CHAPTER FIVE
THE DOG CROUCHED, growling like an idling motorbike. It threw up its head and barked, once, twice, three times, idled again. How the hell had it circled her so quickly? Tia dropped her gaze to the ground in a show of submission, and scanned for a stick. Nothing but twigs and leaves. She was in the middle of a fucking forest and she couldn’t find a stick?
“Jaws! Attack!”
She jumped. The voice was right behind her. The dog launched off the trunk, teeth bared. She reared, and her right foot punched into air, throwing her off balance, dropping her feetfirst off the ridge. She grabbed a tree root but it tore away, spitting dirt into her eyes. She slid down a bank of sheer rock, scrambling for a handhold, her stomach in full panic.
She thumped onto the dry riverbed, arse-first. The dog stood on the ridge several meters above, barking, turning itself nearly inside out in indecision. From out of sight, Shane yelled the attack order again. She pushed to her feet. Uninjured and, for now, out of reach.
A noise, behind her. Something grabbed her calf and tugged. Pressure flamed into bright pain. She twisted. Another terrier, a white one, was clamped on the back of her leg. Its teeth pushed through the denim of her jeans, popped her skin, sunk in. The pain exploded. She punched blindly, yelling, her fists bouncing off solid muscle, her vision spotting. Oh God, Shane had three dogs, not two—and this one was about to rip her leg off. It yanked, and she slipped sideways, her shoulder clonking on dirt. No sound. Why was there no sound? She couldn’t feel the rest of herself—nothing but the tearing burn in her leg. She flailed her fists but the angle was too awkward. The dog dragged her, stopping when its back hit the rock wall.
The sour stench of body odor smacked into her. Shane appeared, gripping the brown dog’s collar. It lunged for her, gagging as he yanked it back, its eyes rolling. Behind, the greyhound tracker bounced side to side.
“She got a good strong bite on her, eh?” Shane said, his shoulder looking ready to jump from its socket. “Jaws! Release!”
It didn’t.
“Yeah, nah, bit of a mongrel that one. Well, they all are, but must’ve been some monster jumped her bitch mother. Trick is, getting her to let go. Still working on that.”
“Get it off me!”
“Yeah, hurts like fuck, eh? Hang on, just let me tie this bugger up. He’s going apeshit. He can smell the blood, eh?”
What was this guy on? Tia tried to pant through the pain but it sharpened with every inhalation. Man, if she ever gave birth she was taking the drugs. Panting didn’t do shit. The dog—Jaws—gave a rolling growl. She forced her leg to relax. Maybe if she stopped resisting it’d stop the goddamn tugging. Its hold slackened—just long enough for it to adjust its bite and bust through fresh skin. She yelled.
She vaguely registered Shane leashing the brown dog to a tree and taking off a camo backpack. Something thudded down in front of the greyhound. A slab of meat. As it sniffed, Shane crouched and ruffled its ears. “G’boy. G’boy. What a good boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.” The bound brown dog yelped. Shane tossed another slab and it jumped and caught it, choking as it yanked the leash.
Shane grabbed a stubby stick from the bag and advanced on Jaws. “Yeah, bitch got me good, too, when I’s training her.” He thrust his left elbow at Tia and, with the stick—an artificial thing with rope at either end—pointed out a ragged red scar on his forearm, below his rolled shirt. “Right through the bite sleeve. Shouldn’t a got the cheap one. Fucking li’l shit.”
He turned to Jaws. “Release!” he barked. “Release! Nah, fuck, see? She’s useless.”
The dog stilled, giving Tia a split second of relief. Its nostrils flared, the whites of its eyes glowing in the dim light, ears pinned.
“Yeah, girl, you done good but you gotta know when it’s time to concede, mate.” He forced the stick between her jaws, the extra force threatening to snap Tia’s shin. “Release! Release!”
The pressure lifted. Tia inhaled. Shane kicked the dog’s stomach and it yelped and skittered sideways, tail down. He pulled another slab of meat from his bag. The dog slunk to it, eyeing Shane’s boot.
Tia’s leg throbbed, blood soaking her jeans, filling the puncture wounds. She closed her hands around her calf, which only cranked the pain from red hot to white hot. Whoa, so not the kind of wound that liked pressure. She eased off, blood dribbling over her hands.
