Within minutes the boat trailer had been reversed down the ramp and the boat launched with speed and skill that suggested much practice. Then the vehicle drove forward and circled around to face the lake again. As it did Tina caught Marco’s voice saying, “Roger, over.”
‘He is on the radio again, talking to the plane,’ Tina decided.
Suddenly the vehicle’s headlights came on, shining out onto the lake. Tina reasoned that the lights were to assist the plane in landing. In that she was correct but she was quite amazed when the white of wash around the floatplane’s floats suddenly appeared on the edge of the headlight beams, then the greyish shape of the aircraft itself. ‘I didn’t hear it land,’ she thought.
The headlights suddenly went out and it took her a few minutes to adjust her eyes to the moonlight. During that her ears detected the low buzz of the aircraft’s motor. Then she saw it close offshore, but now a black silhouette against the moon-dappled water. By then Marco had climbed out of the driver’s seat and been joined by Danny. Both men moved to the canvas covered sides of the vehicle’s tray. Tina guessed what would come next and she was right. The canvas sides were rolled up and then metal or timber sides were unlocked and swung upwards and held up by metal rods.
From inside the back of the vehicle the men began lifting out cages of identical size. Tina could not see what was in the cages. Nor was there any sounds to give a clue but she guessed they contained birds. ‘Or maybe rare reptiles and mammals and so on,’ she thought.
The men carried the cages down and placed them into the boat. A sudden splash made Tina look towards the now stationary floatplane. She could not see anything but decided that the pilot had dropped an anchor. The aircraft remained about twenty metres from the shore. Marco and Danny walked back up to the vehicle and began pulling out more small cages.
‘Oh! They are getting away. What should I do?’ Tina wondered. For a few seconds her mind raced. Then she made an instant decision.
CHAPTER 9
TINA ACTS
‘I must get the police,’ Tina thought. And there was only one way- by foot. ‘I wish I had brought my mobile phone,’ she mentally wailed. But she wasn’t even sure if there was service in the hills so she decided the next best option was the farmhouse she had seen a few kilometres back.
By the time she had decided what to do the two men were back down at the boat and were busy stowing the cages into it. Tina had no idea how many cages there might be but she reasoned there could not be many. ‘I won’t have much time,’ she thought. With that in mind she crawled carefully out of the bushes to the edge of the clearing. Then she realized she might have made a fatal mistake and lay flat in the dust and froze as Danny and Marco came trudging back up to the vehicle.
Tina tensed, ready to spring up and run but the men did not even glance in her direction. Instead they bent into the interior of the vehicle and began extracting more cages. Confident they were pre-occupied Tina rose to her hands and knees, her throat dry with fear and her heart hammering with excitement. As soon as the men moved away again she stood up and began walking as quietly as she could back along the road.
As she walked Tina kept glancing back towards the men. She could just make out the shape of the aircraft and could even hear the murmur of voices. ‘The pilot of the plane must be looking this way. He might see me,’ she thought anxiously. The idea made her whole back seem to tingle and she felt very stiff and tense.
With an effort of willpower she mastered her rising fear and made herself keep walking. Several times she kicked small stones that chinked audibly against others and she was sure that the crunch of the sand and gavel beneath her joggers must be very loud. But there was no sound to indicate that she had been seen.
Then she heard the men start walking back up the ramp towards the vehicle. That meant they were facing in her direction so she froze into a crouch in against a bush and looked anxiously in their direction. But they just went to the vehicle and again dug in the back. This time they extracted heavy containers that looked like jerry cans to Tina. ‘Fuel?’ she wondered.
As soon as the men had their backs turned she rose and resumed walking. By the time they were at the boat she was at the back of the clearing and within another half minute she was fifty metres along the gravel road and out of sight of the men. As soon as she saw she was around the bend and out of sight Tina gasped with relief and increased speed. Now she was driven by an intense urge to bring the men to justice.
Confident they would not hear her Tina broke into a run. But however urgent her desire the running only lasted for about a hundred metres. By then she was gasping for breath and sweating. ‘Oh, I should do more exercise,’ she berated herself as she reluctantly slowed to a fast walk.
She went down across a small dry creek and then up over a low ridge. Even that small rise got her puffing and perspiring. As she reached the crest Tina glanced back. ‘I wonder how long the men will be?’ she thought. She did not want to get caught in the headlights of their vehicle when they drove back out again. With that in mind she began to study the bush beside the road, trying to pick places she could hide.
Tina trotted down the next slope and then up another low rise, slowing to a panting plod by the time she was half way up. She pushed herself on to the crest and paused to again look back. Behind her all was silent and dark. By now she was gasping for breath and trembling with excitement and fear.
As she walked down the next slope Tina looked up and experienced a sense of awe at the brilliance and number of the stars. This was replaced almost immediately by a sense of her own relative unimportance and of the sheer immensity of the universe and of earth. Then she contemplated the vast size of Australia and how far she was from her home. This drove an intense feeling of isolation as she looked around the dark hills and bush. Never before had she felt so lonely and so far from civilization.
