of the wheels, the distance it could cover while she crawled. If Matti had got into a truck, Li would never reach her walking. If she hadn’t, if she was still there camped on the lakebed? Forty k. Li could be at the turnoff in half an hour.
Can I get a lift? The truckie was already shaking his head. She said, Just as far as you’re going that way.
You know I can’t do that.
Fucksake, Stu. The woman had moved over into the driver’s seat, eyes still on the scrub through the open door. I am not getting docked again because of your bullshit.
I can patch, Li told him. You need anything fixed, I can fix it. She looked at him straight, knowing she was filthy and stinking, blistered and cracked-lipped and lame. Or. Whatever you need.
He took in her meaning and his face twitched and then went stern. No passengers, love. Company policy.
She’d insulted him, she saw that, injured his sense of himself as a good man who did good things. If he didn’t want to trade, she didn’t know how to fix it. She said, Who’s going to know?
He jerked his head back towards the cab.
Is she the boss, then? She the one I need to talk to?
Bloody hell, woman. He was angry, finally. Company’s the boss. Everyone’s just looking out for themselves.
But she was already limping past him onto the road, her stick sliding out on the gibber.
Christ, the truckie said behind her. Stay where you are, you’re no sweet-talker.
He crossed in front of her and said something to the woman up in the cab. Li watched her jaw working, saw her shake her head. He tried again and she reached for the CB handset on the dash and held it out to him.
You wanna call it in? she said loudly. Knock yourself out.
The man held up his hands in defeat but Li stepped forward on a hot wave of urgency. She knew if she could just lay her hands on the steel of the truck she would be lifted. The co-driver jerked the rifle up and fired past her into the ground.
Li threw herself sideways, away from the explosion of sand and gibber, landed on her sprained ankle. Shouted and balled up reflexively, knees to chest, shielding her head, her skin stretched so tight over the pain she hardly felt the stones.
When she raised her head, the woman had the rifle trained on her through the open door. She said, In case you were wondering we had bullets. She was somewhere in her twenties, freckled and red eyed. The rifle was a .308, the kind Carl had used for pig hunting. Li had never been shot at before, no one had done that.
Jesus, Ellie, the man said, you need to lay off the wakey. She look like a hijacker to you?
She looks like a decoy. And your bleeding heart’s gunna get us both killed.
Li stayed down. Without the truck, suddenly, she didn’t know what to do. Get up, she figured, but the stick was two metres away and she couldn’t think how to close the distance. Pain preoccupied her. The woman got down from the cab with the rifle, walked past her to the edge of the road and started looking for the spent casing.
Then the man was beside Li with an armful of readies, some brand she hadn’t seen before. He put them at her feet, said, This stuff tastes like cardboard but it’s loaded with sugar and protein. He held out his hand, and when she didn’t take it he went and got her stick and laid it down beside the packets. You should go back, file a report, maybe try the relief groups. Someone lied to you. Pack of kids wouldn’t last five minutes up here.
The co-driver was digging in the dirt with her boot. She said, I heard about that.
The man didn’t look up. What’d you hear about, Ellie?
Couple of drivers on this run called in a big group of minors heading north.
When? Li said. How long ago?
The woman picked up the casing with a satisfied grunt. You didn’t hear about it? she asked the man. Last time was Habib, bout three days ago. Wanted permission to pull over.
What’d Control say?
She shrugged, wiped the casing on her jeans.
He was staring at her now. They told him not to stop?
Course they did. He had to clear customs.
Three days, Li thought. More than one sighting. A slow buzz of elation. She took the compression bandage out of her pocket and started unwrapping the vest around her ankle. It hurt like hell going on but her ankle felt stronger inside it. The man had gone round to the back of the truck and she heard metal on metal as he opened the doors. The woman swore under her breath, went back to the cab and swung herself up. Li got out one protein bar and shoved the rest in her pack.
The man resealed the doors and came back to Li. The highway keeps going east, he said, but you’re looking for a turnoff north. It’s a sand track. Head up there and when you see the dunes, you’re getting close. He took a blister pack out of his top pocket, popped two pills and held them out. Truckies’ special. They’ll keep you moving and won’t feel anything that’d slow you down. The truck horn blared. He jerked his head back at the cab. She doesn’t.
Li took the wakey, swallowed it dry, waited for him to leave.
This stuff we freight, he said, they grow this stuff under the sea now. Plenty of water, no Weather. He shook his
