This is not despair, comrade. Because I don’t despair. I won’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t mourn.

  After the events at the granites, the child and I spent many hard days and weeks on the road. I went east, as planned, but at a punishing pace. We needed to flee the district as quickly and discreetly as possible, so I drove at night for as long as I could, and we slept during the day to let the batteries recover.

  For the first week, the cab of my rig smelt so bad I was forced to travel with the windows open, regardless of the weather. The means by which the child was restrained during that period – well, I can’t even talk about that. Except to say that given the choices before me – to abandon her to save myself or do whatever it took to keep her safe – I did the best I could. But it was a squalid salvation, I can tell you that much, and it set the girl back considerably. So much so that there were times when I once again thought the most merciful thing I could do to serve the child would be to throttle her.

  I guess my lowest point was the morning we came to the burnt-out homestead. I think it’s somewhere north-west of here. A long way back. Weeks ago. I’d been driving all night. Came to a halt at the first sign of habitation. Cut the lights. Pulled back into some rocky cover. Shut down the motors. Waited for the light to come up. And it was one of those slow-burn dawns. All the colours. Pretty. And you could see straight off the place was abandoned. Roofless. Two tin walls still standing. Surrounded by nests of rusted wire.

  I booted up the rig, drove in. The kid woke. I opened the door but didn’t dare let her out. The place was surrounded by grey tree stumps. They looked like a troop of dismembered warriors. I picked my way through them. Pushed past the snags of fence wire and stood in the ruins of the house.

  I don’t know what I was hoping to find. But the air felt gentle there. There was no breeze. The light was creamy. It set off something oceanic in the ripples of the tin walls. And, as I stepped around the stone floor, I couldn’t help but think of the work folks had done here, the aspirations they must’ve had. The sun caught the windscreen of my rig and the flare of it jolted me from my reverie. I left the ruin and walked back to the rig, but just as I got there my knees gave way and I had to grab the push bar and scrabble at the dusty hood to keep myself from falling.

  And I stood there, tottering a moment, and caught the look on the girl’s face through the glass. There was shit in her hair and on her cheek. She looked alarmed, fearful. I tried to smile. To reassure her. But suddenly I was weeping. Silently at first, like a man gasping for breath after a blow to the gut. And then up it came, the awful lowing, a sound I’d never made, not even in madness. I wanted to fall but couldn’t loosen my grip to let myself. I howled. Upright. Rooted to the spot with no camo and no cover. And the child looked on, streaming with tears.

  Once I’d got hold of myself again, I untied her, and she didn’t bolt. I fished out a towel, poured a deep dish of water and gave her some soap. She bathed in privacy, behind the trailer, while I swabbed the reeking cab. Then, pushing my luck, I suggested we wash her crusty hair, and she didn’t fight me. I found her fresh clothes. Also, the woman’s hat. Then I combed her hair with my fingers, the way our companion had. The child suffered this intimacy with a stoic set to her jaw, finally shrugging me away to finish the job herself. And while the clothes dried and the cabin aired, we lay under the awning beside the vehicle and slept deeply until noon.

  From then on, things were different. Better. I guess it was a kind of wounded resignation we shared. And as the days wore on, it sometimes felt closer to acceptance.

  I spoke to her. I’d never stopped speaking to her, not even during the worst times, but I found ways of talking at her as if I were talking with her, if you understand my meaning. And although she preferred to gaze into the distance, her face tilted away from me, there were moments when I knew I had her full attention.

  I told the child things about myself. What life had been like when I was a boy. I told her of the eagle I’d seen. Our water cave. And as I grew bolder, and the girl seemed less resistant, I spoke of the woman and her many virtues.

