by Jane Harper
“But—” Nathan scanned the ground again. “Not anything? Not even an empty water bottle?”
“Don’t think so.”
“Did you have a proper look?”
“You can see for yourself, mate. You’ve got eyes.”
“But—”
“I don’t know, all right? I don’t have any answers. Stop asking me.”
“Yeah, okay.” Nathan took a deep breath. “But I thought the pilot found the car?”
“He did.”
“So where is it?” He didn’t bother to hide his frustration now. Get more sense from the cows than from bloody Bub, as their dad used to say.
“Near the road.”
Nathan stared at him. “Which road?”
“How many roads are there? Our one. This side of the boundary, a bit north of your cattle grid. Jesus, this was all on the radio, mate.”
“It can’t be. That’s ten kilometers away.”
“Eight, I reckon, but yeah.”
There was a long silence. The sun was high, and the slice of shade thrown by the headstone had shrunk to almost nothing.
“So Cam left his car?” Beneath Nathan’s feet, the earth tilted very slightly on its axis. He saw the look on his younger brother’s face and shook his head. “Sorry, I know you don’t know, it’s just—”
He looked past his brother, to where the horizon lay long and still. The only movement he could see was Bub’s chest, expanding in and out as he breathed.
“Have you been out to the car?” Nathan said, finally.
“No.”
Telling the truth this time, Nathan thought. He glanced over his shoulder. Xander was a dark shape hunched forward in his seat.
“Let’s go.”
2
It was nine kilometers in the end.
Nathan’s own four-wheel drive was on the wrong side of the fence, so he’d climbed back through the wire and pulled open the passenger door. Xander had looked up, questions already forming on his lips. Nathan held up a hand.
“I’ll tell you later. Come on. We’re going to find Uncle Cam’s car.”
“Find it? Where is it?” Xander frowned. His private-school haircut was looking a little shaggy around the edges after the past week, and the stubble on his chin made him look older.
“Somewhere near the road. Bub’s driving.”
“Sorry, all the way out at your road?”
“Yeah, apparently.”
“But—? What?”
“I don’t know, mate. We’ll see.”
Xander opened his mouth, then shut it again, and climbed out of the four-wheel drive without further comment. The kid followed him through the fence, glancing once at the tarp and giving the grave a respectfully wide berth as he walked to Bub’s car.
“Hi, Bub.”
“G’day, little mate. Not so little now, hey?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“How’s Brisbane?”
Nathan saw his son pause. Better than here, was clearly the answer.
“It’s fine, thank you,” he settled for instead. “I’m sorry about Cameron.”
“Yeah, well, not your fault, mate.” Bub opened his car door. “Jump in.”
Xander’s eyes were on the grave. “Do we just—?”
“What?” Bub was already behind the wheel.
“Leave him here like this?”
“They said not to touch it.”
Xander looked appalled. “I wasn’t going to touch it. Him. I was just wondering if one of us should—” He faltered under Bub’s blank gaze. “Never mind.”
Nathan could see Xander’s city softness exposed like a layer of new skin. His edges had been gently rounded by nuanced debate and foreign coffee and morning news. They had not been chipped away and sanded down to a hard callus. Xander thought before he spoke, and he weighed up the consequences of his actions before he did anything. Mostly, Nathan thought, that was no bad thing. But it depended where you were. Nathan opened the car door.
“I think we’ll be right, mate.” He climbed in. “Let’s get going.”
Xander didn’t look convinced, but got in the back without argument. Inside, the car was cool and dark. The radio lay silent in its cradle.
Nathan looked over at his brother. “You going to follow the fence line?”
“Yeah, reckon that’d be quickest.” Bub squinted in the rearview mirror at Xander. “Hold on back there. I’ll do my best but it’s looking pretty bumpy.”
“Okay.”
They drove without speaking as Bub focused on the ground in front of his wheels, wrestling control back from dips and hidden soft earth. The grave quickly disappeared in the rear window as they went over a rise, and Nathan saw Xander’s grip tighten on the back seat. Nathan turned to stare out at the fence line separating his property from his brothers’. The wire vanished into the distance in both directions. He could see no end. As they passed a section where the fence posts looked loose, Nathan made a mental note to mention it to Cam. He caught himself. Another sharp jolt of realization.
