the twisted mess that was once handlebars and collapsed, vomiting into the dirt. The few retches in him were matched with pain and a light-headedness. Great, he mumbled through chattering teeth. This was no good, just no good at all. He began crawling in the direction of the fence as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark. The shadowy forms of timber, tufts of grass and trees surrounding him.
Anthony placed one hand after another, dragging himself slowly across the rutted ground. Every movement was agony but he couldn’t just lie there and hope someone would come looking. No one knew where he was. Eventually his search for timber became an odyssey to keep moving, an odyssey spurred by a knowing. He was aware of something deep within him that wasn’t right. It was a sensation that went beyond the excruciating jabs from his leg or the pounding headache that threatened to stop all movement. He was having problems breathing and there was a terrible weakness sucking at his body. At least the pain drew him on, kept him awake and focused. If he could make it to the edge of the cultivation by morning he could rest. Perhaps he could crawl straight across the new cultivation to the bridge. Small steps, he reminded himself, as his face hit dirt for the hundredth time and he spat dry granules from his mouth. Small steps, he repeated, his mind forming the words yet his mouth too tired to speak them.
The dull thud of kangaroos echoed through the trees. There was a slight swish of air through leaves. He sensed open space and relished this slight victory of distance over pain. He grimaced through the final erratic grasps of his hand, his fingers ready to close around newly tilled soil. Instead he reached for loose dirt and looked directly into the eyes of a fox. The animal was very close to him. He sat as if waiting and showed no signs of moving from Anthony’s path when he continued onwards. And continue Anthony did, crawling forward as the animal backed away. Crawling forward in the path of the fox he’d followed so carelessly earlier. Was there a lair ahead, Anthony wondered, some hungry cubs waiting to be fed? He was beginning to expect the worst of the quietly patient carnivore, when the remains of a building rose up from the clearing. He paused breathlessly, his mind scrambling to decipher the unknown structure. His eyes traced the fallen roof and the broken gutters. Most of the house was wrecked. The large verandah was about the only element still intact, although the boards were rumpled like an untidy blanket and saplings grew through the wood like spiky chin hairs. Anthony let out a moan of despair. He had no idea where he was. He was lost.
Giving a weak chuckle at the stupidity of his accident, Anthony burrowed his cheek in the dirt, his breath shallow. He could see the fox from where he lay, sitting on the ruined verandah, his head tilted to one side. There was an ancient hitching post to the left of the animal and wavering trees. The ground grew colder. The increasing chill and accompanying shivering began to surpass the excruciating pain in his leg. He prayed silently, wishing for help, wishing to be found. His breath sent bursts of dirt from the ground near his mouth, the same soil creeping steadily into his nose. Anthony sensed that even with the temperature dropping to zero and a nasty frost looming, exposure wasn’t his main concern. He tried to turn over, however the earth rose up like a billowing sheet and he collapsed. There was something seriously wrong and although he could only guess at the extent of his injuries, his eyes pictured a black and white film running to the end of a flickering negative. When the next river of pain struck him, his fingers gripped at the unyielding dirt. ‘Sarah,’ he whispered weakly. ‘Come home’.
Lauren woke late, a thin line of drool forming a wet patch beneath her cheek. A curtain of spindly needlewood leaves obscured her vision and she lifted her legs from where she’d hooked them over the side of the dray, struggling into a sitting position. Her clothes were damp from last night’s rain and her lower back argued nastily with the abrupt change in her position. The old nag still tethered to the dray complained briefly by snorting and striking the earth.
‘Shhh. You’re lucky you’ve still