The Hunting (8 page)

‘I know,’ Genie agreed. ‘Your point is?’

Renée just smiled. ‘It’s kinda cool. Like knowing a witch. Can you do spells?’

Genie laughed. ‘Sure, I’m going to do the “Shut up Renée the annoying girl” spell, right now.’

Renée smiled. ‘I say we go back upriver aways. Right to the place we capsized. I know we think we’ve been there, but I don’t think we have.’

Genie accepted that. It was quite logical. She thought she’d retraced her steps but maybe she hadn’t.

‘OK. Last time.’

‘If he ain’t there, we have to keep going. After all, Ri knows where we’re headed.’

Moucher splashed and swam alongside them, still puzzled they never seemed to stop for food any more, but he didn’t see Genie eating either.

A light plane flew over, but that was the only clue that the world was still going on out there. Genie kept a good eye out for those hunters too, but perhaps she’d been wrong; they may have been guys out to kill birds or deer, or whatever they did out here. Leastways, the river was empty of people.

Renée shouted. ‘Oh my God. It’s his Converse. Red. Genie, see where the toe had green paint on it.’

Renée picked it up and handed it to Genie. It was definitely Rian’s. She held on to it, dreading finding other bits of him. Grandma Munby would have told her if he were dead, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t let her go looking for a dead boy, would she?

Moucher began to bark. He swam and ran as fast he could suddenly, heading out of the river to the riverbank, scrabbling up and out, frantic to get to wherever he was going.

Renée and Genie exchanged worried glances. They were scared to find out what Mouch had found. What if Ri was dead? What would they do then?

Mouch was suddenly silent. Genie stopped. They could hear it now. Engine. Someone was coming upstream on the main river.

Genie and Renée ran for where Mouch was crouched in a dip. Rian was lying there, asleep or unconscious; they didn’t have time to find out. They lay flat on the sand. Genie grabbed Rian’s hand and was relieved to discover he had a pulse.

The inflatable came upriver at speed. Renée was watching. Two men, one tall, the other young, wearing flak jackets, sporting shotguns. Definitely the same two from the night before.

They slowed, took their time looking around. Renée pressed her face into the sand. She prayed this dip was out of their line of sight.

Genie studied Rian’s face. There was swelling on one side of his head and abrasions. His hair was caked in dried blood. He must have hit his head hard. Was he sleeping or unconscious?

At last the hunters gunned the engine again and sped off. Neither Genie or Reneé moved. Just in case.

Genie was just about to stand when she heard the breach open and snap shut. One of them had got off the boat. Renée looked over at her.

‘What now?’ she mouthed.

Genie inched her way to the lip of the little dip and checked the scene. It was the younger one. Checking the rockpools for bodies. Just as they had been doing.

Moucher began to growl. Genie quickly grabbed his neck and his attention and shook her head. Reluctantly he obeyed.

Genie slid back. ‘Get me a rock?’ she whispered.

‘Rock?’ Renée took a peek and saw the kid walking back down the rapids.

‘We have to get rid of this guy,’ Genie said tersely.

‘He’s got a shotgun,’ Renée pointed out. ‘Just let him get out of sight.’

‘No. Ri needs help now.’

Renée shook her head. ‘Stay calm. No rock, Genie.’

Genie desperately wanted to help Rian. She had no patience whatsoever.

The kid took his time and was thorough, looking in every crevice for bodies. Clearly he thought they were dead.

Renée was pointing up to the riverbank trees. ‘We can drag him there. We got to get away from the river.’

Genie saw what she meant. There was an open space behind the trees and they’d be hidden. She turned her head to see how far the kid had gone. He was standing right above them, his gun pointing at her head. He grinned. ‘Which one of you is Genie?’

Genie reacted instantly, without thinking.

Later, she remembered a host of flash images. Herself gathering handfuls of sand and throwing it up towards his eyes. The boy yelling with surprise. A shotgun going off very loud and someone screaming in pain. Rian waking with a sudden shout. Moucher biting the kid real hard on his ankle, followed by some frantic running towards the trees. No way was that boy going to run after them with his ankle bitten and, better yet, Genie had retrieved his shotgun from out of the water.

Renée took charge, grabbing Rian’s hand, getting them beyond the trees. They ran across a hay-field spotted with crimson fireweed until they couldn’t run any more and collapsed in a heap by an old road. Rian was sneezing from the flowers and had a splitting headache. The lump on the side of his head was the size of a doughnut and he had cuts on his cheek, arms and legs. He was pleased to get his shoe back though, even if it was soaking wet.

