Evie Wyld - After the Fire, A Still Small Voice

Pete issued the order that they were moving out, and gave Leon a nod and a wink. ‘Very nice,’ he said. ‘Fancy.’

The clouds gathered above the dark tips of the rubber trees and it could have been night. When the first fat drops hit, the jungle crackled and a thick sweet smell rose up out of the dirt. The rain bounced off Leon’s face, small pebbles that went up his nose and shot into his eyes. It drowned out the sound of their footsteps and when it hit the mud it was like gunfire. They came to a creek and it could be seen to rise, its belly expanding, its surface was the cross-hatching of elephant skin. Leon waded in after Cray, the water a warm suck on his legs. The mud coated his trousers hotly and stuck like burnt chocolate to his boots. Before the rain had run the mud off him, he saw the back of Cray’s neck tense like a stork that’d seen the fry. Leon held up his arm and felt all movement behind him stop. The rain drummed on the brim of his hat, the trees were still, still, still, there were just the white lines of rain falling steadily down. It got into his clothes, ran down the crack of his arse, licked the backs of his knees. He breathed through his mouth, strained his ears to listen, strained his eyes to see what the signal would be.

Thumb down. A baddie.

Five fingers spread open, then four. Nine baddies.

Cray made a pushing motion at him. A finger to the eyebrow. Wait. Wait till you see the whites of their eyes. Cray sank down and so did he, and everyone behind them was already hidden. He unfolded his tripod, careful not to jog the leaves around him, and attached the gun. No noise broke from it, no unoiled squeak that would grate above the crinkle-pat of rainfall. Even his heart was quiet, although he felt it fast against the bones in his chest. The rain on fat leaves and the drill of it on the brim of his hat. Drips hung off the end of his nose. He waited. He looked behind him to Clive, and Clive was wide-eyed and gave one nod to say ‘Ready’.

And then a sound above the rain. The break of a stick. A shudder of fern. Beads of water rolled off leaves and fell on the dark ground gone to mud. A black streak of movement and, out of the green, four men’s shadows picking over the ground weightlessly. Even the sound of the rain stopped, even the sound of his own blood was covered over with a pillow. The first fellow carried a rifle over his shoulder. He had womanly lips and his skin was smooth like unset caramel. He must have been younger than Leon. His black eyes darted from side to side but he didn’t see Leon, not for the longest time. And when he did, all he did was stop and there were three beats of a fast heart while their eyes met, then Leon shot him and it went into his chest, just between the top and the second buttons, and he fell over backwards.

Leon moved the gun back to the next man before he had a chance to know which way to duck; the tracer bullets moved like jewels against the dark and the noise was like being between two revving motors. He knocked men off as they appeared, four, maybe five men, one after the other. Some shot back, but they could not get through his mess of bullets. He surrounded himself in a force field and by the time he ran out of ammunition there was no need for more, but he loaded up anyway, automatically, his hands steady in spite of the thump of his heart.

‘Nice work, old matey,’ said Cray, once they’d searched the bodies and were ready to set off again. ‘First go, eh?’

Leon nodded. Smiled. Shrugged. He walked up to the boy with the smooth skin and took out his camera. There was blood on the boy’s lips. He set the frame, held the box steady and took a photograph. There had been a look on the kid’s face that said, ‘If I pretend I didn’t see you will you do the same?’

They moved out and he found himself wishing he’d got someone to take a picture of him with the dead boy. And then he wondered where that had come from.

Frank felt supremely efficient. He rose early with a light hangover and shook himself clean like a sheet with a swim. He ate a breakfast of eggs and billy-brewed coffee, while Kirk and Mary pecked out the leftovers from the pan. He went through the tomatoes, degrubbing and cutting back leaves, doing a job he was sure Sal would be pleased with. He went back down to the beach and fished from a spot he’d been wanting to try since he arrived. He caught a rock cod and a good-sized black fish in the first hour. The rest of the day he made small adjustments to the shack. He rigged up a pulley and a bucket so that he could have a proper freshwater wash standing up, something he’d gone too long without, and he even put up a few duckboards for a bit of privacy. A satisfying warmth spread from his chest and he would have liked to have shown his handiwork to someone. Bob had said he might swing by for a drink some time, so that would be good; he’d be able to inspect it, ask all the questions, be impressed.

In the afternoon the sun mellowed and Frank set a beer on the stump table outside. It shone a little yellow light out of it, the colour of a much later sun, and it reminded him of the comfort of being in a beer garden in the city. The smoke and sun on bitumen, the eucalyptus still hanging through the smell of spilt drinks. He had a large packet of chips and he could drink the cold beer and eat chips while he watched the sun settle and the flying foxes go out for the night. He could start reading a book, the one that was dog-eared from where he’d held it open too often and stared into space. Then, after dark, he would light the fire and set a fish on. He was still whole, there were still things that one man alone was worth. The beer hissed open as it always did and he felt a small joy at the luxury of it, the land, the beer, even the Creeping Jesus in the cane. He shut his eyes and let the sun weigh down his eyelids like coins. The butcher-bird gargled and so did its mate.

‘I want you to make me pregnant,’ she’d said one morning.

The sheets were hot and had been pulled down past their hips, just covering their legs. She was on her side then, looking at him, one hand stroking her belly, a look on her face that she’d been away and had just a second before got home. He smiled at her, blinked sleepily. Light from a gap in the curtain made her face pale and wondrous, the inside of an oyster shell. He teetered for a moment on the edge of sleep, but her hand slid from her belly and smoothed its way over his thigh and between his legs, making the hairs lie straight. He’d rolled her on to him like they were both great fat seals, light in the water. The sheets made the sound of the sea drawing back off a pebble beach. Her knees and arms were cool, but the sun had warmed her head and she smelt of hot hair. Her tongue moved in his mouth.

She’d never mentioned the baby again. It wasn’t long after that morning that he’d started to get bad. Perhaps she could feel the change in the air. If he’d stayed inside her she could have got pregnant right then, in that warm moment.

He opened his eyes to find that the day had turned beautiful on him: the sky a dark pink, while the sun was giving out a last burst of light. A flock of spoonbills were passing over, their shadows zipping like mice over the ground. He stood to watch them go, took off his hat and waved it, holding on to the post of the veranda, leaning out like he was on the prow of a boat, his mouth open to catch the change in the air, to taste the white birds as they coloured everything.

He was drunk by the time Bob arrived, but he held himself straight in his chair.

‘You right?’ asked Bob, smiling.

‘I’m well,’ he said loudly. He got Bob a drink and settled back.

‘Chinarillo,’ said Bob, raising his bottle.

He nodded. ‘’Rillo.’

An ibis flew overhead, white wings soft and her proboscis beak an ink line against the sky, but she was nothing like the spoonbills. The two men sat and drank to the first quarter mark of their beers and the silence was not uncomfortable but not natural either. Kirk and Mary fluffed around to the front veranda.