  One evening, on the edge of a vast salt pan, I worked up the nerve to address our friend’s martyrdom. I told it as a story of heroism. The marathon chase she’d led so that we might be spared. I told of our friend’s speed. Her strength. Her cunning. And, most of all, her great courage. Which, I said, had not been an impulse to serve, but an expression of love. Not for me. For the girl. For her alone. It was so tempting to round out this tale with a kindly flourish, adding a splash of derring-do and an escape against all odds. To set aloft a glorious legend. Something consoling. Uplifting. Leaving the kid with the idea of her champion still at large in the interior, wily and forever on the lam, sending bandits crazy, running, harassing, biding her time, waiting for her moment to return to us. But I couldn’t do it to her. I spared the child the details of the woman’s death, but I didn’t hide the fact of it from her. The best I could do was to tell her the truth. She was our saviour. And we’d always remember her. But she was gone for good.

  It was harder to explain my own behaviour on that awful night. The child simmered for weeks at the indignity of what I’d done to keep her safe. I apologized in as many different ways as I could think of. Over time she relented a little, grew less hostile, less fearful, even if she remained aloof. In the end we settled on a travelling disposition that was peaceably efficient, if not truly companionable. We had a routine, set spaces and roles. Each of us understood what was required of the other. We served one another without pretending to be friends. And on the rare and perilous occasions when we found ourselves in company, we improvised a kind of forgettable neutrality. Perhaps a sullen girl and stony-faced man seemed a convincing model of family – who’d know?

  A storm blew for two days. We hove to and rode it out inside the vehicle. From the eastern sky came a welter of ash. For a whole morning it rained slag and cinders. The light grew yellow, then orange. Memories of the Utah job sent stabs of panic through me. Exhausted and disoriented, the child whimpered in a ball in the footwell and eventually slept in the eerie gloom.

  When it was over, I cleaned the panels and waited for the batteries to perk up. And then we pressed on.

  Eventually we came to where the Great Western Woodlands should have begun to stretch out. But all that lay ahead was more ash. I could see we might be wallowing through it for days, so I veered north through the outermost drifts until I hit the saltlands. After that there was heath country, a smattering of outposts and encampments you could tell from a distance were not places for a child.

  So I bore around to the east, short of the desert, and pressed into the stony plains of saltbush.

  Comrade, you know what a lack of shelter does to the spirit. The dread that stalks you. The temptations you have to resist when you’re desperate for safety. And the price that would have to be paid for the kinds of refuge you’re presented with. All those gated compounds. The watchtowers, the wire, the floodlights.

  I’ll bet you’re no different. You had to be riddled with doubt, given to wishful thinking. Tired – so bone-tired – of holding out. But you pressed on stubbornly. In hope. In search of something decent. And here you are, brother. And here I am. Tonight. In this, our current predicament.

  I wake. Startled. And the bowman turns his head. My eyes are gritty, but I can see he’s registered the first light of day in the vertical shaft beyond.

  Did I sleep? I ask croakily.

  You did.

  How long?

  Maybe half an hour.

  I thought I was talking to you.

  Jesus, man, don’t fret – you could probably talk underwater. You’re exhausting.

  What else have I got?

  It’s a hell of a story. I’ll give you that.

  We’ve seen some things, comrade.

  We have.

  Tell me.

  Tell you what?

  What you’ve seen. I want to hear your story.

  I don’t have one.

  Look at your hands, brother. Look at that bow and your single dart. You have a long story.

  I can’t.

  Because of your oath?

  Fuck the oath. I can’t because I can’t.

  I get it, I say. I think I understand.

  I doubt it.

  Truly, I think I do. So much heat. So much fire. It’s like you’ve breathed it in. And it’s cauterized everything inside you. Remember that feeling when the wound sets and the scab forms and slowly tightens? When you get to the stage when you’re half-recovered but too scared to move for fear you’ll suddenly rip yourself open and everything will just spill out? I think it’s like that. But if you don’t move, you’re stuffed. You make a cripple of yourself.

  Well, that’s a pretty speech.

  Comrade, I’ll listen.

  I bet you would.

  Aren’t you lonely?

  A man can feel alone in a crowd.

