EIGHT SECONDS

Pandora Hope

EVER PLAYED A hand of poker with the Devil, knowing that if you could keep the game going for eight seconds, just eight seconds, you’d beat the bastard and then you’d get to be a god for a day?

That’s how it is for me with rough riding.

Before she left me, Lula said that only a person with a sickness in the head would want to sit a thousand-kilo bucking bronco and stay on for eight seconds. She said a lot of other things, too, wound after wound, but I hung on, not saying a word. I’d learnt in the ring that you just had to hold on until you were beyond feeling the pain. Beyond feeling anything.

I remember Lula at the door of the motel room, screaming that I had no right to be a mother, that she knew I was going to get hurt every time I rode. The only question was, How bad? Maybe a bruised leg — maybe a broken neck. Lula saying she couldn’t live like that anymore, that she wished I would just die out there, on the sand, and get it over with. I couldn’t explain about the Devil, shuffling those cards. I couldn’t explain that life was just a matter of hanging on, hanging on for those eight seconds when the world threw everything it had at you and you survived. Or not.

I always made a point of being honest with her, so in the end, I said, “Yeah, you’re right, Lula. I never should have been a mother.”

Lula was an accident in a motel room in Mount Isa where the toilet didn’t work properly and the sheets had a thin layer of red dust on them. I had beat the Devil that day. The prize money was $650 — even back then, Mount Isa had the best-paying rodeo in Australia — and the event had never been won by a woman before. There was this pretty-boy tourist up from Melbourne, doing a backpacker jaunt through Outback Queensland. Well, when you beat the Devil, you get the crazies, like the whole world is chanting your name, so I took that pale-skinned kid to the motel and nine months later, Lula was born.

Lula took off when she was 16. It hurt more than I thought it would, but I always said people should lead the lives they want, no questions asked, and if Lula didn’t want to stay with me, well, that was her business. She never wrote or rang and I never knew where she went. Laurie, who was a rodeo clown and likely my only friend, said I shouldn’t have told her about not wanting to be a mother. He said that would break a kid. But I believe in telling it how it is and what does a clown know about kids, anyway? Except how to make them laugh.

So, now, I looked at the flimsy, photocopied leaflet I’d found shoved under my door and I said to Laurie, “Looks like Lula’s found a new mother.”

We were sitting on the barrier surrounding the Noonamah arena. I’d fallen badly that day. I was starting to wonder whether I was just getting too old for the game and that pretty soon, I’d be lying in the sand for the last time, just like Lula wanted. Laurie’s clown makeup was streaked down his face so he looked like a painting that got itself rained on. He’d worked hard at the show, pulling the riders from under the broncos, bulls and steers.

He looked at the leaflet in my hand. It said, “Temple of the Great Mother,” above a blurred photo of goats, grazing in an idyllic green pasture with the ruin of a castle in the background. No place like that in the Northern Territory, that’s for sure, and probably not in the whole of Australia.

“What d’ya mean, new mother?” he said.

I showed him the penciled scrawl on the back on the leaflet. A single word written so rapidly you could barely make it out: “Mum.”

“Shite,” said Laurie. “Shite. Are you sure it’s from her?”

I shrugged. “Who else? Found it slipped under my motel room door.”

Laurie took a filthy rag out of his striped clown pants. Instead of wiping the grease-paint off his face, he just stared at it, creasing his face like he was thinking real hard.

“You know, Sam, there’s that cult down by the canyon that go by that name. Been there for a long time. A lot of folks reckon they’re Satanists or something like that. A couple of tourists hiking up that way disappeared, oh, just last year. These cult people come into town sometimes, handing out leaflets, trying to get people to join.”

“Look like a pack of goat herders to me,” I said. I hate it when people don’t get to the point. It’s a waste of time. Because I could tell by his nervy expression he was going to wander in circles like a sick dingo and waste more words, I said, “Okay. You reckon Lula’s in some kind of trouble. Well, she’s a big girl and if goats are her thing, that’s her business.”

Laurie shook his head like a sheep dog that couldn’t understand why its bone had been taken away. He was soft and that was a bad thing to be in the Northern Territory, especially if you followed the rodeo circuit.

“That canyon — the aboriginals call it a Sick Place,” he said. “It’s not just the cult. There’s some poison that comes out of the caves thereabouts. It was in the local paper. Radioactive gas or something. There’s uranium there — enough for a thousand bombs, they reckon. You could get real sick, living out there. Stupid place to raise livestock. Stupid place for people, too.”

“That cult is a pack of idiots, then,” I said.

“Maybe they don’t tell their followers about the danger, Sam. They’re a weird mob. I’ve seen them hanging around after the show, talking to the tourists. They look, well … kinda unnatural. I’m guessing a lot of inbreeding goes on down there. Or maybe it’s the radiation. They just don’t look like normal folks.”

