East of Outback (36 page)

Edan was wandering away over the ridge, in the direction the children frequently took in the past. Mary Aileen and Sam were looking after the sleeping gear, oblivious. Quietly Sloan closed the trunk, and took off following Edan.

The boy had taken a faint footpath for a hundred yards. He left it and moved away through the open wood. Sloan stayed an inconspicuous distance behind, lest he startle the lad or seem to be spying. Seem to be spying? He
was
spying. If he could not communicate with his son, he would watch him.

Edan crawled out onto a sandstone overlook and hunkered down. Sloan moved in closer. The mountainside fell away at Edan’s feet. A deep, densely forested gorge below shimmered in the late-afternoon heat. Blue with haze, the mountains stretched off beyond the gorge toward infinity. What a sublime view.

A ten-year-old boy enthralled with scenery? It was hard to believe. What did the lad see beyond the obvious? Or was he simply wasting his time daydreaming again, as he was so wont to do? Minutes passed. Suddenly Edan bolted to his feet and walked back to the path. Sloan waited conveniently behind a tree until the lad had committed himself to a direction. He headed away from Sloan, farther along the ridge.

Cole moved in a little closer, and not a moment too soon. The boy disappeared to the left of the path. Only the small dark head could be seen, as he slipped down over the side to traverse a faint trail along a very narrow ledge.

If the lad could make it, Sloan could make it. With trepidation, he stepped out on the ledge. He kept his back as close to the steep mountain slope as he could, his face to empty space where the slope dropped away precipitously. He side-stepped along the knife edge, his heels on solid rock and his toes hanging out upon nothing. This surely was not the lad’s first trip through here. If Sloan had known years ago where his children trod so dangerously—

A dark, ragged rock outcrop loomed ahead. Sloan watched his son step nimbly from the narrow ledge path into a gaping opening beneath the overhang. A cave. Cole could easily imagine the lure a cave would have for a child his age. In his own youth he would have given anything for a secret place this exotic and remote.

His left foot slipped. For a wild, panic-filled moment he thought he was going to go over. He grasped at the overhanging bush branches, scrambling for balance. His right foot remained firmly on solid stone. He glanced toward Edan.

The boy was staring at him in shocked surprise. So
much for keeping a low profile
. All sense of stealth or secrecy gone, Cole completed the last eighty feet from mountainside ledge to the safety of the cavern with mock confidence.

“Why did you follow me?” It was a legitimate question.

“I wanted to see where you were going.”

Surprisingly, the answer seemed to satisfy. Edan turned his attention to the ceiling, scanning the dark recesses, obviously seeking something.

“What are you looking for?”

“Rock warbler nests. They’re hard to see unless you know where they are.” The boy crossed through powdery dust to a chair-shaped boulder five feet inside. “I’m going to sit here and watch awhile. I heard something up there.”

“May I watch, too?”

“If you like.” Edan sat down on the rock, crossed his legs and folded them under him.

Not nearly so supple, Sloan sat down beside him and drew his knees up. He leaned his arms across them. “What am I watching for?”

“It’s rather like a shrike-thrush or a lady robin, gray on top and reddish below. Moves about very nervously. ‘Leen says New South Wales is the only state it lives in, just among mountains here.”

“They live here, eh? Ever see one here before?”

Edan’s whole demeanor froze. Somehow Sloan had struck a nerve with that innocuous question. Edan shrugged. “Used to.”

Sloan watched not the cave entrance but his son. Edan’s eyes darted about everywhere at once, but for the most part they lingered on the cave roof. “Edan? This place is so far from anywhere. No one around for miles, except our camp. Ever get scared?”

The boy measured his response. “Sometimes.”

“Then why come here?”

“I’m not scared of this place. I feel good here. Colin found it when I was just little. We come here all the time.”

“Then what are you afraid of?”

The lad stiffened, straightened. “There!” he whispered. His whole face lit up. A small gray bird paused at the mouth of the cavern. Nervously, it flicked its tail sideways. It hopped across some rocks, wagging its body in an odd way, and fluttered suddenly into the cave.

