by Sean Wallace
Jimmy grabbed Sarah’s arm, so hard it hurt. He put his face next to hers so she could hear over the din. “You should go,” Jimmy said; eyes hard, face set. The little girl cried and the barmaid whimpered. A dog howled. “It’s not safe ’ere any more, not for whitefella or black.”
It was almost dark when Sarah reached the camp, which the men had erected in the shade of a small tree-lined waterhole hidden in a patch of scrub within sight of the community. The monolith glowed red in the fading light, the last rays of sunset tipping the pillars of the Sentinels with pink. She identified the dry creek bed she’d seen in the photos, and could just make out where it once might have joined up with the billabong before a movement of the earth or perhaps just sediment had cut the waterhole off. Now the only thing coming down from the pinnacles of gray stone were the haunting calls of curlews, but Sarah blamed the increasingly cool night air for her goosepimples.
The men had pitched the tents. Sarah had her own, though she would be sharing it with a good deal of equipment they had unpacked from the four-wheel drive. John was squatting by the campfire he’d built inside a circle of water-smoothed stones on a sandy patch near the bank of the waterhole.
“Did you get it?” she gasped, out of breath from her stumbling jog from the township. “It had to be two, maybe three points.”
John, looking over his shoulder, shook his head. “Sorry, Sarah. We were still unpacking when the aftershock came. But Brisbane will have recorded it. And yeah, I’d say around two-point-five on the Richter scale. Shook some of the dust off the Rover.”
“Shit.” She stood, legs apart, bent over with hands on knees, the sweat cooling on her back and forehead. “I can’t believe we missed it.”
“But you’re just in time for dinner.”
She could see he hadn’t been joking about the beans. They were simmering, fresh from the can, on the fry pan.
“Where’s Steve?” she asked, moving over to warm herself by the fire. She breathed deeply to inhale the fragrant wood smoke. Already, she could see through the branches stars twinkling in the clear, darkening night. Out here, with no city lights or pollution, the star field would stretch from horizon to horizon. Maybe she would go for a walk later, get out of the scrub so she could enjoy that vista.
“Watering the horse,” John said, and then in a low voice: “He didn’t dump the booze.”
Before she could say anything, Steve stepped into the campsite, one hand still working at his fly, the other holding a bottle of rum.
“I thought we agreed to leave that at the motel last night,” Sarah said.
“You agreed. It’s almost a third full, no point leaving it for the maid.” He offered her the bottle.
She shook her head. “You know they can throw us off for bringing that on to their land.”
“Their land? Since when?”
She clenched her teeth, aware of John motioning with his eyes for her not to get into a brawl.
“Jesus,” she muttered. “I’m going to get my coat.” She rubbed her arms with anger, not cold, as she headed for her tent.
“Better get the first-aid kit, too,” Steve shouted. “Get a bandage for that bleeding heart of yours.”
“Fuck you,” she yelled through the canvas as she angrily rummaged for her sweater.
“You wish,” he shouted back. Before she could retort further, she heard John calming Steve down.
Still, she didn’t go outside, just lit her lantern and started to check and prepare equipment for the next day. Damn Steve. Damn that he’d been more interested in getting pissed than setting up the equipment. Damn that they’d missed the aftershock. Their first chance to get some real data, rather than Jimmy Curlew’s mumbo jumbo . . . The old man’s thinly veiled warning made her shiver. Not that she thought he would actually harm them. How could he? But he had suggested that the climber had not died of a heart attack—what did he know about that? She swore again as she hauled equipment from boxes, powered up her laptop. Old Jimmy wouldn’t have to poison them or arrange any accidents to end this expedition. He’d just have to catch Steve boozing.
A beep from the laptop announced it was ready. Sarah was particularly interested in downloading the latest satellite pictures, and any new data from the earthquake monitoring center in Brisbane. She’d set up as much of her own equipment as she could tonight, to make sure she didn’t miss any other aftershocks. The two men couldn’t do much before morning, when they’d start taking soil samples and checking for damage as part of a safety assessment.
