Falling Into Queensland

by Jacqueline George

  “And it all hangs around Japan?”

  “Yes, I guess it does. But that"s Japan all over. He"d never stay anywhere unless he was the big boss. He"s King of the Makepeace here, and no one to bother him.”

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  The bar was pleasant that night. Shirley had begun to recognise people, both men and women, and they stopped at the bar to chat. They all wanted to see what she was hiding under her bandage, but she told them they"d have to wait a few days. Raylene came over and reminded her to keep putting ointment on her tattoo, and let the scab fall naturally. Japan saw the bandage when he passed through, but said nothing.

  The moon was already up when Midge clipped her handcuffs to the railing and said goodnight. In the clear air, the moon shone brighter than she had ever seen at home. Although there were inky black shadows around the dredge and under bushes, the bare earth lay white between them. Shirley could not sleep, and waited until Tom flitted through the moon shadows below. She was sitting ready on her sleeping bag when he came. He swung off a small rucksack and produced her running shoes with socks tucked inside them, a tee-shirt and a skirt. They were all wrapped around a heavy pair of cutters with a short, blunt jaw.

  He pulled a corner of the sleeping bag over to lay her chain on. He fed it into the cutter and with one handle of the cutter resting on the floor, put his weight slowly onto the other. The chain parted noiselessly and he unhooked the cut link from the cuff still around her wrist. Shirley hurried to dress.

  They took the ladder down to the next level, but then Tom climbed through the railings and down on to something unseen. He stopped and gestured her to follow. Hanging from the railing, she felt him place her feet, one after the other until she could step down onto a substantial ledge. They shuffled sideways onto a roof that led to the edge of the dredge. With gestures, he showed her how to climb from the roof onto a diagonal beam that sloped downwards. She followed again, feeling secure with his arm holding her upright.

  The last step was large, nearly two metres, down on to the main deck of the dredge. Tom clambered down an upright and stood waiting. She sat on her beam and Tom reached up to grip her waist and lift her down like a child from a bunk bed.

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  They picked their way out and across the car park, on to the road and away. He bent to her ear and whispered, “No footprints.” She followed him closely, hurrying behind him down the centre of the road where there were pebbles and little dust.

  They had travelled silently for perhaps ten minutes when Tom held his hand up for her to stop. “Wait here,” he said, in a low voice, “And don"t move around. I"ll going to lay a false trail.” He slipped head, jogging along the centre of the road.

  Shirley looked back. The dredge had disappeared, cut off by a bend in the road and she felt a great upwelling of relief in her stomach. She had escaped!

  Tom was hard to see in the moonlight but he seemed to have disappeared into the shadows where the road turned towards the hills, and a gulley crossed the road. She waited for long minutes until she saw him again, coming from the darkness and stepping out onto the road again. He was smiling as he came towards her.

  “That should keep them busy. Now, we"ve got to be really careful about not leaving any tracks here. You see that slab over there? We"ve got to jump onto it. It"s not too hard. I"ll go first and catch you, but be careful!”

  Tom sprang onto a large rock slab lying half buried beside the road, and turned to catch her. She did not know if she could jump that far but, trusting him, threw herself across. He scooped her up and held her tight for a moment.

  “Now, we can do this, but we"ve got to be very careful, and very quiet. Come on.”

  Watching him step by step, Shirley followed into the rough

  grass, stepping from rock to rock and leaving no marks. They moved

  slowly on, climbing diagonally across the hill face.

  Once they had left the road well behind them, Tom speeded

  up. He no longer cared about leaving footprints and climbed steadily, saying nothing. Shirley was panting as she forced herself to keep up. Suddenly, Tom stopped to let her catch up. “Come here,” he gestured and turned aside. They were approaching the crest of a

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  ridge. Tom stopped her with a hand on her arm, and they moved slowly forward.

  Shirley was looking out over the wormcasts covering the floor of the Makepeace valley. The moon had etched them in zebra stripes of gravel and gullies. The desolation stretched into the distance. Moving carefully forward, she began to see more and more of the valley until the mast of the dredge appeared, black, angular and alien. She could see her sleeping platform and imagined she could make out her sleeping bag. She turned her back on it, wanting to hurry away from Japan.

  Tom led on, moving more quickly now that the ground had levelled out and they were able to keep to a wide ridge. Here there was little grass and only occasional rocky outcrops, and they could walk easily. All around was the silent Australian bush, bare uplands and sparse eucalypts sheltering in the valley bottoms. They were alone.

  Shirley plodded on. She did not know how long they had been walking but she sensed Tom forcing the pace, hurrying to safety, and she could not hold back. Her head was down, searching for stones and trips in the path, and she knew she must not disappoint Tom.

  Her excitement over her escape had long gone cold when the sky ahead started to lighten. She heard the chirrup of a waking bird. Subtle colour flooded back into the landscape and soon they felt the sun on their faces.

  “Nearly there,” said Tom, speaking normally at last. “I borrowed Marilyn"s ute and it"s just over that ridge. We can get out of here before they realise you"ve gone.”

