The Night Is for Hunting by John Marsden Read Free Book Online Page A

in a certain direction but we’d go off in another one. The only way we could get around corners was to use the brakes and accelerator, and float in a kind of controlled skid. I got better at it as we went along. It took huge concentration. I couldn’t relax for a moment, and what was worse, I knew that if we were going to come out of this alive I’d have to concentrate for hours to come. I had quite a number of lives in my hands.
    We didn’t need to stop and hold a big conference about where to go. At times of worst stress and worst danger our minds always turned to the one place. That was why I hadn’t bothered answering Fi’s question.
    Hell. The basin of rocks and bush, so wild that no-one except us could get in. Apart from the Hermit no-one else in living memory had been down there.
    And now that we’d started out I couldn’t wait to get to Hell again. Stratton had its attractions – houses were much better than tents when it rained – but I hated living in the daily fear of Stratton. Or maybe it was just that I hate city life. Whatever, my feelings that Hell might be too claustrophobic, too unsafe, that we could do more important stuff in Stratton – all of that was replaced by an ache to be back there again.
    Occasionally I could hear the others trying to calm the kids. The truck was noisy, so I only heard little moments, like hearing the chorus of a song but not the verses. I sure had upset them, but I guess it wasn’t just me. It would have been everything they’d been through. I began wondering if maybe they’d be like us when we first met the horrible Major Harvey: we’d collapsed in a heap, and stopped being independent. We’d been grateful to have adults running things again, happy to let them take over. The kids might see us that way. I just hoped we’d do a better job than Major Harvey.
    I could only stay on the good road for half-a-dozen k’s, and even that was terribly risky. Then it was back to short cuts and detours and improvisation. Creative driving. The steering was even worse on the rough stuff. So I hardened myself against the chaos behind me. If they had to suffer a bit longer then they had to suffer a bit longer. We couldn’t compromise our hide-out, no matter what. There was no way in the world I would drive straight to Hell. We had to take heaps of precautions. That wild country may have been the only safe area for hundreds of square kilometres. Without Hell we were lost.
    I didn’t think about how we were going to get the kids up to Tailor’s Stitch. If they were badly injured it might be quite a problem. I couldn’t believe they were that bad though. What had Lee said? Broken limbs? That meant arms or legs. Well, they’d survive that. We’d have to worry about it later.
    As the crow flies it’s not far from Stratton to Hell, but firstly we weren’t crows and secondly we sure weren’t going the fastest way, even for humans. One old dirt road looked like it hadn’t been used since the gold rush. It took us straight down into a steep gully and at the bottom it forded a river that was running hard. I switched on the lights for a minute to look, but couldn’t judge the depth. I just had to take the risk and go for it. Halfway across I had second thoughts. The water got deeper and deeper and the road felt rougher and crumblier. If a part of it had washed away we were in big trouble. We hit a couple of huge potholes and lurched around. I felt the rear shift from side to side. Even though the truck had a high clearance, water was coming in through the floor and swishing around my ankles.
    I think my armpits were as wet as the chassis of the truck by the time we started up the other side.
    I didn’t know this country but I knew our general position. The mountains behind our place were away on the left, to the east. When we started to climb a little I thought it was time to head more directly homewards. I swung off the road at the next gateway into a paddock, stopped, hopped