Catherine Jinks TheRoad (81 page)

That was more than possible. In her current rig-out, with all that make-up, and the nose stud, and the dyed hair (it was a strange, purplish-black colour) she probably looked very different from the kid who had played hide-and-seek at Sturt Park.

On the other hand, she was a few years younger than Alec. Maybe he just hadn’t noticed her. Broken Hill was a big town – not like Cobar, say. You didn’t necessarily recognise everyone you saw walking down Argent Street.

‘It’s very kind of you to give us a lift,’ Ambrose remarked, for perhaps the fourth time. (He was addressing the Harwoods.) ‘We’re very grateful.’

‘Oh, that’s all right,’ said Verlie.

‘I suppose adversity brings out the best in people.’

‘Mmmm.’

‘We have a mobile, you know, but it doesn’t seem to be working.’

‘It won’t, out here,’ Ross explained. ‘None of them do. They’re not within range of the network.’

‘Well, isn’t that stupid.’ Ambrose spoke fretfully. ‘Out here is where you really
need
them. Someone should do something about that.’

There was no reply. Alec was studying the country as it rolled past, trying to work out if it was changing. Too soon to tell, perhaps. White posts flashed past in an hypnotic rhythm. Beyond them, the grey-green thickets and yellow clumps of grass wove an irregular pattern against the red earth.

‘So where do you come from, Ambrose?’ Verlie asked, obviously making an effort to be polite. Up ahead, Del’s station wagon swerved to avoid a kangaroo carcass.

Alec frowned. Road kill? He didn’t recall seeing any road kill, lately. Not since that roo yesterday, near the Pine Creek crossing.

‘I’m from Melbourne,’ Ambrose offered.

‘Oh, yes. We’re from Sydney, Ross and I. We don’t know Melbourne very well, though we did live there at one stage.’

‘Oh.’

‘Are you on holiday?’

‘Not really. We were at a funeral. Georgie’s grandmother died.’

‘Oh, I’m
so
sorry.’

As Ross skirted the bloated corpse of the dead kangaroo, Verlie craned to look over her shoulder. Her expression was sympathetic. But Georgie was staring mulishly out the window, disassociating herself from everything that was taking place inside the car.

Alec followed her example. After a quick glance at his fellow passengers, he fixed his attention on the road again – just in time to see more carnage. Something small and brown and furry was plastered across the bitumen. Not a kangaroo –
definitely
not a kangaroo.

Alec’s spirits rose a notch. He hadn’t seen anything like that since crossing Pine Creek.

Could they actually be getting somewhere?

‘Ross and I are on a long trip,’ Verlie was saying. ‘Three or four months, it’s going to take us. Revisiting old haunts.’

‘Ah,’ said Ambrose.

‘We spent some time in Broken Hill. When we were younger. That would have been . . . which years, Ross?’

There was no immediate reply. Ross had his gaze fixed on the vehicle ahead, which had slewed across the road suddenly. Alec saw why; another dead kangaroo lay smack in the middle of the left-hand lane.

‘Christ,’ said Ross.

‘We’re gettin somewhere.’ Alec tried to keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘I don’t remember these. These are new. Which means that we must be gettin somewhere.’

‘But what could have hit them?’ Verlie wondered. ‘Who’s been through here, lately?’

‘Whoever they were, their car must look like an abattoir,’ said Ambrose. ‘Hey – what’s that? Is that . . .?’

‘The track!’ Alec exclaimed. He leaned forward, feasting his eyes on the ribbon of pale dirt that was shooting towards the highway. ‘We are! We’re movin! Thank
Christ
!’

‘Are we turning?’ asked Ross, of no one in particular. But Del’s car didn’t slow as they approached the modest intersection. It looked very much as if Col and Del intended to keep to the highway after all.

‘I thought we were turning off?’ Verlie asked, in bewilderment.

‘Why bother?’ Ambrose sounded faintly patronising. ‘If we can get to the back road, then we can get to Broken Hill.’

Alec was alarmed. He didn’t think it wise to ignore this God-given opportunity. ‘Don’t count on it,’ he said. ‘We reached Thorndale too, remember. Didn’t mean that the highway was goin anywhere.’

