'Christopher'	Chapter < six of six sample chapters
	by Myra Howerd, July 1996
	Copywrite held by Claudia Klaus, P.O. Box 5102, Mackay M.C., QLD 4741, Australia

Priorities. Food first. As Christopher began to rummage through his bag for the nylon he used for snares the rain spattered to a stop. It had lasted less than an hour, but during that time it had been so heavy he'd been unable to see more than twenty meters.

It was darker now too, for the dark mass of the thunderstorm was now between him and the westering sun as it went on to soak millions of square kilometers of empty bush.

Before he left he checked on the girl one last time. Still asleep. Thoughtfully he looked down at her and saw the traces of blood on her lips again where she'd stopped wiping or had licked it away. At least she seemed a little better now that she was off her feet.

He scrambled up onto the wet roadbed and stopped, undecided. Which way to go? Finally he turned north, the way they'd been walking before the rain had come. Might as well combine a bit of exploration with his hunting.

The stream bed soon curved back in towards the road and two or three hundred meters farther on he came upon another fenced field, this one lined with tall trees and inhabited by three horses that cantered up to see what he was doing. The boy smiled. He liked horses.

The field held more to interest him than playful horses. While they snorted and made silly little runs away from him, pretending mortal fear then fearless curiosity Christopher investigated the boundary fence that ran down the field to the creek itself.

After a short search he found what he was looking for, a small gap in the vegetation that showed where rabbits and other, more secretive creatures came down to the stream for water. There he carefully set his snare before continuing off down the road again, hoping to find another farmhouse.

If this was indeed the valley of the Darling river there should be farms and people everywhere, he reasoned. Surely there would be someone who would help him and Nicole. He was still unwilling to go directly against her wishes and simply call an ambulance, partly because he didn't want to lose control of the chance to get to Perth, but also because he was worried about what the girl would do to the people who tried to help her.

He shuddered as he recalled the twisting, smoking corpses back at the crash site. Those men had been animals, criminals for whom simple murder had not been enough. They'd paid the price.

Now, as he walked the sodden road he tried to work out what to do next. Behind him the storm still flashed and growled but now clean, bright rays of sunlight peeked over the dark shoulders of the cloud. Abruptly the bush stopped and below him the road dipped again, down towards green pastureland and big shade trees. The river! It had to be. In fact the road he was on went only a few hundred meters more before intersecting with another, larger one that had a tarred surface. Standing at last at the crossroads he looked east then west, wondering which way to go.

West, he finally decided, simply because that was the direction he eventually wanted to go. Perth was west. He set off at a steady pace, thinking carefully about what came next. There was no indecision in him now, he knew exactly what he wanted to do but first he needed more information. When he and Eric first made camp in some new, unfamiliar place, they always had a good, careful look around, finding rabbit runs or water holes or shelter like old farm buildings.

This time the boy had only one thing in mind. People. While it was true he was still unwilling to ignore her direct instructions on the subject he could see no harm in learning where to go and who to see, so now he looked for farmhouses or dwellings and kept an eye on where the telephone line above his head ran. Telephones invariably meant people.

By the time he'd tramped a couple of kilometers along the road he'd sighted eight or nine farms. At least he presumed they were either farms or horticultural gardens, there were too many in such a short distance for them all to be straight farms.

The first one had been on his left, a long way back from the road down a drive lined with flowering eucalypts that leaned over it in a casual but contrived way. Probably the owners of the horses, he'd decided. He hadn't bothered going down that one.

In front of him he now found a house close to the road that had a ute parked outside and smoke issuing from a chimney. He hesitated, but ahead he could see more buildings and a big petrol sign, so he continued on and found himself outside a battered country store that leaned tiredly against enormous old trees whose roots must have long ago destroyed the foundations even as their branches accepted the weight of the old walls.

Christopher pushed in through the fly screen door into the darkness beyond and found himself in a small deli. Above the counter hung the standard traveller's menu of fries and toasted sandwiches ('eggburgers with everything!') and there was a tall glass-fronted refrigerator that gave equal space to coke and to milk.

Milk! The boy reached into his pants pocket and checked his money. Not much, but enough for milk. He opened the door and took a full litre carton, then as he went over to the counter to pay he saw the small handwritten sign offering 'farm eggs, $1.30 per doz.' There was also a small bell that he shook vigorously. That brought a woman bustling out of some back room, drying her hands on a teatowel as she came.

