The Seventh Day by Joy Dettman Page A

growth here, grey clusterings that shelter beside rocks and amid the tree roots. Lenny cuts this stuff for the stock and brings it down on his wheel-sled and I think the cows like it better than pumpkin.
    I can not now see the fence, but if I look up, I believe I can see the place of the spring cave for there is a glimpse of the green weeping trees which shelter its mouth. They are the only true green on our land and they retain their colour in all except the coldest season; the group is well watered by the spring, and how the stock like their leaves and also the small grasses that grow in their shelter. Too high, too far above me it is today, and a fence between. I need water.
    I turn back, look towards the house, now hidden behind the woods. I will retrace my footsteps and tonight wait for the grey men to come and carry me away in their machine.
    This thought is enough to send my feet hurrying forward along the animal track, though the way is not easy. In truth, I begin to fear my thirst, and my hand, which is reaching, reaching, ever reaching for the cordial.
    Then I see it above me, the glint of the fence, and my seeking hand is required again for more climbing.
    The narrow track leads me up, and up to the fence’s end at the edge of a ravine. And that is why it ends, because there is nowhere for it to go. But small feet have found a way around, for the track continues on the other side.
    â€˜Foolish city fence,’ I say and, like the animals, I crawl down to a ledge where a slim wire-wrapped metal support stands tall. The ledge is not so narrow. On hands and knees, my basket placed before me, I make careful and slow progress around the support, and when I stand again I am on the other side of the singing wire with only a gentle climb before me. I laugh, follow it as it twists, turns up, and up, and up.
    At one such turning I see to the side of me a patch of blue. It is something blown here on the wind or dropped from a searcher’s craft. For minutes I sit on a boulder, my eyes scanning the area for a fallen searcher. I see no crushed silver wings so my interest returns to the blue and, beside it, the glint of gold.
    Granny once said that in the time long before old Aaron Morgan, there was much gold found in these hills, and even in Morgan creek. It was a malleable metal, similar to that which Lenny uses to make the dart heads for his gun, and it is of as much interest to me, for though in recent weeks he has allowed me to handle his day calculating machine, he will not allow me to handle his dart gun – too often Granny threatened him with such a gun.
    The weeping green at the cave mouth is closer now, though the climbing up to it again grows steep. I don’t much like this path, but when I next stop to rest and look down to the ravine, I have a clear view of the blue and the gold.
    And I know that it can not be what it appears to be.
    My basket left on the rocks, I climb higher, until I can see what is below me, and I see what does not now appear to be such a random arrangement of colour. There are two arms outstretched, the thickness of trunk. Two legs.
    â€˜Lord help me,’ I whisper as cold fingers creep to my neck, and to the hair on my scalp. Then, with little thought given to the inescapable return climb, I scramble down.
    Once amid the stunted trees and rocks I lose sight of the blue, and wonder at my stupidity. Have I not fought hard enough to get this close to water? Was the climb so easy that I go back to do it again? But I step around a clump of the grey scrubby growth and I see him.
    And I see him!
    He is less than half a man’s length from the edge of the ravine, and it is my dear Jonjan and insects swarm around him and on him and he has about him the smell of death.
    So young he was, and strong, on the day of our entwining; he walked so free, his arms swinging, his long yellow hair shining clean. Now it is a matted nest of dust and blood. I weep for him as I cradle his head in