John brought dinner to the door and she took it gratefully. Sarah could see Steve, sitting by the fire with his back to her tent, staring out in the direction of the monolith, barely visible through the trees.
“Don’t pay him any mind,” John said. “He gets loud when he’s on the piss.”
“The arsehole will ruin our trip.”
“Don’t let him. It’s a beautiful night, why don’t you come out? Birds are loud.”
“They give me the creeps.”
“Just birds, Sarah. Anyway, I’m going to turn in soon. We want to do as much as we can in the morning before it gets too hot, eh?”
“Sure.”
“Will you be all right?”
She smiled.
“Well, if you want anything, just holler.”
She thanked him and finished her meal, soaking up the juice with a piece of bread, with a chocolate bar for dessert. John, bless him, had brought her coffee as well. His heart was in the right place. If only she could transplant it into Steve’s body . . . She zipped up the tent and retreated with the brew to her sleeping bag on the camp bed. But she’d only just picked up her laptop when Steve stumbled into the tent door.
“What the hell do you want?” she shouted as he clawed at the canvas then finally found the zip. He loomed large and dark at the door, his face bright red, eyes shining in the gas light.
“I wanted to shay I’m shorry,” he lisped, kneeling in the doorway, one hand on the tent pole, the other around the neck of the nearly empty bottle. “Y’know, I really like you, Sharah. Been thinkin’ about you lots since that last trip.”
“Well, thanks Steve.” She hoped her voice was suitably sarcastic. “I’m just about to get some sleep.” Then she regretted it; she didn’t want to antagonize him further. “Maybe we can talk about it in the morning, eh?”
“Why not now, Sharah?” He lurched to all fours. “Y’know, it could be a cold night . . . ”
She felt a chill run through her and pulled the blanket higher. “I’m sure I’ll be warm enough, thanks. Why don’t you turn in? Early start and all that.”
“Ah, shoulda known ya wouldn’t be intereshted in a real man. Not lefty enough for ya, eh?”
She flinched in the face of his sudden anger, drawing up her knees as he waved the bottle. “It was a mistake, I told you that.”
John called out, his voice sounding hesitant and thin. “Hey Steve, you finished with the fire? I’m gonna put it out.”
Sarah held her breath, wondering if the interruption would distract Steve or just annoy him.
“You bitch,” Steve muttered, and drained the bottle.
“Steve?” John called. “I’m, ah, putting the fire out. You gonna hit the sack?”
Sarah’s grip on her blanket relaxed as Steve backed out of the tent. She jumped as he whacked the bottle against the fly, then hurled it into the bush. It must’ve hit a rock, because she heard it smash. The sharp crack made her flinch again. “Yeah, I heard ya the firsht time. Put yaself out, why don’tcha? I’m gonna take a leak.”
Then Steve was gone. She heard his shambling footfalls in the gravel, then a few cracks of branches and leaves. For a moment she thought she should go after him. Stumbling around in the dark, he could get hurt. She sighed. Serve him right if he did. A night out in the cold would do him the world of good.
John stood outside her tent. “Everything okay, Sarah?” he asked quietly, as though afraid of being overheard.
“It’
s fine, John. Thanks.”
“Ah, okay then. I’m gonna turn in.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
She heard him walk away, then called after him: “John?”
He stopped. “Yes, Sarah?”
She paused, not sure what she had meant to say. “Thanks” seemed pretty weak. “Sleep tight, eh?”
“Yeah. You, too.”
A moment of silence, then he resumed walking. She heard the zip of the other tent open and then shut.
Damn, she would have to go out. Her bladder wasn’t letting her go to bed just yet. Maybe she could blame Steve for causing a nervous reaction.
It was cold outside, even in jeans and jumper. The fire was dead. The tent John shared with Steve lay in darkness. Poor John; he would have to spend the night with Steve’s drunken snoring and bad attitude, once the obnoxious geologist returned from his nocturnal stagger.
Clutching her toilet bag under her arm, Sarah turned on her flashlight and headed down to the waterhole.