"Yes? Oh, hello, what can I do for you?" She was obviously surprised to find him there, inside the shop, and for one fleeting second Christopher wished he'd simply taken the milk and as quietly left. It would have been so easy.

"Yes, those eggs, could I have a half-dozen? I don't really need the full dozen..."

"Oh, yes, of course, you can have as many as you want." The woman looked at him keenly, noting his worn jeans and tanned face, his youthfulness. "Camping, are you?" she asked.

"Yeah," he admitted, nodding and trying to appear casual. "We're hitching but the rain caught us. I came ahead to get the milk." He ached to ask her about a doctor but decided to wait until the morning. Maybe Nicole would be better then. Maybe.

"Would you like some bread, then?" The woman asked brightly. "I've just made some. We don't get a delivery here." she explained apologetically.

"I'm not sure I've got enough money with me," the boy admitted, pulling the few dollars he had out of his jeans pocket. "How much would it be?"

The woman smiled at him. She was nicer than she'd first seemed, he decided. She was a short, thickset person with a pleasant round face and her dark hair tied back in a bun. When she'd first come to the counter he'd thought she seemed a little angry about something but now she was all smiles, clearly taken in by his youthfulness. It was always happening to him, Eric reckoned he brought out the mothering instinct in them. Had reckoned.

"Oh, the bread won't cost you anything at all," she told him. "Wait a minute and I'll get it for you." She disappeared out the back and returned in a minute with a short, dumpy loaf wrapped in newspaper. Christopher paid her for the milk and the half-dozen eggs and thanked her as he turned to go, the still warm bread warming his arm.

"Perhaps we'll see you tomorrow?" The woman said and he nodded, once.

"Probably," he admitted.

Later, as he tramped back to the bridge he wondered what the shopwoman would have had to say if she'd known how he'd spent the last twenty four hours. Would his curly hair and his big doe eyes save him then?

Nicole hadn't shifted, but she was breathing OK, so he quickly went back to the rabbit snare before the light failed. It was nearing sunset by then and there was a chance he might have something in it, for rabbits generally feed in the morning and evening.

Luck was with him this time, a doe still kicked feebly against the throttling line and he put her out of her misery quickly before skinning and cleaning the still warm body. The flies were gone now, made drowsy by the evening coolness, and the meat should be alright, he thought.

When he got back to the bridge bivouac he lit the fire and boiled some of the creek water first, then roasted the rabbit over the coals. Nicole didn't stir at all through any of this and in the end he had to shake her gently awake, cautiously standing to one side just in case.

Instantly she was awake, her violet-flecked eyes on his face.

"It's alright, it's only me," he said quickly to reassure her, remembering again the blue fire and the burning bodies and sweating a little. "I've got some food for you. There's some bread and meat..."

The girl stared blankly at him for a moment then smiled.

"Loaves and fishes..." she said, faintly. "How long have I been asleep?"

"Oh, about two or three hours. Can you sit up?" She nodded, then struggled to prop herself up and failed. Without comment the boy leaned over her slight form and gently eased her up, then placed the enamel plate in front of her. On it was a hunk of the homebaked bread and a leg of the roasted rabbit. Beside it he put his mug of dark billy tea. There was only the one cup, they'd have to share.

The girl looked at it all in surprise.

"How... where on earth did you manage to get all that? Bread... and meat!"

"It's rabbit. Come on, eat, you said you needed energy." Again he was subjected to a steady look, then she began to eat, daintily and carefully. The boy watched for a while then went and got a portion of the meat for himself. It was darkening rapidly now and beside them the glow of the fire embers seemed to gain strength, becoming more assertive, more comforting.

Nicole didn't eat much, but she drank all the tea.

"Wish we had some milk," she commented with a wry face as she put the mug down.

"Oops, I forgot, we do!" Christopher showed her the carton. "I was saving it in case... in case you needed it more later on," he added lamely. "Do you prefer milk?"

She nodded and tried to rise to her feet. Christopher was at her side instantly, helping.

"Nicole, you shouldn't... you should lie down as much as possible."

In the gloom he saw her grimace.

"Then you tell my bladder that," she said, and he understood. With great care she stumbled along to the opposite side of the abutment, into the darker shadows. Christopher watched her disappear, then turned to clear away the rubbish only to be jerked back by a sob from the darkness.

"Chris... Christopher..." Quickly he went over and found her on her side, having tripped on an unseen stone and fallen.