“Jeez, she got you good. Gotta work on her people skills, eh? I keep ’em right on the edge of hungry so they don’t lose their fight. Keep ’em remembering they’re working dogs.”
Just what brand of psychopath was he? As Jaws chewed, Shane hooked a leash onto its collar.
“Who you dropping off kayaks for? You got hikers coming through? Three of ’em?”
Three? Shit. He hadn’t seen Cody? She’d been alone when he’d opened fire.
The longer she stalled him, the more of a head start Cody would get. She surreptitiously checked her watch, pretending she was inspecting the wound. Eleven minutes until 1800.
“I’m flying a big group of kayakers up in a few days. Had to spread out the load.”
“Yeah, you’re not gunna be now, are ya?” He laughed, as if it was a shared joke. “You found that guy, eh? That weirdo German, or whatever the fuck. I went easy on him. He went quick. Shoulda seen what I done to his missus.” His head bobbed in a self-congratulatory nod.
Oh God. She had to know if the woman was alive. “What did you do?”
“Oh, we just had a bit of fun, eh?”
Her forehead prickled. His voice held no malice. He wasn’t taunting her—it was the conversational tone of a passerby who’d stopped to change a stranger’s tire.
“What do you mean?” She couldn’t keep the fear from her tone.
“Bit of a game. Cat and mouse. Well, dog and mouse. It’s what I do—get rid of the guy and have a bit of fun with his missus. Hunt her like with the pigs—send the dog to find her, weaken her, then go in and finish off. You’ll see, later. Not that I’ve done it heaps, not yet. Only, like, four so far.” He sounded apologetic, as if he was humbly underplaying his achievements. “Five, soon.”
Not if I can help it. The pain had eased to a throb, giving her a beat of respite between pulses. Would she even be able to walk?
She’d be able to kayak.
Four so far. “Where are the others? The other three?”
“Ah, they’re all up bush. Possum food. Wait, do possums eat meat? Hey, might be good to give ’em a taste for it, eh? We could stop ’em stripping the trees, get ’em going after the pigs and goats. You should see the damage they do, up the valley. We gotta do something about that shit.”
“Totally agree. Tell me where and I’ll report it to the rangers. Maybe you could help us cull them? I bet you’d be good at that.”
He tilted his head, considering. “Nah, it’s okay,” he said finally, as if turning down a favor.
She chewed her lip. He seemed eager to talk. Too much time alone? The rock bank curved behind her like a sheer amphitheater. She couldn’t climb or run or fight, but she could stall until Cody got away. “Your name’s Shane, right? I’m Tia.”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember you, course.” He looped Jaws’s slack leash around a tree, secured it and sat with his back against the trunk. “Pigs are pretty good hunting—they really fight ya,” he said, like she’d just asked a question on the topic. “Especially if you use the knife and the dogs, not the AR. They’re a bit of fun. Stags, nah, too big a target, too easy. Just, boom, and it’s all over. Most animals ’round here are no fun with guns, unless you wanna go after birds, but they’re mostly natives so I leave ’em alone. Just the hawks coz they’re Australian—and they’re fun when they fall.” He made a spinning movement with a finger, emitting a low whistle. “I’m basically one of them, like, greenies.”
“A greenie?”
“Yeah, you know. Saving the environment and shit.”
O-kay. “You know your dogs are killing kiwi?”
“Yeah, yeah, that one by the hut? Knew you’d go off at me about that. Believe me, it’s not how I trained them, the buggers. It’s this one what’s the problem.” He swiped at Jaws and laughed when it flinched. “Nah, see, she’s not that bad. Knows who’s boss. We’ll see, we’ll see.”
“We could really use a guy like you as a trapper,” Tia ventured. “We always need people who know the bush, understand the problems. I could get you on the payroll when I return.”
“Nah, I’m not into traps. They’re cowardly, you know—well, except when you use them on humans. That’s pretty fun. Nah, you wanna hunt with guns, and humans make the best hunting. Animals are too predictable, see? They do exactly what you expect, every time. I been hunting them all me life.” He sniffed and wiped his nose along his knuckles. “Used to go hunting with the old man before he fucked off. And don’t you go judging him for walking out because you never met my mother. Right bitch, that one. Nah, humans are all different, eh? They try and outguess you, you know? It’s a fair fight.”