‘I know what you mean.’ Ross’s tone, when he addressed Alec, was more respectful than it had been before their visit to Thorndale. Clearly he had changed his mind about Alec, for some reason. ‘But we should at least give it a try, don’t you think?’

‘Oh dear,’ said Verlie. Del’s Ford had swerved again, this time narrowly missing
two
large smears of pulverised tissue. The station wagon was threading its way between them, as it would have threaded its way between a pair of speed traps. Alec caught a glimpse of Col’s ute some distance ahead.

‘God, it’s a bloody obstacle course,’ said Ambrose. ‘Where do all these animals
come
from, that’s what I want to know. You never see them until they suddenly appear on the road, do you?’

‘They come out at night.’ Once more, Ross felt constrained to take the lead in transmitting any facts that might be required. He clearly had an overwhelming need to appear well informed. ‘It must have happened last night.’

‘There’s another one.’

Alec was astonished. He had only once before seen this much flattened wildlife in such a small area, and that was on a stretch of outback road which ran between two high, steep sandy banks. The animals, mostly roos, had been caught like spiders in a bath. They hadn’t been able to escape the slaughter.

But there were no steep banks lining this road. The fences hadn’t come any closer, nor had the ditches grown any deeper. It was inexplicable.

‘Bloody hell,’ said Ambrose. ‘Is that
another
one?’

‘I don’t think so. I think it’s part of the left-hand one.’ Ross, however, seemed unsure. ‘What is it? A kangaroo?’

‘Looks more like a bloody whale, the size of it.’

‘This is gross,’ said Georgie.

Ross couldn’t avoid the next patch of gore; he passed over it with a bump. Del had done the same thing – Col too, presumably. Alec noticed crows rising up in front of Del’s Ford, and deduced that Col’s ute was scaring the birds off yet more road kill. Squinting out of the window, he spotted a flyblown pile of meat and hair in the southbound lane, too badly pulped to identify. The funny thing was, it looked pretty fresh. All the carcasses had looked pretty fresh.

What the hell was going
on
here?

‘It must have been a whole herd or flock or whatever kangaroos travel in,’ said Ross, who had been forced to reduce his

speed. But Alec shook his head.

‘That wasn’t a roo, back there. Too small.’

‘Perhaps it was just a
piece
of one,’ Ambrose suggested.

‘Or a joey,’ said Georgie – almost with relish, Alec thought. Verlie wondered aloud if someone had perhaps been shooting at a group of kangaroos crossing the road – someone who wasn’t entirely stable. There was a brief pause.

Alec, who had seen the handiwork of an unstable personality with a gun, swallowed convulsively.

Then Ambrose, in a bland voice, raised the possibility of kangaroos flinging themselves onto the highway (and into the path of certain death) much as whales beach themselves when misdirected by an errant pilot, or by cockeyed magnetic fields. He was being facetious, but Alec’s attention was caught nonetheless. Magnetic fields?

He had been inclined to blame magnetic fields from the very start.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Ross muttered. With a
thud
they passed over another wad of matted fur and minced flesh, while crows wheeled above them. Suddenly Ross stamped on the brake. Up ahead, Del had done the same, though she began to move again – very slowly – even as Ross stopped his car. She was pulling off the road, into a ditch. She was skirting an unspeakable mess that stretched for several metres in every direction.

This one smelled. Alec rolled up his window hastily, alarmed at the size of the thing. It looked like a railway accident. Like a meat-packer’s bad dream. It looked as if a butcher’s shop had collided with a road roller.

The air above it was alive with flies – large black flies like bullets. They bounced off the windscreen with audible thumps.

‘Oh, what’s going
on
here?’ he moaned.

Ambrose was sitting forward, gripping Verlie’s headrest. His eyes were invisible behind those wanker’s shades, but his expression was worried. Turning to Alec, he asked: ‘Is this normal?’

‘No.’
Alec was emphatic.

‘We’ll have to go around,’ said Verlie. ‘Ross? We’ll have to –’

‘I
know
. I can
see
that.’

‘Man oh man,’ Georgie remarked, in reverent tones. ‘The world’s biggest hamburger.’ Ambrose giggled.