"Are you alright?" he asked anxiously.

"I think so. Christopher, you'll have to help me. Please..."

He swallowed.

"What do you mean?"

"Christopher, I've got to pee, but I can't even get my pants off. You'll have to do it."

He felt conflicting emotions. Part of him curled up in embarrassment at the thought, while another part shrugged and said 'why not, you put them on her'. Yet another part of his awareness realised that she must be very badly hurt indeed if she had to call on him for this, this very private and personal act.

Silently he complied, saying nothing as she supported herself with his arm and squatted. Later, when she was dressed again and back on her bed he set about making himself a sleeping place alongside her and knew that in the morning he was going to get help. If he didn't she was going to die and he'd be alone once more.

As he tried to find a comfortable position he thought it all through. Priorities. There were different priorities now, he could see that. Somehow he felt responsible for this frail girl beside him and knew that now her welfare would have to come ahead of anything else, even his dream of finding his mother. He was still trying to work out exactly what he should do when he fell asleep...

He woke again in the grey of first light filtering through to where they lay under the bridge. He could hear the usual raucous chorus of bush birds but his mind ignored it. Normal. Beside him the girl lay almost exactly as he'd left her the night before and at first glance he thought she might be dead, but when he leaned over he could feel her breath and see the slight rise and fall of her chest.

Carefully he rose and quietly began to gather more wood for the fire, then lit it and measured a cupful of milk into the billy before putting it on to heat. When it was ready he added some of his precious store of sugar and stirred it well before returning to the girl.

Once again he took a deep breath and touched her shoulder, praying once more that she would know who she was. He needn't have worried, for she woke up in her normal instant manner and was looking calmly at him in the blink of an eye.

"Here, Nicole, drink this." He helped her sit up and held the cup of hot liquid to her lips so that she could drink, noting with concern how much paler she seemed, and how her face was etched with pain. She swallowed half of the milk before turning her head away.

"That's not enough, Nicole. You've got to have more." She said nothing, but her eyes were glazed and she quickly leaned over to the side and to his horror was violently sick. Quickly he moved to support her, noting with dismay the bright red blood amongst the remains of her last night's meal. Blood!.

She didn't seem to notice and simply lay down again and wiping her mouth.

"Sorry, Christopher." Her eyes sought his and as he looked into their depths he was startled to see them flicker and become clear blue once again, but a blue that was becoming dulled and withdrawn. Silently he covered her again and then banked the fire so that he could make something for himself more quickly later.

Meanwhile the girl closed her eyes again and when Christopher had completed his small chores he sat and watched her for quite a while. To his mind there was no doubt that she was weaker, and if she couldn't keep food down she'd go downhill very quickly indeed. He'd seen horses go like that.

Priorities. He had to get help, there was no doubt about that at all now, but he remembered how adamant she'd been that they keep away from people. Why? Clearly she believed there was some sort of risk involved, but the boy couldn't imagine anything as important as her own survival. Police? They'd be looking for the driver of the Mazda, if indeed they were looking at all.

Christopher suddenly remembered her credit card. Of course! He'd remove any evidence of the 'Ingrid Wasserman' identity, then there wouldn't be anything at all to tie her to the crashed car and its grisly surroundings.

The decision made the boy went over to her bag and removed it to a safe distance where he searched it for the third time in twenty-four hours, this time very carefully indeed.

Apart from the clothing and a soft pouch of feminine things there was a leather wallet in a pocket inside the bag, and a smaller bag made of some peculiar slippery material. This latter he ignored, recognising it was far to small to hold anything of importance, and instead gently opened the wallet and found what he was looking for immediately. Along with the credit card there were two passports, one in the name of 'Ingrid Wasserman' and the other 'Nicole Perrier'. 'Perrier'. So that was her surname. It was odd, but he'd never worried about it before then. There were also two driver's licences, one German and the other a New Zealand one. New Zealand?

The same photograph of her was in the front of each of the passports, so there was no doubt whatsoever that they both belonged to her, but Christopher felt a growing puzzlement creeping upon him. His mind went back to an incident the previous year when he'd made one of his rare friendships with someone of his own age.

This boy had proudly shown him a new passport, his very first, explaining that he was going on holiday to England to meet his grandparents for the first time. Christopher barely comprehended the idea of holidays but the small green folder had caught his imagination and he'd plagued the other boy with questions until he learned what they were for and how they were obtained.