  “Breakfast?” asked Shirley.

  “Yes. Well, bananas, at least. You can eat them as we drive.”

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  Chapter 22

  Marilyn"s ute sat waiting in a small valley, tucked under a tree, next to a creek that had forgotten what water looked like. Shirley smiled in relief, and hurried to climb in and fasten her seat belt. Tom passed her a plastic container of water and a hand of sugar bananas. “Breakfast, but we can go straight to Lulu"s when we get home.”

  Clunk. He turned the key again. Clunk.

  “Something"s wrong.” Shirley could hear the hopelessness in his voice. “Do you know about cars?”

  “Me? No – nothing. No one has cars in London. Not in the middle, anyway, unless you"re really rich. But this ute did the same the first time I met Marilyn. She got under the bonnet, and I had to start it. It was easy. For her, anyway.”

  They climbed out and lifted the bonnet. The engine looked big and dirty. Shirley recognised nothing except the battery, and she could see Tom was no better.

  “Well, we can"t just sit here,” she said. “Why don"t you try again, and I"ll see what happens?”

  Nothing happened. She heard the clunk from somewhere deep in the engine, but nothing moved. She went to the driver"s window. “We have to get help. Where are we, anyway? There were some farms on the way in.”

  Tom thought for a moment. “Yes. We can do that. If we start now, we could get to the nearest station by nightfall. We"d need to keep out of sight, though. It"s not too bad in these hills, but once we"re down on the plain... Did you see the view from the road? Anyone with a pair of binoculars could see you from miles away.”

  Tom began to prepare for the trip. He had brought three square plastic containers of water and he managed to fit two in his rucksack. He pulled a tube of sun screen from the pocket in the door, and offered it to Shirley. She carefully covered everywhere that showed. To her surprise, Tom used it too and she helped by rubbing

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  the cream into the backs of his massive shoulders. He put the cream in his rucksack; they would need it later.

>   Marilyn had left her hat behind the driver"s seat and Shirley borrowed it. When she insisted, Tom made up a rope sling so she could carry the third water container over one shoulder. It might not be comfortable, but at least it would get lighter as they went. They set off, climbing back onto the ridge and following it east. The sun was already high enough to make Shirley suffer, and she knew it would get worse.

  There was no longer any urgency. They were stuck out here and unable to escape quickly. Survival would depend on hiding from anyone searching for them. They could only hope the noise of any pursuing vehicle would give them time to hide. Shirley followed Tom, now walking steadily, conserving their energy for a long day.

  All around her, the country looked forbidding. Dry, bare, monotonous, and infinitely vast. She knew you could walk for weeks in the wrong direction and still be looking at the same bare hills with their scrappy grass and rare stunted trees.

  “I don"t suppose anyone ever comes here. I wonder if anyone has ever been here, apart from the kangaroos.”

  Tom was surprised. “What? Well, hardly anyone today, I guess. We"d see tyre tracks if they did, but the miners were all over this country. Once they"d found gold on the Makepeace, there must have been so many people around. Prospectors, labourers, Chinese coolies. Everyone trying to get rich.”

  “When was this?”

  “Oh, let"s see. They found the Palmer River first – that"s the other side of Cooktown – and the goldfield there was getting busy in the 1870"s. There were tens of thousands of miners then, and Cooktown was a busy port.

  “Once the Palmer River had got established, there was no more room for the small miners, so they spread out. Everyone looking for a little creek bed somewhere that had enough gold for them to make a living. I don"t think they finally realised how big the Makepeace could be in the 1870"s, because although there was a lot

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  of gold, the grade wasn"t very rich. You had to move a lot of gravel for an ounce of gold. They couldn"t really exploit it until they got big machines, and finally dredges. That one of Japan"s must have been running until after the war, and the last thing it did was eat up its town.”

  “They weren"t sentimental about their heritage then.”

  “No. It was all money. Mining companies are like that, grab the money and get out. Why should they care? They all live in London or Zurich. We still had the small prospectors here, though. A couple of guys with the right deposit could still make a fortune from a mine that wouldn"t interest the bigger men.

  “They"d load up a couple of mules with flour and dried food, and set off near the end of the Wet, when there"s still water on the ground. They"d just wander off in secret. Perhaps find something, or set up a base camp and scout around until their food ran out, and they"d come back with nothing much to show for their efforts. Most of them, anyway, but there was always the chance of a worthwhile find. You can still find traces, if you look carefully. Little diggings, broken bottles, a worn mule shoe miles from anywhere. It must have been quite a busy place.”

  Shirley looked around her as she walked. The feel of the place was alien. This should be countryside, with grass and cows, or wheat fields stretching on either side of a friendly road. Instead it was a harsh, barren place. Impressive, but frightening. “It"s hard to imagine anyone living up here.”

  “The miners were only recent, of course. The Aborigines have been here for tens of thousands of years before that. They"ve been everywhere, but you"d never know by looking. They didn"t have broken pots to leave, or much in the way of stone tools.”

  “But what did they live on?”

