The search for an escape from the maze of cliff valleys had been much harder than expected. His first creek soon broke into several branches each climbing along its own valley gorge. He would follow the winding passage along a rocky creek bed, slowly clambering up and down over boulders only to find it ended in a fifty foot waterfall with no way to get to the top. He also tried the hillsides to see if they gave ways to come around the sides of steeper cliffs, but again he mostly struck dead ends.
In the end the most promising valley system had seemed to be a large secondary creek which ran off the main creek about a kilometre up from the main river. It climbed steadily following a relatively open valley, with steep but not sheer hills flanking it.
Twenty notches had been cut into his stick by the time he got to a place which he reckoned was about five kilometres along it. At this point it turned suddenly hard right. As he came around this bend he saw towering cliff all around and no way up. Looking at it he had begun to think it was impossible to get to the top, a maze with no exits.
At that point he had contemplated a return to the river, to try and fashion a raft which would allow him to float down to the mouth and from there he could use the tide to bring him up the Victoria River until he came to somewhere like Bulloo River where he could get help. He decided to give it one more week of trying for the top before he retreated and sought an escape that way.
He backtracked along this valley for about a kilometre to where he remembered a significant branch to the right. At that time the country to the right had seemed steeper and it had seemed counter intuitive to go up there. But he must try.
By then, despite the limited food, his body was getting much stronger; he was using his broken leg, not to take real weight, but to give him an extra hold and counterbalance as he climbed. He had seen movies where mountaineers used pegs driven into rock crevices, for hand holds and thought that was worth a try. There were a couple places where, early on, he had to retreat from ten foot cliffs which, if he was fully able, he could have scaled, but which were beyond him in his then state.
So he had reasoned that wooden pegs could be driven into rock cracks to surmount these, and twine used to lift his pack up after him. He found a place by the creek where several large saplings grew. He bent and broke these into lengths which he put in the fire and burnt theme through in their middles into increasingly smaller lengths. When it was done he had twelve solid wooden sticks, each one to two feet in length, with fire hardened points at one end.
That, plus about ten metres of bark twine, which could hold his weight, became his climbing equipment. As he worked along this new valley he had looked at it with different eyes, looking for parts of the sides which might be scalable with his new climbing gear.
About a kilometre along this new creek he came to a waterfall of about twenty feet, where the rock ledge blocked him. But at the sides were cracks in the rock which he thought he could scale. It took several hours and quite a few goes, but his techniques improved with practise and in the end he mastered a crab style, sideways climb where his strong arm and leg pulled him to the next level while his weaker side gave an anchor. By nightfall that day, using three pegs left in key locations, he made it to the top of this waterfall.
He rested there and the next morning he replenished his stores. To his great delight he had caught two fish of eating size in his dip net. He set off again in the late morning and by about lunch time he came to another similarly sized cliff. This time, his climbing technique much better, it only took an hour and he pushed on again.
From there the creek bed was covered in large boulders higher than his height and his progress had been incredibly slow. The valley sides had become much too steep to climb. Slowly he had advanced, only making a few hundred feet a day. For three days he followed this narrow valley. It twisted and turned like a corkscrew but he climbed steadily.
By the end of that time he had felt he must be nearing the top of the mountain. In the late afternoon he had rounded another twist in the valley, conscious of a noise ahead. As he got a clear view, in front of him had been a beautiful waterfall, flowing over cliffs into a lovely circular pool of water. Above this waterfall it had looked like the hillside ended, at least from his view below he could see no more hills rising behind. But all the cliffs in front of him and to the sides were sheer. There was nowhere that a mountain goat or rock wallaby could scale, let alone a half crippled man.
He had felt a burning disappointment to be trapped there despite the majestic waterfall. The beauty of the scene took his breath away, but he had wanted to scream in frustration at being so near and yet so far.
He had made himself rest for two hours. He had swum in the waterfall pool, luxuriating in its crystal clarity and speared a fat catfish, the best meat he had found thus far. With this food in his belly he knew he must not give up.
It took another five days to get to the top and the application of a different logic. He backed up to the first useful looking side valley, but this time rather than trying to think as a person he tried to think as a rock wallaby.
He sat and watched these elusive creatures. He looked for places where they had left their dung, he looked for places where they rested. But he particularly looked for their trails. If there was a place where they could get up and down the side of these hills then he would do so too, even if he had to crawl.
After a couple of blind tries which left him exhausted and still at the bottom of the valley he cracked it. It was really an unobtrusive place; it just looked like a fissure and crack in the rock. But as he watched and learned he realised that rock wallabies were following this path from the high sides of the hill down to water.
So he worked his way up, just himself this time, his gear left on the valley floor. In the end it was surprisingly easy, a couple of times he had to worm around narrow gaps sliding over smooth rocks on his belly, but he suddenly found himself on a gently rising rock scree slope that continued for a few hundred yards to a low ridge. At the top he came out into an open valley, a sort of grassy woodland, with deep soil and a creek meandering along it before it plunged over the cliff edge. Behind it were only low ridges of upland hills.