I grunted. “So, instead of leaving the cult, Lula puts recruitment papers in my room. That makes a lot of sense.”

“Maybe it’s not the sort of cult that lets you leave,” Laurie said and I knew he’d been waiting all along to say that.

“Maybe,” I said. I hopped off the barricade. People have a right to live their lives like they want to, good or bad. I hate people who fence things in worse than the wild broncos hate them.

Laurie scrambled after me. “You can’t just leave her there, Sam! What if she wants to go and they won’t let her? You want your own daughter to get radiation poisoning, or maybe … hell, I don’t know. Get sacrificed to the Devil or something …?”

I couldn’t help laughing at that. Laurie had been trying to get me off the circuit and playing happy families with Lula for years, but this one took the cake. I looked back at him. “Sacrificed to the Devil? That’s the best one you’ve come up with, yet.”

“So, what are you going to do, Sam? What are you going to do?” He had that whiney sound in his voice that really irritated me. Pressed buttons I just didn’t want pressed.

“Exactly what you want me to,” I muttered and I flung back over my shoulder. “I’m going to get this dirt off me, go to the pub, and have a few beers. Then maybe I’ll go and check out some goats.”

It was an hour on horseback to Bunyip waterhole, where the tourist road ended. Nothing worth seeing beyond that but salt bush, tiger snakes, and red dirt. The canyon was another two hours beyond the waterhole, but both locals and tourists were discouraged from going further into the Outback. Though it wasn’t exactly sacred ground to the Aboriginals, there was an unspoken agreement that the canyon was off-limits to whites. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it called the Sick Place. The tribal elders had probably known for centuries that whatever was in those stones caused illness and deformity. There was something evil there — call it a spirit or call it uranium, the name didn’t matter.

Laurie was riding Blimp, who was older than God, so we had to take it easy. Shade wanted to gallop; I could feel his muscles quiver under my thighs, and he’d turn his head and nip at Blimp if Laurie got too close.

Blimp was so slow and broad-backed that Laurie rode him like an armchair, letting the reins hang slack while he squinted at the cult’s leaflet. He was whistling like he’d won the lottery, which pissed me off. I knew what he was thinking — dreaming of a mother-and-daughter reunion, with me cooking pancakes for breakfast and wearing skirts, Lula skipping off to college and coming home to cooked dinners. He never told me straight out I was getting too old for the rodeo, but I saw the scared look in his eyes whenever I climbed into the pen.

Pretty soon, we were making our way down a gorge, steep slopes of sandstone boulders on either side blocking out everything but a strip of blue sky above. It was that fake, cartoon-blue sky you get out here in the desert. Looks pretty in the tourist brochures, but hurts like hell to look at. The track was just wide enough for a small truck — I could make out wobbly wheel tracks in the sandstone grit. Probably how the cult made their way into town to pick up supplies and hand out their leaflets.

“Get this, Sam,” Laurie was saying. “This leaflet here reckons a race of cosmic aliens are gonna take over the earth and the only way to be saved is to worship the Great Mother. She’s like a shepherdess of the flock. Shub … er, Shub-Niggurath, that’s her name.”

I snorted. “Sounds like Lula found the mother she was looking for.”

Laurie made a disapproving noise. “You are too hard on that girl. She left because she thought you wanted her to go. Because you thought she was weak. Not everyone can ride a bronco — hell, Sam, most people don’t want to.”

“Maybe that’s why we have clowns,” I said, knowing it would hurt him, but saying it, anyway. “The world’s hard. You got to be harder to survive. It’s just the way things are.”

“So, what are we doing here?”

I didn’t bother replying. Not that he expected me to. He knew me pretty well after 20 years on the rodeo circuit. I wasn’t great on answering Why are we here?-type questions. He’d got what he wanted. I just wished he’d shut up about it.

We rode in silence for a bit, then Laurie began to whistle tunelessly and edged Blimp closer. “You know we’re being watched,” he said softly.

“Yep. For the last three kilometres. A blind dog couldn’t miss them.”

I nudged Shade into a trot towards one of the sandstone boulders and a figure dressed in a grubby, white gown scrambled for cover behind another of the massive stones. I caught a glimpse of a shaved head, the crown unnaturally flat, and a protruding forehead like a stone ledge. I guess he had eyes, but I couldn’t make them out. I’d seen pictures of victims of nuclear disasters, so I knew exposure to radiation could do weird things to a person, cause deformities. There was something different about this man, though, an unnatural quality that made the hairs on the back of the neck rise up. And I could tell Shade sensed something was off. He was skittish, his eyes rolling, and he danced away from the boulders. I guessed there were at least twenty of them, maybe more, hiding on both sides of the ravine.

