by Kate Lyons
In the end, she had no choice but to jump forward, wrench the loop off, jump back. The lizard didn’t move. Might be dead. Might have been waiting there since the dawn of time.
An hour later and even gates and fences had disappeared. The road got steeper, rockier, all furrow, crest and dip. Those innocuous-looking contour lines on her map were flowering to a full set of hills. This was jump-up country, according to her guidebook, unique, ancient, geographically significant, but she didn’t care, any more than she cared to know the name of the spiny dusty greyish plant that seemed to be the only thing growing out here.
Soon even that had petered out. Just gibbers, ridges, white circles of salt. Emu ran in packs, keeping pace with the car. Now and again, at some unknown signal, one would alter trajectory, the whole flock veering with it as if drawn on a string. On one curve, five of them headed in bouncing swaying arcs straight for her. After that, each time she spotted any she slammed on the brakes, waiting nervously while they performed their demented zigzags up ahead. Trying not to think what would happen if she hit one. Trying not to worry what might happen to this track if it rained. A few clouds tracked her progress, but they were fluffy, thready, far away.
Two hours in and she could no longer ignore the impact on her bladder of the juddering road. Outside the chill of the car, the heat was overwhelming, the skin of her face sucked instantly dry. Looking for a tree and not finding one, she squatted on leaves the colour of emu feathers, protected only by the tent of her dress. No one here to care or see but, even so, her trickling seemed interminable and far too loud. Leaves crackled as she shifted uneasily from haunch to haunch. She worried about snakes. She worried about dingoes, spiders, those looming, bustling birds. Another of Dad’s stories, surfaced slyly, finding purchase in this lean dry space. Mate of a mate of his who’d chased an emu across a paddock, for a dare. Disembowelled with the flick of a claw.
Still dripping, she scurried back to the car, to the comforting thunk of its big black door. According to the car thermometer, it was thirty-eight degrees outside.
If possible, the road got worse after that, just two lines of gravel traversing a broken spine of rock. As she lurched up and down, she touched her supplies, partly for reassurance, partly to stop them falling off the seat. Her little bottles of water and cling-wrapped sandwiches looked suddenly stupid and puny against this place. On one particularly vicious corner, the car dancing sideways across the corrugations, the flour bounced off, exploded on the floor.
She drove on in a mist of white. What had she been thinking? Damper probably, in case of an emergency, cooked on a fire by the side of the road. She could make the damper but she couldn’t light the fire. She’d forgotten to buy matches and that horrible little dog man had stolen her lighter. No lighter in this modern car, of course, despite all its clever slots and holes. She felt a sudden affection for Simon’s old Volvo, even for her despised mobile, but when she checked, there was only a single bar of reception. On the next dip, even that flickered out.
After what seemed like a lifetime of jouncing up ridges and skidding clumsily down on the other side, she came to the intersection the motel man had marked on her map. Intersection was overdoing it. Just some tracks colliding at random angles in a moonscape of dust. But there was a sign. An ordinary yellow road sign, noting two destinations, looking silly and domestic, as if it had been beamed down here from a suburban cul-de-sac. The names on the sign matched names on her map, but neither of the names was Ruby Downs. One, Bald Hill, if her map was correct, looked like it was almost at the border, hours away. The other, Oak Springs, wasn’t on the map at all. Probably derelict, like all the other stations she’d passed out here.
Even more confusingly, instead of two roads to choose from, as marked on the sign, there were three. To her left, the track to Oak Springs, which seemed to be indicated by the motel man’s arrow and his question mark but which couldn’t be right. It only continued for a few metres, petering into a rough patch of gravel before disappearing into the bed of yet another dry creek. No track on the other side, as far as she could see. To her right, the track to Bald Hill, which, if her map was correct, would take her back to where she’d come from, via a tour of an old copper mine and an abandoned limestone quarry and the restricted no-man’s-land round the dingo fence. Straight ahead, shooting off at a sharp angle from the track she was on, heading straight up a steep, impossible-looking ridge, a road that wasn’t indicated by either sign or map, if you could call a single stripe of rubble a road. The sign was no help, even if she’d wanted to go to either of the places it indicated. Some fool had bent both sides down so they pointed at the ground.