Bub started to slow as they reached the edge of Cameron’s land. The main road up ahead was hidden by a natural rise that ran along the eastern border of both Cameron’s and Nathan’s properties. On Nathan’s side, it was mostly a dirt dune; on Cameron’s, there was a rocky outcrop that had managed to weather a few thousand years. In the sunset, it glowed red, as though lit from within. At that moment, it was a dull brown.
“Where’s the car?” Nathan said.
Bub had come almost to a halt and was peering through the windscreen. Xander twisted around, looking back the way they had come.
“Nothing out this side.” Nathan squinted through the dusty glass. “What exactly did the pilot say?”
“He was going off the GPS, so—” Bub shrugged. Not much help there. “But he said somewhere on the rocks, north of the grid.” Bub changed gears. “I’ll drive onto the road. See what we can see.”
Bub kept close to the fence line, following the thin, unofficial track that linked paddock to road. He cut through a gap in the rocks and, with a jolt and a squeal from the engine, they found themselves on the other side of the outcrop. The unsealed road was deserted.
“So, north, you reckon?” Nathan said, and Bub nodded. The wheels whipped up a cloud of dust, and Nathan could hear the ping of stones chipping off the bodywork as they picked up speed. The road lay ahead like a dirty ribbon as the rock face loomed along their left side. In a few hours, it would block out the westerly sun.
They drove for a minute, then Bub slowed in front of an almost invisible break in the outcrop. There were no signposts. The few locals knew most of the off-road tracks, and the occasional tourist was not encouraged to explore them. Bub turned the car into the gap between the high rocks and through to the paddock on the other side. From this vantage point, the outcrop was a gentle slope leading to the highest point before dropping sharply to the road.
Bub stopped, the engine still running, and Nathan opened his door and stepped out. The wind had picked up, and he felt the grit cling to his skin and eyelashes. He turned in a slow, full circle. He could see rock, and the fence, now small in the distance. And the horizon. Nothing else. He got back in.
“Try further up.”
They rejoined the road and, a few moments later, Bub pulled in again through a different gap. They repeated the procedure. Stop, circle. Nothing but more of the same. Nathan was losing hope and had opened the passenger door to climb back in when he heard a soft tapping on the window. Xander was pointing and saying something.
“What’s that?” Nathan leaned in.
“Over there.” Xander was pointing up the slope, back toward the road. “In the light.”
Nathan could make out nothing as he squinted against the sun. He bent down, aligning his view with his son’s. He followed his line of sight until, at last, he could see. On a distant outcrop, on its rocky peak, there was the dull glint of dirty metal.
* * *
The driver’s door stood ope
n. Not thrown wide, and not just a crack. Partway ajar, the perfect distance for a man to simply step out.
After Xander had spotted the faraway sheen of the car, Bub had rejoined the road and driven them up to the next hidden track. He’d pulled in once again and this time the Land Cruiser was impossible to miss. It was parked on the flat peak of the rocky slope, its nose facing the sheer drop to the road.
By unspoken agreement, Bub parked at the bottom, and they walked up. At the top, the three of them stood beside Cameron’s car as the air current snatched at their clothes.
Nathan walked around the four-wheel drive and, for the second time that day, felt something shift and tilt off-center. The exterior was completely unremarkable. It was dirty and stone-chipped, but he could see nothing wrong with it. He felt an unpleasant, cool prickle at the base of his neck.
Nothing was wrong, and that in itself felt very wrong indeed. Nathan had expected, he realized, at the very least to find the car bogged, or rolled, or smashed into a rock, or crumpled into a jagged metal ball. He had expected hissing steam or leaking oil or flames, or for the hood to be propped open, or all four tires to be deflated rubber sacks. Nathan wasn’t sure what, but he had expected something. Something more than this, at least. Something like an explanation.