“Maybe they think we’re coming to join up,” Laurie said hopefully. He waved the leaflet in the air like it was a flag of surrender.

“I’m not seeing green pastures and goats!” I said in a loud voice. The word, “goats,” echoed down the ravine like a bad rap song. “Hey! We’re here to see the Great Mother!”

Okay, maybe my tone wasn’t the most respectful, but for people who were so keen on recruiting, they sure weren’t eager to come out and say hello.

“I think your whip is making them nervous,” Laurie hissed.

“You think so?” I slipped the coiled leather from the saddle and sent it lashing against a nearby boulder.

The walls of the canyon came alive with the scuttling figures of the white-robed watchers, all of them clambering for higher ground. They were as agile as monkeys and just as scared.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are!” I called out, lashing out with the whip again.

“Sam!” Laurie squealed, “Don’t provoke —”

The track turned sharply to the left and widened suddenly into a circular cul-de-sac. Massive sandstone walls reared up about thirty metres, dotted with hundreds of holes. The caves ….

The place reminded me of a beehive, a human beehive. People sat at the lip of those caves in complete silence, staring down at us with a kind of hungry patience. Hundreds of them. They all wore identical white robes. While most of them had normal features, some had the flattened skull and protruding forehead of the one I’d disturbed behind the boulder. There was something eerie about the unnatural passivity of these people, the feverish tension hidden behind unblinking eyes.

“Well, will you look at that,” Laurie breathed. “It’s like an … like an arena. An arena of bones. And up there are the box seats.”

I sucked in a breath. Shade was fighting the reins like he wanted to bolt. I didn’t blame him. The ground was littered with sun-bleached bones, thousands of them. Most were unrecognizable, but I could make out skulls, goat mainly, but there was a fair number of human skulls, too. Shade balked as the bones crunched under his hooves and only the soothing murmur of my voice kept him moving.

“Mum!”

I hadn’t noticed the beat-up old truck parked in the shade cast by the walls. Hadn’t noticed it until Lula’s voice swung my glance that way. There she stood, dressed in the white robes, just like all the others. She was holding a rope tied around the neck of the scrawniest goat I’d ever seen, trying to pull it out the back of the truck.

“Hi, kiddo!” I called out to her, as if I’d just seen her on a street in Darwin. “How’s things? Thought I’d come and check out the stock. Buy a goat or two, maybe.”

She laughed at that, a horrible, shrill sound.

Laurie was kicking Blimp, trying to get the horse closer to follow Shade. But Blimp wasn’t planning on moving, not unless it was in reverse.

“You okay, Lula?” he said. “We’ve come to get you, if you want. No need to stay here with these people. Who’s in charge here, anyway? Where’s the Great Mother …?”

Laurie was babbling and I wished he’d just shut up. Bad move, bringing him with me. You could feel the panic coming off him in waves. I knew that whatever lived in this place would feed off that.

“The Aboriginals call these caves the Sick Place for a reason, Lula!” Laurie was shouting across the cul-de-sac. “There’s radiation in those caves and it can hurt you bad. You need to come back with us before you get sick.”

Lula shook her head as if she didn’t want to hear what he was saying and tugged again on the rope. “I got a job to do here,” she threw back at him. “The Great Mother loves me. She gave me a job. I’m the Mother’s goat girl. Somebody’s got to look after the goats.” Then she gulped and made a funny noise. I wasn’t sure if she was laughing or crying.

“Well, the Great Mother can get herself another goat girl.” I dug my heels into Shade’s flanks, forcing him towards Lula. He was a big, strong animal and could carry the two of us back to Noonamah easily. But he trembled, fighting the reins.

As if Shade’s terror was some sort of trigger, the people in the caves started chanting. A hundred booming voices, bouncing around that cul-de-sac until you thought you’d go crazy at the sound. “Iä! Shub-Niggurath, Iä! Shub-Niggurath, Iä! Shub-Niggurath.”

Lula had started to cry. It couldn’t hear it over the chanting, but I saw her contorted face, the uncontrolled shaking of her body.

I kicked Shade harder than I’d ever kicked him, or any other horse, and he leapt forward as if wasp-stung. In seconds, we were at the truck. I bent and grabbed Lula by the arm, dragging her across the saddle like she was a calf.

“Shub-Niggurath is my mother!” Lula was sobbing hysterically now. ”She won’t let me go. Not unless you pay the price. She won’t let me go. You’re a bad mother. And Shub-Niggurath won’t give me back, not unless you pay. She’s good to me. She’s a good mother and I’m her goat girl.”

“Bullshit,” I snarled, yanking on the reins and turning Shade towards the exit of the cul-de-sac.

That’s when I saw it. I guess it was human. Everyone has heard of people being born with two heads, so why not this? Radiation poisoning, I kept telling myself. That’s all it is. A mutation caused by the uranium. The cult had lived here for decades, bred here for decades. Who knew what kind of monster could come from that?