She sat there, aircon roaring, trying not to panic, turning the map this way and that. Ruby Downs was east, about an hour’s drive from here, if it existed. But it had existed not that long ago when Ray left that birthday card. And the people who lived there had to get in and out somehow. The motel man must have got it wrong. That track in the middle wasn’t a dead end. It must veer left again after the top of the ridge. She just couldn’t see it from here.
Too late to go back. With all those gates, it would be past sunset before she hit the highway again. And anyway, there was nowhere to turn around, she was surrounded by rocks. And if she hit trouble on the way, rain or wildlife or a flat tyre, she’d be stuck, a long way from anywhere, in the dark. On cue, the sun went behind one of those innocent-looking clouds.
She checked her seatbelt, put her hat on, took a firm grip on the wheel. Breathing deep, reversing to give herself a run-up, she punched the accelerator, shot up the ridge in a spray of dust. She was just congratulating herself on getting to the top when she realised how sharp and thin the crest was, how steep the drop was on the other side. Rough loose gravel, when her front wheels started down. At the bottom, a dry creek bed, deep cratered and studded with rocks. And she was going way too fast.
When she tried to brake, her back wheels went out, skidding the car sideways, heading her straight toward the bank of the creek and the only tree for miles. She thought about steering into the skid but wasn’t that in wet weather, on proper road? In desperation, she wrenched the wheel the other way, heading toward what had looked at a distance like firm red earth but was in fact deep red sand.
Her front wheels hit something solid, spun, and the car left earth. She closed her eyes. An age later, when she came to ground, the car bucked forward, smashed back, and she whacked her head hard on the roof. Then, inexplicably, she seemed to be going forward again, climbing skywards, bonnet tipping, horizon slipping. An awful grinding noise. Before she had the sense to take her foot off the accelerator, she had time to notice those fluffy clouds had overtaken her. They were massed above the ridge now, which was tilting slowly sideways as the car lurched up. Turning oyster, those clouds, with a deep hem of black.
She switched the engine off. Fell rather than stepped out of the door. Heat settled around her, pressing in. The car, still juddering, was tipped sideways like a black beetle. Without warning, it shifted suddenly in the other direction, making her jump. By the side of the creek, an emu watched. A scaly rufous eye.
Her bowels went to water and she grabbed the toilet paper from the boot. No time to find a tree.
By the time she’d come back, sky and earth had gone an infected-looking purple. A swollen hum to the air. She walked round and round the car, Winston watching from the back seat as she bent down and touched things, as if by stroking the shredded tyre, examining the big boulder the car had tried to mount, the right back wheel sunk almost to its hubcap in sand, she could fix something, achieve something. Lost for what else to do, she opened the boot again, got out her shovel, unfolded the dinky little thing. It still bore the shop sticker, a cartoon man with dizzy flies round his cork-swing hat. She folded it up again. A peal of thunder sent her scurrying to the front seat.
For half an hour she sat on her tilted bed of flour, eating muesli bars, grinding away with her defective teeth. Washing down the dry porridge with
a gulp of water and about to drain the bottle, she stopped herself. People died of thirst out here. But she had lots of water. And lack of water wouldn’t be her problem, not by the look of those clouds. Deep blue-black now, almost green. Stay with your car, her guidebook had advised. But what if your car was in a dead creek bed, so dry that ten minutes of rain would make it a creek again? She remembered that mate of Dad’s who’d camped with his family in a dry creek, on a fine night, not a cloud in the sky. While they slept, a sudden roaring. Everything—tents, dogs, wife and children—swept away.
