Worth another?
Hell with it. She danced the bolt. Aimed. She squeezed the trigger, and the rifle thumped comfortingly into her right shoulder. The explosive in the cartridge threw out a lead ogive that the barrel spiraled into the air with the faintest rush of smoke and the sweet smell of gunpowder. The bullet had been on a collision course with its target since it was manufactured in North London in 1941. It traveled across the heath at two thousand feet per second.
There was a yellow explosion that was so big, it might possibly draw attention on the mainland. She heard the roar a full two seconds after she saw the flame.
“That’s for Tom. He was a doctor! And it’s for Hans and Petra. And it’s for scaring the shit out of my kids!” she said and stood and raised her middle finger.
40
She jogged for a half a mile before stopping and taking a sip from her canteen.
The rain intensified. Sheet lightning silhouetting her against the horizon. It smelled like Seattle rain. Like fir. It didn’t smell like this parched continent. She wondered if all rain smelled the same.
Poor dead Tom would have known.
It took her forty-five minutes to make it back to the cave.
The O’Neills could get more dogs, but for now the dogs were dead and the three of them were safe.
Owen was sitting by the fire waiting for her.
“Hey, Owen,” she said.
“Hey,” he said. “You’re wet.”
“It’s raining. I couldn’t get any more meat. Everything OK here?”
“Yeah…I killed a snake.”
“You what?”
“Over there, against the wall. I didn’t know if it was going to bother us or not but it was crawling toward Olivia, so I had to kill it.”
Heather was aghast. “What? A snake? Are you joking?”
“It’s over there by the wall.”
Heather took the rifle off her shoulder. There was indeed a dead snake by the wall. A brown snake about six feet long.
“I thought it was just going to mind its own business. They mostly do, you know. But then it started crawling toward Olivia. I was watching behind my wall. I have this wall thing.”
“I know.”
“I was behind my wall but I kept peeking over and it was coming closer, so I had to try to kill it.”
“Oh, Owen! Oh my God!” she said, putting her arms around him and hugging him. “Didn’t you even wake Olivia?”
“What was the point? I killed it.”
Olivia was still sleeping, curled on her side by the fire.
“How did you kill it?”
“I picked up a big rock and threw it at it. I missed completely. The rock hit the cave wall but then dropped on the snake’s back, kind of pinning it. I grabbed another rock and got close and dropped it on the snake’s head.”
“Jesus, Owen! What if it had bitten you? Or spit venom at you?”
“They don’t do that.”
Heather went over to look at the snake. “Where did you learn how to do that?”
“My snake book and the Primitive Technology channel on YouTube. That guy does a million things with rocks. You should watch it. I don’t think it was completely awake. They’re cold-blooded. They need to warm up. So not really a fair fight.”
Olivia stirred. “You’re back,” she said.
“Owen, tell her what you did while I search the rest of the cave for any other guests.”
“I don’t, um, like…I don’t want to brag or anything.”
“For once in your life, brag.”
Owen told Olivia about the snake. Olivia didn’t believe it until he showed her. She hugged him and Owen didn’t believe that. Heather didn’t find any other snakes in the cave.
“I forgot to tell you guys, I found a can of peaches,” she said, removing it from her bag.
“Wow, those must be fifty years old,” Owen said.
“Do you think they’re safe to eat?” Olivia asked.
“One way to find out.”
Heather stabbed the machete into the lid and carefully opened the tin.
They ate the peaches.
They were the best-tasting peaches in the history of Earth.
The kids drank the peach juice and talked and even laughed.
They sat around the fire and Heather glanced at Owen’s science homework. It was beyond her, but Olivia and Owen explained it.
“We need some music,” Olivia said.
“Go on, then,” Heather said.
At first shyly but then with more confidence, Olivia sang and rapped all of Pink Friday by Nicki Minaj with Owen joining in on the choruses.
“What about your stuff?” Olivia said.
“You wouldn’t like it. I’m a woman out of time. Mostly.”
But they insisted as she stoked the fire. They wanted a story or a song. She offered to sing them Greta Van Fleet or Tame Impala or Lana, but now Olivia actually wanted the retro-hipster stuff, so she ended up singing them the whole of the White Album, including the shit songs.
“You can really sing,” Olivia said and meant it.
“Yeah,” Owen agreed.
“Thank you.”
They yawned and stretched and talked and fell asleep next to each other. Kids have the gift of sleep. They were so peaceful, they were part of a tomorrow when all of this was over.
Heather cleaned her rifle and put it within easy reach.
She had one bullet left.
She closed her eyes and lay down on the sandy cave floor, and within minutes she too fell through the dark blue midnight into a deep sleep.
She dreamed. The kids dreamed. The dreams syncopated.
On the land above all was chaos, storm, and lightning, but down here in the underworld all was quiet.
41
The sun was old iron, then blood, then faded yellow playground plastic. She sat on the tree limb and looked through the binoculars at the water and the mainland. You could possibly try a shot over there but that was a two-miler without a guarantee of hitting anything or attracting attention. Ammunition was precious. She watched a dorsal fin rise and sink beneath the waves.
The tree began to shake. She looked down. Owen was climbing up. He cleared the first level of branches and the second and the third. The old Heather would have told him to watch himself but he didn’t need to be told much now. “Hey,” she said.
“Whatcha doing?” he asked.
“Keeping an eye out.”
“What’s that bird?”
“Which one?”
“The one next to the crow on the other tree.”
“Oh, that one. I dunno. Some kind of raptor. An Aussie peregrine? Here, look at it through the binoculars.” She passed him the binoculars and resumed her rumination.
Olivia was at the bottom of the tree now. “Can I come up?” she asked.
“Sure.”
Olivia climbed the eucalyptus tree and sat on the branch next to Owen.
Heather adjusted her position and looked in the direction of the farm. She couldn’t actually see it from here, but she could make out an inky line of smoke coming from that direction.
“The bird has red on its front—what would that be?” Owen asked, handing her the binoculars back.
“Gosh, I dunno, Owen. Big mistake not bringing an Australian-bird guidebook here. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it,” she said and adjusted the focus. “Some kind of kite, maybe?”
“Would Dad know?”
“He knew everything.”