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off the snake?’ asked Alex. ‘Should she just take it off and run?’
    Li shook her head. ‘They can move lightning fast. She might outrun it, but if she doesn’t we’re a hell of a long way from a hospital.’
    Amber had a flashback to the night before: the donkey’s screams. It had gone on for hours. That was how long it had taken to die.
    ‘We’ll have to kill it,’ said Hex. ‘Paulo, you’ve got a machete. Cut its head off.’
    ‘I might chop Amber’s foot off at the same time,’ said Paulo.
    ‘We could club it to death,’ said Alex.
    Paulo was shaking his head. ‘We don’t have to kill it.’
    Amber snorted. ‘Thanks. You can afford to be all fluffy. You haven’t got your foot on it.’
    ‘On the ranch we’d kill it,’ replied Paulo, ‘but that’s domesticated land. This is wild. We shouldn’t try to turn it into our backyard.’ He hefted the machete. The snake registered his movement and lifted its head, giving him a flash of yellow throat.
    ‘Careful,’ snapped Amber. A shaft of sunlight filtering through the trees glinted off Paulo’s blade. Her eyes widened even further. ‘What are you going to do?’
    ‘Give us a head start.’ Paulo sliced a thin branch off a nearby tree and chopped it so that it ended in a fork, three centimetres across.
    ‘He’s got a plan,’ said Li. ‘He’s got that look on his face.’ The Argentinian loved tinkering with machines – or making them out of whatever materials he had to hand.
    Paulo passed the branch to Amber. ‘Do you think this will go over the neck of the snake?’
    She lowered the branch until it was near the snake. It reared its head up and tried to strike. The movement was so violent it actually made her ankle wobble. ‘Vicious little beggar,’ muttered Amber and pulled the stick back sharply. She passed it to Paulo. ‘It’ll probably fit.’
    Paulo gave the stick to Alex. ‘Can you sharpen the ends so they’ll stick into the ground, first go?’
    Alex took the stick and began to pare it with his hunting knife. ‘Spill the beans, Paulo, what are you making?’
    ‘I think I know,’ said Hex. ‘Amber will put that stick over the snake’s head, where her foot is. It will be stuck and we can go.’
    ‘With one modification,’ said Paulo. ‘We’ll have to let it go. Otherwise we’re just leaving it in a trap.’
    ‘It we let it go it’ll chase us,’ said Hex.
    ‘But we can get a head start, then pull the stake out with a length of vine.’ Paulo handed the machete to Li. ‘I need it as long as you can get.’
    She cut a piece of vine and began to pull out a length of it. It was strong, like cord. She began to make a coil of it around her arm like a cable.
    Amber realized her legs were burning. The wait-a-while cuts had chosen this moment to flare up. She looked down at them, longing to dig her nails in and give them a good scratch. ‘You just take your time, guys,’ she said. ‘I’ve got these cuts that are itching like hell, but I can hang on.’
    Alex handed the sharpened stick back to Paulo. ‘You shouldn’t scratch anyway. You’ll make them worse.’
    ‘Yes, thanks for the sermon,’ grumbled Amber.
    Li handed Paulo the vine. He looked at it and did a rough calculation of how much there was.
    Hex watched him. ‘Paulo, when this contraption of yours is all in place, are we going to stroll away or run like hell?’
    ‘We’ve got about four metres of vine. That’s not a huge head start. We’ll still have to run.’
    ‘In that case,’ said Hex, ‘a few of us should get ahead now and mark the way. Then you wait a bit before releasing the snake and—’
    Amber glared at him. ‘Are you trying to wind me up? You want me to wait like this even longer?’
    Hex shrugged. ‘We’ve spent all this time trying not to get lost. Pity to throw it all away.’
    ‘Hex is right,’ said Alex. ‘I don’t mind staying behind.’
    Paulo tied one end of the vine onto the forked stick. ‘No, I’ll stay.’ He pulled