Ross was concentrating on the task before him, which wasn’t an easy one. With the caravan dragging at his rear end like a ball and chain, he had to ease his car off the bitumen, guide it over a shallow ditch, and then get back on the road again. While he accomplished this manoeuvre, Alec watched Del’s Ford. It was all over the place. So was Col’s ute. The two vehicles were weaving back and forth between piles of mashed animal guts.

The white centre line was imprinted with bloody tyre marks, where it wasn’t dyed red.

‘God help us,’ Alec breathed. With a bone-jarring lurch they roared back onto the tarred surface, skidding a fraction when their right front tyre hit a slippery clump of fat or sinew. Stubbornly, Ross ploughed on. He was grim-faced, stiff-shouldered, intent on his driving. Ambrose and Georgie were both giggling now.

‘Lemmings,’ said one.

‘No . . . Kamikaze kangaroos,’ said the other.

‘A mass suicide protest. “Speed kills”.’

‘You get to the first road sign, and it’s one kangaroo. You get to the second, it’s three. You get to the third, it’s fifty.’

‘Someone’s on a culling spree.’

‘Will you please shut
up
?’ snapped Alec, though he knew theirs was probably more of a nervous reaction than anything

else. Georgie scowled at him.

‘Make me,’ she said.

‘I bloody will, if you don’t watch yourself!’

‘Oh, now don’t!’ Verlie pleaded. ‘Don’t be like this, please! It’s not helpful.’

‘Any more, and you can get out,’ Ross added.

‘Fine.’ Georgie had pushed the door open before Ambrose could stop her. Fortunately, they were only crawling along; Verlie cried out, and Ross braked, and Georgie was standing on the road, suddenly.
Slam
went her door. She began to walk in a southerly direction.

‘What the hell...?’ said Ross.

‘Georgie!’ Ambrose opened the door again, and leaned out. ‘Come back here, you silly girl!’

‘Leave her,’ Alec growled, and Verlie said: ‘Where’s she going? She can’t ride in the caravan.’

‘Oh my
God!
’

This time, Ambrose didn’t sound facetious. He didn’t sound like Ambrose, either. His squawk was so disturbing that it even made Georgie spin around.

Ambrose himself recoiled, knocking against Alec, who had shuffled over next to him.

‘Oh my
God!
What’s
that
?’

‘What?’ said Alec.

‘That.
That!
’ Ambrose pointed. Verlie squealed. Throwing himself across Ambrose’s knees, Alec scanned the roadside until he saw something that made his heart miss a beat.

There were ribs, and . . . and they were big. Like a ram’s, or a calf ’s – but there was hair, too. Curly, dusty, black hair.
Woolly
hair?

It had to be a sheep’s fleece. Had to be . . .

Flies were ricocheting around the interior of the car like bomber planes.

‘It’s a person!’ Ambrose squeaked.

‘No.’ There were no visible horns, but where was the skull? Crushed? Flattened? Tumbled into the ditch? It was all bones and leather. Not fresh. ‘No, it’s – it’s a sheep. It’s a
sheep
.’ A black sheep?

‘Georgie, get in!’ Ambrose cried sharply. The girl seemed to hesitate.
‘Georgie!’

‘I want to ride in the caravan,’ she answered. But there was a lack of force in her tone – a touch of dismay. Alec heard it.

‘Get the fuck in here, you stupid cunt!’ he yelled. ‘Or do you wanna end up as a meat fuckin pattie?’

‘Oh, stop!’ Verlie whimpered. Then Ross gunned the engine.

And all at once Georgie was scrambling onto the back seat like a frightened child.

‘It’s all right,’ said Noel. ‘They’re moving again.’

Peering out the rear window, Peter saw that his father was right; the Harwoods’ sedan was once more creeping along behind Del’s Ford, closing the gap that had opened between them. Because the sedan’s windshield was tinted, Peter couldn’t make out Ross’s expression very well. But he did notice that Verlie was covering her mouth with her hand.

That wasn’t a good sign, surely. Or did Verlie simply find the smell overpowering? Peter didn’t like it much himself, though it was different from what he had expected. More like sewage than anything else. And sporadic. Coming at them in waves.

‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Why did Georgie get out of the car?’