He crouched and checked the wheels. Four good tires stood firm on solid rock. He opened the hood and ran his hands over the key components. Nothing out of place, as far as he could see. Through the window, the gauges on the dashboard indicated both fuel tanks—primary and reserve—were full or close to. Nathan heard a sound and looked up to see Bub opening the rear doors of the Land Cruiser. He and Xander were both staring into the large haulage area with strange expressions on their faces. Nathan walked around and joined them.
The vehicle was fully stocked. Liters of fresh water sloshed gently in sealed bottles next to cans filled with tuna and beans. A good collection. Enough to keep a man alive for a week or more. Nathan used one finger to open the mini fridge that could be hooked up to the car’s power. More filled water bottles were stacked inside, along with wrapped sandwiches now curling at the edges, and a six-pack of mid-strength beer. There was other stuff, too. Extra fuel in a jerry can, two spare tires strapped down, a shovel, a first aid kit. In short: the usual. Nathan knew he could have opened his own vehicle and found exactly the same. Bub’s, too, he guessed. A basic survival kit for life in the harshest climate in Australia. Don’t leave home without it.
“His keys are here.”
Xander was peering into the open driver’s door, and Nathan joined him. Side by side, their shoulders were the same height now, he noticed vaguely.
A light coat of red dust had floated in and settled on every surface. Beneath the veneer, Nathan could see the keys clipped to a black lanyard, which was neatly coiled into a loop and placed on the car seat.
That was a little unusual, a small voice whispered. Not so much leaving the keys in the car. Nathan didn’t know anyone in the whole district who did anything else. He could picture his own keys now, tossed into the footwell of his car back at the gravesite. Bub’s were dangling from the indicator lever in the car at the bottom of the slope. Nathan couldn’t remember ever in his life seeing Cameron remove car keys from a vehicle. He also couldn’t remember ever seeing him coil and place them quite so precisely.
“Maybe he broke down?” Bub sounded unconvinced.
Nathan didn’t reply. He looked at those keys and, all of a sudden, his hand was reaching out.
“Dad, no, we shouldn’t touch—”
He ignored Xander, the movement of his arm sending delicate dust patterns swirling into the air. As his hand closed around the keys, Nathan knew with cold certainty what would happen next.
He climbed into the seat, put the key in the ignition, and turned it. The movement was smooth, and the metal slid easily. He felt the vibrations as the engine started with a roar, then settled to a rumble. It sounded loud in the silence.
Nathan shot a look at Xander, but his son wasn’t watching him anymore. Instead, he was gazing beyond the car and into the distance. He was shielding his eyes and frowning. Nathan turned to look himself. Far away, a single tight cloud of dust was moving in the south. Someone was coming.
3
Nathan stood beside the stockman’s grave for the second time that day and watched as the new vehicle approached. It slowed as it drew near.
It was a four-wheel drive with industrial tires and a bullbar at the front, the same as almost every other car in the area, but this one had a stretcher in the back. Reflective ambulance branding on the front and sides caught the sun.
Nathan, Bub, and Xander had remained on top of the outcrop next to Cameron’s Land Cruiser until the dust haze from the south took shape. Then, wordlessly, they had walked down the rise and driven back to the graveside to wait.
For the first time all morning, Nathan felt a stirring of relief as the ambulance came to a stop, and the nurse raised his hand. Some help, at last.
Steve Fitzgerald was a wiry man in his early fifties who occasionally shared stories of his tours with the Red Cross. He spent half his year in Afghanistan, Syria, Rwanda, wherever, and the other half on call in a single-staffed medical clinic in outback Balamara. He enjoyed a challenge, he’d once said, which struck Nathan as an understatement. Steve emerged from the ambulance with a police officer Nathan had never seen before.
“Where’s Glenn?” Nathan said immediately, and the cop frowned.
Steve didn’t answer straight away. He took in the grave and the tarp, and shook his head.
