A Wren on a Boulder

In normal circumstances, Kasey would have done something about it.
         That night, however, was inherently different. She told herself that she could never have known; there was nothing she could have done even if she had gone to get help. When guilt crept into bed with her, late at night, Kasey told herself that if she had investigated that night then she, too, could have ended up on the bottom of that lake and that she would definitely be no good to anyone down there. Kasey shivered as guilt snuggled in between the sheets and ran its cold hands over her torso. She should report what she saw, but the longer she went without doing so... self-preservation warred with the greater good.
         Nights stretched eternally now. Doctors encouraged bedtime routine, naturopaths encouraged lavender, while her mother encouraged a glass of warm milk and a book to break the endless waking. But so long as her fear of her accountability sat on the edge of her quilt she laid awake, staring, at the plastered ceiling. A watery light from the street lamp outside would smuggle itself in to the darkness of her room above the curtain rail and shimmer above her unnaturally. Early morning her body would be lying in the outward comfort of a queen bed, but her mind would be nestled in the silt beneath the dam lake, cold and culpable.

“I thought fishing was supposed to be exciting.”
         Kasey’s voice was heavy with boredom. She rolled onto her stomach, relishing the feel of the hot sun on her back and the warm, pebbly sand of the lake shore beneath her. Above her a willow dipped down, the trees appearing in concentrated patches along with taller poplars around the circumference of the lake. The rest of the water was ringed by tussock and vast mountains that plunged their rocky scree into the water’s edge.
         Patrick was her cousin; he had taken up fishing at the turn of summer and had encouraged her to come along for the thrill of the catch – despite only ever having caught trout at the smaller end of the scales and then, only ever sporadically. Today he was trying his luck on private land, oblivious to breaking the law. He hoped that a quieter place to land his lure would mean more luck on the end of it. He’d sworn his cousin to secrecy: Patrick had been caught once before.
         “Shut up, Kase. You’ll scare the fish off.”
         His rod was wedged into the shore and he lazed next to it, hat over his eyes, a warm beer clutched in his hand.
         Kasey sighed and tossed a pebble into the water to spite him.
         “When are we gonna have tea?”
         “Gotta catch it first,” came the terse reply.

Patrick was so quiet after recasting his lure that Kasey thought he’d fallen asleep.
        A small bird was hoping about a clutch of boulders several metres down from where they lay, idle. With astounding speed it darted in and out of the crevices, a smudge of brown tinged with a limey yellow. For a while Kasey watched it dart about, the wings small, tail nonexistent, long toes on even longer legs that enabled it to grab at the mossy surface of the rock. It would dip into the growing shadow every now and then and disappear, reappearing on top of the boulder, pecking at the grey lichen that curled and roasted until the sinking sun.
         She reached for her camera, surreptitiously pulling her backpack towards her from the pile of camping gear she had been resting next to. The bird froze, cocking its head in avian wariness.
         Her fingers were on the cool plastic of the camera. As she drew it from her bag the tiny bird twisted to glare at her accusingly. Kasey felt like a voyeur as the bird hopped behind the other side of the boulder, indignant, out of sight.
         The air was full of the sound of birds and grasshoppers and she could taste the damp of the lake water when she breathed in. She took a few shots of the lapis waters of the lake from where she sat above the shoreline, taking care to catch the reflected image of the mountains on the still surface visable from her vantage point. Then she leaned over to grab a beer from the chilly bin and settled back against the camping gear.
         “I’ll have one too,” said Patrick, lifting the cap from his face and giving her a cheeky smile.
         “Ew, get it yourself.”
         “Okay.” Patrick shrugged and lumbered to life, running a hand through his shock of dark, curly hair and stretching his shoulders back as he stood, letting out a growl of satisfaction as his muscles loosened. The tops of his shoulders were pink.
         “Bird watching your thing, Kase?” he asked as he cracked the bottle open.
         “Not really, I guess.” Her own face felt pink, too – she touched her scalp and knew that fair hair was obviously no barrier to the sun’s rays. “Just more interesting than sitting here.”
         “I told you to bring a book or something. I warned you.”
         His voice had taken an edge to it and Kasey felt bad. He was right.
         As he settled back to his spot next to the rod, she stood up and stretched herself. Looping the camera cord around her wrist she retreated to the shade of the willow. The dark patches were growing bigger as the sun meandered across the vast, cloudless sky.
         “Going for a walk, okay?”
         He nodded, and then added, “Rock wren.”
         “Huh?”
         “That bird was a rock wren. Hurupounamu.”
         The Maori word slipped easily from his mouth, like water. It sounded like a ribbon dropping.
         She smiled. “It had no tail.”

