Riddle Gully Secrets (7 page)

They picked their way through the dry snappy bushes up the hillside to reach a stone outcrop. A hot breeze was blowing wisps of honey-bush scent. Butterflies flitted across the tall wild grass and the flat caws of ravens rose from the plain below.

Dan pointed. ‘What are they building behind the cemetery down there?'

‘That? It's Mayor Bullock's big thing,' said Pollo. ‘The Diamond Jack Experience Tourist Centre – the town council's building it. Mayor Bullock claims he's related to Diamond Jack, a famous bushranger round here. He thinks a bushranger theme park will bring flocks of tourists to Riddle Gully. He calls it progress.'

‘I've never been to a theme park,' said Dan. ‘I like the sound of a bushranger one.'

‘At least they didn't plonk it on the habitat of those endangered bats like they were going to do originally,' said Pollo.

Dan looked around the hillside nearby. ‘Are you sure we're in the right spot, Ash? I can't see anything.'

‘That's the point, isn't it?' said Will. ‘Your great-great-whatever Fergus vanished into thin air, didn't he?'

‘Relax, Dan, I'll show you,' said Ash. ‘Everyone, close your eyes. No peeking until I say.'

Everyone shut their eyes. They heard the scuffing of her feet on sand and stone, and the crackle of branches being pushed aside. Half a minute later they heard her soft voice. ‘You can look now.'

The three opened their eyes. There was no sign of Ash. They shuffled in the direction they'd heard her go. But there were no glimpses, no rustles, no sounds of her breathing, no sense of her being nearby at all.

Twisting from between two boulders was a ti-tree. Its branches were flattened by the wind, its needle-like leaves sweeping the ground. Dan was on all fours peering into the shadows when from thick grey brush centimetres from his ear came a loud
boo!

Dan jerked up. His head thudded into a branch, showering him with dusty bark. ‘Gee willakers, Ash! What'd you do that for?' he said, flicking his fingers
through his hair. He swivelled his head side to side. ‘Where
are
you?'

Ash's hand snaked forward through the foliage and waved. Dan bent down. Her face was shadowed beneath a low rock ledge behind the leafy curtain. ‘I thought you'd be happy I was so well hidden,' said Ash. ‘It will fool your father.'

‘I don't like surprises,' said Dan, ‘but in this case I'll make an exception!'

Pollo and Will dashed over. ‘That's the best hiding spot ever!' said Will. ‘How'd you find it?'

‘That storm.' Ash wriggled from her hiding spot and brushed herself off. ‘It started bucketing. I saw a rock wallaby hop into this bush and not come out. So I followed it. I rode out the storm in there for a whole night. It's not too claustrophobic if you stay near the entrance.'

‘The wallaby can't have been too happy when you rocked up,' said Pollo.

‘Actually,' said Ash, ‘I never saw it again.'

‘That's funny,' said Pollo.

‘I thought so too.'

Will squatted, shading his eyes. ‘There are little passages though the scrub leading to the cave. Other animals besides you and your wallaby friend must come here, Ash.'

‘There's scat all over the place,' said Pollo. ‘I can see three types of poo without taking a step.'

‘Yes,' said Ash. ‘It's like a gathering place of all kinds of creatures.' She smiled. ‘Who knows, maybe it really is a portal to the cosmos.'

Dan twisted the strap of his canvas bag tight around his wrist. ‘Well, I suppose I should go back and get Twig now,' he mumbled. ‘You know, I should probably bring him up here by myself and show him how Fergus most likely disappeared.' He looked around the group. ‘I mean, you've probably all got better things to do today than help me.'

Ash shrugged. ‘Don't be in a hurry.'

‘You want to check out the cave, don't you?' said Will.

Pollo looked across the gorge. ‘You can see for miles around from up here. Bushrangers would have loved this place.' She turned to Dan. ‘Stick around a bit longer, eh? The fun could be just about to start!'

Will pulled back the branch of the ti-tree.