Business done and teeth cleaned, she started back towards the camp. Then she heard something. She froze. The sound of crickets rose up, and the damned curlews of course, and other birds she didn’t know. Then she heard the noise again—hushed voices.
“I can take ya there,” a young man said. “It’s not far, boss.”
“How far exactly?” Steve asked. “I’m not in the mood for a bloody midnight hike.”
“Not very far, boss. Plenny of drink there. No one knows about it. Just us young fellas.”
“Well, I dunno.”
Sarah saw movement, a flash of pale skin as Steve ran a hand through his hair and turned towards the camp. She couldn’t see the other man clearly; he was just a dark shadow among many.
“C’mon, boss, you’ll be back in plenny of time. There’ll be girls there, too.”
“Yeah? Ah, what the hell. Lead the way, sport.”
And Steve lurched off into the trees.
When Sarah was sure he was gone, she ran, fast as she dared, the short distance to John’s tent. A few shouts and he came stumbling out, wiping his face and fumbling with his glasses.
“What is it, Sarah? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Steve. The bloody idiot’s gone off with some blackfella to get drunk.” She tossed her head and rolled her eyes. “Drunker,” she amended. “He’ll be bloody useless tomorrow. Christ, he might even get us kicked off. We can’t afford to let someone else get to this, John.”
“Ah, shit, all right. Let me get my boots on and we’ll go get the bugger.”
“Thanks, John. Hurry.”
It took only a few minutes before they were both dressed and ready. She showed him the way she thought Steve had gone.
“Are you sure? That’s not towards the community.”
“No, it’s towards Kadimakara, I know. The bar must be in a cave or something. Damn him.” How typical, she thought: finally a chance to get some professional attention, and Steve was going to louse it up in a drunken fit of pique.
John eyed the Rover, shrugged, then started walking. “Steve’s got the keys.”
“That’d be bloody right,” Sarah huffed, and trudged along next to him.
It wasn’t long and they cleared the scrub and emerged onto the plain. A half moon threw everything into light and shade, making the footing treacherous, especially since the quake had thrown up deep runnels. They tried to keep their torches pointed at their feet so the beams wouldn’t alert Steve and give him time to hide. They could just see his white shirt, bobbing in the wan light as he wove around rocks, spindly bushes and his own inebriated sense of direction.
Despite the cold, Sarah was sweating when they finally approached the monolith.
“For a drunk, he makes good time,” she wheezed. They stopped near the base, trying to find Steve and his almost invisible guide as they gathered their breath.
“Yeah, he’s a big bastard,” John said, and she thought she could hear doubt in his voice. Neither had broached the subject about just how they were going to convince Steve to return to camp.
“Christ, it’s big, too.” She stared up at Kadimakara looming above them, silvered in the moonlight.
“Yeah,” John muttered. “I would have preferred to see it in daytime. It looks a lot bigger in the dark.”
“Yeah, and of course, bloody Steve has gone to the shadowed side. How the hell are we going to find him?”
“I guess we’ll just have to keep looking.”
Pebbles crunched underfoot, loud enough in the still, quiet night to make them wince as they worked their way around the base. An incredible lip of earth surrounded the rock. It made Sarah think someone had simply dropped the monolith from a great height. How much of it was still underground, she wondered? How deep did it go?
They couldn’t hear the curlews from here, but occasionally something would scrabble in the dark, or small rocks would clatter on the stone mountain before them. She walked close to John, enjoying the sensation of another body within hand’s reach, however reedy.
John checked his watch. “Christ, we’ve been out here for hours.”
“Where the fuck could he be?”
“Oh shit,” John said, and pointed up.
“Oh shit indeed.” Steve and his companion were scaling the side of the rock, already half way up the slope. “I’m sure that’s the boy from the canteen.”
John looked at her blankly.
“Never mind,” she said. “What do we do now?”
“Follow them, I suppose.”
“At night? That’s crazy.”
“What else can we do? Look for his body in the morning and try to explain what a geologist was doing staggering around half pissed in the middle of the night?”
