Eddie shook his head fiercely. “We don’t employ anyone else. It’s me and Sloaney. And now you’ve got me worried that someone is out here pretending that they represent Outback Tours.”
How could he explain this? He shoved his hands into his pockets and his fingers found a small, hard box that would prove his story. He fingered it, proof that he’d had a conversation with a young woman about getting over relationships of the past to free up the blockage of the future. A young woman who could retrieve items from his past and bring them into his present, who had disappeared in a sandstorm that was over almost before it had begun. Like the one at the campsite.
Lincoln pulled his hands from his pockets. He wouldn’t have believed him either.
Thirty
The truck roared its angry displeasure as Grace threw her weight behind the wheel to ease tons of metal around a tight, soft corner.
“Is that it? I had to turn right?”
“No. But would you have known which direction to go with the map you were holding?”
Eliza took one last look at the still-empty compass. Labels popped up on the map, labels with unknown words, unknown meanings. Branches that led to the map’s edges and beyond. Exciting bends. Tight contours indicating the challenge of hills to climb, mountains to conquer.
Eliza shook her head. “Who are you?”
Grace tipped the visor of her cap. “I’m Grace.” The truck roared as it swept through the gears.
“Where are we?”
Grace jerked her head across the plains to their left. “Back on track. Your campsite is over there.”
The setting sun washed the outback in deep orange and pink, a featureless landscape except one tall, knobbly construction that pointed into the fiery heavens.
A dirt skyscraper, built by ants.
Eliza’s eyes moistened as her lip quivered. She choked back a sob, before dissolving into long-overdue tears. “What can I say? I’m grateful—thankful—for your perspective and for your help.”
Grace’s lips parted in a broad smile. “You’re welcome. That’s what I’m supposed to do. You take that map with you. I think it’s now far more useful than it was.”
Eliza folded up the paper sprawled across her lap and slipped it into her backpack. She opened the heavy door and swung it open. “There is someone I want you to meet. Bree, my friend, could really benefit from your perspective and working out how she should progress in her life.”
Grace’s ponytail shook. “This is as far as I can come, and you might find Bree needed something else.”
Eliza lunged across the cabin, enveloping Grace with a tight hug. Gratitude flooded through her. “Would you at least come and meet her?”
Grace smiled to herself, almost as if enjoying a secret memory. “No, this is my limit.” She tapped papers held up under the sun visor. “I’ve got a schedule to keep.”
The businesswoman in Eliza recognized the professionalism and logistics, but she couldn’t sever this connection so easily. “Well, do you have a card or something? An email address? Give me your cell.”
Grace nodded to Eliza’s backpack. “Check the map.”
With a nod, Eliza jumped from the cabin, the gravel crunching under her landing. She hefted the backpack onto her shoulder. The wind picked up as the rumbling road train crawled away, grinding to higher gears that pushed it, thundering, into the gloom.
Eliza shielded her eyes as the growing wind flung dust and dirt at her, before with one final roar it dropped as suddenly as it appeared. Eliza spun—the truck was gone, taking with it a woman with insights. And while she didn’t subscribe to much she couldn’t prove, she certainly couldn’t justify her experience. She only knew it was real.
The sunlight bathed the outback for her third day in Australia, and she broke into a jog toward the crater and the campsite. She had a story to tell. Grace’s comment flitted back into her thinking.
Bree needed something else? What had happened to Bree?
Eliza hitched her backpack higher on her shoulders and her jog graduated into a sprint.
She heard voices ahead. Two of them. She wasn’t the first one back. That didn’t seem to matter now.
Eliza climbed the lip of the crater, preparing to face a triumphant Lincoln and whatever he was going to throw at her. Neither of the voices belonged to Lincoln. Sloaney stood in animated discussion with Bree.
“Breezy!” Eliza rushed down the crater, half-stumbling down the soft sides of their campsite. Bree rushed toward her, arms outstretched, and they dissolved into a sobbing hug.