The whole eeriness of being alone in the dark bush caused her to tremble with apprehension and she felt her chest tighten up. To counter the anxiety she tried to estimate how far she had to walk. ‘We only drove along that gravel road for about 5 minutes,’ she decided. From that she calculated that she might have at most 10km to walk to reach the town. ‘How long will that take?’ she asked herself.
Something Graham Kirk, one of the army cadets at her school, had once said came to mind about walking 100 metres in one minute, a kilometre in ten, and 5km in an hour. That depressed her further. ‘That means two hours of walking!’ she thought with dismay. To cheer herself up she recalculated, estimating the distance they had driven to the picnic area as only 5km from the town. That meant only one hour of walking.
But there was nothing for it but to keep going so she clenched her jaw and pushed herself on over the another rise. This turned out to be the last one before the flat country and that cheered her up, even though she could see no sign of any lights anywhere.
Then a glow appeared ahead of her. For a few seconds Tina puzzled over it and then it dawned on her what she was looking at. “That is the glow of a car’s headlights and it is coming this way,” she muttered. But what to do? ‘Do I flag it down? What if it is more crooks?’ she worried.
Fear decided her. ‘Just in case.’ She found a gully beside the road and scrambled into it. She was only just in time as the vehicle came acing around the corner at high speed, its headlights lighting up the bush. Tina crouched and hid and only got a glimpse of another 4WD driven by a bearded man wearing a crumpled old hat. The back of the vehicle had the same square covered look and that made her glad she had not stayed out on the road.
‘If he is just a fisherman then he might run into trouble,’ she thought. But she suspected the man was another crook. And there had been something familiar about him that niggled at her. However she could not place what it was so she climbed back onto the road and resumed her rapid walk.
From then on she spent as much time looking over her shoulder as watching where she was walking. ‘I don’t want to get caught by those men
,’ she told herself. But just in case they did she tried to invent a plausible reason for a teenage girl to be walking a lonely bush road at night. Her feeble attempts at fabrication caused her to give a wry smile. “Better not to get caught,” she told herself.
Ten minutes later she rounded a bend and saw the twinkle of distant lights. There were two off to her right but a dozen or more further along to the left. ‘Those lights are the town,’ she decided. Which put her into a quandary. ‘Do I go to the first farmhouse? Or do I walk to town where I know my family and the police are?’ she thought.
The lights of town did not appear to be much further than the farmhouse so when she drew level with the farmhouse about ten minutes later she opted to walk on. This turned out to be a mistake as the lights were actually much further away but once she was past the farmhouse she had no intention of turning back. She was heartened to reach the main bitumen highway a few minutes later and she turned left onto this and stepped it out along the smooth bitumen.
Then another worrying thought came to her: if a car came from behind would it be the crooks; or was it coming from further west? She knew that towns like Normanton and Karumba were out that way but she had no idea how much traffic there was along the highway at night. Not much, she decided after ten minutes of walking without a single vehicle coming from either direction. But just in case she kept eyeing the scrub beside the road for hiding places, having resolved to take no chances.
It was about 2km to the first buildings of the town and it took her over twenty minutes to walk it, even at a power-walk. As she entered the town she found the streets deserted and not a soul in sight. ‘Now, do I go to our motel rooms or do I go to the hotel?’ she wondered. She opted for the motel rooms but when she reached the lane that led in beside the high fence a glance showed the building to be in darkness. ‘They aren’t there. I will try the hotel,’ she decided.
So she strode on along the footpath, moving as fast as her weariness and chafing would allow. Within a minute she had reached the well lit veranda area in front of the hotel and she sighed with relief. ‘Safe!’ she thought.
There was no-one on the footpath and a glance in the door of the dining room showed it to be deserted. But voices indicated that there were people in the public bar so she walked the ten paces to the next door and looked in. To her enormous relief she saw her father and mother standing over near the back of the bar. And they were talking to a uniformed policeman!
“Oh thank God!” Tina gasped, relief washing through her. She stepped inside, noting as she did that her little brother was sitting in the back hallway with Michael, Aiden and Sarah. Mr and Mrs Creswell were with them and they were talking to a big man who Tina thought was the publican. There were half a dozen other people seated at the bar on her right: tourists, miners and bushies by their clothes. A barmaid in her twenties was working behind the bar and was the first one to see her.
“Is this her?” the barmaid called.
Everyone turned to look and Tina saw her parent’s faces light up with relief. “Oh yes! Oh Tina, where have you been?” her mother cried, rushing to embrace her.
Tina ran to her mother and clung to her. For a few moments she was unable to speak and could only sob and bury her head in her mother’s shoulder. As she did she heard a vehicle arrive and pull up at the front. The sound caused her to tense up and remember her mission.
But her mother spoke first as the pair moved to arm’s length. “Oh Tina, where have you been? We’ve been so worried! We have been turning the whole town upside down searching for you. Where did you go?”
Tina looked over her mother’s shoulder at her father and the policeman and then went to speak. But as she did boots sounded on the floor boards behind her and she glanced over her shoulder- to freeze in shock. It was Marco! And close behind him was Danny. Both men headed for the bar and appeared to be quite unaware of anything unusual happening.