That was two days ago. He had felt so elated; he had made it to the top and at the top was food aplenty. It had taken the rest of the day to bring his things to the top, but it was easy labour knowing the way ahead was open. That night he had caught a large fish in the creek and a duck, both of which he roasted and fed on until he could eat no more, then he had dried the leftover meat.
He had rested more yesterday and replenished his larder, making a good batch of his flat cakes. He had even found a native bee nest in a low branch and broke out a piece of hive. The sugary bush honey was a wonderful energy lift and he had used some as flavouring to hide the bitter taste of his cakes.
He had thought of setting a snare on this narrow path to catch one of the wallabies, it was the perfect place and he was sure it would have succeeded. But within a minute of thinking this he had decided he would not do that; like the crocodile the wallabies had helped his escape and in return he would do them no harm.
Now on this new day, his thirtieth day he was leaving nowhere and on the way to somewhere. He walked on with purpose, despite pain in his shoulders and an already aching leg. At last he crested his first ridge and thought, a kilometre down, only 399 to go.
Chapter 25 – The Long Walk
Dawn of day 31 was cold and cloudy, though the rain had stopped. A big thunderstorm had swept over Vic in the night, and despite his paperbark shelter, which had kept most of the cold rain off his skin, wetness still found ways through. For the last two hours before he arose, in the predawn light, he shivered almost uncontrollably. In that first pale dawn he dug deep in the covered coal bed of the fire and found some still glowing embers. He would not cook now, but wanted to feel some warmth creep into his skin and bones before he set out on another day of walking.
Then he decided it was not worth the effort. Althoug
h it would be comforting to sit by a burning fire and soak it up, he would warm just as fast by walking and, with everything so wet, it would take half an hour to get the fire burning well enough to offer much comfort. Now it was light enough to see he could get to the next milestone in that half hour.
A couple of times in the night, when he was most cold, he had thought of getting up to start walking and warm up that way. But with the thick cloud the night was very dark and walking with only one good leg was fraught with peril when he could not see. He could not afford another broken leg, or even to badly re-injure the damaged one, that would make walking out of here impossible.
He reckoned he had made six kilometres yesterday. It was only an educated guess, but it fit with the geography he could read from his map. Six kilometres did not sound like much; hell if he was fit with two good legs he could have done that in an hour. But he could not step on one leg, only lightly touch it to the ground. And that meant that every second step he had to swing his body forward on the walking stick, it taking the place of his bad leg. It was not too bad to go a hundred steps like that, even two or three hundred. But after five hundred his shoulder, which was still tender from the crash, was burning like fire from supporting his body with each alternate step. Five hundred steps was the limit before his body needed to be rested. If he pushed it further he started to make mistakes, once he had missed a hole and his stick had gone into it, upending him. Another time, when he flinched from the pain in his shoulder, he had not made the step properly and landed badly. In the attempt to correct he had tried to take full weight on his bad leg. Christ it had hurt, but worse it had seemed to give a little, like he was starting to tear at the weak joining of the bones. So he knew he must be careful. But he could not sit and wait here for another month until his leg was strong enough to take full weight.
Anyway enough daydreaming huddled around the non-existent fire. He quickly packed embers for a fire around midday when there would be enough dryness for the wood lying around to catch fire and burn properly. He loaded his pack and other items and walked on. Slowly he made his steps and the steps added into tens, hundreds and thousands.
Each day merged into the next, the routine so similar.
Walk two hundred steps, rest until he counted to fifty, walk another two hundred, rest, walk, rest, walk rest, until a thousand steps were passed. Then sit down on a flat rock or log for ten or fifteen minutes, chew a honey cake or piece of dried fish and let the muscles get their energy back to do it all again. At four thousand steps he would stop for lunch, reckoning that as four kilometres, a big break.
He would light a fire, heat his cooking stone and make a soup with whatever was to hand, part drunk, part eaten. Then look for midday food opportunities, a reptile in the sun, a fish in the shallows, perhaps a low flying bird with a stick, or some bush apples or plums. Then walk two more kilometres in the afternoon, before searching out a stopping place, stopping while the sun was still high enough, He would find a place near a creek or waterhole, where frogs and other water creatures promised easy food. Snares were set for a bush rat or other likely meal. Then time was spent digging for yams and roots, lily bulbs or whatever was to hand, fresh cakes for dinner and cold cakes for breakfast. Any excess meat got dried and smoked over the fire.
He always ate yesterday’s food first unless it was fully dried; it was safer than keeping food for longer and seeing it go mouldy and he did not want to get food poisoning. Sometimes when his evening preparations were done he would allow himself an hour to lie and sleep in the falling sun. It helped give his exhausted body strength to hunt and prepare a proper evening meal and at that time there were less mosquitoes to disturb his sleep than in the night.