  Three of us? It’s not exactly a ravening horde.

  I don’t need the complication.

  You want things to remain simple, I say. I see that. But do you really think what’s ahead can be met with simple solutions? You think it won’t be messy?

  I know what I can do. I know what I have.

  That’s reassuring. But do you even know what you need? God knows, I don’t. I don’t know what’s coming, how things are likely to settle. But I do know I don’t want it to be one man against the world.

  Well, he says. You’ve made that plain. We’ve had all night to know who you are and what you think.

  So, was it all wasted?

  Well, it helped pass the time.

  Not the story, man! What we did, what we tried!

  Look where you are, he says with a cheerless grin. What d’you reckon?

  If there’s any resistance left in us, if there’s any decency, then yes. It was worth it.

  Well, good for you. Food for thought.

  I thought you still had some juice.

  Sounds kind of insulting – even ungrateful – when you say it like that.

  Brother, we kept the Long Peace. People were fed. Treated right.

  And don’t forget your big prize. You killed the EXXONS.

  We all killed the EXXONS.

  And yet here we are.

  Alive, comrade. And sane. And still full of hope.

  The child stirs. She looks around, startled for a moment, then remembers where she is.

  It’s okay, I say, pointing to the distant shaft of light boring in from above.

  The bowman watches her. She takes him in sombrely. Then turns to me.

  She needs to privy, I say.

  He sighs and with some effort stands stiffly.

  You have somewhere down here?

  He jerks his head upward.

  I’ll go with her, I tell him. Keep watch.

  We’ll both go up.

  I pull a rag from the pocket of my tunic and pass it to her. Blushing, she shoves it into the bib of her coveralls.

  He reaches behind for the crossbow. Then he steps over, opens the lock, and backs away.

  You know I have a cutter, I say. Used to work with metal. We could make darts for that thing.

  The fins are the hard thing.

  I reckon I could manage.

  Jesus, man, you never stop trying.

  Raised that way. Trained that way.

  And now you want to know where the rest of the quiver went.

  No, comrade. I don’t think I do.

  The girl yanks at my tunic.

  She needs to go.

  He sucks his teeth, inclines his head.

  You sure there’s not a bucket or something? I ask.

  No one’s shitting in a bucket down here.

  Really?

  C’mon on then, he says. Up you go.

  The girl pushes the mesh back. Glances at me. And I nod. She steps out, cowers a little as she passes him. I follow. Steer her through the long case-stacked gallery as gently as I can. And at my touch, she neither flinches nor shrugs me off.

  I can hear the bowman coming behind us. But I don’t look back.

  All through the night I’d consoled myself that, if he’d taken the trouble to bring us down into his lair, he wasn’t likely to kill us. Only a fool would make a job for himself. Hauling our carcasses up that shaft. But here we are. Climbing the ladder for him.

  I boost the child onto the first rung and whisper close.

  Remember what I said? What’s in the door? Of the car? Don’t try it. Don’t run for it. Don’t try and use it.

  I hear the short breath she takes through her nose, but she gives no sign she’s heard me.

  You’re a strong girl, I say. A good girl. You don’t have to save us. Because everything will be alright.

  C’mon, says the bowman, limping up into the cell of light we stand in. Enough gabbing. Up you go.

  The child starts up. Her raggy boots drop grit into my face as I watch her go.

  You know what’ll happen if you run, he says, his voice rising around us in the tunnel.

  We won’t run, I say. We don’t want to run. We want to stay.

  How will it work? he says.

  I don’t know – we’ll make it work.

  It won’t, he says.

  How do you know?

  Experience.

  I don’t believe you. You’re not like that. But I understand the need to perform. You’re a serious person. I’ll never take you lightly. I’m a man of my word.

  Christ, he says, you’re a man of a million words. Get climbing.

  I look up. The child has gotten well ahead of me. I start up after her. And soon enough I feel the percussion of his hard boots rising through the rungs and rails below.