For a moment Tina could only gape and gabble as she wondered what to do. Then she saw that both Marco and Danny had stopped and were looking around. “What’s the go?” Marco asked the men nearest.
The man, an ‘old timer’ in dark blue denim, pointed at Tina and said, “Bit of a flap because this girl went missing.”
Danny turned to look at Tina and their eyes met. That sent a stab of fear though her but also loosened her tongue. She pointed and cried, “These two men have just been loading birds and reptiles into a floatplane up on the lake.”
Danny’s eyes widened and he swore softly. Marco looked even more alarmed. Then he frowned and shook his head. “What you say? What rot! We just been fishin’, eh?”
“You were not!” Tina cried, louder than she meant and with a rising pitch as anxiety strangled her throat.
The policeman stepped forward. “Why do you say that Miss?” he asked.
“Because I saw them,” Tina said. “I have just walked back from there. That’s why I am so grubby and sweaty.”
The policeman studied her appearance and then glanced at the two men. “You’d better explain,” he said to Tina.
Tina opened her mouth to start her story, aware that the whole bar was silent and listening. But she never got out the words she meant. At that moment Danny pounced, punching the policeman in the side of the head. “Run Marco!” he shouted.
The policeman went crashing to the floor. Marco turned and ran for the door. Danny turned to follow. But he was just there and Tina instinctively made a grab for him, forgetting her own safety in her desire to have the men apprehended. She managed to grab Danny’s sleeve.
But it was only a fleeting hold as he immediately wrenched himself free. As he did he lunged at her. “You little bitch!” he shouted. He tried to punch her but she stepped back. In the process she stumbled over the policeman and into her mother. She and her mother went down in a tangle of arms and legs, her father grabbing at both.
For a moment Danny hesitated, his fists clenching and unclenching. Then he saw the men at the bar start to move and the policeman began to roll over and climb to his feet. Instead of attacking Tina Danny lashed out at the policeman with his boot. The blow connected with his side and sent the constable reeling backwards into the arms of the publican. Again Danny hesitated but by then Tina had regained her feet. Instead he glared hate at her and shouted, “You’ll pay for this girl!”
Then he turned and dashed through the doorway.
CHAPTER 10
BAD DREAM
For a moment Tina was stunned by the violence and the speed of events. Then she sprang after Danny. “Catch him! Stop him!” she screamed at the men at the bar.
But they just stood and gaped or looked anxious. Behind her the policeman was being helped to his feet but he was doubled over in pain. Tina looked through the door and saw that Danny and Marco had run to their vehicle, which was parked further along the footpath in the darkness. She stepped out onto the footpath and then hesitated. Her father joined her and she pointed. “Quick Dad! They are getting away.”
The vehicle’s engine roared into life even as Danny jumped in. As he slammed his door shut the headlights came on, half blinding Tina. The vehicle roared into motion and swung out onto the road. It went past with a grinding of gears and shouted oaths. As it did Tina saw Danny looking at her, his face a mask of hate.
Danny shook his fist at her. “I’ll get you, you bitch! You’ll pay for that!” he screamed.
Then the vehicle was gone, its boat and trailer in tow. Tina stood watching it until it swung left out of sight. Then waves of fear and shock hit her and she began to shake and sob. Her father and mother both held her. The policemen, still in evident pain, staggered out onto the footpath, his right hand working to draw his pistol.
Tina’s father pointed and said, “They went that way, to the left, back along the main street.”
Even in her distress Tina tried to work out which way that was. “That is back towards Cairns isn’t it?” she asked.
“Yes, but there are a few side roads,” the police
man gasped. He winced with pain as he tried to straighten up. Then he groaned and shook his head. Turning to Tina he said, “Did you get the vehicle type and number?”
That stopped Tina trembling. She nodded and stifled her sobs, then said, “Yes.”
“Good girl!” the policeman said. He placed his pistol back in its holster and took out a notebook. Tina gave him the number and then the names of the two men and a brief description. “And you say they were up at the lake putting caged birds into a floatplane? What were you doing there?”
Tina had calmed down a bit by then and she was able to explain how she had seen the men at Koombooloomba. “I saw them in the dining room here having a meal and when they left I followed them,” she said.
Her mother was aghast. “Oh Tina! You silly girl! Those men are very dangerous. If they shoot Forest Rangers and hit policemen, what might they do to you?”
Her father and the policeman nodded. The constable said, “You are right there. Now, you saw them here and followed them out to there vehicle where you noted the number. How did you get to the dam?”
Tina described how she had nearly been run over by the boat trailer and had been forced to cling to it. “Then it was going too fast for me to jump off without getting hurt so I er.. I ..er.. I sort of went along for the ride,” she explained.
Her parents were appalled. The faces of the listening crowd all showed amazement and some admiration. Her father shook his head. “That was incredibly silly thing to do Tina! Just imagine what might have happened if those men had caught you.”
Tina had been imagining just that and she shivered violently with reaction and fright. All she could do for a minute or so was bite her lip and tremble. Her mother held her tight and stroked her until she calmed down again. Then she described what had happened at the lake and how she had walked back. “The rest you know,” she finished lamely.
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