He knew perfectly well that you got only one passport against one name because they checked on your birth certificate. Nicole had two, and furthermore neither of them was Australian. Thoughtfully the boy studied the other papers and carefully removed anything he could find even remotely connected with 'Ingrid' or the hire car company, including the piece of plastic card and the little yellow slips it was wrapped in. All of these things he put together inside his own bag, wrapped up in an old work shirt. The 'Nicole' passport he left in the wallet and returned it to the pocket, then carefully repacked and replaced the bag beside the still sleeping girl.

Why would she pretend to be someone else...? No, that wasn't right at all, if she had passports she couldn't be pretending... or could she? Was this the reason she was so afraid of being in a hospital? It hardly seemed likely. Like most of the things he'd found out about her so far, this new information served to add to the mystery rather than solve anything.

He stood looking down at her for a long minute, then quietly climbed up onto the road and without a pause set off down towards the junction again. As he walked he tried to think of a plausible story to account for the girl's injuries.

Car accident? No, where was the car...? Hit and run? Maybe... but this was hardly the place to generate mad drivers, and besides, this was a back country road with very few outsiders on it.

What to say, then? Furiously he reviewed his meagre previous experience with injured people. What caused the accidents? Horses. A lot of people fell from horses and hurt themselves... what a pity they had no horses. A cliff? Could she have fallen from a cliff?

Before he realised it he was at the service station again, but of course it was much too early, it was shut. He hesitated, then seeing that the shop was actually attached to an old house he went on around to the side door. It would look very odd if he waited for shop hours to report an accident, he decided. Besides, Nicole needed help as quickly as she could get it.

He knocked on the screen door and called a tentative 'Hello!'. The door itself was partly ajar and inside he could hear faint voices, but it was plain that they couldn't hear him. He struck the weathered wood of the doorpost again and again until his knuckles ached, then nearly died of fright when a voice sounded from right behind him.

"Hello, can I help you?"

It was the same dark haired woman who'd served him the previous evening, and in her hands was a mash-rimed enamel bowl filled with eggs. It was a second before his confused brain made the connection.

"Uhhh... yes. Sorry I'm so early, but I need some help for my friend who's hurt real bad and needs a doctor. I didn't know where else to come."

There, it was said. It all rushed out so quickly that to his ears it sounded utter gibberish, false, and he immediately saw puzzlement in her almond eyes.

"Whoa, start again, I missed most of that. You need a doctor, I think you said?" She smiled encouragingly at him and he swallowed and nodded, afraid now that it had begun.

"Then you'd better come inside and tell us about it, and perhaps we can make some sense out of it then. Go on, inside."

Carefully he opened the screen door and stepped in, pushing the main door wider as he did so, then letting the woman past. She placed the bowl of eggs down on the floor and then wiped her hands on her check apron before leading the boy further in.

Soon he found himself in a kitchen where a man and a girl sat at a table. The man was leaning back in the process of lighting his pipe, while a girl about Christopher's own age was intent on the cereal in front of her. Both were listening to the news on the radio, clearly the source of the 'voices' Christopher had heard earlier.

They looked up in surprise at his entrance. The woman continued on to the radio to turn it off then turned to explain what was happening.

"The boy's come asking for a doctor, he says his friend's crook, so I thought you'd better hear his story, Ken." The man nodded and all eyes fixed on Christopher. He wet his lips.

"My friend's hurt pretty bad. At first I thought she was OK but now she's coughing up blood and I think she'll die unless I can get her to a doctor. Is there a doctor around here? A hospital?"

"She? Your friend is a girl?" The man's voice was sharp, but Christopher held his gaze and nodded.

"Yes, her name's Nicole, she's down the road a little way, under a bridge where we sheltered from the storm yesterday afternoon."

"Weren't you the boy I sold the milk to late yesterday afternoon?" the woman asked. Of course she would recognise him. He nodded again.

"Yes, ma'am. It was her I got the milk for, but I didn't realise then how bad she was hurt, and besides, she asked me not to tell. It was only this morning when I knew she was real sick, when she vomited up her food and I saw the blood."

A long silence greeted this statement and the two adults looked at him and then at each other, their faces troubled. The girl stared at him interestedly, as if he was a new kind of insect or something, but not to be handled. It might bite. Clearly Christopher was a welcome diversion.

The silence became unbearable, and finally the boy could take it no longer.