‘How long was I out?’

‘Hours. We lost you. Had to backtrack the river twice.’

Rian hugged both of them. ‘You guys should have left me. Big risk to stay.’

Genie was looking back across the field, holding on to some wild peppermint, tasting some and savouring the heady scent. ‘How long before they give chase? His father will come back for him for sure.’

‘You know how to use that thing?’ Rian asked Genie as she toted the shotgun.

She shook her head. ‘But just as long as they don’t have it, I’m happy. First swamp I see it’s going in. Everything happened so fast …’

Renée was nursing sores from scratches she’d got from the field. She pointed towards some rabbits jumping up to see over the long grass. ‘Cute.’

Mouch saw them but was too exhausted to give chase.

‘Hares,’ Rian remarked rubbing his head. ‘Too big to be rabbits. We got a plan? I hope it includes getting some pills for my head.’

‘You should be resting. Getting an X-ray maybe,’ Genie told him.

Rian took Genie’s hand and squeezed it. ‘Uh-huh. We have to keep moving.’

But they didn’t move, they all lay there exhausted and nervous, feeling guilty about not moving on but reluctant to stir. Rian kept glancing behind him.

‘He ain’t coming, Ri. Mouch bit him good and his foot will be hurting. I think he shot it,’ Genie said. ‘We need to keep moving, guys,’ she added, standing up in her squishy sneakers.

That’s when she heard a car approaching. Moucher barked. Genie stuck out her thumb, only thinking about what she was doing as the car came into view. Hell, it could have been anyone driving. Cops, hunters, Reverend Schneider. Anyone looking for them. Too late to worry about that now: the vehicle slowed to a stop.

It was a beaten-up Volvo wagon. The heavy-set woman in a brown felt hat didn’t drive off when she caught sight of Rian with his bloodied T-shirt and Renée covered in dried mud. She wound down the window and looked at them hard, as if appraising them. She didn’t seem alarmed by the sight of the shotgun or the blood.

‘I kinda bet you’ve got a good story to tell,’ she said. ‘Get in, put the shotgun in the back and make sure the safety is on. I don’t like guns. Where you headed?’

‘Vancouver,’ Genie told her, walking round to the back and opening it up. Mouch got up first and immediately leaped into the back seat. Genie placed the shotgun alongside some stout walking sticks and a box of cat food.

‘I’m heading to Mission. Should be easy hitching from there.’

They all piled in. The car stank of something – some kind of herb, sage possibly; pretty overpowering.

‘Name’s Betty,’ she told them as she set off.

‘Betty Juniper?’ Genie exclaimed. It had to be. ‘Ferry’s friend?’

The woman was more surprised than they were. She looked at Genie carefully as she climbed in and shut the door.

‘You know Ferry? From the gas station?’

‘We just dropped a letter off for you from him at Bear Island. Sorry ’bout your place. Must have been real nice before the flood.’

‘Well, goodness gracious. You’re Genie Magee. I’ll be damned. Grandma Munby’s little grandchild. I’m blessed. Ain’t it just a goddamn small wonderful world.’ She checked the mirror, looking at Rian. ‘You hit something hard on the rapids back there, huh. I got myself a lump like that when I was a kid. Thought I’d be tough and went upriver to Hell’s Gate, serious white-water rafting. Rite of passage.’ She laughed. ‘Looked pretty much like you do now, got tossed right out and nearly drowned. I’ll never do that again, that’s for sure. Genie, open the glovebox, take out some pills and pass them to him. There’s a bottle of water down about your feet somewhere.’

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ Rian said. ‘I’m sorry about your place too.’

‘It’s more than a tragedy. Insurance won’t pay out. Act of God and all that. I was in tears for a while, but I had good years there. Might get it fixed, might not.’

‘You’d need a new bridge too,’ Renée chipped in. ‘Weren’t you lonely there?’

‘Lonely? I was booked solid. Had two big gay weddings booked for fall and the birders come all the time. Some days I had to install a turnstile on the bridge.’

Genie laughed. It was an exaggeration, but she could see why people would go there. Some part of it was probably this loud, friendly woman with an infectious smile.

‘Well, I’m in no rush and there’s a cute little teahouse about ten clicks down the road. We should get you guys cleaned up. I want to know all about Ferry and you. And how’s my house look? Bad?’