  The light grows clearer, cleaner as I go. Above me, the girl’s silhouette is like the bead in a peep sight. Then she’s at the rim, out into the daylight. And I’m praying to her. Please don’t run. Please don’t go for the tool.

  I scuttle up. At the surface, in the brassy glare, I see she’s walked a little way clear already. Now she’s dipping behind a weed-furred mound of pipe and sheeting. I look around at the old prospecting camp. Like a white-headed boil, the sun pushes up from the horizon. I note the skeletal frame of a mine head. A few more imploding sheds. And a lean-to shrouded by camo lattice. My own stuff. That’ll be where the rig is stowed.

  I could get there if I’m quick. It’s only forty metres. Fifty at worst. The bowman is still clambering up the shaft.

  I scan the ground for a lump of concrete, a stub of rebar. Anything I might use to drop on his head. But the child bobs up again. She sees the lean-to. Looks back at me. I shake my head. Behind me, the bowman emerges. I turn. Watch him unstrap the bow from his back. Note the cocking rope coiled in his hand. At the back of his dungarees, I see a single bolt protruding from the quiver at his shoulder. The bow is empty. One bolt.

  I run all the angles in my head. Is he bluffing? Has he brought something else? Is he simply testing us?

  You any good with that bow? I ask.

  You asked me that already.

  Did I quote from the sagas?

  I believe you did.

  Okay, I say. That’s all I’ve got.

  The girl stands up. Pats down her coveralls. I know she’ll be hungry again now. She needs a wash. A change of duds.

  Everything’s fine, I call. For him as much as her. Myself also.

  She doesn’t nod. But she seems to have made a decision. Or perhaps she’s just distracted, energized by the fresh air. She bounces out through the junkpiles.

  Don’t go far, he says.

  She gives no sign she’s heard him. Squats in the dirt to grub for treasures.

  I turn to our host and shrug, and then I step out, slowly, to join her. I hear his boots behind me as he makes sure to keep within range.

  I gaze down on the child, the tight curve of her back, the flaxen snarl of her hair. Then I hunker beside her to sweep the earth clear with the heel of my palm. In the sand, I write my name. Rub it away and write another. Do it all again. Then scrape it clean.

  She blinks knowingly but offers nothing. She goes back to fossicking. I reach into my pocket. Behind me, the bowman coughs a warning. I turn and hold the little lozenge of stone up for him to see.

  Jesus, he says. Is that poison?

  No, mate. It’s just a rock.

  Fucking better be.

  I crouch beside her and hold it out. The little chip I’ve carried all these years. There on my palm. A chert the size of an olive pit. Pink. With a chisel-edge as old as human consciousness. I’ve carried it all over, to nearly every roadside camp and job. Through years of repat and convalescence. A memory of home. A fetish, if you will. Sun once told me that a stone is an expression of the earth, a signal of time. But it’s also a relic of experience. A thing propelled into the world. Dragging its past like an afterglow. And it’s just a rock, but its journey isn’t over, and neither is its destiny fixed. Not something I can explain to the child, much as I’d like to try. But if I had world enough and time, I’d tell her this stone was chosen, then flaked, carried hand to hand from inland deserts to the coast. Fashioned. As an implement. To do work. On this earth, in this same world as ours. And although that’s not why I treasured it as a boy, I kept it close all these last hard years to remind myself of something more important than home. That humans are not just destroyers. We’re makers. This is all I have to pass on. And she’s all I have to pass it on to.

  The child takes it, turns it over, and pokes it into the pocket of her tunic. And I stand, feeling the years in my knees. I hear the man’s boots on the grit behind us. But I don’t turn to face him. I hear the squeak of the rope as the bow is loaded. And I tell him not to fuck this up.

  Everything is fine, I say.

  She shows him her teeth. And I tell her not to be afraid.

  Our friend, I tell her. He’s stuck.

  She looks at me.

  We want to be his friend, I say. But he’s not sure.