Breezeborne

     Red. All red, beneath that bright burning sky, pale sun and wisps of cloud, pink as the light of day began to slip beneath the horizon. Still and dead, scorched brick scrub in rusty sand, cracked copper ground which crumbled under aching feet, skin blistered and peeling as the traveler moved, kicking up dust with the toes of too-small sandals.

         The straps of the battered old army pack cut crimson stripes into narrow shoulders, and the thorns of bush plants swiped and clawed at thin ankles; a tattered and too-big T-shirt of khaki, mud-spattered, still hung on by its constituent threads, bearing upon it those dried stains of maroon and bronze.

         Long lost was any sense of time, any enumeration of sunrises, any accounting of chill nights spent coiled in the scrub beneath the thick woolen blanket, any concept of how many miles had worn thin the sole of one remaining sandal, the other long gone, a cosmic sacrifice for a drink of warm dirty water which flowed from a hot metal pipe above a pit in the ground.

         All that remained now was that bag, that blanket, and that wind, that hot brassy wind which blew at his back, driving him ever onward through the endless days of late December—because to stop, to rest, was to die.

         He kept on. And after a night’s kip beside a dried lakebed, he pushed himself to his torn and bloodied feet, stuffing that raggedy old blanket into his bag. And it was on this day, of all days, that before him he found an edifice of umber stone, sat lonely amongst the desiccated spinifex, its wraparound front porch smiling to him as if in greeting.

         He recalled houses, though it had been years since he had seen one. Years spent inside that chicken wire enclosure in the GAFA, beneath dreary canvas strung over bowing poles, in grey concrete halls which echoed with the heavy sounds of boots, the ring of shouts at all hours of the day, the dry creaking of weary tears spent deep into debt.

         Nothing remained to him except to walk on, though he pleaded with his legs to run, with his arms to fly. For out back of this home stood a water tank for mottled brown hens which gabbled and strutted within a fenced run, and out front sat a rusty old ute, and often enough he had seen Corporal McHenry drive the one on the joint base—surely it couldn’t be that hard.

         He had nearly reached the vehicle when it happened: a small voice called out to him, and he stopped, his bag raised overhead to be thrown into the dusty bed, his blood grown instantaneously cold within his veins, as if he might freeze beneath that savage sun.

         “Young man! What d’you think you’re doing?”

         Slowly, his heart in his stomach, he turned—and there upon that porch stood an elderly woman and frail, white clouds of curly hair framing a lined and sun-browned face, and at her hip, leveled and readied, she held a double-barreled shotgun.

         He did not think; he only threw up his hands, dropping the bag to his side, and a cloud of dust swirled around his bare ankles, striped burgundy by myriad cuts from the dead and dying brush. “Sorry, sorry,” he said quickly, his voice quaking and cracking, no more than a boy’s voice. “Didn’t reckon anyone was about. ‘S awful hot out, innit, and—”

         “And this is no place for you,” the woman said, and the barrel of the shotgun wavered in the air, as if the weapon itself might be unsure. “Where’ve you come from, lad?”

         Pine Gap, I’ve come from Pine Gap, from the place God forgot, from cold concrete and hot pain and that bloody chair, from—

         “Dunno,” he said shortly, turning his head away, flinching from the dying fire in the old woman’s eyes.

         She considered him for a long moment, but he could not bring himself to raise his head—she hadn’t fired, and that was enough to cause him to pick up his bag.

         “I’ll, er—I’ll just be gettin’ on, then. Sorry to’ve—”

         “And where d’you reckon you’re going?”

         He paused. Laughed, madly, for the question was one which he could not answer, for he knew of no city upon this continent, no world beside the one within those fences. “Dunno,” he said again.

         And now he braved a glance at her. The shotgun hung at her side, and a smile which was half a frown had knitted itself across her aged brow, softening the shape of her face into a painting of sympathy, of sadness. She lay the gun down across the arms of a wicker rocking chair, which wobbled to and fro for a moment before falling still.

         “You can’t be serious,” she said. “My darling, you’re—what—thirteen? Running away from home?”

         Home. Dunno what that is, ‘cept to say as I ain’t never had one.

         “I’ve got a phone. Why don’t you come inside, and I’ll ring your mum?”

         His mouth gone dry, he shook his head; her face fell, and for a wild instant, he thought that she might run to him, for what cause he did not know. He gathered his wits and sought to find his feet beneath him, and yet, somehow, he seemed to be rooted to the spot, his body given up, given over to the weariness of endless days baked in the sun.

         “Nah, I—I don’t reckon I’ve got one of them, ma’am.”

         Words so true had scarcely escaped him; they burned within his throat, within his heart. And yet it was not for his mother that aching tears sprang to his eyes, but for a boy—a young and kindly boy, whose blood stained his ratty clothing and whose image was burnt upon his mind, pale eyes and russet hair, pink palms of brown hands outstretched in supplication, his face the color of tanned leather, skinny, twisted in shame and fear. And now all that remained of the boy were the dark stains upon his shirt—once life, but now little more than a reminder of what once had been.

         “The, er... the next town over,” he said, his voice quite small. He cleared his throat. “Would you kindly—?”

         “You’re a ways off,” said the old woman, and suddenly she was approaching him, her voice soft, as if a gentle entreaty to a wounded animal. “Alice. Twenty miles or thereabouts to the north.” She paused, considering him, his bag, and then the ute, and let out a sigh. “I’ll give you a lift, love. You’ll need a change of clothes, mind; reckon some of my husband’s old things might fit.”

         He hesitated, glanced down at his shabby old shirt, and swallowed thickly, disinclined to do away with the memory, with that patch of dirty auburn which was all that he had left. But by the time he could conjure up words, her hand was upon his arm—dainty, delicate, and silk-soft. Reluctantly, he followed her up the single step and onto the sun-bleached wooden porch, and for a moment, she paused to collect her shotgun, to let it hang harmless at her side from one sun-tanned hand as the other came to rest at the small of his back.

         At the threshold, she paused, the door opening onto a pleasant and pastel home, with cool air which soothed his sunburnt skin; though it was lit by the gentle glow of a reading lamp in the corner, it was dark as a dungeon to his weary eyes, and at once, he longed to crawl inside, to burrow into the floorboards, to sleep, fearing neither the dingoes nor the other wild animals—those who called themselves men, those who had for so long kept him as game.

         “And, er... where d’you reckon you’re off to, after Alice?”

         “Dunno. Might as well ask where it is the wind goes.”