“Jesus. Poor Cameron.” He crouched down but didn’t touch anything. “Glenn’s stuck out at Haddon Corner since yesterday. Got a family with young kids bogged their hire car in the sand, but weren’t sure where they were. He’s found them now, but won’t get out here until tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“He’s only got one pair of hands, mate.”
“Shit.” It was true, Sergeant Glenn McKenna single-handedly policed an area the size of Victoria. Sometimes he was nearby, sometimes he wasn’t, but at least he knew the lie of the land. Nathan eyeballed the new cop. He was already sunburned and looked barely older than Xander. “Where’ve they flown you in from?”
“St. Helens. This morning. Sergeant Ludlow.”
“You do your training up there?”
“No.” Ludlow hesitated. “Brisbane.”
“Christ. The city?” Nathan knew he was being rude, but he didn’t care. “How long’ve you been at St. Helens for?”
“A month.”
“Great.” Nathan heard even Bub sigh this time. He looked at Steve, who was unpacking his medical kit. “Maybe we should wait for Glenn to get back.”
“You can wait out here as long as you like, fellas,” Steve said, not unkindly. “But Sergeant Ludlow and I are dealing with this now.”
Nathan met Bub’s eye. No reaction. “Yeah, all right,” he said. “Sorry, mate, it’s not you, it’s—”
“I understand,” Ludlow said. “I’m afraid it was me or nothing.”
There was an awkward silence, as the choice was considered.
“But I’ll obviously do my very best for your brother,” he added.
Nathan suddenly felt like a bit of an arsehole.
“Yeah. Right. Thanks for coming all the way out.” Nathan saw a hint of relief in the guy’s face and felt even worse. He introduced them all properly, then waited while the cop extracted a camera from his bag.
“I’m going to…” Ludlow pointed at his lens and at the grave, and they all stood back while he prowled around, taking shots of the tarp and surroundings from every angle. Finally, after his knees and shirt were covered in dust, he stood up.
“All yours,” he said to the nurse.
Steve knelt by the grave and folded the edge of the tarp back in such a way that Nathan couldn’t see underneath. He felt a flash of gratitude. Bub wandered away, leaning on the shady side of his car and looking at the ground, whil
e the sergeant squinted at his digital photos.
Nathan and Xander stood a short distance apart and watched the nurse work. Cam wouldn’t have been too happy, Nathan caught himself thinking. Cameron and Steve Fitzgerald had never quite seen eye to eye. As though his ears were burning, Steve looked up at Nathan.
“How are you going these days, mate?”
“Okay.”
“Yeah? Things all right? Other than this, obviously.” Steve’s voice was friendly, but his tone had a professional note. A question, not a pleasantry.
“I’m fine. It’s Bub who was here all night.”
“I know. Just haven’t seen you in a while.” Still not a pleasantry. “You missed the appointment I made at the clinic.”
“I called.”
“Point was for you to come in, though.”
“Sorry.” Nathan shrugged. “Been busy.”
“But, you’re good?”
“Yes. I said.” Nathan gave Steve a look. Not in front of the kid. It was too late, and he caught Xander glancing at him then looking away. After what seemed like a long time, Steve dusted his hands and sat back on his heels.
“Well—” He signaled for the sergeant and Bub to rejoin them. “I had a chat with the pilot yesterday, and no real surprises here today. Dehydration, I’d say. We’ll have to send him up to St. Helens for an autopsy to be sure—youngish healthy guy, unexpected death, they’ll want to take a look—but he’s showing all the signs.” Steve looked up. “What was he doing out here?”
“We’re not sure,” Nathan said.
Sergeant Ludlow was flipping through a notebook. “So, er…” He looked at Bub. “You and he were supposed to meet on Wednesday, is that right?”
“Yeah.”
The sergeant waited, his sunburn turning a deeper shade of red as Bub stared back. “Could you tell me about that?”
Bub looked a little surprised but, haltingly and with plenty of prompting, recounted the same story he’d told Nathan earlier. It was disjointed in the retelling, and even Nathan found himself frowning in confusion in places. Sergeant Ludlow scribbled furiously long after Bub had finished, then flipped back a page, his eyes moving across the words.