My cousin Dylan and I spotted these big eels under the bridge that summer. We watched them lounging under the dark weed, facing into the flow of water, their mouths frozen open. Dylan and I couldn’t stop thinking about those eels.
The night we went down to the creek, we waited until Nan and Pop switched off the lamp in the front room then crept across the lawn. We took the path through the Mitchell’s paddock, mud sucking at the soles of our gumboots, my torch lighting up the backs of Dylan’s pale legs.
Calf Creek cut down the valley, dragging the landscape into a winding crease across our farm, through the sheep paddocks at the Mitchell’s, and out to the bay. The water spread and pooled at the bridge, stained the colour of tobacco by the leaching bush. Mum said they rebuilt the old wooden bridge when she was a kid, after the big flood. Nan and Pop, Mum, and Uncle Roger stayed up and watched the water rise. It crept under the front door, she said. By morning it was running in little rivers down the hallway floorboards. She and Uncle Roger walked to the beach after the storm and found the drowned carcasses of calves washed up with the trees and tangled coils of fencing wire.
Dylan picked his way across the stones under the bridge and lowered himself onto a flat rock at the edge of the pool. He pulled a wrapped chicken breast out of his jacket pocket, peeled off the greaseproof paper and slapped the pale meat onto a stone. Unzipping his backpack, he reached in and slid out Pop’s fileting knife. The blade shone in the torch light. He grinned at me.
“When did you get that?” I said.
He shrugged, pretending to slip and stab himself through the back of the hand. Uncle Roger would have belted him if he knew he took that knife. I watched him slice the bait. His hair had grown long, and it fell into his eyes.
That was the year we turned thirteen. Dylan and I had spent all our summers at the farm for as long as we could remember. We called our room the sleepout, but it was really a shed. It was Pop’s workshop before he built the new garage. He cleared out his tools and dead farm machinery and built a set of bunks for us from rough cut timber. A moss-coloured dart board hung from a nail on the back of the door.
Uncle Roger would bring Dylan down from Auckland every year when school finished and drop him off. Mum and Dad would drive me up a few days later, my bike tied to the roof rack of their Commodore station wagon. But that year, it was just me and Mum.
The farmhouse was on the top of a rise. It had a wide verandah across the front where Nan and Pop would sit in the afternoons. Jersey heifers poked their muzzles through the wire fence out the back. Some days Dylan and I would lay on our backs in the paddock with our eyes squeezed shut. We’d play dead, listening to the scuffing of the cow’s feet and the huff-huff of their breath. They’d shuffle in, nudging each other to get a look at the two boney kids in the grass.
There was no front yard like the houses in town had. The rough grass sloped down to the road, and if you turned left and kept going, you’d hit the coast. Dylan and I could ride the road to the beach in less than eight minutes.
Night settled over us while we worked at skewering ragged strips of chicken onto lengths of wire, bending a hook at each end. We wedged the wire into the shingle, so the bait waved like a tiny flag in the current. Dylan took a perfect brown egg from the top pocket of his jacket and cracked the shell, slipping the bright yolk into the shallows where it wobbled near the surface.
“That’ll bring them in,” he said, and we clambered up onto the bridge, sliding our legs under the metal handrail so our gumboots dangled. We kept our eyes on the sluggish water, pointing out the strips of weed and shadows that might have been eels.
Dylan went to a private school in the city. He told me a story about this guy who taped a nail to his shoe and kicked holes in another kid’s ankle. Things like that didn’t happen at the area school where I went. I could hardly believe the stories Dylan told me.
“What happened to him?” I said.
“Suspended.”
“No, I mean the guy with the messed-up ankle.”
“Oh. I dunno.” Dylan paused. He was holding a stick, winding the spider webs from the bridge beams around the tip like candy floss.
“Do you reckon your dad will come up?” he said.
“Nah.”
“Shame,” Dylan said. “It would have been cool to take the dinghy out.”
“Yeah well, he’s not.”
Dylan pointed over my shoulder. “See those lights?”
I turned. Two bright beams flickered in the macrocarpa shelterbelt on the far side of the paddock.
“Headlights,” I said. “Maybe they’re out checking gates?” I thought I could hear shouting, but I couldn’t be sure. Dylan shrugged, and we went back to scanning the water.
