Behind Mt. Baldy (31 page)

He pulled on clean underwear and
a fresh uniform and felt better. Then he went out into the bedroom. The others
had all moved outside. The light in the room had been turned off and the
sliding door was open. Roger saw that thick fog still blanketed the back lawn.
He collected his gear and carried it out.

The transition from the warm room
to outdoors was abrupt. His bare feet met concrete which felt like ice and the
first breath seemed to scour its way down his nostrils.

“Cripes it’s cold! I’m going back
to bed,” he cried. The others laughed. Roger
lumped
his gear to a clear space on the patio and looked around. The fog was so thick
he could barely see the garage a few metres away. The lake at the bottom of the
lawn was invisible. It was very gloomy and depressing. He pulled out his pullover
and put it on, then sat to put sticking plaster on his blisters.

Graham went in to have a shower
and shave. The other two had their stoves alight and were cooking. Roger pulled
on socks and boots before digging out his own stove. A cup of Milo, liberally
sweetened with condensed milk gave him a lift. Then he had two ‘Weetbix’ with
warm milk. A muesli bar followed.

Graham returned, talking to
Inspector Sharpe. The Inspector looked at their cooking arrangements and asked
what they were having for breakfast.

“Smells good
Peter.
What
is it?”

“Beef
Stroganoff sir.”

“What else! Well, I’ll be off. I
will lock this door and go out the front way. Thank you for your help. I will
ask you to telephone me when you finish so that I know that you are safe. Here
is the number.” He wrote in a notebook, tore the page out and passed it to
Graham. “Goodbye then, and once again, thanks for your help. Remember not to
mention this to anyone; and beware of strangers. Good luck.”

“See you sir. We will be
careful,” Graham promised.

“I hope you catch all these
foreigners,” Stephen added.

Roger said nothing. He wished he
could go with the Inspector more than anything he could think of. He gave a
small smile and turned back to heating a tin of Pork and Beans. The Inspector
slid the door shut and locked it.

Stephen said, “I wonder if he
will catch these KSS creeps?”

“I hope so. We don’t want types
like that lurking around our country,” Peter replied.

Graham sat down and picked up a
boot. “Eat up you lot. It’s ten to seven,” he said.

Inwardly Roger groaned. “So we
have plenty of time. We could sit here till midday and still cover the twenty
five kilometres before dark,” he replied sharply.

Graham looked up,
then
burst into laughter.
“Quite right
Roger.
OK. We will aim at being on the road by seven thirty.”

“I wish Inspector Sharpe hadn’t
locked the house. I need to go to the dunny now,” Peter complained.

“You will have to save it till we
are in town then,” Stephen replied unsympathetically. “There is a toilet in the
main street.”

“Where do you think the next clue
will take us?” Roger asked.

“I reckon Atherton, or near it
somewhere,” Stephen said.

Graham tightened a boot lace.
“That’s what I think too. There is a High School there,” he replied.

“There is one in Malanda too,”
Peter reminded.

Half an hour later the friends
were crouched over the map studying the route. Graham laid out all the clues on
the concrete. “Here is the first one. It says MT BALDY on top and TWO CHIMNEYS
underneath. Then at The Chimneys we got this one which said HIGH SCHOOL on top
and CURTAIN FIG underneath. So we still have to go to the Curtain Fig.
Eventually I reckon we must end up at a High School and at Mt Baldy.”

“Where is this Mt Baldy again?”
Stephen asked.

“Here. Just west of Atherton,”
Peter indicated.

Roger bent closer to look.
“One thousand and seventeen metres.
I hope we don’t have to
climb it!”

“I’ll bet we do. You know Captain
Conkey,” Peter laughed.

“Cheer up Roger. That’s the
height above sea level and we are about seven hundred metres up now. So it
won’t be that bad,” Graham said. He began folding the map. “OK. Let’s go. Gear
on.”

The sun was up by this, shining
through the fog as a bright orange ball. Roger could see the water of the lake
now. The fog had lifted a few metres and wisps of mist streamed up from black
water that looked like polished glass. He groaned and hoisted on his pack.

They had to walk uphill for the
first few hundred metres and Roger found this very testing as tight muscles
warmed and loosened. He soon began to sweat.

By the time they reached
Yungaburra’s main street ten minutes later the fog was no more than patches in
the shady hollows.

“Not a cloud in the sky again,”
Graham observed.

“It will be another hot day,”
Peter grumbled.

“I’m hot already. Stop for a
minute while I take off my pullover,” Stephen said.

“Good idea.
Over
near that Bakery.
They look like they are open,” Roger added.

“Roger! We’ve only just started,”
Graham replied.

Stephen sniffed. “Oh yes! Smell
that fresh bread!” he said.

That decided them. In spite of
Graham’s protests they crossed to a picnic table under a tree in the centre of
the wide street, dropped their gear, peeled off pullovers and packed them, then
headed for the shop. Peter made for the nearby public toilet.

At the door of the shop Graham
said. “But we’ve only been going for a few minutes.”

“So? We’ve covered a kilometre.
Twenty four to go and ten hours to do them in.
The slower we
go the more likely I am to make it,” Roger answered. “Besides, I’m hungry.”

In the shop Roger purchased a Steak
and Kidney pie and a Sausage Roll. Stephen bought a loaf of freshly baked bread
which he broke in two to share with Peter. Graham sulked but bought a
‘Caramello’ chocolate. Stephen also purchased a newspaper.

They walked back to the picnic
table. Stephen spread out the newspaper and began to read. Roger took out the
warm pie and sniffed it in pleasurable anticipation. It smelt delicious.

Peter rejoined them. “Anything
about the murder?” he asked, pointing to the newspaper.