Sloan lost track of it, but obviously Edan had not. The lad lifted himself silently to his feet and moved catlike across the powdered dirt floor. Sloan followed, a mere spectator to a drama he did not fathom.

“It’s back,” Edan breathed. Soundlessly he pointed up at the craggy roof. A roundish mass of grass, moss and sticks hung to the sloping roof by attachments at either end. A tiny bird form appeared in a dark hole in its side. Like lightning the bird popped out and flew from the cave.

“Listen.” Edan craned his neck. “The babies. You hear them?”

“No, but my ears are considerably older than yours.”

Edan beamed. “They’re back! There’s the nest. I couldn’t find it at first, so I let the bird show me. I can tell ‘Leen they’re back. They built the nest new again. It’s okay again.” He headed toward the ledge path and stopped. “Want to stay here any longer?”

“Not unless you do.”

Edan nodded. Leading the way, he left the cave, tightrope-walking that treacherous path with the nonchalance of an angel. Sloan must have let his apprehension show, for the lad waited for him patiently, perhaps a wee bit smugly, at the upper end. Sloan scrambled to the safety of the crest and they began the walk back to camp.

Sloan grimaced. “One misstep on that ledge and you’re at the bottom of the gorge keeping the platypuses company.”

“It’s not scary once you get used to it.”

Here was an opening to resume that aborted conversation. “Obviously, threats to life and limb don’t frighten you. What does?”

An exaggerated shrug. “Other things.”

“Like . . . ?”

“Like when I’m bigger.” The voice sounded very small and distant. “And I get chased out of the house, too.”

Sloan felt his mouth fall open and his legs stop walking, and he couldn’t do anything about any of it. Finally he forced his feet back into action.
Now what, Romales? You said listen. I listened. Now I don’t know how to handle what I’ve heard
.

Sloan had just as much trouble getting his brain to work as his legs. “When do you think that would happen?”

“I don’t know.”

Cole needed Sam for this. Mum could soothe fears no one else could. What do you tell a child who would think something like that? How could he think such a thing? Not hard, when you’re ten years old and logic is not yet part of your vocabulary. Or perhaps there was a certain twisted logic to it.

Suddenly a certain twisted logic emerged from the birdhouses and the warbler’s nest, too. The
aha!
light went on in Sloan’s mind. Nests. Home. The boy was obsessed with the fear of losing his nest. How could Sloan mend that nest and thereby allay this innocent little child’s fears? He had no idea where Colin and Hannah might be, let alone how to make contact and convince them to return. The covey had scattered; he could see no way to gather it in.

His mind raced. Finally, just short of camp, he wrapped his arm across the fragile little shoulders. “Do me a favor, eh?”

“What?”

“When you feel like you’re getting chased out of the house, stop and talk to me about it before you go, will you?”

______

As far as the eye could see, silver ribbons ran south. To the north, they disappeared around a distant, gentle bend.

“Okay,” Hannah announced, “This is the first railway. We cross these tracks and continue to the next set, right?”

“Right.” Colin led the mare forward. She stepped gingerly over the rails, planted her feet carefully on the sleepers.

“How far between them?”

“From what I gather, fifteen miles, maybe twenty at the outside. A day’s walk; not more.”

Hannah didn’t have to carry the swag anymore and that felt very good. She draped it around the mare’s neck. The mare didn’t have the saddle or the traveling bag, and that probably felt good to her. She wasn’t in much better shape than Colin. But Hannah did miss the things she had left behind—the trousers, especially. She would have so loved to wear her trousers out in this wilderness.

One of her shoes was wearing out. She could feel a break in the sole right under the ball of her foot. Sand was starting to get in and it was very irritating. By the end of the day the break had widened to a proper hole. She took off her shoe to examine the damage. How battered the poor thing was! On the other hand, she thought of the miles they’d covered.

Colin built a fire and opened two more cans. They ate the last of the bread Mr. Indjuwa had given them, and emptied their waterbag.

“Tomorrow we’ll be back in a real town,” Colin promised. “We’ll dine in style in a real restaurant and sleep in real beds with smooth, cool sheets.”