“Look,” he hissed. He’d spotted an eel near the bait. I shone my torch on the water. The eel would have been more than a metre long, with dark velvet skin and delicate fins on each side of its head. It was nearly still, only the tip of its tail licked back and forth.
“C’mon.” Dylan climbed carefully down the side of the bridge and crept across the stones. I followed. We crouched near the bait and watched. The frilled fin along the ridge of the eel’s spine was exposed to the air.
“I could just grab it,” he murmured.
“Go on.”
He edged forward a little, then pounced, clasping the eel with both hands around the middle and lifting it out of the shallows. For a moment Dylan was triumphant, his face split into a grin, juggling the slippery eel. Then it flicked its tail and shimmied backwards out of his grip, landing in a perfect S shape in the water before disappearing under the bridge.
Dylan was laughing so hard he was bent over. He wiped his hands on his shorts. ‘Did you see how it went backwards? Where were you with the net?’
“Shit, sorry.”
Dylan stopped and looked up. “Do you hear that?”
This time we heard voices for sure, and then the roar of an engine. We climbed back up onto the bridge. From there we could see headlights circling in the paddock.
“Maybe they’re looking for rabbits.’’
“Yeah.”
“At least that eel didn’t eat our bait,” I said, and we settled back onto the edge of the bridge.
“True.” Dylan sniffed. “Pop might let us take the dinghy out by ourselves if we say we won’t go out far.”
“Maybe,” I said.
“Remember that time you hooked that kingfish right in close?”
“Yeah.”
Behind me the engine noise was getting louder. The voices grew more frantic. A gunshot pierced the quiet, the crack bouncing back off the hillside. A dog barked, sharp and constant.
“Got one, I guess,” said Dylan.
I shone my torch towards the headlights. The vehicle was the length of a rugby field away. Dylan reached out and swatted at the end of the torch.
“Turn it off,” he said.
But I guessed they’d already seen us because they were moving closer. We stood up and turned to face the road. My throat tightened. They were driving a ute, like everyone did up there. Spotlights glared from either side of the windscreen. A wooden box with a row of holes drilled into the side sat on the flat deck. A dog whined. The lights bumped towards us and came to a halt.
There were two guys in the cab. I’d seen the fella in the passenger seat around. His skin was scrubbed scarlet, and he wore a cap with a tideline of sweat-salt across the brim. It reminded me of the glass case with the shifting mountains of sand that Nan kept on the sideboard.
“What are you doing down here? This is a private road,” he said.
Dylan shifted his feet and folded his arms. “Looking for eels. We’re from over the road.” He cocked his head in the direction of our farm.
The driver leaned forward to get a look at me. I knew him. He was the Mitchell’s oldest boy. Mum had told me to watch out for him. She said if he was anything like his old man, we should stay clear. His mouth was a wet streak, and he gripped the steering wheel with thick fingers stained dark with blood.
“Your dad’s got that shitty little boat down at the mouth, eh?” he said, looking at me.
“Yep.”
He laughed. “Well, you’re on private property. Better pack up and go home to mum.”
Dylan’s forehead creased, but he turned around, clambered down under the bridge and grabbed his backpack. I picked up the net, collected the knife and started off towards the path. The truck’s engine roared behind us then went quiet again.
The Mitchell boy raised his voice, “Your dad won’t mind us taking his boat out, eh? Now that he’s fucked off.”
I caught my breath. How did they know Dad had gone? Did everyone know?
Pressure burned in my lungs. I clenched my fist. “You can’t just take his dinghy. You can’t do that,” I yelled.
Laughter rolled down off the bridge.
I dropped the net and squatted, fumbling until I found a rock the size of my fist. I stood up, drew my arm back, and hurled it. Dylan and I watched it soar over the bridge rail and crash onto the roof of the ute. We should have run, but no one moved. The engine idled and the creek rattled the rocks in its path.
I heard the squeak of a car door, the crackle of stones, and then I saw the dog. It barreled towards us, blood stains around its muzzle from whatever animal they’d hunted down. We both turned to run but Dylan slipped, his foot digging into the loose shingle. The dog latched on to the back of his gumboot and yanked, lips drawn back over slick gums.
“Call your fucking dog off,” I yelled.