‘Needs fixing up for sure,’ Renée informed her. ‘Pears are sweet though and we ate some of your salad stuff.’

She laughed. ‘Thank God someone did. You guys must have a guardian angel looking after you. You know how many people are looking for you?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Rian said. ‘If you’re going to stop someplace, we’d appreciate it if it isn’t anywhere near the river. We’re a little too popular right now.’

Betty nodded, driving faster now, hardly even slowing for bends. ‘Don’t you worry. Ferry spoke to me only yesterday. He’s fretting himself silly back in Spurlake about you. He’ll be so happy to hear you’re safe.’

Genie looked at her and heard Grandma Munby’s voice again.
Go east on the Cariboo road. She’ll be waiting for you
. So weird, so completely weird. Yet true.

‘And don’t fret about getting to Vancouver. I’ll make sure someone gets you there. That Fortress has made our lives a misery ever since they built it. This part of B.C. used to be corner of heaven, now it’s becoming like hell.’

Rian fell asleep against Renée’s shoulders. Genie thought again of her grandma and remembered to say thanks. They were rescued – for now.

G
enie thought the Victorian teahouse was like something out of
Mary Poppins
. An old-fashioned clapboard house with two pointy towers at either end and two guys dressed in tweeds serving scones, apple pie and Lady Grey tea in their back garden under a glass roof. There wasn’t even a sign outside, yet there were at least four couples sitting at other tables and someone inside buying homemade jam and cakes. There was nothing like this in Spurlake. She loved the old fireplace with marble surround and a hissing log slow-burning in the grate. A fat ginger cat slept in front of it and barely acknowledged visitors.

‘It’s like Miss Marple,’ Renée hissed as she went to find the bathroom. ‘I saw it on TV and it’s just like this.’

Genie grinned. She had no idea who Miss Marple was but she was glad Renée liked it.

Rian was eating hot scones, trying not to let the butter drip on to his jeans. Betty talked to the owners and swapped guest horror stories. It was a good respite from their ordeals so far.

Genie saw Renée silently signalling her over to join her in the bathroom. Rian saw it too. ‘Impossible for a girl to go to the bathroom alone, huh.’

Genie just sighed, crammed down the last of her scone and went to join Renée. She passed an old grandfather clock in the hallway and what looked like a stuffed penguin. She wondered how the hell that got there.

Renée was in the cubicle already.

‘You OK?’ Genie asked.

‘I’m bleeding.’

‘You on?’

‘No. I’m bleeding. I got pretty cut up on the river and it’s not healing.’

‘Can I look?’

‘Wait.’ Genie waited. She heard Renée flush and then opened the door that she hadn’t locked anyway.

‘My God, Renée. Why didn’t you say?’

Genie was looking at a jagged cut right from the back of her thigh to her ass. It was a good fifteen centimetres long and quite deep.

‘You didn’t notice?’

Renée was looking at her and shrugged. ‘The water was cold. My jeans are still wet and I guess the blood sort of soaked into the denim. It didn’t hurt until I pulled them down and the scab peeled away with it.’

‘Ouch.’ Genie sucked in her breath. It would leave a nasty scar unless it was fixed real fast.

‘We have to get something, Renée. You can’t just leave it. It might get infected.’

‘What will get infected?’ Betty asked, entering the bathroom. ‘We have to go.’

She saw Renée’s cut and her face blanched. ‘My goodness, girl, we have to get that treated right away. What happened?’

Renée tried to pull up her jeans, but it was sore and they were damp; she was embarrassed.

‘Stay there. I’ll get Francis. He used to be a nurse. He’s got everything here.’

‘Nooo,’ Renée protested, but to an empty room as Genie and Betty had already left to find Francis.

Five minutes later she was bent over a chair, bright red in the face as Francis, who took her injuries very seriously, sewed her up, ignoring her protests and her ouches. He cleaned it, stitched it, and rubbed an antibiotic cream on it and tut-tutted a lot, but Renée appreciated his care and, much to her surprise, it didn’t hurt too much at all.

Francis even found her a pair of jeans, only one size bigger than Renée and, most importantly, dry and warm.

‘I have seen some asses in my time,’ Francis said in all seriousness, ‘but yours is a pretty derrière, my dear. You should be proud.’

Renée laughed, but accepted the compliment. It was good to know.