Behind Mt. Baldy

by Christopher Cummings

  “I’ll get up a bit higher,” Roger decided. He unbuckled his webbing and scrambled up onto a mass of black granite which armoured the small headland beside the beach. Graham came scrambling up to join him.

  Roger felt his heart sink into his stomach. There was no doubt. He could see what could only be arms.

  “It’s a dead body alright,” he said quietly.

  Graham gulped and steadied himself on the sloping rock to stare. “I can see his hands,” he muttered.

  “What can you see?” Peter called from down on the beach.

  “It’s a dead body alright,” Roger replied, unwilling even then to acknowledge the reality.

  Stephen stood beside Peter, looking very pale and silent.

  “We’ve got to get him out,” Roger said.

  “Why? He’s dead,” Graham replied.

  “He might not be,” Roger answered.

  “The wind will push it .. er him, ashore somewhere here,” Peter called.

  “That will take half an hour or more,” Roger replied. “He might not be dead. We’ve got to get him out.”

  “He’s dead Roger,” Graham replied, climbing slowly back down the rocks.

  Roger followed. “Drowned people can be saved. We get taught that in Lifesaving. Mouth to mouth and CPR,” he insisted. Back down on the beach again he stepped forward into the water.

  “What are you doing Roger?” Graham yelled, running over to him.

  “I’m going to get him,” Roger replied.

  “Let the current wash him ashore,” Stephen cried angrily, his pale blue eyes blazing.

  “No.”

  Graham flapped his arms helplessly. “Then, then ... then at least don’t drown yourself by trying to swim in boots and clothes.”

  “You’re right,” Roger agreed. He sat down and began unlacing his boots.

  Stephen looked aghast. “You’re not going to swim out to that .. that thing?” he asked in a strangled whisper.

  Roger nodded and went on undressing. Peter joined them. The others stood in silence while Roger pulled off his boots and socks. Then he stood and began to unbutton his shirt. Roger knew he was only an average swimmer, whereas Graham was very good. In his heart he knew he should not be the one to swim out, but he felt compelled to do it. He turned to look at Graham, hoping he would offer to go.

  Graham looked awful. Then he said, “I’ll swim out.”

  Relief flooded through Roger, to be replaced instantly by stubborness. “No. I’ll go. You be ready to rescue me though, because it will be cold in there and I might get a cramp,” he replied.

  Graham weakly agreed and sat to take his boots off. Normally Roger was very self-conscious of his body. His skin was very white and as he peeled his trousers off he knew with bitter self-loathing that he did look pudgy. To save weight they had not brought bathers so Roger stripped off his underpants and stood stark naked in the water. That he was willing to do this brought home to him how intense his own determination was. Embarrassed self-consciousness mingled with sickening dread and he nerved himself to act.

  Graham hauled off his second boot. “Off you go Roger, I’ll be ready by the time you reach him.”

  Roger said nothing. Breathing deeply he waded slowly in, flinching at the coldness of the water. The water on the surface was quite warm to the touch but half a metre down it felt like it was straight from Antarctica. He shivered, then launched himself forward.

  The freezing water took his breath away as he began to breast stroke towards the dark object bobbing in the waves. But it was not the cold which seized the back of his skull in an icy grip. It was stark terror.

  For a moment he faltered. He stopped to tread water, his eyes riveted to the bobbing, waterlogged object. It was half awash and now he could see hair moving in the water.

  Peter called, “You OK Roger?”

  Roger didn’t turn. He waved a hand and, gritting his teeth, swam towards the corpse. As he got closer he saw it was indeed a man, a grey haired man dressed in a dark brown coat. A hand, the fingers puffy and unnaturally white, seemed to reach towards him.

  Roger suppressed a scream, then gasped as a wave washed into his open mouth. He spluttered then swam forward. ‘Strewth it’s cold!’ he told himself, his mind still trying to fend off the awful reality. Then he puzzled: ‘How do I move him ... it ... what do you call a corpse?’

  Roger saw that the body had a grey scarf wound around its neck. He grasped this and went to tow it...him.. ashore. The body moved. Then it suddenly rolled. An arm came over. A clammy hand seemed to grab at Roger’s leg. He cried out in fright.

