Quandary?

The sinuous figure of Derek Marley paused at a corner on the bushy trail and squatted down behind a large granite rock, his chest rhythmically heaving from exertion.  Shielded by a big fern, he quickly slipped a monocular from his Swazi Kagoule.  He looked back down the valley and muttered “I don’t believe it … they’ve got tracker dogs now!”  He knew that he still had 40 minutes lead on his pursuers, but really couldn’t work it out.  For three days he had been hounded by what looked like a para-military group.  They’d covered about 240 km across quite difficult terrain in that time.  Derek was an elite athlete who competed in multi-day endurance events.  A group of soldiers shouldn’t be able to have kept anywhere near him … and now they had dogs. It was becoming a nightmare, a mysterious nightmare.

“I don’t understand any of this”, Derek continued, trying to recall how this all started.  He knew he was desperately in need of sleep and the introduction of the dogs made this even more tricky.  He was vaguely aware that he was carrying an item of great importance in his day pack.  He didn’t know what it was, and right at this moment of crisis, he couldn’t quite recall who he was taking it to, or where that person or entity was.  “South, I know that … and I am sure if I can just get somewhere to rest, and think for a bit, it will come back to me … it has to!”  

Bewilderingly, he couldn’t think of a scenario that would have a well-drilled, uniformed group of soldiers, here in peaceful old New Zealand, chasing a nobody like him.  He’d seen them through the magnifying lens of the monocular in enough detail to ascertain that they looked ‘ordinary’ and were carrying arms.  This was not an invading force from an Asian country.  “So it’s not like John Marsden’s Tomorrow, When the War Began.  Could it be that we seceded, and this is a North Island force after me to get back whatever I have got?”  Although confused and wanting answers, Derek decided on a plan of getting somewhere safe, then clearing his mind of all the immediacies that were clogging it.  He needed some understanding of what he was involved with, so he could at least formulate some tactics, and stop being the fox and start being the hound.

The going was typical of the central South Island on the western side of the Southern Alps.  The mixed podocarp bush was not easy to traverse but there were enough tracks for him to keep a good stride up, not quite a full-on run, but way faster than a soldier’s march, even in double-time.  The previous days had shown that Derek’s followers had to be a ‘special’ squad. “Possibly they are being rested and rotated somehow?”  Originally he had thought he would just outrun them.  He couldn’t believe that this wasn’t able to be made happen.  Four times he had been part of teams on the podium after The Southern Traverse, one of the world’s hardest multisport races.  “ Hundreds of kays run, night after night without sleep … and I can’t seem to outrun some ‘squaddies!  Surely I am not losing my touch … there’s something strange going on?”

After a few zig-zags up through some fern and along an exposed escarpment, a plateau was reached and some fast time was made running alongside a stream which Derek knew would flow down into a small river, then into a bigger one and finally into the largest flow down to the coast. After a couple of kilometres, he saw an opportunity to finally stop running.  Among the native bush, right on the track’s edge was a cluster of four wilding pines which he assessed to be ideal for his quickly-formulated plan.  Checking his watch for time, he then ran on for ten minutes and fortuitously this corresponded with an ideal place to possibly cross the stream. Derek stepped out into the creek, balancing on a couple of rocks, then with a longish manuka pole he reached downstream and dislodged a flat rock, hoping to encourage thought that he had gone into the water to confuse the dogs.  After checking his shoes were not wet or leaving footprints, he quickly made his way back ten minutes to the wilding pines.

After emptying his bladder at the foot of the nearest tree, quickly he took from the top of his pack, a 10 m rope with a knotted end.  This he then threw up and over a solid branch about 3 m from the ground.  Just as the knotted end passed over the bough, he flicked the rope sideways so when he pulled tight, it created a secure hitch.  Hand over hand, with foot-clenches giving upward thrusts, he quickly climbed into the tree’s foliage and made his way a good 8 m up.  From there he similarly ‘lassoed’ the neighbouring tree, shinnying down to about 4 m before swinging like Tarzan across to the next.  This action was repeated four times before finally getting across to a large matai.  After climbing this as high as he could, he settled in the fork of a couple of sturdy branches against the trunk. Moving to the side furthest away from the track, he tied himself to the tree and settled, pulling his jacket’s hood over his head.  He was now about 30 m from the track, and at no stage had he left a scent at ground level.

About eight minutes later, just as he was in the half-world of near-somnolence, he heard the dogs excitedly find his little tell-tale dried urination in the pine needles.  After a pause the dogs then led the handlers and foot-soldiers away down the track.  Derek had hoped to calmly try and settle his thoughts, then mentally retrace the week before he went into the bush on this mission … to learn the ‘what, why and who etc’.  However, tiredness took him away and with the sounds of the pursuers still just faintly coming to him, he lapsed into a deep sleep.