“And I’ll have a real bath. I used to hate baths. I can’t imagine how I could be so foolish.”

“You don’t get quite this dirty in school.”

“What a blessing! I almost look forward to school again.” She pulled out her Bible and went back to work, looking for references to weakness. He agreed to look at the verses in jest. She would show him by producing! Already she had found various references and marked them with gum-leaves. But none struck her as quite right.

The intense heat of day was slow to dissipate as the sun dropped low. Hannah had forgotten how very hot it gets in these hills west of Sydney. She thought about the camping ground in the mountains where her family spent so many happy holidays. Living and sleeping outside a house seemed like such an adventure then.

Colin stretched out and fell asleep where he sat by the fire. The coals crackled and waned.

“Here it is!” Hannah jabbed Colin. He grunted and raised his head. “The abbess preached about this a couple of times in chapel—every time one of the sisters took ill. Listen!” She read by the firelight: “‘There was given me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.’”

“A what?”

“A thorn in the flesh—a health problem of some sort. The abbess never said exactly what it was. Eight. ‘For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.’ Now listen to this, Colin! Nine. ‘And he said unto me, my grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’ Ten. ‘Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ’s sake.’ And then Paul ends it with, ‘for when I am weak, then am I strong.’”

“I don’t get it. When I’m weak, I’m strong? That’s nonsense.”

Hannah intensely wished she had paid more attention in chapel. Who would ever dream that one might need something from chapel at some later date? What did the abbess say? “If you’re strong you start to think you don’t need God. When you’re weak you depend on Him because you have to. And since He provides what you’re not strong enough to provide, the glory goes to Him. When you’re weak in the body you’re strong in the Lord. Don’t you see it?”

He snorted, unconvinced.

She slammed her Bible shut so hard his head snapped around to stare at her. “You were poking fun at me when you said you’d listen to the verses about weakness. Well, there they are. There’s all manner of things in the Bible you don’t suspect. You’ve seen that prayer works, over and over. You know lots of people now who say God is real and they know Him. You don’t have any excuses, and I am done with talking to a brick wall. You can become a real, true Christian or you will go to hell, but I’ve done all I can do.”

“It’s not as simple as you think, Hannah.”

“It’s even simpler than I think. When I was looking for weakness verses I saw something else way back at the beginning. Matthew somewhere, I think. Jesus said you have to come to Him like a little child. You just accept Him, like Edan would. So do it. Or don’t do it. But don’t blame me if your pocket gets more holes.”

She slipped her Bible under the end of Colin’s blanket, just in case dew fell during the night, and curled up in the warm darkness.
Men are so stubborn!

The next morning they resumed the trek east. Hannah thought about all the comforts and benefits of civilization. Any time soon now! The hills among which they wound grew steeper. They threaded through gum forests and skirted acacia thickets.

At noon they built a small fire and consumed two more cans of food—asparagus and peaches. Only two cans remained.

“Colin, we’re bushed again.”

“No, we’re not.”

“They don’t build railways in hills this tangled. That first one we crossed had to be the second one, the one we wanted.”

“Sure. We just happened to stumble right across a railway without noticing it.”

“Something’s wrong. We shouldn’t be this far into the mountains.”

“When I was riding up to Griffith from the Colfaxes in the pouring rain, and the truck quit, I didn’t know how far I had yet to go. I kept thinking I’d missed the road, or was on the wrong track, or something. But I just kept going and kept going, and I got there. It’s the same now. If we just keep going, we’ll get there eventually.”

“I think you’re wrong. I still think we’re much too far east.”

“Hannah, you’re so stubborn.”

“Stubborn!” She hopped to her feet. “You refuse to change your mind about God and Jesus even though the evidence is all for it, but when I don’t change my mind because the evidence is all against it, I’m stubborn. You’re the one that’s stubborn, Colin!”

She rolled the swag, threw it across the startled mare’s withers, and picked up the leadline. “Here we go, continuing in the wrong direction. Coming, Colin?”

“Spoiled brat.” He struggled to his feet to follow.