Where the Road Bends

by David Rawlings

  Sloaney folded his arms. “Why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff? Aren’t you all flying back through Sydney to the States?”

  Andy’s breath caught in his throat, and he nearly choked as the flies found his gaping mouth. He spluttered as he regained his composure.

  Sloaney hadn’t moved, one eyebrow now cocked. “You sound like you’re not planning on going home at all.”

  Twelve

  Bree breathed through her sleeve as choking plumes of red bone-dry dirt flung into the air. Eddie’s spade bit into the ground below a wholly unremarkable olive-leaved bush.

  “So if we go down here . . .”

  Bree blanched at the thought of what he was searching for. She stood back, less for her own safety from this flashing blade and more to put distance between her and these “grubs.” She wasn’t eating bugs—chicken-tasting or not. Not when there was real chicken back at the campsite. She had hit her limit with the red berries Eddie had found. They were sweet and tart. There. She could say she’d eaten bush food.

  Thunk. Eddie’s spade hit something solid. “Perfect. Here we go.” He reached for a tomahawk and chopped at the thick ropey roots. The ax’s blade flashed in the sun as his sinewy brown forearms strained under sweat.

  Eddie sighed as he removed a foot-long tree root and held it up. “He’s in there.”

  Lincoln took it from Eddie and peered into the end. “I’m not sure what I’m looking for.”

  Eddie peeled away the root’s skin with practiced fingers. The slow wriggle of the witchetty grub held Bree spellbound. Eddie squeezed gently and pulled it out. Two inches of thick, white larva squirming in the sun. “Who’d like a taste?”

  Lincoln hesitated for a moment, then Eliza elbowed him out of the way. She winced as she chewed. “It’s kind of . . . I don’t know.” She smiled. “It’s pleasant. Like cooked eggs.”

  Lincoln snatched the remainder of the grub from her and shoved it into his mouth. “It’s soft . . . almost buttery.” He swallowed with a loud gulp. “Can you find another one for Bree?”

  Bree backed away as Eliza said, “You’ve got to take a chance once in your life.”

  Eddie stood and wiped dusty hands on his shorts. “So there’s the witchetty grub you wanted me to find, but now I want to show you there’s more to bush food than that.” He pushed through the foliage that swept over the thin, unobtrusive path.

  Eliza raced up to him, leaving Bree alone on the path. “What are we looking for?”

  Eddie peered into the bush. “Quandongs. They’re a type of native peach. Bush bananas too. Some native plums if we can find them. It’s like a dessert bar out here.”

  Bree watched the foliage swallow her group and she was left alone. She couldn’t do it. She’d end up doubled over vomiting or poisoned. Or worse. She wasn’t up to taking chances. And no amount of dressing up weird food as a “dessert bar” was going to help.

  A light breeze whisked away the voices of the group, and she stood alone in the middle of a continent. Silence, punctuated by a harsh twittering from above and rustling from the ground on either side of the path; sounds cloaked by tall grass and low trees. Brown and olive green floating on a sea of red. She felt a sense of wonder at the landscape’s beauty, and a sense of her own insignificance in its shadow.

  She took two steps in the direction the voices had gone. The path was now blocked.

  “Eddie?” Her thin voice elongated two curt syllables into three long ones.

  In the middle of the path a long, black snake coiled back on itself. It appeared to be gathering energy to strike. At her.

  Bree flushed cold in the heat as she froze. “Eddie?” Three more long syllables.

  The snake eyed her from the path, the sun rippling from its dark-brown scales. Its head eased back into its body.

  The foliage parted. “Don’t. Move.” Eddie stepped off the path and inched around the snake, his eyes not deviating from the threat. The snake sensed his movement and jerked back.

  Eddie stepped in front of Bree and placed an arm across her, his voice flat. “I want you to take a step back. Slowly. He doesn’t like sudden movements.”

  Bree’s heart pounded as she fought to rein in the numbing panic. Behind the added protection of Eddie’s arm, she backed away, then collapsed against a gum tree.

  The foliage parted again, and Lincoln stormed onto the path.

  Eddie raised his arms, his voice like flint. “Stay there.”