The summer dawn meant that Derek was out of his eyrie and away by 5 am. A granola bar and a power-gel carbo shot would suffice as the body’s fuel for the next few hours.  He had decided that instead of taking what would be the sensible, more obvious option of following the unfolding valleys down to the coast, then heading south on the good going of the cultivated land, he would initially head away from the coast, toward the main divide and to climb over into the next valley.  This would similarly get him out onto the good going but nearly 30 km further south. Just as in his racing days, he put in a strong five-hour stint, keeping his heart rate up around the 150 mark, before pausing for more sustenance.  There had been constant tree cover and although he had heard the thudding sounds of a chopper at one stage, he was pretty confident that he’d gapped the pursuers.

With his focus always on the unmade trail and thoughts constantly running through escape scenarios, there still hadn’t been an opportunity to reflect and analyse what was going on. Had the ‘flight’ mode of his persona kicked in so strongly that it overwhelmed everything else?  He’d even run his hands over his head to confirm that there were no injuries that could have somehow caused a concussion and resulting confusion.  “I don’t understand it, but it’s real, it’s fucking real!  I am being hunted … but sometimes the fox gets away!”

All day he kept a steady pace, eyes always watching the going to ensure his footfalls were safe and reliable.  A sprained ankle or any sort of fall could put his freedom in jeopardy. ‘To finish first, first you have to finish’ had been one of the team’s mantras – the other had been ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going!’  With these two corny catch-phrases repeating in his head, he still had no time for the cerebral clarification that he was seeking. “Later, later! Win the now!”  By eight o’clock he was not far off the snowline bald tops of the range running east-west down towards the coast. He settled for a resuscitating sleep, setting his Apple Watch alarm for 11.30 pm.

All his endurance events involved travelling at night, so slipping on his head torch and setting off up the scree was ‘just another day at the office’.  By 4.00 am he was back into the cover of the beech forest in the next valley, so took a two-hour top-up sleep.  A long morning followed with no signs of what he thought of as ‘the chasers’. Another high-energy repast was taken in the early afternoon along with a quick 45 minute ‘siesta’.  His map showed a bridge over the Mapleton River about 25 km upstream from the river mouth and settlement of Hinekura, where he knew there was a store that he could restock his dwindling supplies from.  Whether he could get the high-energy food of his preference, only time would tell. His legs were sore and his shoulders ached, but this was the norm in any of his big events – a low-level of torture that he had trained his body to endure. “It’s what I do, It’s what I am good at!” he told himself for possibly the hundredth time. “It’s why I am skinny with strong legs and big lungs!”

The long downhill afternoon and evening were hard on those strong legs and Derek was looking forward to another sleep when he finally came to a bluff overlooking the bridge.  Just before he stepped up to the edge, a premonition swept over him and he retreated to a thick stand of ake ake to take stock and carefully check out the bridge. To his horror he saw that it had been cordoned off and about 15 soldiers were on station.  They were just setting up a light bank.  This called for a slight change of plans and Derek accordingly sidled along the riverbank through stands of kanuka and kahikatea for another 30 minutes.  It was past nine and dusk was settling over the landscape like a cloak when he slipped into the river about 2 km downstream.  It was unfortunate that this part of the river was deep and cold, but it was what it was, and there seemed to be no alternative at the time as there was quite a lit-up cluster of building just a bit further on.  He was being hemmed in.

Cold and shivering, he emerged from the Mapleton, knowing that he needed warmth.  His skinny, wiry build left him very susceptible to cold and hyperthermia was now a real threat. He knew that he could get a fire going, but where?  He also knew that he would be better out of his wet clothes as what little body warmth he had left wouldn’t last long in sodden clothing ...

_{Brian Harper exhaled noisily and stroked the black cat on his lap.  “Bugger me, I think I have written myself into a corner again!” He leant back on his swivel-back chair and pondered for a bit.}

_{“Well Baghy, I think we need to go to bed and think about this.  Too many explanations almost always ruin a story.  They say that you should paint the picture with words and make the imagery tell the tale. You don’t need a bloody narrator!  Mind you, I don’t know who ‘they’ are … or if they are right!”}

_{Bagheera, the jet black cat, yawned his approval. “And I’ve only got another 1,000 words left to tie it all together. I keep telling Edwards that 3,000 is not enough … but every month it is the same … fits his format … and readership, he says!  Maybe I should have taken him up on the suggestion that I write erotica instead.  I mean how hard can that be?.”  There was no response from the cat.}

_{In bed, with Bagheera purring away on the adjoining pillow, Brian did indeed start making bullet points in his head.  “It would be a piece of piss!  I’d have ‘a frisson of excitement’, ‘quivering with desire’, playful romp, mmm … a bit of dialogue “hungering for your lips”, “yearning for your touch!”  I could have a few heaving bosoms … eager thrusting loins???}