‘It's best to go in bottom first,' said Ash.

Grabbing his torch and sliding his backpack under the ti-tree, Will did as Ash said and soon disappeared. ‘Come on, Dan!' he called from inside, his muffled voice sounding like it came from the other side of the gorge.

Suddenly Dan darted out of sight. When he reappeared he'd swapped his school uniform for his old colourful clothes. He tucked his bag into a crevice in the rocks and smiled sheepishly. ‘Don't want to get them dirty,' he said.

‘Only problem is,' laughed Pollo, ‘now you look just like Ash again.'

Dan backed in, followed by Pollo then Ash. From the entrance, the cave rose into a hollow the size of a small
lounge room, only half the height. They had to crouch not to bump their heads.

Will shone his torch about. The long antennae of crickets waved from the knobbly ceiling. The floor was covered with fine grey sand, tiny animal tracks tracing across it like leaf veins. There were no larger prints.

‘No one can have been here since me,' said Ash. She stretched out by the entrance. ‘During the storm I lay here and listened to the thunder pounding outside. It was magical.'

The limestone walls were covered with insect carcasses and broken cobwebs dusted with sand. The dried remains of a small bush rat rested by one wall, its hide stretched over creamy bones.

Will rested the torch beam on a small opening, about shoulder width, at the rear of the cave. Just in front of it was a scattering of rocks, a rusted metal spike protruding from one.

‘Someone else was here once,' said Dan.

‘A long time ago,' said Pollo, fingering the spike's flaking rust. ‘This looks like an anchor of some kind, or maybe a handle.'

Ash got to her feet and peered over Pollo's shoulder. ‘I didn't notice this before. I stayed close to the entrance.'

‘It must be where the wallaby went,' said Pollo.

Ash smiled. ‘Unless it was beamed up by aliens.'

Will lay down and wriggled on his stomach, his head in the tunnel. ‘I think I can fit,' he huffed.

The others watched as, bit by bit, they saw less and less of him. Eventually the soles of his shoes had gone. They waited a minute.

‘Will?' called Pollo.

‘I'm still going!' the voice came back. ‘The tunnel's much wider now. It's … hang on a sec!' They heard him huffing and crunching over loose rocks. ‘Oh, wow! You guys should come on in!'

Pollo stuck her head into the hole. ‘What have you found?'

‘Come and see!' said Will. ‘I'll shine the torch back up the passage. You won't be in the dark for long.'

Dan went first, then Pollo. Pollo had gone about ten metres when she realised Ash wasn't following them.

‘Are you coming, Ash?' she called, unable to turn around to look.

Ash's voice drifted down the tunnel. ‘I sometimes get a little … funny … in closed spaces. I'm not sure I should.'

‘We can just tell you what this one's like if you'd rather stay,' called Pollo.

‘No … no, I'll come. I'd like to see for myself. I'll just
close my eyes and breathe deeply if it starts to worry me; pretend I'm floating in the night sky.'

Dan and Pollo wriggled on their elbows and stomachs until, with Will's help, they were able to slither from the tunnel and stand beside him. Soon they saw Ash worming her way towards them. She dropped down from the tunnel and huddled close to Pollo.

Will cast the torch around. The new cavern was narrower than the first but in most places you could stand upright. Though the air was dense it felt cooler, like a muggy summer night.

‘That tunnel was stinky,' said Dan, ‘but it's okay in here.'

‘I feel like we're in the mouth of a giant animal,' said Ash.

‘Like that Jonah character who got swallowed by a whale,' said Will.

‘Gross,' said Dan. ‘Being dissolved by stomach acid. What a disgusting way to go.'

Will shone the torch on him. ‘You know it didn't really happen, don't you? It's just a story, a legend.'

‘Oh.'

Pollo gazed around the cavern. ‘You could live in here in a pinch, don't you think? I'm wondering if that
bit of iron at the start of the tunnel might have been a door handle of some kind.'