He did not know what was worse, the chronic tiredness or the chronic hunger. Both were always present even when he felt his belly was full or he had just slept for the night. He knew he really needed better nutrition for both his strength and stamina. He craved fat and sugar and fresh fruit and vegetables. But his mind was in a positive place as he was going forward and each day his bad leg grew a bit stronger and his body continued to heal its injuries.
In the late afternoon he would get a good fire going, waiting for the evening meal. Then that hour just on dusk was his hunting hour. He would watch where birds landed, so he could sneak up as they roosted. He would watch for fish movements in the shallows, a chance to use his spear. Sometimes he would stake out a track to a waterhole and wait patiently for an animal to come to drink; twice in his first two weeks he had got a wallaby that way, and spent the next morning smoking and drying all the surplus meat.
He now had several pounds of dried meat and about twenty yam cakes as a food reserve. He decided he would try and walk further each day, increase to eight kilometres or eight thousand steps. His progress on the map seemed to line up with these distances pretty well, maybe a bit less, though it was hard to judge with the ups and downs and detours. The extra two thousand steps was really hard for the next week, then it got easier so he went to nine thousand and then ten.
He found his need for food increased as he walked further, and he had started to use his reserve. He could also feel the muscles on his body start to fall away further and he realised he was losing strength. He decided he would look for a good place to stop for a couple of rest days, to build up his reserves, and then try to maintain a steady eight to ten thousand steps per day from there.
He realised now that ten thousand steps was falling short of ten kilometres on his map, perhaps eight kilometres was closer, but if he could do eight or nine thousand that was still around seven kilometres.
He found a good cave in a low rocky hill near a big waterhole and decided that this was his rest place. Each day now he let himself sleep until the mid-morning, those early cool morning hours gave the best rest. Then he hunted, fished and dug roots for the rest of the day. During his days in the cave, he caught two fat magpie geese, two good sized catfish, speared in the clear water, and one wallaby. Plus he had as many yam cakes as he could carry. His stick now had over fifty notches. He wanted to be out of here before he got to one hundred.
His leg could now bear the weight for a half shuffling step, though he still used his stick to ensure he did not stumble and do himself damage. Day followed day, sixty days passed then he was at seventy. That meant he had been walking for forty days now, making it early March by his calculations. Mostly he did between eight and ten thousand steps, though there were places were the country grew very rough and he only made five of six thousand, and also places where the hills and gullies forced him to detour from his intended path or even backtrack. He realised he was going as well as possible but also that he was burning out his body and slowly destroying it. He needed more starch and fatty foods, dried meat was good but the chewing now took effort and his vegetable diet was limited and also hard to chew.
He was now in the very top of the Fitzmaurice catchment and his map showed a place called Wombungi Outstation somewhere near here. He decided he would try and find that, perhaps there would be someone there, perhaps some food. On his seventy second day, his mind was wandering as he walked, ever returning to steak and chips, alternating with pictures of his mother.
And then there was an image of Susan, always Susan was in his mind or nearby now as he walked. She was the purpose, the thing that most strongly drove him on. He had a sharp etched memory of her face that day he last saw her, bold and challenging and yet with a quiet hopeless desperation. Mostly hidden, but there to read for those who looked right in. He knew she really needed him.
So he kept walking, one step and then a second with part support from his stick, repeated a thousand times before he needed to lie down and rest and often fall asleep. It was all he could manage now. Then he would wake up and make himself repeat it, perhaps two or three times in a day. He realised his body was starting to fail him but he just had to force himself to keep going.
Suddenly he found his way stopped. He looked down at what was in his path. It
was a four barb cattle fence. In the last week he had seen an occasional scrub bull in the distance, or a track, but he and they had kept away from each other. Now a sign of real cattle. And with real cattle maybe food and people.
He followed the fence now. It was easier than walking blindly through the bush. And it had a graded track along the edge so the walking was easier. Just on dusk he reached a corner with another fence, so he followed this. In the last light he saw some station buildings in the distance. He hoped it was Wombungi, it must be Wombungi.
He did not know this place or its people. He had a memory that it had been a cattle station but had been sold to the aborigines, though he had some vague idea that it had an outside manager and ran cattle, but it was only second hand hearsay.
Still whether it was a cattle station or an aboriginal camp he hoped there would be people would know about him and help him. He wished he could hear a generator or see some lights but there was nothing.
He came to the front door and banged but it was closed. He tried the door; it was locked. He walked around outside but there was no easy way in. He wondered if there was a car or some other vehicle he could drive, or maybe something else useful. Maybe even a store of food.
He checked the outbuildings, not much on offer there; he found a tin which would serve as a billy can and a half packet of biscuits on the shelf of a shed. He ate the packet of biscuits and, exhausted, lay down on the shed floor to sleep. He woke to thunder and lightning in the early morning, then the sound of rain on the tin roof, but rolled over and slept on, pleased to be dry and out of the rain.
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 64