  Lincoln dropped his gaze to the snake and inched back as he proffered the shovel. “Here, you’ll need this.”

  Eddie waved him away. “Stay where you are. Dangerous fella, this one, and we’re going to let him go on his way.”

  Lincoln took a step forward as he gripped the shovel tight. “Why wouldn’t you kill him?”

  “Once we’ve gone and moved on with our lives, we’ll leave him to move on with his.”

  Bree watched the snake as it watched Eddie and Eddie watched it. Despite its deadly danger, this reptile conveyed a quiet majesty, a slow purpose to its movements. Bree’s breath returned as the snake uncoiled, relaxing, its head shifting left and right, eyeing an exit.

  Eddie put up his hands and took a slow step toward it. “Careful now. Careful.” His toes tapped slowly on the path, mesmerizing the snake as it continued to uncoil. “Careful now. Careful.”

  The snake slithered off the path and slunk into the bush, taking an age for its body to disappear into the scrub.

  Eddie padded forward and inspected its exit point before he gestured to them. “He’s gone. We can go now.”

  Bree’s heart resumed its frantic rhythm as they crept past, her eyes fixed on the low grass, sure the snake was waiting for the others to pass before it lunged at her. But the grass was still.

  Once she was clear, her jog graduated into a sprint, and her heart still pounded as she rushed into Eliza’s arms, the sobs coming as the terror leaked away.

  * * *

  Lincoln slammed the car door as the late-afternoon shadows painted the landscape a pastel purple and yellow. The ride back to the campsite had been cloaked in an unhappy quiet despite Sloaney’s attempts to start conversation. Lincoln charged toward the crater’s lip, the setting sun blocked by the top of the dirt skyscraper. He leaned on it, his shoulders hunched, his head down, his breathing racing away from him. Things were unraveling. Fast.

  Andy huffed and wheezed his way past him.

  “What do you mean I’m to blame for your problems?”

  Andy grimaced as he hefted his backpack higher on his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

  “Eliza told me I was to blame for your problems.” Huffing, he puffed back his shoulders. “If you’ve got something to say, say it. And if you don’t, you should probably take responsibility for your own life.” He turned on his heel and leaped into the crater, the soft sand cradling his descent. He felt better—at least he’d addressed that issue. That left one—his reason for coming—and his chances with Eliza were slipping away.

  Thirteen

  The turquoise of the sky was brushed by reds and oranges as it submitted to the inky blackness of the night.

  Silence, spoiled only by the crackle of the deadwood as it gave itself to the fire. Silence, fueled by unspoken tension that had risen like floodwaters throughout the day.

  Raindrops speckled Eliza’s hand as more fizzled on the fire, the hint of water growing on the breeze. The maelstrom of strange tastes and sensations swirled around her mouth—the dense heaviness of the damper bread, the strange sweetness of goanna, and the tart tang of native plums, flavored by an earthy spice from her plate of paperbark.

  Eddie gently blew on a smoldering branch. The edges of its leaves glowed red in the half-light. “I was going to share some of my stories, but it might be better to clear the air, if you don’t mind me saying, and around the fire is the perfect place.” He leaned away into the darkness as Eliza leaned in.

  “Thanks, Eddie.” His words were perfect, exactly what he had promised. She dr
ew from the thoughts she had pieced together as the outback scrolled past her window on the drive back from the gorge. She would deal with Lincoln later. Andy had to be first.

  She turned to him as he stared blankly into the fire from inside the cowl of his hoodie. “Andy. We really do care about you and want to do something. We’re all friends and we’re here for you.”

  Bree nodded enthusiastically. Lincoln’s brows furrowed in a concerned nod. Eliza was glad he’d been able to put aside his angst for their old friend.

  Andy pulled his hoodie tighter, his gaze darting anywhere but at Eliza. “What are you doing?”

  “You reached out last night around the fire, but circumstances prevented us from finishing that conversation, and it’s an important one. We are ready to listen, and if we can help you, we will.”

  Andy exhaled hard as he stared at the stars.

  “I’ve helped a number of friends when they’ve had issues with drugs. I can help you too.” Eliza leaned back on her swag, pleased she’d delivered her message as she planned.