“Iä! Shub-Niggurath! Iä! Shub-Niggurath!” There was a sound of rapture in the chanting now. As if a signal had been given, the cultists began to sway from side to side in their beehive caves.

The creature they called Shub-Niggurath was standing over Laurie, who lay sprawled in the dirt like a broken doll. Unconscious or dead, I wasn’t sure. He wasn’t moving, though, and the angle of his neck made me feel sick. I’d seen rider’s heads twisted like that more than once in rodeo arenas.

Shub-Niggurath’s left arm was curled around Blimp’s neck, crushing it. That’s how big it was. Freakish big and freakish strong. Blimp’s struggles were about as useful as a kitten’s.

People are born with two heads. Extra arms and legs. So, why not this? Sure! my mind screamed. Anything is possible.

It stood upright, about two metres tall. While the upper half of its body was a woman’s, below the waist, it had the haunches and legs of an enormous goat. And its head … yellow, slit-pupiled eyes stared out of a goat’s head the size of a bull’s skull. There was a brutal intelligence in those eyes — savage glee, an hysterical sort of amusement. It made sure it had caught my eye and slowly it tightened its arm around Blimp’s neck.

I turned away, burying my head into Lula sweaty hair. I heard Blimp’s squeal become something else, something impossible to listen to and ever forget. I never heard a worse sound, I swear it, than the shrill scream of that poor horse as Shub-Niggurath’s grip tightened. I heard the snap of bones — Blimp’s neck, breaking as easily as a chicken’s. Then a terrible quiet. Maybe the chanting had stopped, or that hideous scream, severed so abruptly, had swallowed all sound. I whispered into Lula’s hair. “What’s the price, Lula? What does Shub-Niggurath want?”

Lula was crying quietly, her hands knotted in Shade’s mane, the knuckles white.

“The Great Mother only asks for what you love most. Eight seconds, Mum. Those precious eight seconds you live for, the most important thing in your life. That’s what she wants. That’s her price.” Then Lula twisted her head and looked at me, and there was something smoldering in her eyes, something that made my guts churn. Maybe it was hatred, all mixed up with resentment and confusion and despair. Maybe I saw love there, too, or maybe I just needed to.

I slid off Shade like I had a thousand times before, grabbing the coiled whip on the pommel, and forced the reins into Lula’s limp hands.

You can’t let yourself think, This is the last time I will do this, or see this, or touch this. You can’t think like that when you’re a rough rider, climbing on the Devil’s back, when you feel the heat of his fury rising up through your leathers. There’s only one thing you say to yourself: Eight seconds. That’s all it takes. Stay on for eight seconds and you win.

“You go, girl. Shade knows the way.” I spoke calmly, as if everything was going to be just fine, and I stroked Shade’s silky mane. It felt as beautiful as life under my fingers.

“Mum?” Suddenly, her voice was thin, a little girl’s voice, a little girl waking from a bad dream.

“Go, girl. Get out of here. I just — I just want you to know … I couldn’t change what I was.” I guess it was an explanation of sorts, or maybe an apology, if a person could apologize for being born what they were.

I whacked Shade on the rump before Lula could reply and he shot across that arena like a bullet. I didn’t look at Lula. Lula — my daughter. The word had a strange feel in my mouth, like the taste of a life I would never know. Maybe I was getting soft, easier to break on the inside. I knew I wouldn’t be able to look at her and then have the courage to walk across the arena to the monster waiting for me.

As Shade galloped towards the path out of the cul-de-sac, Shub-Niggurath threw back her head and wailed. Inhuman as the sound was, I recognized in it the anguish of loss. For a terrified moment, I sensed the creature was poised to leap after Lula, so I unfurled the whip and sent it snapping outwards with a crack like the sound of thunder. It was a challenge that couldn’t be ignored.

Shub-Niggurath turned back to face me with promised violence in every line of her hideous form and the chanting of her worshippers became frenzied, thick as blood — a victory chant.

I hope I walked across that arena like I owned it. I know I managed not to look away from the creature’s goat eyes, though it was like staring into a furnace. You don’t crawl whimpering to your death, not when you’re a rough rider.

Ever played a hand of poker with the Devil, knowing that if you could keep the game going for eight seconds, just eight seconds, you’d beat the bastard and then you’d get to be a god for a day?

I have. Not a lot of people can say that. But the day comes, sooner or later, when the Devil has the winning hand. There’s a legend that says a rough rider can tell when his time is up by looking into the eye of the beast. You hit the dust and you know you won’t be getting up again. Today was my day. I saw my end in Shub-Niggurath’s eyes.

But eight seconds is enough time to get out of Hell, for a girl on a good horse. And that’s good enough for me.