  But the man was dead. There was no doubt of that. As the body had rolled over Roger had seen that the left side of the skull was a mangled mass of bone and ... and brains?

  The scarf was no good. Worse still Roger knew he was getting tired. In his mind he saw the chill black water and ooze deep beneath his feet. ‘I don’t want to drown,’ he thought, mastering with difficulty the urge to give up and swim ashore. He turned on his side and grabbed the coat collar and began to swim as strongly as he could. His legs kept touching the body. The scarf wrapped around his right ankle. He had to stop and untangle it.

  It seemed a long way back to the shore. Roger could see the others standing there but they didn’t seem to get any closer. With a feeling of mounting desperation Roger resumed swimming. Just as he felt he would have to give up there was splashing in the water and Graham joined him.

  “OK Roger. I’ve got him. Not far now.”

  They floundered into the shallows. Thankfully Roger felt sand under his feet. He stood up and, helped by Graham, dragged the body up onto the beach.

  Stephen turned away and vomited.

  CHAPTER 2

  IS THIS TROUBLE?

  Stephen continued to retch almost unnoticed by the other three. They stood staring down in horror.

  At last Graham spoke. “He’s dead alright. And you don’t need to be a doctor to see he didn’t drown,” he said.

  “You’re right there,” agreed Peter, bending to look more closely, his face a mask of grisly fascination.

  “Is that a bullet hole in his forehead?” Graham asked.

  Peter bent closer. “Could be. Don’t know. If it is, it came out here, on the left side.” He pointed at the mangled mess Roger had already observed.

  Roger eyed the evidence of violent death and felt nauseous. “How long has he been dead do you think?” he asked.

  They eyed the man’s skin, all swollen and wrinkled from the water. The sight was so horrible Roger couldn’t take his eyes off it. The eyes of the dead man were still open - dilated but dulled.

  “Can’t tell,” Peter decided. “There’s no blood.”

  “Don’t bodies sink?” Roger queried. “At least till they start to decompose and the expanding gasses give them buoyancy.”

  “Aah Roger!” wailed Stephen, who turned away to gag again.

  The boys debated this for a while. Then Peter asked, “What will we do?”

  “Get dressed first,” said Roger, who had suddenly realised he was shivering with cold. A glance at his naked body made him feel intensely self-conscious, and also very aware of his mortal frailty.

  The boys were distracted from their problem for a few minutes while small hand towels were dug out of packs. Roger and Graham dried themselves and quickly dressed. Both found their teeth chattering involuntarily until they had begun to warm up.

  “We’d better tell the police,” Stephen suggested.

  “Yes, at once,” Graham agreed. “And we will certainly have to wait till they’ve interviewed us.”

  “There goes our hike,” Peter said morosely.

  “Looks like it,” said Graham.

  “Is this trouble?” Roger asked.

  Graham looked puzzled. “Trouble?” he replied. “I don’t see how it could involve us, other than being an unpleasant experience and an inconvenience.”

  “No. I meant should we phone Captain Conkey?” Roger replied.
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  Graham thought for a moment, then reluctantly nodded. “Yes. He needs to know. It will annoy him if he finds out from someone else. We will tell the police at the same time. Who feels like a run back to the kiosk on the other side of the dam?”

  Stephen put his hand up at once. “I’ll go,” he volunteered.

  “I’ll go with you Steve,” Peter added.

  Graham nodded. “Yes. Both go. Look, don’t tell anyone, just the police and Captain Conkey. We don’t want a crowd of tourists here.”

  Peter nodded. “Right you are. Come on Steve.” he said. He set off up the track. Stephen needed no second bidding. He fairly sprinted up to the road and did not once look back.

  Graham looked at his watch. Ten past twelve. “I reckon we’ll have a good half hour to wait, minimum.”

  “Where’s the nearest police station?” Roger asked.

  “Not sure. Atherton I suppose.”

  “Should we search his pockets for identification do you think?” Roger asked. He walked to the other side of the body to peer at the man’s shoes.

  “No. Definitely not. Just leave him for the police,” Graham replied.