More thunder, closer this time. Winston whined from the back seat. He’d been so quiet since they left the highway, she’d almost forgotten he was there. She offered him water in her cupped palm, which he refused, and a sandwich, which he ate in one gulp. When she checked her mobile again, no bars at all. She was in a dip. If she could climb that hill on the other side, steep but she could do it, with Winston pulling on the lead, maybe she’d get a signal, and they’d be out of the creek at least. Out in the open, though, on an exposed ridge, in a storm. Lightning out there, elaborate tree shapes flickering to the west. She listened for thunder, started counting, was distracted by another griping pain in her belly, lost the thread.
She could head back, along the track she knew, on foot. It would take hours. Never leave your car. But it was autumn, not summer, and she had lots of water, and it was only midday, although it looked like dusk, and she’d been going so slow on the way in, almost at walking pace sometimes, and the track was clear, on foot at least. Unless it got dark before she got there, or the storm got worse. She thought of darkness and of lightning, of being on foot, dragging Winston through all those other dry creeks she’d crossed, running like rivers from rain to come.
If it did get dark, she could light a fire, for rescue purposes. Then she remembered she didn’t have any matches and that it looked like rain. And if it didn’t rain, the fire might get out of control, it was so dry round here. And if it didn’t rain but there was a storm, there might be dry lightning, and a fire might start without any help from her. Heat, fire, flood or electrocution. Working or buggered. When Dad piped up with more of his stories, she told him to shut up.
Another crack of lightning. A snapshot of the creek. Gash, root and runnel, veined red and white. That stupid bird was still there. Flightless, motionless, as if dipped in ruffled silver. She punched the horn and it lolloped off, up the creek side and away.
Fashioning a sling out of her cardigan, she put three bottles of water in it, along with her phone and the rest of the muesli bars. She could see herself, from outside, doing these things, while her mind stalled and whirred. She was leaning over, trying to coax Winston out of the footwell, so she could attach his lead, when another flash of light made her glance up toward the ridge. A man at the top, backlit by the storm. Tall, standing easy, his long legs apart. A hat on his head, so she couldn’t tell the colour of his hair.
As she struggled out of the oddly-angled door, her cardigan fell off and the water bottles rolled away. She let them go. Stood watching as the man came down toward her, surfing gravel on the sides of his feet. The car door beeped insistently, the inside light was on. But she just kept standing there, feeling old, helpless, hopeful. Winston in a morose huddle at her feet.
As he got nearer, she realised he wasn’t nearly tall enough. Too slight, the shoulders too narrow. When he took his hat off, his head was bald and brown as a nut.
‘Hello there. Heard your horn. You OK?’
She wanted to say does it look like it, but he could be anyone, and she was a woman, out here alone. She tried to pull Winston into a more dignified position and failed.
‘Not really. I hit something, on the way down. I’m stuck I think.’
He cocked his head, surveying the car. ‘Yeah. Think you might be right. Want me to take a look?’
As he walked toward her, she stepped back. But he just reached over and shut the driver’s door. ‘That’s better. You don’t need a flat battery as well.’
He took his time walking round the car, scuffing at the buried back tyre, bending down to inspect the wheel and the rock, clicking his teeth at the bent rim and the shredded rubber. Making vague disapproving noises, as men will. She was reminded of Harry, when he did that car maintenance course. Donning his spotless overalls and his accountant’s glasses, sticking his head under the bonnet of Simon’s ancient Volvo, tinkering and fiddling, until he’d taken the engine apart, the guts of it laid out neatly in the carport according to some diagram in some library book. Then he’d moved on to Spanish and the car had stayed like that, until she called a man who took the lot away for parts.
‘You don’t do things by halves, I’ll give you that. I usually try and go round these things myself, not straight over the top.’ An English accent, flattened with something else. Maybe South African. Maybe just Australian with pretensions. He was annoying enough.
He kicked the wrecked tyre and the car trembled pitifully, shedding dust.
‘Please. Be careful. It’s not mine.’
‘Rental?’ She nodded and he sighed, settling himself comfortably down on his haunches, fishing in his pocket, bringing out a pouch of tobacco. He started rolling up, depositing tiny lumps, examining them, removing them, shaping and pinching, while over his shoulder the clouds turned blacker all the time.