She trembled.
“You all right?” he asked, touching her sleeve.
“Yeah, I was just thinking about what Jimmy Curlew told me back at the canteen.”
“And what was that?”
“He said the rock killed that tourist the other day.”
“What the hell does that mean? You didn’t believe him, did you?”
“I dunno. It’s just crazy, the way the quake seemed to be centered here, and then the ground’s all ruffled like this.”
“I’ll grant you Mother Earth’s got a few tricks up her sleeve, but that’s why we’re here, eh? One way or the other, though, we have to get Steve down from there before we all get into serious trouble. Not a lot of jobs for washed-up seismologists these days.”
They scrambled onto the rock surface. It still felt warm, as though all the heat of the day was still leaking out. The rock was pitted with age and weather. Tufts of hardy spinifex protruded from among the cracks. It was a steep climb that made their legs ache and chests heave as they fought for breath.
Sarah’s apprehension mounted as they worked their way higher. She felt like a burglar, climbing across someone’s roof. How long before she got caught?
“No wonder people die up here,” John gasped when they called a rest stop at a place where the rock flattened slightly before curving up towards the apex. “Christ, I’ve got to work out more.”
Sarah nodded in sympathy. Her shirt was soaked with sweat; her ankle smarted from when she had slipped. She would have felt stupid about it but John had been tripping a lot, too, as they tried to find solid footing on the smooth stone and puddles of scree. At least the moon had risen further, was giving them some extra light. They used their torches, but often the wavering beams were more a menace than a help, and in places they needed both hands to crawl up the steep slope.
Finally they neared the top, the star-filled sky arcing over them. Sarah had forgotten how many there were; how big the world was. A cold wind froze the sweat and made her shiver.
“There they are,” John said, pointing.
“Oh Christ, he’s passed out,” Sarah said. “We’ll never carry the bastard down.”
Steve was on the ground, his guide standing over him. The teenager saw them, waved.
>
“What the hell happened?” John shouted as they got closer. He played his torch beam over Steve. There was a dark splash of blood near his head.
“He tripped over, boss. I think he’s hurt pretty bad.”
John swore as he knelt beside Steve and felt for a pulse. “He’s still alive,” he told Sarah, his face washed out in her torch beam. “But he’s bleeding plenty.” John turned back, studying Steve. The teenager stepped up behind him.
Sarah screamed. Too late. John, looking puzzled, was still turning towards her as the knife plunged into his back. She saw his face contort with pain as the blade rose and slashed down once more. He fell across Steve’s body. John’s torch rolled away, bouncing and flashing until it broke with a crack.
“What the hell are you doing?” Sarah tried to keep her torch beam on the teenager as she backed away. Splashes of blood glistened on his arms and face.
“Kadimakara, he needs more blood. Just a bit more. Then he will wake up and drive you mob from our land.”
“That’s not what Jimmy said,” she stuttered as the youth approached, the gory knife held loosely in one blood-soaked hand. “He said it didn’t care who it killed, black or white.”
“What does that fella know? He’s old an’ soft.”
“And you’re a murdering sonofabitch,” she shouted, and then cried out as the rock lurched under her. She lost her balance, fell, dropped her torch. It bounced metallically over a lip and out of sight.
The youth swayed, but kept his feet, like a surfer.
“Kadimakara awakes! Your other mate must be dead, too. All Kadimakara needs is a little more.” He held his arms out, as though into a breeze. “Can you feel it?”
Oh yes, she could feel it. Trembling up through the rock, making her teeth rattle. Tears burned hot in her eyes.
The rock heaved again, even more violently, and gave a mighty crack like a glacier splitting. Sarah, already on hands and knees, fell sideways. Her head smacked on rock. She heard the boy cry out as he fell with a heavy crunch.
“No, Kadimakara,” he screamed. “I’m your servant!”
A shape blotted out the moon. Dust fell over them like mist. Pebbles dinged off rock. A thundering grating sound filled Sarah’s ears, penetrated by the boy’s cries.