Patrick and Kasey had set up their tents underneath the copse of willow trees. Kasey had come back from her walk to find a fat trout caught and gutted, ready to be fried. Patrick had smiled proudly, dipped his head towards the catch and lifted his eyebrows up and down to say, “There you are, cuz.”
         They’d cooked it on a small gas cooker and drank their way through a 12-pack of stubbies. Giddy, Kasey had crawled into her tent. The noises outside made it hard for her to sleep, though. The water lapped gently along the shoreline and hissed over the pebbles; the eerie calls of possums sliced through the peace; soon Patrick was snoring and adding his touch to the natural orchestra.
         After a while, she could hear a human sound in the distance. Car tyres crunched over the gravel road and came to a halt just down from where they had pitched camp among the trees. She heard distinctly the sound of the handbrake going on, doors opening and shutting, and guessed they were just beyond the boulders that the wren had been feeding at earlier in the day.
         She crept from her tent, stunned by how cold the night air was.
         The ground beneath her was cold and unyielding, the grass brittle and pocked with stones. Slowly she crawled to a great willow trunk, unwilling to make herself noticed as a shock of wary fear coursed through her.
         Two men had climbed up the boulders carrying a bundle wrapped in a dark sheet. Kasey pressed her face to the bark of the tree and listened. In the still night air the voices were severe; a gash in the flesh of the darkness.
         "Here. There’s a sinkhole. Between these rocks."
         "Are you sure? It seems too obvious."
        A great sigh, then: "We're in the middle of nowhere. Jesus Christ."
        "Even still. So close to the shore?"
         The second voice sounded unsure. Both were male. The first man spoke again and his voice was low and sharp as razors.
        "This is private land, no one comes here. If we take the boat out, someone in one of the camping grounds is bound to notice. Even at this time of night. You saw them, they ain't going to sleep before they've finished those crates. We... no, you don't have that time, Jim."
        "And if you catch people here..."
        "I prosecute 'em. Everyone here knows that. No one comes up here, damnit."
        The other man (Jim?) was silent. His boots grated noisily on the rock surface as he shifted his weight against the bundle encumbering him.
         "Look, just do as I bloody well say. You got yourself into this mess, I’m helping you get out." The tone lowered threateningly. "You ungrateful, mate? You don’t want my help?"
         His reply was an inaudible mutter of assent.
        There was no splash as Kasey watched the two men lower the bundle into the rocky cleavage. Her mind gave life to the silent lake; she imagined she could see through the boulder to watch the lake lift its watery fingers to clamber up and grab the offering. She shuddered, her heart racing, her mouth dry, suddenly very sober. She hoped they would not see her, or the campsite beneath the trees.
         The men stood there for a while – she could smell cigarette smoke. After what seemed like an age but what was only perhaps ten minutes, she heard the thud of feet dropping to the ground. A boot slammed, followed by car doors, and then headlights cut out across the lake. As the engine turned she crawled back to her tent and bundled down inside, cutting her knee on a stone as she made her way back.
         Then the sound of tyres on gravel was a comfort as it receded.
         Her mind raced until morning.

Soon the light of the street lamp was replaced by the red glow of sunrise. It filtered in slowly, growing like a creature across her ceiling until Kasey had to squeeze her eyes shut to stop bearing witness to its red crawl. The black behind her eyes was blazoned with red.
         Guilt rolled over next to her, wrapping an arm around her throat. She had felt this way since that night, since they had packed up their camping gear and driven from the secret fishing spot. The boulders loomed like markers but Kasey had refused to look, refused to acknowledge.
         Patrick knew nothing.
         She tossed the covers away, buried her anxiety in them. Tearing open the curtains to let yellow light pour in, she went to the bathroom and put the shower water on as hot as she could stand it.
         But she hadn’t felt warmth since the wren on the boulder.