‘And maybe,' said Will, ‘the small rocks around it were once all part of the same big slab.'

Pollo nodded. ‘If you were being chased you could drag it shut behind you.'

‘Chased? By troopers maybe?' said Dan. ‘If, say, you knew you'd be running from the law like, say, a bushranger?'

Pollo grinned. ‘It's a possibility.'

‘Can you feel that breeze?' said Ash. She had closed her eyes and was floating her arms up and down by her sides. ‘There's a draught. It's coming from over there.' She took the torch and shone it towards the back of the cavern. It curved away, one stone wall behind the other, in a narrow passage.

They edged towards the bend, Ash directing the torch beam. The closer they shuffled the more distinct was the steady flow of cool air. Ash slid around the curve of rock. When she returned she was smiling, her eyes wide. She handed Pollo the torch. ‘You'll like what's in there.'

Pollo hurried into the passage. Ash, Dan and Will heard excited yelps and scuffles. She returned, panting. ‘There's a shaft, who knows how deep! And – get this – there's a ladder made from iron spikes! There's never
been any mining around here. It has to have been put there by –'

‘Bushrangers!' said Will.

‘This day just gets better and better!' hooted Dan.

Huddled in the tiny space, they took turns to peer down the shaft. It looked to have been widened in places by hand, the rock chipped flat by a chisel.

Will dropped a small rock into the black abyss. It pinged off metal about ten times. They didn't hear it reach the bottom.

‘Who's first?' said Pollo, her voice echoing down the shaft.

‘I want to go check it out,' said Will, ‘but I don't want to risk my neck. Not to mention it's hours past lunchtime and
somebody
ate all my sandwiches.'

Ash shivered. ‘The thought of getting stuck down there …'

‘And I'm pretty sure,' said Dan, ‘that we've found enough to make Twig change his mind about portals to the cosmos.'

Will's stomach rumbled. ‘Let's come back another time with more torches and some proper equipment.'

‘I guess you're right,' said Pollo. ‘This cave's been untouched since bushranger times. It's not going anywhere.'

They were just rounding the curving rock wall back into the cavern when they heard it – a sharp rasping sound from deep in the earth beneath.

‘What was that?' whispered Pollo.

‘Just a bat or a possum or something,' said Will. ‘Why have we stopped?'

‘It didn't sound like a bat or a possum to me,' said Pollo.

‘It can't be a person,' said Dan. ‘The cave where we started only had little animal tracks, remember? No human ones – apart from Ash's at the entrance.'

‘Is that the only way in here, Ash?' asked Pollo.

‘As far as I know.'

There it was again! A harsh, scratching sound from below.

‘Where's that noise coming from?' said Pollo. She pushed past them back into the rock passage, leaving them in the dark.

Again! Scraping, like metal on stone.

‘That's a spade!' called Pollo from around the bend.

Will, Dan and Ash groped towards the torch beam to find Pollo wriggling backwards down into the shaft, the torch sideways under her chin.

‘The couple near my rock this morning had a spade,' whispered Ash, leaning over her. ‘But this sound is coming from below; it's a long way from where they were.'

‘All the more reason to check it out!' huffed Pollo. She stopped, her feet on the first spike of the ladder. She looked up and grinned at the others, her face ghoulish in the torchlight. ‘Who's coming with me?'

‘It's a bat or a possum, I'm telling you,' said Will. ‘Possums screech like crazy when they're fighting. Anyway, we don't need to go down there right this very minute … do we?'

‘If we go now we can spring whoever's making the noise!'

‘Spring?' said Will. ‘Who says anyone's doing anything wrong?'

‘Put it this way,' said Pollo, ‘if the noise stops before we get to it, I don't like our chances of finding out who or what is making it.'

‘Shouldn't we at least send a test canary down there?' said Will. ‘You know, like they did in the old coal mines?'

‘Where do you suggest we get a canary from?' said
Pollo, still standing on the iron peg, clutching the edge of the shaft.