John Marsden by While I Live

Author:While I Live
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-09-14T14:11:21+00:00

CHAPTER 12

IT WAS PAST ten thirty when we got away. God, how could a week start this badly? A few hours ago I'd been thinking about catching the bus, fattening the calves, why the pressure pump was coming on more often than it should, how much of the Legal Studies assignment I could get done at lunchtime, whether I was still in love with Lee, if we were going to run out of milk for breakfast . . . Now we raced across paddocks, past the lagoon, heading for the bush and on into the hills, towards the border, not knowing whether Homer was alive or dead, not knowing whether we'd still be alive at the end of the day.

Lee didn't spare the horses. He seemed to remember the way pretty clearly. Good going, since the first time he'd come up here was at night. At least the trip home had been in daylight.

Once we got off my place we started climbing. I didn't know this area nearly as well as I knew the Razor's Edge, and Mount Wombegonoo, which were in the opposite direction. It just wasn't as nice, wasn't as interesting, so I hadn't been here often. Scrub that was green with the winter rain, quite a few patches that had been logged, a mob of about twenty kangaroos thumping away at three-quarter speed, a fox pawing at something in the grass then bolting when he realised two motorbikes were upon him.

We were on an old logging track that I had a feeling would peter out eventually. The problem was that it hadn't been maintained in a long time and there were fallen trees across it every few hundred metres.

For the two-wheeler this wasn't so bad, as Lee could usually detour round them through the scrub, even if it meant walking the bike at times, half lifting it at other times. For the four-wheeler it was a different matter. To detour into the bush I had to get a clear path, and sometimes that meant long, difficult treks. The grass was so high in many places that I couldn't tell whether it was clear or not. I'd charge through the undergrowth, hit another fallen tree (usually part of the one blocking the road) and have to reverse and try another route. One of the cans of fuel was leaking I think, so there were constant petrol fumes that gave me a bit of a headache.

We had three ways to get the four-wheeler past a fallen tree. One was to detour, one was to push the tree off the road, the other was to ride right over the top of it. The trunks were wet and slimy though, and they kept slipping out of our hands when we lifted them, and when I tried to ride over them the big fat wheels tended to slide all the way down the trunks and branches.

Before long my arms were aching. I was tiring fast, and we seemed to be taking forever to reach the border.

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