  “Should we cover him up?” Roger asked.

  “What with? You can if you like. I think I’ll just move away a bit,” Graham answered. Then Roger saw him shiver. Graham trembled so much Roger worried he had taken a chill from the water.

  Graham dug in his pack for his pullover and walked back up the track to sit on some rocks in the sun. “Come up here Roger. We can watch the road and it’s out of the wind,” he called.

  Reluctantly Roger joined him. He couldn’t stop looking at the body. “Do you think he was murdered or did he shoot himself?” he asked.

  Graham gave him a jaundiced look. “I wish you’d change the subject. How do I know? I’m not a bloody forensic scientist.”

  “I wonder who killed him and why?” Roger speculated.

  Graham kept looking along the road towards the dam. “The others should be back soon. Ah! Here they come now. No. No it’s not. It’s more than two.”

  Roger stood up to look. A line of people walking in single file had appeared around the bend. “They’re Scouts,” he said.

  Graham looked horrified. “Crumbs! We don’t want them to see this.”

  Roger bit his lip and nodded. “I’ll go and warn them,” he said. Without waiting for an answer he strode off along the road to meet the advancing column, now some forty or fifty in number with several Scout leaders.

  The four friends were also Senior Scouts and as Roger walked to meet the Scouts he vaguely remembered hearing that there was a Scout gathering this week at Camp Barrabadeen but as it wasn’t for Seniors he hadn’t taken much notice. Then his face broke into a smile as he recognized the tall, thin man with the moustache and glasses leading the line. It was ‘Silver Wolf’, the leader of their troop.

  The two greeted each other with a Scout salute, Roger a bit self-consciously in his army uniform. He fell into step beside the Scout leader and quickly appraised him of the problem.

  ‘Silver Wolf’s’ eyebrows rose. “The body is on the beach and visible from the road. Hmm! Oh blast! Another car.” He stopped and shrilled a whistle. The line of Scouts all stopped and stepped to the side. The car roared past. “Well, road safety comes first. We will just have to hurry them past. I’ll just have a word to ‘Brown Owl’.” He called to a solid man in his fifties who walked up to them.

  The man’s cheerful smile died at the news. “Oh well. We will just go on,” Brown Owl decided.

  “I’ll stay with these lads till the police come if you don’t mind,” Silver Wolf said.

  Brown Owl nodded. He blew his whistle and waved the Scouts on. When they reached the little path Roger and Silver Wolf stopped. Graham joined them. The body was clearly visible, but only if you looked. Roger turned his back on it to talk to the boys to distract them. Some he knew, so he could make smart comments.

  The plan half worked. Some of the young boys saw the body and pointed and the rumour ‘accident’ went along the line but most were too hot and footsore from their hike to care.

  As the last boy went past, Silver Wolf turned and led the way down to the body. Roger felt very relieved that they now had an adult there with them.

  The Scout Master pursed his lips as he bent to examine the head wound. After a careful look he stood up. “He’s certainly been dead a while and shot for sure. But I’m sure I’ve seen him before. He looks like the old man who drove up to Platypus Lookout yesterday morning. We were just leaving on a nature walk when he arrived. He was driving an old blue car, a Datsun I think it was.”

  Roger looked up. “Here are the Police.”

  A police car had pulled up on the side of the road. Out of the back climbed Peter and Stephen and from the front two uniformed policemen. The group waited while they walked down.

  Both Roger and Graham were surprised to recognize the senior of the policemen. It was Senior Constable Grey, although now he wore the rank of sergeant.

  Sergeant Grey grinned at them. “G’day young Kirk. G’day Tubby. I just knew, the moment I heard that if four kids on a hike had fished a body out of the lake, which four it would be. How are you?”

  He shook their hands and they mumbled hellos. Roger was nettled by that ‘Tubby’ and kept back a bit.

  Graham gestured to the three chevrons on the policeman’s rank slide. “Have you been promoted Sir. I mean Sergeant,” he asked.

  Roger looked at Sergeant Grey and shuddered. He had vivid memories of their earlier meetings during some adventures on the Kuranda Railway two years before.