Their stories flowed over each other as Eliza gripped Bree by the shoulders. “You won’t believe what happened to me.”
Bree wiped away tears. “I was going to say the same thing to you. I’ve had this amazing experience I can’t believe actually happened.” And as she started her story—of a ravine Sloaney said didn’t exist—the gravity of it settled on Eliza. She wasn’t the only one with an experience that was all but impossible.
Sloaney ran up to them. “Eliza! Where have you been?”
“I woke up where you left me by the dirt track.”
Sloaney’s blank face gave no hint of guilt. “Left you? We didn’t leave you anywhere. What type of tour group do you think we are?”
“How else could I be transported in the middle of the night to the middle of nowhere? If you want proof of it, we need to find that dirt track where my swag is, the place where Grace picked me up—”
“Who is Grace?” Sloaney ran his hand through his grubby blond curls.
Eliza rummaged through her backpack. “This will prove it. She gave me a map with my own face on it that showed my reference point was actually myself.” She frowned and dug harder into the bag. “It’s not here. You both heard the road train that brought me back, didn’t you?”
Bree and Sloaney both shook their heads.
Flushed, Eliza turned on Sloaney and jabbed a finger in the air. “You put us through this journey of discovery thing with no preparation at all.” She pointed at the campsite. “And how did you get my swag back from my journey?”
Sloaney’s head scratching continued. “What journey?”
Eliza stopped her friend as she stomped toward the campsite. “How long did it take Lincoln and Andy to get back?”
Sloaney appeared, offering her a canteen. “They’re not here.”
Eliza froze. “So where are they?”
A long fissure ripped its way through Sloaney’s laid-back facade, cracking his voice. “We don’t know, okay? They disappeared like you two did.”
Thirty-One
Bree rose on the balls of her feet, as if inflated with something new. An empowering indignation. A platform for her courage. She rounded on Sloaney with a pointed finger. “Hang on a minute. If we were to disappear, don’t you think we would have taken the car?”
“We didn’t know—”
Eliza advanced on him. “What do you mean they’re not back?”
Sloaney’s voice cracked as if struggling to maintain a pace it was unused to. “Their swags are gone, just like yours.”
Bree looked beyond Sloaney to the tents spaced around the campfire. She counted in her head, frowned, and counted again. “There are only two swags missing.”
Sloaney and Eliza turned to the campfire. Only two gaps remained in the spacing among the tents; one had been replaced by a neat pile of stacked rocks. A pocket game of God’s Jenga.
Bree zeroed in on Sloaney. “What’s going on? You play this trick on me by leaving me in a ravine—”
Eliza stepped forward. “I thought it was a spiritual trek or journey or whatever you’re calling it—”
Sloaney pushed up his hat and scratched at the curls that sprung free as his gaze swung back to the unfinished circle of tents. “How did that swag appear? And where did those stones come from?”
Bree turned to Eliza. “This is real, Lize. I know I was in a ravine. I know I scaled the wall to get out, and I got past the snake to make a break for f
reedom. I overcame my fears and I know it was real.”
Sloaney’s head continued to shake. “But there isn’t a ravine within a hundred k’s of here.”
Bree pulled back her sleeve. “How did I get this then?” She held her hand up in the fading twilight. A thick cut lined with congealed blood sliced her hand. “If this whole journey was in my head, the scars it left are real.”
Sloaney’s mouth flapped as a silence crept across the crater. Three minds churned to find elusive answers to pressing questions. The silence was shattered by the crunch of gravel and the roar of an engine.
Bree raced toward the crater’s edge. “The guys are back.” The memory of her last climb made scaling the crater wall feel like a short scramble up a gentle incline. Eliza rose to her feet, Sloaney hot on her heels, as the Outback Tours four-wheel drive arrived.
The driver’s door flung open and Eddie jumped out. “So how many do we have back?”