Both guys came crashing down the bank and splashed through the water. The dog hung on and growled softly. They were so close I could smell the sweat.
“Leave it,” Mitchell told the dog, and it released its grip and circled back to stand behind his legs. “Go on then ladies,” he said.
I helped Dylan get to his feet. The back of his gumboot had split, and blood ran in rivulets from a cut on his knee.
“C’mon. Let’s go,” he said, and we turned our backs.
But they couldn’t leave it alone, and behind me one of them said, “Maybe I will take that dinghy out in the morning.”
I spun around. I felt as if my arm raised itself. The nylon handle of the fileting knife was rough on my palm, the top of the curved blade twitching at eye level.
“No!” I said.
Dylan appeared at my shoulder. He reached across and yanked the knife out of my hand. I froze as he stepped forward.
“Don’t touch that boat,” Dylan said and lunged towards them both. The knife slashed through the air, just missing the row of buttons on the front of Mitchell’s shirt.
He stumbled backwards over the loose rocks. “You’re fucking mental, you two,” he said.
The dog barked and lurched forward. The guy in the hat grabbed its collar, straining to hold the animal back. Mitchell stood his ground. He seemed to have grown taller, his eyes larger. He went to step towards us, but his mate stuck his arm out across his chest, “Leave them,” he said. Then he turned to us. “You little shits better get out of here,” he said.
We turned and sprinted until our lungs stung in our chests. I kept my eyes on the road. Headlights circled in the distance as we crossed the paddocks. I tasted acid, like the candied ginger Nan served at Christmas that burned your throat. If she knew we were out there with a knife getting mixed up with the Mitchells, she’d have killed us.
The headlights passed over again, and Dylan stopped, pointing out a clump of manuka. We ducked and squatted behind the bushes, our hands gripping the earth. The ute drove by. Gravel crackled under the wheels and a harsh drumbeat spilled from the open windows. We sat and played dead until all I could hear was the rhythm of the creek and the woosh of blood in my ears. We ran all the way back to the farmhouse and collapsed on the sleepout steps.
Dylan inspected the back of his leg. “All that dog got was a mouthful of rubber,” he said, grabbing a damp beach towel from a hook outside the door and blotting at the cut on his knee.
“Lucky,” I said.
Dylan looked up at me. His face flushed and eyes glistening. “You good?” he said.
“Yeah. You?”
“Yeah.”
We climbed into our beds, but I couldn’t sleep. I lay tracing the sloped beams on the ceiling in the gloom. Later Dylan crept out of the bottom bunk. I listened while he let himself out the door, rinsed the knife off under the tap, and padded across the gravel to return it to the garage.
In the morning we searched through Pop’s shed for a chain and a heavy padlock. We rode our bikes down to the creek mouth where the dark water carved a V into the sand. Gulls stood to drink from the fresh water, throwing their heads back to expose white throats.
Dylan and I heaved Dad’s old dinghy from where it lay face down on the sand, up through the marram grass to the fence line. He helped me loop the heavy chain through the cleat on its nose and padlock the boat to a wooden post.
“That’s not going anywhere,” he said, running his thumb over a red mark on his palm.
We raced the bikes home. I peddled hard, bent over the handlebars with my mouth open so the wind filled my cheeks. I gulped and held my breath. I thought, if I could hold it as far as the cattle stop, maybe Dad would be at the house when I got back.
Dylan didn’t come to the farm the next year. Uncle Roger rang Mum to tell her. There was some trouble at school, he said. He might visit at Easter, but he wasn’t sure. Mum and I drove up in the Commodore. I followed her inside to hug Nan and Pop, helped myself to the jug of apple juice in the fridge, and walked to the sleepout. Nan had made up both the beds. Dylan’s eeling net leaned against the wall in the corner. I threw my backpack on the bottom bunk and went to get my bike.
The dinghy hadn’t moved since we’d tethered it to the post. I took the padlock key out of the pocket of my jeans, sprung the bolt open and slid the chain through the cleat. Bracing my hand against the flat stern, I dug into the sand with my toes, pushing the boat to the edge of the dune. I shoved it hard with both hands and watched it slide and hiss to a stop above a twisted tree root. I wound the chain around my wrist, tight enough to pinch the skin, and rode back towards the farm.
Next week’s short story is by Kyle Mewburn.