  “Hunting, mostly. No one talks about it much nowadays, but I think they mostly wondered from camp site to camp site, all near water. Once they"d settled down for a few weeks and made humpies to shelter in, they"d go off hunting wallabies and so on. Or go fishing. Very clever at hunting, but then, they"ve had tens of

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  thousands of years to learn. Their women knew about roots and leaves you could eat. Not so much out here of course, but anywhere near to water, they"d know how to find something to stay alive

  with.”

  “The animals have all gone now, I suppose.”

  “Oh no. They"re still here, as always. Didn"t you see them?” He searched the small valley below them. “There. Near that tree.”

  Shirley could see nothing, and he tried again. “The small tree. Standing by itself. Got that? Right, look down and over towards the creek. Keep watching, one of them will move in a minute.”

  She still saw nothing until a small grey smudge moved, and changed into a wallaby sitting up and looking in their direction. As she stared, she realised that there were two more grazing nearby. “How do they survive out here?” she asked in awe.

  “Designed for it. Place would have to be really tough to have no kangaroos. Apparently, there used to be really big ones, three metres or more, and other big animals too. They all died out when the Aboriginals came. I guess the fire got them.”

  “Fire? What fire?”

  “Oh, men brought fire, and they"d use it for hunting. Use it to drive the game, but mostly I gues s they didn"t care much if a campfire got away so everything got burnt. They say there was some fire before from lightning strikes, but you don"t burn much bush that way. No, men have been burning forever, and everything has changed.

  “This place would have had a fire through it last year, and it hasn"t come back yet because there"s been no rain to speak of. Next time they have a good soak, it"ll take off again and we"d be in grass up to our waists. Much easier to walk as it is now, though.”

  As they walked, the valley to their left was getting wider and deeper, but Tom kept to the high ground. They were crossing a wide, open bowl now, dipping gently to the valley at their side. Their path led towards two eucalypts, and here Tom stopped. “We"ll take a moment in the shade. How are your feet?”

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  The silvery leaves of the eucalypts gave little shelter from the sun, but Shirley was grateful to shed the heavy weight of the water container and sit on the ground. Tom reached for it and took a good drink before passing it to her. “Drink,” he said, “We"ve got enough, and you don"t want to get dehydrated. There"s still a long way to go.” The water was warm and unpleasant.

  “Where is the plain?”

  “I guess we"ll see it when we get to the top there. Trouble is, we"ll be near the road too, so we"ll have to be careful. Never get too far from shelter. We"ll have to cross it, though.”

  Shirley imagined the water container felt lighter when she lifted the strap back over her shoulder. She felt hot, and there was no wind. Perhaps there would be a breeze when they reached the top of the rise. She stopped thinking about distance and followed Tom automatically.

  “We"re getting there,” said Tom, stopping and putting down his rucksack. The ground had already flattened out some time ago and they had been moving quickly. He took out his binoculars and scanned the ground back in the direction of the Makepeace. “I think the road"s over there, not too far away. Let"s hurry and get into that fold of ground. No-one on the road will be able to see us then. Come on, we"re really exposed here. Can you run? You go first. Set your own pace, and we will have another rest when we"re safe.”

  The fold Tom had picked was not too far away, perhaps half a kilometre. Shirley held her water container in one hand and started to jog.

  Quickly, the effort became a nightmare. She began to hate the water container as she struggled to find a way to hold it. The weight troubled her, but worse still, it meant she could not use her arms to run properly. All the same, when Tom came up to her and tried to take it, she refused and hung on grimly. The ground sloped gently down, but running was not easy. She was ready to beg for a break when Tom"s footsteps stopped.

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  “That"s enough, I
think. If we lie down, they won"t be able to see us from the road. Take a rest, and we"ll carry on that way. I"m sure it"ll turn into a gully and cross the road.”

  Shirley lay back with her hat over her eyes. “Do you bring all your girl friends up here?” she asked.

  “What? Er – no. No one comes up here without a truck and all the gear.”

  “Oh well, it"s nice to be special, I suppose.”

  Tom did not answer. He was not good at chatting to

  women.

  Once her breathing had returned to normal, she sat up and

  reached for the water container. “Can I drink?”

  “Yes. Take about a cup full. Small drinks often, that"s the best way.” When she had drunk, he did the same.

  “Shirley, that"s shirt"s very white. They"d be able to see it from a mile away. Would you mind..?”

  She looked down at her shirt. It was her best one. Oh well,

  there were more important things than a clean shirt. She pulled it over her head and handed it to him. He folded it into a wad and held it over the open water container. When he up-ended it, water soaked into the fabric. Shirley watched as he spread the wet shirt out on the ground and threw dirt onto it. Once he had screwed it up into a ball, he spread it out again and did the same to the other side.

  It looked disgusting when Shirley put it on again, but the wet fabric felt delightful against her skin. Now she could literally blend into the scenery.

  Their route continued along the depression, and as Tom had expected, the gentle fold deepened into first a gully and then a small creek bed. They turned a corner and there below them was the road crossing the creek in a sharp dip.