Sloaney jerked his head back into the crater, as Eliza appeared at its lip. “Two now.”
The passenger door eased open and two feet were placed gently on the ground. Lincoln stood to his full height and Bree rushed toward him.
Sloaney charged toward Eddie. “How did he get to Curdimurka?”
Eddie brushed past him and stormed up to Bree and Eliza. “Where have you two been?”
Lincoln pushed past him to embrace them. “You won’t believe what happened to me—”
Bree smiled at Eliza. “Try us.”
Eddie thrust his hands onto his hips, his voice shaking. “Where in the heck have you been—?”
Eliza stepped forward and pointed a finger into Eddie’s chest. “You listen to me. This walkabout thing, or whatever you want to call it that you organized, nearly killed me. I almost died out there of dehydration. If I hadn’t been found by the road train driver—”
Eddie stared at her, a seething anger surfing under his voice. “There was no such thing. As I said to you all along, it’s not appropriate to exploit cultural heritage for tourists.”
Sloaney stepped forward. “After the sandstorm passed, we checked on you in the middle of the night, but you were all gone. We thought you’d been disoriented and had wandered off looking for shelter. We’ve been searching for you all day.”
Eddie glanced at the crater. “Your swags were all gone. I see you’ve brought yours back though.”
Eliza stared intensely at Lincoln’s wrist, her voice emerging in a monotone. “Mine was left by the side of the road.”
Bree counted the swags surrounding the campfire. “Now only one is missing. It should be where that pile of rocks is.” She drifted her gaze to the four-wheel drive. “So where’s Andy?”
The wind picked up, the tiniest chill on the growing breeze. Distant lightning crept closer, driven by the blanket of thick, dark clouds.
Their friend was still out there.
Thirty-Two
His fingers laced together, Lincoln fidgeted as he sat at the cold gray table of the police station in the middle of the country, his thumbs chasing each other in an endless loop. Eliza’s fingernails beat a steady tattoo, while Bree’s nails were already halfway bitten.
The sheen had well and truly worn off their reunion.
It had been a long three hours since the police car ride back into town—exhausting interviews conducted by disbelieving detectives. Their stories—which they each thought to be unbelievable—were a variation of another’s. Except Andy’s, which remained untold.
Lincoln swallowed hard. “I still don’t know what happened. One minute I’m diving into my swag in the middle of a sandstorm, the next minute I’m awake in a train station.”
Eliza shrugged. “Same story, but dirt road for me.”
Bree shook her head in disbelieving wonder. “At least you two didn’t have to run from a snake. So what on earth happened?”
Eliza shook her head. “I don’t know. All I know is that I met a wonderful young woman who saved my life in more ways than one.”
“Me too.” Lincoln laughed bitterly as the phrase he regularly derided became a part of his story.
Lincoln could see Bree was itching to add to the conversation, but she was holding back. He urged her to speak. “So who did you meet?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Based on what we’ve been through in the past forty-eight hours?”
“Okay.” Bree took a deep breath as tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “When I climbed out of the ravine, away from the snake, I reached a cave and in there were paintings that gave me instructions to overcome my fear, to tame a venomous snake, and get out.” Her gaze dropped to the carpet.
Eliza reached across and set a hand on Bree’s arm. “For me it was a map with my own life printed on it. I can’t even begin to explain it, but I’ll never forget Grace’s simple question about why I was the reference point for my own life. I was saved by Grace.”
Lincoln was quiet, buried in his own thoughts.
Bree leaned across to him. “What did you take away from all this?”
Lincoln’s cheeks burned with a sheepish embarrassment. “The woman I met showed me how I had locked away rejection of the past that was hindering all other relationships.”
Eliza averted her eyes, but only as far as his wrist. “You’ve still got that from the trip to Africa?”
Lincoln fingered the simple woven string around his wrist and shrugged. “I guess so.” Eliza smiled at him and, in that moment, the tiniest spark flared. “I left a part of myself behind back then, but I think I need to get that part of the old me back.”