“Not on the front page,” Stephen
replied. He turned the pages searching.
“Nothing on any of
the pages.
Not that I can see.”

They all looked but there was no
mention of the previous day’s events.

“I wonder if it was on radio or
TV?
” Roger asked.

“Maybe.
But probably
not.
Remember the Inspector wanted to keep it quiet. He doesn’t want to
scare the other KSS off, so he can catch them too.” Peter reminded him.

Roger nodded. “Yes. I know. I
wish we could help.”

Graham shook his head. “Forget it
Roger. Ask him when it’s over. Which reminds me, no loose talk in shops or
around town,” he said.

The boys sat in silence for a few
minutes, eating and watching the lovely little town come slowly to life. Two
attractive girls walked past. Graham watched them with open interest,
then
commented, “They are the third lot of good looking
girls to go past since we got here.”

“Maybe we should spend the day
here?” Peter suggested, tongue in cheek.

“Certainly a lot of pretty girls
in this town,” Stephen added. “Here comes another.”

They looked across at a woman
walking with a dog. Roger smiled at his friends comments and took another
mouthful. He felt stiff and sore but he was happy. ‘We have reached the halfway
point of the hike. I will make it,’ he told himself.  He had been scared
that he would have to give up during the first two days of the hike. Now it was
Day 4 and he felt fitter and more confident.

By 8:15am the boys were marching
out of town. They crossed the small bridge on the western edge of town and
turned left at the first road junction. There was already an uncomfortable
amount of traffic, locals rushing to work. The route led up a long gentle hill
along a bitumen road for three hundred metres. The sun was already hot enough
to make them thankful when the road plunged into a tunnel of rain forest.

Apart from a few cars which raced
past at high speed it was peaceful and it was easy walking. The road climbed
gently and curved, first right, then left. A clearing opened out ahead with a
bitumen car park.

“Here’s the Curtain Fig Tree,”
Graham said.

“No-one else here,” Peter added.

Stephen snorted. “Bit early for
tourists!”

It was quite cool in the shadows.
They dropped their gear next to a National Park sign which marked the end of a
walking track. This led a short distance into the rain forest to the Curtain
Fig Tree. Roger shivered as the cool air encountered his sweaty shirt when he
swung off his pack.

Graham looked around while he
stretched. “Now, where would you hide a clue?” he asked.

“Where a tourist wouldn’t find it
and take it,” Peter replied.

“And where a National Park Ranger
picking up litter wouldn’t see it,” Roger added.

Graham took command. “OK. Let’s
search. Look behind trees and rocks away from the track. Roger, you do this
side of the track. Pete, you and Steve look on the other side.”

Roger stepped off the track into
open rain forest. There were numerous moss-covered stones amongst the tree
trunks but very little undergrowth and only a few vines. He decided he was sick
of rain forest. This patch did not impress him. It was cold and water dripped
from everything, the tail end of the fog.

It was only fifty metres in to
where the huge parasitic strangler fig grew, its aerial root system forming the
‘Curtain’. A wooden walkway with railings surrounded the tree. All of the boys
had been there several times on family excursions so they gave the giant wonder
of nature only a cursory glance.

There was no sign of a clue. They
looked behind every tree and rock within 25 metres, then under the walkways.
Roger walked over to a large signboard describing the tree. Then an idea came
to him. He clambered under the wooden railing and looked at the back of the
sign.

“Here it is,” he cried, reaching
up to extract a plastic packet wedged between the board and an upright. The
others crowded round as he returned to the path. They did not need to open the
packet. It contained the same bright yellow cardboard with black printing. It
said:

MICROWAVE TOWER

RAILWAY TUNNEL

“Microwave
Tower!
Railway Tunnel!” cried Peter.
“Bloody hell.
There are
dozens of microwave towers around. They stretch from here to Melbourne!”

“And plenty of railway tunnels
too. There are fifteen on the Kuranda Railway,” Stephen added.

“Don’t remind us!” Roger said,
remembering that awful day the madman had chased them into Number 15 Tunnel. He
didn’t like tunnels- or caves- or mineshafts!

“Surely we don’t have to walk to
Kuranda from here? That must be fifty kilometres in a straight line?” Peter
asked.

“Easily fifty.
There must be a closer tunnel
than that. Wrack your brains. Let’s look at the map,” Graham said. He unfolded
one map. “Wrong one. Atherton 1:100 000 is the one we need.” He unfolded the
correct map. A large drop of condensation fell- splat
!-
fair in the middle of the map. “Bugger!” he swore and wiped it off.

“There are no tunnels between
Kuranda and Mareeba,” Stephen said. “I know, we just walked it all, on that
exercise last week against the Air Cadets.”

“Yes. And there are none between
Mareeba and Atherton either,” Graham agreed. He traced his finger over the map.
“Here is the railway from Mareeba coming in through Tolga to Atherton. Then it
goes south and up the mountains to Herberton.”

“Remember our trip to Herberton
on the steam train last year?” Peter asked. “We went through a tunnel then, up
on the Herberton Range.”

Graham nodded. “We were going to
walk up that railway one day,” he agreed.

“That is a private railway isn’t
it?” Stephen asked.

“Yes it is,” Roger agreed. “It
belongs to a company called ‘RailCo’ and they run the steam train.”

“That is a great trip,” Peter
enthused.

“I loved the steam engine,”
Graham agreed. He bent closer to the map and traced along the railway line with
his finger. “Here it is. ‘
Tunnel’.”

“It’s right near the top of the
mountain,” Roger groaned.

“Herberton Range,” Peter read.

“How far is it?” Stephen asked.

“Just a
minute.”
Graham took out his notebook, tore out a page and began measuring distances
along what looked to be the shortest route. “What a spider web of roads. It’s
hard to know which one is the shortest,” he grumbled.