_{Realising that he was just copy/pasting from songs and TV soap operas, Brian ruminated with more of a serious purpose.  There was lots about the human form that he liked and would enjoy describing.  He loved the rounded, happy shapes of the female body, the curves, hollows, mounds and shadows.  That would be ok.  For the male involvement he would stick with Derek … he knew Derek and was happy with his rangy lankiness, all sinews and muscles.  Interestingly, he reflected that he didn’t like a lot of the street-talk, guttural, single-syllable descriptors of some parts of womanhood … or the acts he would need to include, if he was to gently titillate his readership.  As a wordsmith, there were also some words that he just didn’t like the shape or sound of, even if they were biologically correct. Engorged, was one such horror … flaccid, another.  “No, they won’t be making it onto any of my pages. Sadly, neither will mons veneris or areola, two of my favourite spots, but this to be erotica, not biology 101.”}

_{Knowing that he needed some sort of story to hold the words together, Brian started by trying to assemble the cast.  Torn between a stunningly svelte protagonist and a rubenesque one of some voluptuousness, he realised that as the creator of this story he could have both. So Bella from the bakery and Greta from the gym were pegged as the duo to physically subjugate our Derek.  “Not both at once, that would be beyond my skill-level and pay scale.  Thank God Mother has passed.  Discussing G-spots and wet spots would be so embarrassing.”  Momentarily Brian thought also of his kids and their potential to read his offerings.  Whilst his mother had been an avid fan, always critiquing his pieces and ringing to discuss them, his two grown-up children feigned indifference – Phew!.}

_{Writers are often told to stick to their knitting and only write about things they know.  Brian countered that with a mused “Yeah, what about ‘fake it till you make it!’?”}

Bella soon had Derek under her spell, and under her substantial and comely body.  Her curves begat more curves … a wonderland of natural enthusiasm.  A Girl Guide Leader in her spare time, Derek momentarily had a thought that there should be a badge for their mating. Totally joyous would be an apt description.  As she moved to ‘the moment’, Bella would start gasping “Oh my word, oh my word … oh yes, oh my word … oh, oh, oh yes, yes, YES!!!” then with a dramatic shudder, she would swing everything she had to swing, and dramatically collapse onto Derek, spent and smiling, shaking and laughing as if this had been the ascent of Everest … and she’d ‘knocked the bastard off!’

Derek had to maintain a watchful eye on his Apple Watch diary to ensure there was never a timing clash with Greta from the gym.  Greta was just as controlling, possibly more so. Tall, a Personal Trainer, with an athlete’s legs, she was pert everywhere there was to be pert, and toned and tanned to the level of exercise advertisements.  She had ‘abs’ … she had ‘guns’, and she seemingly she could flex every muscle in her body.  She was proud of her ‘buns of steel’ and even away from the gym she loved mirrors and her appearance. Derek had blinked a couple of times when he first saw her in ‘coupling’ mode.  Her nether region foliage was neatly trimmed to a heart shape.  This was so different from Bella’s ‘Bushy Park Scenic Reserve and Wild Garden Centre – admittance by invitation only.’

For Greta, their coming together was clearly a full-body and cardio workout.  Elements of Pilates, Cross-fit and Spinning all were in evidence.  Derek marvelled at her total and dedicated muscle control, momentarily thinking back to the suction cups in his dad’s cow shed and his early morning pre-school job of latching them on to Daisy, Mirabelle, Twenty Two, and all the others.

Their first love-making had noisily climaxed with Greta gasping encouragingly – “177, 178, YES, you can do it! … 179 … more, a little more … 180! WONDERFUL!”  Derek thought that he was being sold short, before he noticed her clicking the now beeping Fitbit.  Seemingly, her Fitbit gave out an audible warning when her heart rate was closing in on the maximum approved for her age, weight and fitness level. This had corresponded with her triumphant shriek.  With Greta, timing was everything.  Derek suspected that their sweaty time together was already being logged onto some Strava-like program, establishing a performance datum to work with in the weeks to come.  

Not feeling the least bit exploited, all he could think was – “God, I am such a lucky, lucky boy! This is like having two of the best motorbikes in the world … a sports bike for the tar and an adventure tourer for the off-road.  Both great rides, but horses for courses!  Both dangerous, both thrilling!”

_{“All right, Bagheera my boy, enough of this nonsense … in the morning it is spin-the-bottle to decide ‘do we somehow mitigate Derek’s hyperthermia and get him to complete his mysterious mission, or do we flip over to the slightly grubby but exciting world of Bella and Greta?  Or … do we go for a completely new story?  I have one about an obnoxious millennial who gets blotto on his stag night and wakes up with a full ankle-to-thigh plaster cast … and in a settlement deep in the bush where no one speaks English.  And Baghy … Edwards will be pleased ¬– 3021 words!”}

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