“Not when you’re armed and they’re not.”
“Ah, I give ’em a chance. Well, not the blokes. You never know when they’re gunna try and be a hero and go after you. Nah, you get rid of them and go after the women.” He licked his thin, dry lips. “See, the women, they’re smart. They know they gotta use their brains, not try and fight. They gotta run, try and trick you, talk, beg, fuck with you, keep you guessing. Cat and mouse, see? The men, that’s like cat and cat and that’s never gunna be fun, right? Not enough of a game. Nah, with them you just—” He mimed lifting a rifle and firing, blowing his cheeks out with a poof.
Where did she even start with that? “You know it’s wrong to hunt humans.”
“Yeah, I don’t reckon it should be. Humans are the fucking problem with this world. They could use a bit of a cull, eh?”
“You know it’s against the law?”
“Won’t be soon, when the end times come. No more laws. I read about it. I follow this dude’s blog and he knows all this shit. Preppers, that’s what we’re called. Survival of the fittest and all that.” His lips angled down in an exaggerated frown. “You seen all the shit that’s happening in the world. End times are coming sooner than you think. It’ll be dog-eat-dog. Except, you know, with humans. Except, well, I’m not eating anyone. Some people might, I guess, when it gets that bad. But not me. Not my thing.”
She stole a glance at her watch. Past 1800. Cody might give her some extra time, but he’d know not to wait too long.
“How would you feel if someone was hunting you, if they hurt someone you love?” She was saying whatever bollocks came to mind, but the longer they sat here, the more time Cody had.
“I’d fucking slaughter them. But I don’t give a fuck about anyone and no one gives a fuck about me, so all good there. I’m not the sort of guy people warm to.” He said it like he was letting her in on a secret.
“Okay, well, just so you know, my brother and grandfather would be gutted if something happened to me.”
“Huh,” he said, unmoved. She’d met people like him before, desperate people with that dead look in their eyes, who’d shrugged off their humanity for the sake of survival.
She tried again. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
“Do you...feel emotions?”
“Nah, that’d be weak, eh? Sometimes I get angry, you know, but not so much up here, where no one pisses me off. It’s peaceful, eh?” He smoothed his hands along the rifle resting across his knees. “I mean, I’m not thick. Lotta people think I am but I’m not. I know you’re not supposed to hunt humans but I’m doing us all a favor. When the end times come we’re gunna need the strong ones. You might survive, you know. We’re gunna need some women but they gotta be tough. No fucking princesses, eh? Even a woman’s gotta be useful for something. Well, something more than the obvious, right?” He laughed. “It’s all about getting ready. Yeah, nah, those last ones, they were disappointing, eh? Especially those Germans. I thought they might of worked out better. You’re gunna be good, though, you’re gunna be good. I can tell.” He looked at her bloody hands. “Your leg’s pretty fucked up, eh? I’d give you something for it but it’d be cheating for you. Gotta do this organically and shit. I might have to shoot it. Really put it out of action.”
Shit. “Wouldn’t I be more of a challenge if I could run?”
He jabbed a pointer finger at her. “See, that’s what I’m saying about women. They try and get in your head and shit.”
A distant artificial whistle pierced the air, above the birds, the river, the wind in the trees. Then the echoing yell of a man, far down the valley. Shit. Cody. He should have been way downriver.
Shane leaped to his feet and bounced around, rifle at his shoulder, peering into the trees like he had X-ray vision. Jaws shrank back at the sudden movement, tail tucked.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Trapper?”
“Nah, they came through already. I watched them, tracked them, for practice. That your kayaker mates?” He narrowed his slit eyes even more. “You been lying.”
More shouting. Another burst of the whistle. Damn you, Cody.
Half of Shane’s face twisted into a smile. “Is it your boyfriend?”
“No.”
He started pacing. “You been fucking sitting here lying to me this whole time.”
Breathing became a conscious effort. Should she double down on denying she knew about Cody, or admit it?
“Nah, I like that. That’s good.” Shane stopped pacing and turned to her. “Coz I was starting to think you were okay, and that might make it hard, you know? But nah, we’re good. If you’re trying to fuck with me, I get to fuck with you. I’ll go after him and come back for you. But first I gotta do this...”
He pointed the rifle at her knee and flicked the safety off.