Catherine Jinks TheRoad (24 page)

‘I dunno, Alec.’ Chris tried to be reasonable. ‘I dunno if it’s that drastic.’

‘It is,’ Alec retorted. His tone was bleak. He leaned forward, clutching the headrests of the front seats. ‘It is that drastic. If you don’t go back you’ll end up stuck out here. With no food, no water, no petrol, no nothing.’

Chris hesitated. He couldn’t tell whether Alec was out of his mind on pills or whether there was something in what he said. The numbers didn’t add up, that was for sure. But natural law decreed that if you kept on driving, you had to reach
someplace.
It was physically impossible not to.

‘Are you saying that we’re actually standing still?’ Graham queried. ‘Is that what you’re saying? Because I’ve been watching the country go by, Alec. We pass things, you know?’

Alec shook his head. ‘We’re not passin nothing,’ he replied.

‘Mate –’

‘Look, I
know
this road!’ Alec cried. ‘I could drive it in me sleep! Nothing’s changin! It’s all the same! The same stretch, over and over!’

Graham spread his hands. ‘But Alec,’ he said quietly, ‘isn’t that what a desert’s all about?’

Alec threw himself back into his seat with an explosive sigh. ‘You don’t get it,’ he groaned. ‘You dunno this country. It’s not the fuckin Simpson desert, it changes. It’s different.’

Chris cast his mind back to the endless monotony of the drive from Coombah to Pine Creek. He lifted an eyebrow at Graham, who scratched his cheek thoughtfully.

‘Well, I dunno,’ said Graham. ‘What do you reckon? He is a local.’

‘You want to drive back to
Coombah
?’ Chris inquired of his brother.

‘Not especially.’

Chris twisted around, and leaned into the space between the two front seats.

‘Alec,’ he said, ‘I’ll take your opinion on board. I see where you’re coming from. But if you don’t mind, we’re going to chuck a bit more petrol in the tank and see how much further we can get on it.’

Alec shook his head, dolefully.

‘And if we’re not in Broken Hill by . . . let’s see.’ Chris checked his watch. ‘By half past four, then I’ll agree we’ve got a problem, and we’ll turn around. Okay? Or flag someone down, or something. All right?’

Alec shrugged.

‘We’ve got plenty of food,’ Graham pointed out.

‘Yeah. And tents. And a camp stove,’ Chris added. ‘So we’ll be fine, no matter what happens.’

Alec sighed and stared out the window. Graham went to drag a can of petrol off the roof. Chris checked his map again.

It was very warm.

The man had waited near Mullet’s corpse. He had waited for nearly two hours, after pretending to make a noisy departure. Stamping along in his heavy boots, grunting and swearing as the pebbles slid out from under him, he had climbed back up to the top of the ridge. He had even progressed a few metres further before very quietly removing his boots and slowly, carefully, retracing his steps.

There was a raised spot on the crest of the ridge from which he could look down at the mouth of the mysterious hole. After lowering himself onto this wind-sculptured vantage point (wincing with every crack of his joints) he had settled his gun between his knees and waited. And waited. The sun had moved across the sky, burning into the back of his neck and the skin of his forearms, which were uncovered. Ants had run across his thighs, up over his hands, into the folds of his socks. Flies had wheeled and buzzed about his head, attacking his eyes, his lips, the dark blood on his clothes. He hadn’t dared blow them away with puffs of air, lest he make a sound; instead he had flapped at them fruitlessly, wondering if he should have killed the dog after all. That corpse was attracting clouds of flies. They were coming in from everywhere, dizzy with excitement. Mullet’s wound was already black with them.

Once or twice the man nearly sighed, or sniffed. He barely managed to stop himself. After about an hour, a crow came down to have a look at the dead dog, eyeing the dog’s master with one wary eye. Then another crow came, and another. But they didn’t approach the rapidly cooling meat. They didn’t seem to trust the man, or his motionless vigil. They remained at a distance, sometimes pacing, sometimes pruning themselves, always watching.

The man watched, too – he watched the hole. He would stare at its dark threshold until he was cross-eyed, and had to blink and look away. Sometimes his gaze swept the horizon, noting the position of the sun, the length of the shadows. Sometimes he would check his watch and frown. It was getting late. Too late. He had things to do.