‘Then how do we find them?’
Danny pointed at Collins, still half conscious on the ground. ‘We take her back to town. Hand her over to Mitchell. They can organize a search, now we know where to concentrate it.’
‘That’s two hours back the way we came,’ Audra said. ‘God knows how long to get Mitchell and the state cops to move.’
She turned in a circle once more, wondering which way they might have gone. If they knew where it was, surely they would have headed for the trail and followed it to the road? She strained her eyes, looking for something, anything.
Audra stopped. What was that? Something had snagged her eye. She turned back again, slowly, seeking it out, whatever it was. Look, look, look.
There.
A glimpse of pink against the brown carpet of needles. She lost it again as the breeze moved the lower branches of the trees, obscuring the pinpoint of color. Without a word, she set off at a run, into the trees, ducking the low branches, skipping over the roots.
Was it? Could it be?
‘Audra, wait,’ Danny called.
She ignored him, kept running until she came to the spot. And there he was: Gogo. Pine needles clinging to his worn fur, half burying him. Audra stopped, breathless and dizzy, got down on her knees, reached for the old stuffed rabbit. The raggedy old thing, she’d wanted to throw it in the garbage so many times, but Louise wouldn’t let her.
Audra brought Gogo to her nose and mouth, inhaled, let Louise’s scent fill her head.
‘Oh God,’ she said, feeling the heat in her eyes. ‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m coming for you.’
She turned her head, saw Danny picking his way through the trees toward her.
‘They went this way,’ she said. ‘We can follow them.’
A noise from back in the clearing, an animal groan. Danny spun on his heels, Audra peered past him. She saw Collins stumble for the trees on the other side, her arms out for balance, wavering from side to side.
‘Shit,’ Danny said, making after her, drawing a revolver from his waistband.
‘Leave her,’ Audra said.
Danny slowed, but didn’t stop. ‘The keys are in the car. She gets it, she’ll leave us stranded out here.’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ Audra said. ‘Let her go.’
Danny halted, looked back to Audra.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘It’s Gogo. She dropped him. They went this way.’
He started to walk back to her. ‘But how long ago?’
‘Don’t you see?’ Audra asked, running her fingers over Gogo’s fur, feeling fresh tears on her cheeks. ‘He’s dry. Everything else is covered in dew. Gogo’s dry. It means it wasn’t long ago. If we follow them, we can find them.’
Danny came to her, hunkered down, brushed Gogo’s fur with his fingertips.
‘Then I guess we’d better move,’ he said.
45
SEAN FELT LIKE his legs could carry him no further. His feet ached, and he could feel the moist heat of blisters inside his socks. It had become a constant struggle to keep Louise moving. It seemed every twenty yards she would demand to rest, sitting down on the pine needles, whether he told her to or not. Twice he had shouted at her, another time he had hauled her up by her arm, and each time she had cried hacking, bitter sobs.
‘I don’t want to be mean,’ he’d said, ‘but we have to keep walking.’
And so they had journeyed for at least another hour, maybe more, the ground sometimes rising, sometimes falling. Sean had no sense of which direction they were headed, and for the life of him he couldn’t remember if the sun travelled east-to-west or the other way around. All he could do was make a point of keeping the sun at his right shoulder, knowing at least it was one constant direction.
‘I’m not walking anymore,’ Louise called from behind.
Sean turned to see her flop down on the ground once more. He trudged back and sat down beside her.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Five minutes, that’s all. Then we need to go.’
He pulled a water bottle from the bag, unscrewed the cap, and offered it to her. She took it and swallowed, before handing it back. He took a mouthful, washed it around his teeth and tongue, then stowed the bottle away.
‘I’m not walking anymore today,’ Louise said. She ran her fingers through the browned pine needles, making small tracks.
‘We have to,’ Sean said.
‘No, we don’t. We can make a camp and walk some more tomorrow.’
‘How can we make a camp?’ he asked. ‘We don’t have a tent.’
‘You can make a shelter out of branches,’ she said. ‘I saw it on TV.’
‘I don’t know how to do that. It’ll get cold out here tonight.’
‘Then we can make a fire.’
‘I don’t know how to do that, either. You know, we’re way up high here, like in the mountains. There might be bears. And mountain lions. Maybe wolves, I don’t know.’
‘Shut up,’ Louise said, pouting.
‘It’s true,’ he said.
‘No, it’s not. How come I didn’t see any?’
‘Because they mostly come out at night. That’s why we have to keep moving till we find help. We don’t want to be out here when the bears and the wolves wake up.’
‘You’re telling lies, and I’m going to tell Mom when she comes to get us.’
Sean reached out, took her hand, even though it stung his raw palm. They’d held hands a lot over the last few days. He couldn’t remember the last time they’d held hands. Probably not since she was a toddler.
‘Listen to me carefully,’ he said. ‘You remember you asked me earlier, were we going to die out here in the wilderness? I said no, right?’
Louise nodded, sniffed, wiped her nose on her forearm.
‘I was lying then,’ Sean said. ‘Truth is, we might. If we don’t keep moving, if we don’t find help, then we might die out here. Maybe not tonight, but tomorrow, or the next day. We’ll die and we’ll never see Mom again.’
Louise began to cry, her face red, shoulders hitching.
‘I’m not saying it just to be mean,’ he said. ‘I just need you to understand why we have to keep walking. So we can find help, someone who can call Mom, or even take us to her. You want to see Mom again, don’t you?’
Louise sniffed and said, ‘Yeah.’
‘Then we need to keep walking. You ready?’
She wiped her hand across her eyes and said, ‘Yeah.’
‘All right, then. Let’s go.’
Sean got to his feet, helped Louise to hers. He went to move off, but she tugged at his hand. When he turned back to her, she wrapped her arms around his middle, pressed her face into his chest.
‘I love you,’ she said.
He embraced her and said, ‘I love you too.’
They set off, walked hand-in-hand through the trees, the sun still at Sean’s right shoulder. Somewhere along the way, they began to sing. Nursery rhymes, songs he hadn’t sung since kindergarten, and he belted them out now, hearing his own voice echoing through the forest. Old MacDonald had a farm, ee-aye-ee-aye-o, Bingo was his name-o, and more. Sean went light-headed, not enough air for singing this high up, but he didn’t care. He sang anyway, as loud as he could.
He lost track of time as they journeyed on, so he had no idea of the hour when the trees thinned and he saw clear air up ahead.
‘What’s that?’ Louise asked.
‘Dunno,’ he said, quickening his step, pulling his sister behind him. He would have run if he could. Moments later, they stepped out of the trees, Sean expecting to see another clearing. But this was something entirely different.
They stood at the top of a shallow slope, weeds and grass leading down to a flat surface that went on and on. Like a frying pan, sloping sides and a flat bottom, but it wasn’t round. It was more like a vague oval, and it stretched as far to his left and right as he could see. Directly in front he could see the other side of the basin, and yet more trees. Between here and there, an expanse of bald cracked earth, like some alien landscape from a space story.
‘What is it?’ Louise asked.
‘I think it used to be a lake,’ Sean said. ‘But it’s all dried up.’
‘Where did all the water go?’