sleep, Ren whispers, “What if he wakes up?”
“He’ll never wake up,” says Toby.
“Oh,” says Ren in a tiny voice. Is that admiration of Toby, or simply awe in the face of death? He wouldn’t have lived, Toby tells herself, not with a leg as bad as that. Attempting to treat it would have been a waste of maggots. Still, she’s just committed a murder. Or an act of mercy: at least he didn’t die thirsty.
Don’t kid yourself, babe, says the voice of Zeb in her head. You had vengeance in mind.
“May his Spirit go in peace,” she says out loud. Such as it is, the fuck-pig.
70
TOBY. SAINT RACHEL AND ALL BIRDS
YEAR TWENTY-FIVE
Toby wakes just before dawn. In the distance there’s a liobam, its odd plaintive roar. Dogs barking. She moves her arms, then her legs: she’s stiff as a slab of cement. The dampness of the mist goes right into the marrow.
Here comes the sun, a hot rose lifting out of peach-coloured clouds. The leaves on the overhanging trees are covered with tiny droplets that shine in the strengthening pink light. Everything looks so fresh, as if newly created: the stones on the rooftop, the trees, the spiderwebbing slung from branch to branch. Sleeping Ren seems luminous, as if silvered all over. With the pink top-to-toe tucked around her oval face and the mist beading her long eyelashes, she’s frail and otherworldly, as if made of snow.
The light hits Ren directly, and her eyes open. “Oh shit, oh shit,” she says. “I’m late! What time is it?”
“You’re not late for anything,” says Toby, and for some reason both of them laugh.
Toby scouts with the binoculars. To the east, where they’ll be going, there’s no movement, but to the west there’s a group of pigs, the biggest gathering of them she’s seen to date — six adults, two young. They’re strung out along the roadside like round flesh pearls on a necklace; they have their snouts down, snuffling along as if they’re tracking.
Tracking us, thinks Toby. Maybe they’re the same pigs: the grudge-bearing pigs, the funeral-holding pigs. She stands up, waves the rifle in the air, shouts at them: “Go away! Piss off!” At first they just stare, but when she brings the rifle down and aims it at them they lollop off into the trees.
“It’s almost like they know what a rifle is,” says Ren. She’s a lot steadier this morning. Stronger.
“Oh, they know,” says Toby.
They clamber down the tree, and Toby lights the Kelly kettle. Although there’s no sign of anyone around, she doesn’t want to risk making a bigger fire. She’s worried about the smoke — will anyone smell it? Zeb’s rule was: Animals shun fire, humans are drawn to it.
Once the water has boiled she makes tea. Then she parboils more of the purslane. That will warm them up enough for their early walking. Later they can have more Mo’Hair soup, from the three legs remaining.
Before they leave, Toby checks the gatehouse room. Blanco’s cold; he smells even worse, if that’s possible. She rolls him onto the blanket and drags him out to the rooted-up earth of the flower bed. Then she finds his knife on the floor where he dropped it. It’s sharp as a razor; with it she slits his filthy shirt up the front. Hairy fishbelly. If she was being thorough, she’d open him up — the vultures would thank her — but she remembers the sickening reek of innards from the dead boar. The pigs will take care of it. Maybe they’ll view Blanco as an atonement offering to them and forgive her for shooting their fellow pig. She leaves the knife among the flowers. Good tool, but bad karma.
She heaves the wrought-iron gate shut behind them; the electronic lock’s non-functional, so she uses some of her rope to tie it shut. If the pigs decide to follow, the gate won’t deter them for long — they can dig under — but it may give them pause.
Now she and Ren are outside the AnooYoo grounds, walking along the weed-bordered road that leads through the Heritage Park. They come to some picnic-table clearings; the kudzu is crawling over the trash barrels and barbecues, the tables and benches. In the sunlight, which is hotter by the minute, butterflies waft and spiral.
Toby takes her bearings: downhill, to the east, must be the shore and then the sea. To the southwest, the Arboretum, with the creek where the Gardener children used to launch their miniature Arks. The