‘Not sure what they told you, but that’s a city car. Not enough clearance. Road gets worse further along.’ As he licked the rollie closed, something glinted in his mouth. He had a stud through his tongue.
‘Yes. I’ll make sure to tell them when I get back.’ He squinted at her, looking amused. ‘Can you fix it, do you think?’
‘Maybe. If you’ve got a spare.’
‘Of course.’ She glanced uncertainly at the car. He tucked the unlit cigarette behind his ear and headed toward the boot.
When he opened it, she blushed to see her bag had upended in the crash. Flowery dresses, big bras, everything covered in dust and flour. Stacking them away neatly, he lifted up the carpet, started shaking his head again.
‘Jesus. That’d be right. Your spare’s OK but this …’ He held up a jack as small and shiny as her shovel. ‘Idiots. This won’t even touch the sides.’ Reaching for his rollie and lighting up, he leaned back against the car, smoking, staring at the wheel. ‘I’ve got one in the Landy. Maybe if we use both together. Have to brace that offside wheel though or you’ll end up deeper in.’
He waggled the Drum packet but she shook her head. If he started rolling up again, they could be here all day.
‘Could we try?’ She nodded at the clouds massing above the ridge. Thunder grumbling, long, low, almost continuous, like someone shaking a big sheet of tin. ‘And soon?’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that. It’ll head further south. Always does.’
When he grinned, she was relieved to see his teeth were all accounted for and the right sort of shape.
‘I’m Max by the way.’
When she said nothing, he shrugged and walked off toward the ridge.
He was gone so long, she decided he must have given up. A loud crack, a sizzle of ozone, and Winston gave up trying to melt into the creek bed, crawled under the car.
She was about to head off in search of Max when a battered Landcruiser appeared on the crest of the ridge. It paused theatrically for a moment before slaloming down at such breakneck speed, she was forced to jump out of the way. At the bottom, he performed a dramatic donut, bringing the ute to rest with its back tray a scant metre from the front of her car. She turned away, refusing to be impressed. Collecting her cardigan and her water bottles, she dragged Winston out from under the car, in case he got squashed.
At least this man seemed to know what he was doing, heaving rocks to brace the back wheels, setting up the jacks, ratcheting them up and down with the same leisurely precision he’d brought to rolling his cigarette. Now and again he asked for something off the back of his ute. She delivered a chunk of wood, a set of spanner
-type things. Standing there, swatting flies, watching him knock at the wheel rim with tidy punches of his wrench, she found herself wondering how old he was. Beneath the monkish skull, his face looked weathered yet smooth. He seemed carved from some petrified, airy substance, neither young nor old.
‘Do you live around here?’
‘For my sins.’
‘On a farm or something?’ She’d presumed he was a farmer but, if so, he was the strangest farmer she’d ever seen. The bald head, the tongue stud. Thongs not boots, no shirt under his overalls. His chest nuggety and hairless as his head.
‘A property. That’s what we call them round here.’ As he leaned forward to wrestle with a wheel nut, a strap of his overalls fell back. A nipple, brown and silky, a ring through that as well. She looked away.
‘How far is it?’
‘About forty k. That way.’ He jerked his head behind him, back up the hill she’d just slid down.
‘Do you mean one of those places on the sign? Bald Hill? Or Oak Springs?’
‘Second one.’ He was breathless, tugging on the tyre, the muscles in his arms standing out like rope.
‘Nup. No go.’ Sitting back on his haunches, wheezing a little, he picked wheel nuts from his teeth. ‘That rock’s hooked right up under the rim. You couldn’t have done it better if you’d tried. I can’t jack her any higher either or she’ll tip.’ He sucked on an inhaler from his pocket, craning to look under the car. ‘Could try bashing it, I s’pose. Hand us that crowbar.’
‘Where?’
‘Big iron thing. Next to your foot.’
She handed it over and he crawled under the precariously tilted car, only his horny feet sticking out.
‘Where you headed, by the way? This road doesn’t go anywhere unless you’re deeply interested in sheep.’ So she was on the wrong road.