  Bree reached out to Andy. “It’s okay.”

  The trickle of a giggle leaked from inside Andy’s cowl, before his bulk quivered with a hearty, bitter laugh.

  Bree’s brows knotted in confusion and Lincoln shrugged.

  Andy threw a narrow-eyed glare at Eliza. “I’ve already told you I haven’t touched drugs since college.”

  Eliza started an unexpected backpedal, and Lincoln raised a finger as he stepped in. “You’ve been evasive since we met in LA. You’ve avoided all conversations about your life, and you’re apparently snippy at me because I somehow did something in college. What the heck is going on?”

  Andy’s laugh stopped dead as he now aimed his glare at Lincoln. “Thanks, Mr. Successful, dripping in money, giving advice to all and sundry. Well, your advice isn’t always the greatest.”

  A large branch leaning across the fire collapsed into the flames, puffing up a gray cloud of ash that wafted away in the growing breeze. A flash of lightning illuminated the darkening turquoise of the sky.

  Lincoln broke a stick in two before he threw it onto the fire. “What are you talking about? I told you an hour ago you need to take responsibility for your life—”

  Eliza inched toward Andy. “So if it’s not drugs, what is it?”

  Andy pulled the cowl farther forward. Hunks of steaming, rhythmic breath escaped his cowl.

  This was working. He had to acknowledge he needed help. The first step was always the hardest—acknowledging you couldn’t do this on your own.

  Bree’s smile seemed forced. “It might be better if you talk about your life.”

  The puffs of steam grew more insistent as Andy’s shoulders heaved. “You want to know why I don’t feel like talking about my life? It’s because I want to run away from it, that’s why.”

  Eliza sighed with a subdued smile. A breakthrough, albeit a sad one. While she was able to ignore Lincoln’s insecure competition about success, Andy wasn’t. It was hurting him, and he needed to know it wasn’t a game worth playing. “It’s not about keeping up with others or even how much you earn, it’s—”

  Andy’s caustic laugh forced her to jump. “You can never earn enough when you’ve got a massive gambling problem.”

  “Gambling? I thought it was far worse than that.”

  Andy buried his head in his hands. “It is far worse.”

  The coals sizzled again as another drift of raindrops found the fire. Eliza mouthed to Lincoln, Say something. Lincoln simply shrugged. Eliza inched closer to Andy. “What can we do?”

  Andy’s head shot up. “How about you go back in time and tell my college self to ignore Captain Moneybags here.” He jerked his head at Lincoln before rounding on him. “You know what was so bad about that tip you gave me back in college? It wasn’t that I lost money; it was that I won, and I won big. I lived it up and went back to that well when that money ran out and then I lost it all, but it sparked something that’s controlled me ever since.”

  Andy’s bulk heaved, his breath short and sharp as he looked across the fire to Eddie. “You talked about journeys? At this point in my”—his fingers provided the sarcastic air quotes—“journey, if I could start again with a clean slate and no debts, I would be fine. I would never gamble again.”

  Lincoln frowned. “But you always had money in college. You threw the biggest graduation party—”

  “Yeah, I did—all from that one tip from you on the massive underdog in Flagstaff College going up against the might of number-one seed Clarendon University—and I wanted to share the love. I even lent money for Bree to go to that audition in New York, and I never saw that again.”

  Bree’s mouth dropped open. Eliza threw an arm around her shoulders—even in the orange light she was pale. “Don’t bring her into your problems.”

  The gusting wind flicked at the ropes of their swags and a distant rumble rolled over the lip of the crater and washed over them.

  Eliza squeezed Bree’s shoulder. This hadn’t gone at all like she’d planned, but at least there was one upside to Andy’s rant—maybe this was the chance for Bree to deal with her baggage once and for all. “It’s okay to let it out. So you auditioned and it didn’t work out. You need to come to terms with your disappointment and move on. At least you were brave enough to try.”

  Bree dissolved in a flood of sobbing and mumbling into Eliza’s chest. Three small words Eliza didn’t quite catch. “What was that?”

