Free Circle of Flight by John Marsden Page A

touch and the carcass of the second steer wasn’t getting any closer. I heard Lee’s gun pounding again and again as I ran forever across the paddock. Oh, I didn’t want to do this. The excitement was intense, yes, and I had become addicted to it, yes, and although I loved music and friends and peace, nothing beat the burning agony of mind and body that took me over when my life was on the line, but enough was enough and I wanted to be a human being again. You can’t be a human being in wartime.
    A bullet screeched past me, the strange howling sound that resembles nothing else, and then another, even closer. I took another dive, into another dead or dying beast, and cuddled into its warm flanks. If I lived to a ripe old age a lot of animals were going to die, to feed and clothe me, or because I was driving a car, or because I hadn’t protected them from foxes or crows. But not many of them would die so directly at my hands as these two cattle.
    I took a quick look at the grove of trees. Again the firing had stopped. I waved to Lee and fired a first shot to give him cover. An answering shot slammed into my steer so hard that the carcass rocked at its impact. But there were no more. I wondered again if they were running out of ammo. I didn’t have much more myself. As Lee left the shelter of the first beast I opened fire though. I had to. No good letting Lee get killed because I was saving ammo for some hypothetical situation later. I aimed at the places where I’d seen the little flashes of fire, not really expecting to hit anyone, but you never know your luck in a big paddock.
    Lee arrived unscathed, but panting hard again. ‘What do you reckon?’ he asked between pants.
    ‘I reckon I haven’t got much ammo left.’
    ‘Me neither.’
    In covering Lee I’d used up another magazine. Now, trying to stop my hands from trembling, I shoved the rest of my bullets in. I didn’t want them piled in there higgledy-piggledy, where they’d jam later.
    ‘We could aim for the far end of those trees and then do a bit of stalking,’ I said.
    Lee licked his lips. ‘I don’t think there’s much point.’ Before I could say anything he added, ‘Looked at from a logical point of view. I mean, we’re trying to get Gavin back. We haven’t hurt them, just given them a fright, so if we quit the fight at this stage they shouldn’t have any hard feelings. They shouldn’t take it out on Gavin.’
    ‘But then what? We leave them wandering around the place to do what they want? I don’t want to go off to Havelock while these morons are running wherever they like on the property.’
    ‘We could call the cops in to round them up.’
    ‘Then we’ve got the same problem, that their mates will hear about it if they’re caught and Gavin could pay the price.’
    It was such an urgent conversation and my brain wouldn’t work. I couldn’t think of a solution that would be perfect, and I only wanted perfection.
    He said in that cold voice that can turn off sunshine and bring hail: ‘Well then, what we need is to kill them before they contact their base, so their friends never know what’s happened to them.’
    It was more or less what we’d agreed back at the house, but somehow it sounded more chilling to hear it out here in the warm paddock, with the two men so close. They were real now, even if we knew nothing about them.
    While I searched my mind for the right thing to say Lee suddenly stiffened. It was like a snake had bitten him or he had bull ants climbing his leg.
    ‘There they go,’ he said.
    Sure enough the two men were haring across the paddock, going up the slight rise, heading for the boundary fence. I hadn’t expected that. They were probably low on ammo, but besides that, they might have been a bit spooked by having us chase them across the paddock. They could see that we were in a good position to attack them in their trees, and I suppose the relentlessness of our pursuit could be getting discombobulating. For