"Is there a doctor around here?" he repeated anxiously.

"You ring the O'Malleys, Ken. It sounds as if Kevin will have to use the station wagon. I'll find out exactly where this girl is while you ring." The man nodded and went through to the hall where the boy could hear him picking up a phone and dialling. The woman turned back to him.

"Now, young man, let's have the story, all of it. Where is this girlfriend of yours and how did she get hurt?"

"I... we... we were hitching west," he began, avoiding her eye. "Our last lift dropped us off a fair way up the road and we kept on walking, looking for a place to camp for the night. We're used to that, you understand. Well, there's a stand of trees back there, just off the road, and Nicole found a young galah there that must have been hit by a car or something. Anyway, it couldn't fly, not properly. Nicole tried to catch it, but it went into another tree, one that had fallen over and wedged amongst the rest. She climbed after it, quite high, then slipped when she reached out to catch the bird. She must have fallen five or six meters."

The girl and the woman looked at him in silence, then the man came back into the room.

"Kevin's on his way here now, with Michelle. They should be here in ten minutes or so."

Christopher felt a great relief well up inside him. At last something was happening.

"What's your name?" the girl suddenly asked him, speaking for the first time, and he took real notice of her. She was dark haired like her mother, skinny and nearly as tall as he was. In fact she might be taller than Nicole, he realised, but unlike Nicole there was only the smallest hint of a figure under her plain cotton dress.

"I'm Christopher," he answered simply.

"Well, Christopher, you'd better tell us where this girlfriend of yours is and what you think is wrong with her. As you heard, you're quite lucky, we happen to have a doctor living nearby, and you'll have to go with him, I expect." The woman was brisk and organised now, as if physical injury was a common enough event here in the country. Perhaps it was.

"Have you had anything to eat? To drink? I thought not. Sit down here, young man. Valerie, get another cup and saucer, at the very least he can have another cup of tea."

Christopher allowed himself to be guided to a chair and the skinny girl began to do as she was told, but with her ears obviously straining to hear everything. Her mother continued the questioning while the man resumed his seat and began to clean his pipe.

"What did you say this girl's name was, Christopher?"

"Nicole. She's older than me."

"And is she really hurt very bad? Sometimes people seem worse than they really are, you know." The girl put the cup in front of him and filled it from the teapot.

"No, ma'am, not in this case. I realised she was hurt right away, but I didn't know it was so bad, she insisted she was alright. That's why I didn't mention it to you last night when I got the milk. She told me not to say anything to anyone. I think she's got some broken ribs at the very least, she's hurt here." He put his hand to his left side.

"Was she unconscious at all?"

"Yes, she was." He remembered pulling her out of the car and a wave of nausea rose up in him. "She... her arm was dislocated, I had to put it back in."

He said it simply, his face showing strain and the ghost of the experience. To hide his emotions he sipped the tea although part of him was beginning to chafe at the delay. Was Nicole still alive?

There were more questions, and he answered them as best as he could, sticking to the truth most of the time and only fabricating things when he really had to. From past experience he knew that his best chance lay with a simple story.

Nobody asked him where they came from or where they were going to, they were too interested in the immediate story, for which he was grateful. He might have been in trouble otherwise, for he had no idea of what he could tell them, especially as Nicole couldn't know what he'd said and might destroy the carefully constructed story the moment she opened her mouth.

Mostly it was the woman who asked him the questions. Her husband... he presumed he was her husband... and the girl simply sat and listened, taking it all in.

Outside there was the sound of gravel crunching as a car pulled up, and the woman stopped fussing over him to go to the door and greet the newcomers. Hurriedly Christopher drained the last of his tea and stood to follow her out into the yard, the other two tagging along behind.

Valerie's mother was bent over talking to a couple in a late model Holden station wagon that had already been rigged with the back seat down to accommodate the expected patient.

"Christopher, this is Doctor and Mrs O'Malley. I think you'd better take them to your friend right away."

Christopher nodded and the woman in the car scrunched over to give him room. Fortunately she was a very small person, with a heart-shaped face and a wonderful smile.

"Hello, Christopher. I think we'd better hurry. If your friend's as sick as you think every minute will count."

The boy nodded and got in, then as he shut the door he looked up at the family who had helped him, at a loss for what to say. He didn't even know there names!

"Thanks... thanks very much." he stammered and then the car was moving in a curve to take it back on the road and on to Nicole.

If she was still alive...

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