  Bree’s voice drifted up to Eliza among snatches of wind and spitting coals. “I wasn’t brave.”

  Eliza held silent, allowing the space for her friend’s story to finally come out into the open where it could be addressed. “You were brave, Breezy. You took your chance in the big city, stood proudly in the spotlight, and gave it your best. You put yourself out there when you walked onto that stage.”

  Bree trembled under her arm. Another three small words, but this time Eliza caught them. They didn’t make any sense. “What did you say?”

  Bree sat up, her cheeks glistening with tears, her cracking voice thin. Wavering. “I never went.”

  “What do you mean you never went?”

  “I got as far as the foyer, but I turned around and walked out.”

  Lincoln’s mouth dropped open. Eliza could feel the heat pulsing not from the fire but from her left. Andy.

  Eliza blinked hard. She had carried her friend through the bitter disappointment of a failed audition. “You lied to me?”

  Bree’s sobs wracked her with tremors, punctuating any words that found their way out in sputtering fits and starts. “Wouldn’t get it . . . couldn’t do it . . . letting everyone down . . . I’m so sorry.”

  Eliza forced her thoughts into order. “When I asked you why they turned you down, you told me they were looking for someone with more soul. That was a lie?”

  “So . . . sorry . . . Lize.” Bree buried her head deeper into Eliza’s chest.

  Andy kicked at the stones around the fire. “You’re joking? I gave you money to fulfill your dream—money I needed to deal with my own demons—and you blew it on a free trip to New York?”

  Lincoln rose to his full height, hands on hips, and moved to stand next to Bree. “You can’t throw that back on her. You dug your own hole.”

  Andy’s eyes narrowed as he stood. “You’re one to talk—you told me I couldn’t lose but you were wrong. When I lost, I lost big.”

  “Yeah? How big?”

  The heart of the fire released another shower of sparks to the gusting wind. Sloaney rushed to brush the embers from the swags, now dotted in glowing ashes.

  Andy looked into the night. “As of right now? Seven hundred thousand dollars.” He arrowed a sarcastic glance at Eliza. “See? Far worse.”

  Lincoln’s finger quivered at Andy. “You can’t blame everyone else for that. It’s like when I’m working with my clients. I give them stockbroking advice and they decide if they want to follow it.”

  Andy sneered. �
��Really? Do you give them that speech when your advice is bad for them, and they lose all their money? It’s not your fault?”

  Eliza’s mind whirled as it scrambled for a grip on anything tangible. Her planned intervention was more than a failure. It was severing old ties. How did they get here so quickly? She had to get them back on track. “What can we do for you, Andy?”

  He pulled his hoodie tight around him, shoulders hunched. A beaten man—one who had taken on the world but cowered on the canvas with rounds still to fight. “How about you leave me alone? Leave me to do what I wanted to do. Disappear.”

  Eliza kept her voice flat. Unthreatening. “You can’t do that.”

  He turned on his heel. “Watch me.” Andy stormed between the swags and beyond the safe circle of light around the campfire. With the crunch of gravel and the soft thud of feet climbing the crater wall, he was gone.

  Eliza reached out to her two remaining old friends. “We should go after him.”

  Lincoln leaned away from the fire. “Leave him. We’re not responsible for him or his problems.”

  Eddie’s gaze followed Andy into the darkness as the sky flashed turquoise again. “I’ll go after him in a few moments.”

  * * *

  Silence, spoiled only by the spitting of rain on glowing coals and the gentle flap of canvas crinkling in the breeze. Silence, amplified as the unspoken tension ratcheted up another notch in between shallow breaths and the choking back of tears.

  Lincoln stared at Andy’s empty swag as Sloaney watched him from across the campfire. “Are you okay, mate?”

  Lincoln nodded as Eliza rushed to wrap a blanket around Bree. He processed the last ten minutes, but the temerity of Andy’s accusation jagged on his self-righteousness. He was tired of people blaming him for their unhappiness. “This isn’t our fault. He’s got to own up to what’s going on in his life and be honest with himself.”

  Bree’s voice emerged from under the blanket. “That’s rich coming from you.”

  Lincoln felt like he’d been slapped. “Why is this about me?”