  Sergeant Grey nodded. “Yeah. The powers that be finally realized what potential they were missing,” he replied. He turned to Silver Wolf and introduced himself and the constable with him. “This is Constable Widmark. Now let’s have a look at this stiff.”

  They moved over to the body. The policemen examined it for a few minutes and Sergeant Grey questioned the boys on how they had discovered it. When told Roger had swum out and towed it ashore he gave the Roger an appraising look. That nettled Roger even more with its implication that Sergeant Grey probably thought him fat and soft.

  The constable searched the body then stood up. “Nothing Sarge. Not a thing in any of his pockets.”

  “Looks like it was murder then. Any labels or name tags on the clothes? Look inside the shoes too,” Sergeant said. Then he turned back to the boys. Roger and Stephen both kept staring as the constable peeled the coat from the corpse.

  Sergeant Grey said, “Now, tell us what you were doing here. I’ll have to get full statements from each of you and I will have to do that with your parents or a solicitor or some other such adult there.” He looked up at the Scout Master. “Could you do that Sir?”

  Silver Wolf assented. Sergeant Grey thanked him and went on, “I can take notes now but they need to be typed up and checked and so on.”

  Roger pulled a long face. He didn’t like the policeman and this would surely spoil their hike.

  Sergeant Grey glanced at him and saw his expression. “Why so glum? What’s the matter?” he asked.

  “Because we are on our five day expedition for our Duke of Edinburgh badge and this will ruin it,” Roger replied.

  The boys then explained why they were there. Sergeant Grey nodded. “Yes, I see what you mean. Look, don’t get distressed. We’ll try to get it done as quickly as we can. This case is out of my hands anyway. As a Homicide or Suspected Homicide it’s CIB stuff. There’ll be some Detectives on their way here by now.”

  “Where from Sergeant?” Peter asked.

  “Mareeba for sure. Maybe Cairns.”

  The boys did the calculation in their heads. “That’ll be hours!” Roger said.

  “’Fraid so.”

  Graham looked at his watch. “Can we go, or do we have to stay till they get here?” he asked. Roger saw that it was now twelve twenty five.

  “I want you to stay. I’m sorry. While we wait I’d lik
e you to help me get your stories down on paper,” Sergeant Grey said. Then he looked up and frowned. A car full of tourists had pulled up and people were getting out. “Widmark, tell them to push off,” he ordered. “Stay up there and keep people away.”

  The constable stood up and hurried up the track. The tourists were ordered to move on.

  “This road is pretty damned busy,” Sergeant Grey growled as two more cars went past, kicking up clouds of dust.

  “It’s the school holidays Sergeant, so there’s more traffic,” Stephen explained.

  Sergeant Grey gave a sarcastic laugh. “You don’t have to tell me!”

  Stephen flushed and looked away.

  Sergeant Grey then asked if they wanted him to contact their parents.

  “Oh no! Don’t do that!” Roger wailed. “My mum will take me home and that will mean no hike for me.”

  Silver Wolf spoke up. “I’m sure their parents would be happy for me to witness their statements Sergeant. They’ve been in my troop for years.”

  Sergeant Grey nodded. “That’ll do. We’ll get handwritten statements today and they can come in with their parents to sign typed copies after their hike.”

  The boys brightened up at that. Sergeant Grey went to the police car and returned with a plastic folder and writing paper. He then had each boy in turn sit and give his story while Silver Wolf listened. Constable Widmark was told to cover the body and to chase away some more curious sightseers.

  While he waited, Roger was a bit amused to see that Stephen kept casting nervous glances at the now shrouded body every minute or so. It gave him some satisfaction after all the jibes Stephen had flung at him over the years. He noted that Stephen looked so pale that his freckles were much more noticeable.

  An hour went by. The boys became a bit bored and restless.

  Roger felt his stomach grumble. “I’m hungry. Can we have lunch?” he asked.

  Stephen looked at him with a shocked expression on his face. “Roger! How could you possibly eat near a ... near a..” he tailed into silence.

  Sergeant Grey thought it a good idea. He told them to collect their gear and move it up to the edge of the road and to have lunch.