Eliza’s smile didn’t seem forced. “You know, I was on that straight stretch of road for hours, and it wasn’t until I made the decision to step out of the driver’s seat of my own life that I found my way back.” She laced her hands behind her head. “So what do we do? Clearly the police here think we did something, but they didn’t believe my story.”
Two heads shook around the table as Lincoln and Bree answered in unison. “Me neither.”
Distant footsteps approached them down the corridor before they stopped outside the door.
Three heads pivoted to the door and Lincoln threw back his head in relief. “That has to be Andy. What do you think happened to him on his journey?”
Epilogue
Andy cracked one eye open as his consciousness reluctantly returned in the warming air. A sea of red. Blood? His nose filled with swirling puffs of acrid, white-hot dust, pluming in the air from each labored breath. Ancient, jagged rocks cut into his cheek. Leaden arms glued to the ground, the weight of his past pinning him to the hot dust of Central Australia.
Red.
Red dust.
The realization of where he was landed on him with a thud. He wished he’d never remembered. His mind was running. It had been running all night. He shook his consciousness back into shape and peeked out from his safe crevice in the ancient rock to see if the noises that had tormented his night had an owner. His stomach growled in impatient frustration, a sentient being of its own, unfulfilled after the tiniest sliver of pizza.
Andy craned his neck outside the cave and looked up, beyond the outcrop, into the brightness of the morning. A shadow flitted in the red dirt in front of him. He couldn’t keep going like this. He’d been running for years, lessons unlearned, consequences piling up like uncanceled junk mail on a vacationer’s front door step.
Smithy’s faint voice echoed in his head. “I am prepared to pay your debt. That’s all I’ve prepared for.”
Instead, Andy had run.
He reached for his phone. The battery was clinging to life by its fingertips, but the phone was no closer to a signal. He dropped it as it buzzed in his hand. Andy bent to pick it up from the rock beneath his feet and turned it over.
The message wasn’t from his bookie. Beneath the spiderwebbed glass the sender’s name was clear: the Front Bar. Andy fumbled the phone as he switched it off.
“I am prepared to p
ay your debt.”
With the echo of Smithy’s soothing voice, his heart rate slowed. He forced his entire being into his feet, driving them to twitch, to get him upright and back to Smithy. One chance to turn things around and he’d blown it.
He had to find Smithy again, but he had no idea how. The one person who had offered to stand up for him, stand alongside him as he fought the twinges to put his future on the line for a rush in the present, and stand for the price that needed to be paid to free him.
“I am not far away.”
The last time Andy had stumbled across him under a gum tree. As he scanned the landscape between himself and the horizon, there were only a handful of options.
Anxiety rose in him like a flood at the thought of the barman chasing him for money. As if by reflex, layered with panic and years of survival, he kicked into gear. He emerged from under the rock as the burning sun hit him, crisping his shoulders as he left his hiding place.
The phone buzzed again.
And he ran.
A Note from the Author
Dear Friend,
Thank you for investing your time in reading this story. I hope you enjoyed it and the brief visit to my country.
As much as the corner of the Outback in which my American characters found themselves was fictional, it was representative of the wonder and rugged, harsh beauty of the heart of Australia. Come and visit—there will be no lack of ravines, sweeping dunes, abandoned railways or dirt tracks for you to enjoy, lose yourself and—hopefully—find yourself.
I really wanted to write a story about Australia. It’s a rugged, dangerous, enchanting place, and I wanted to share it with you. If you ever get a chance to visit Australia, I’d highly recommend it. When you’re in the outback, you really are in the middle of nowhere, standing on the crushed red dust of the heart of this land, and you can hear your thoughts before you even have them. It’s beautiful.
The other thing about being in the middle of nowhere is it gives you a chance to reflect. To think. To ask the question: How did I get here? You may have even thought about that yourself. I know I have.
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