Fear Is the Rider (4 page)

‘He didn't follow you?' said Shaw.

‘I don't think so. He must have seen your car too.'

‘Do you think you hurt him—with the axe?'

‘Not seriously, I'm almost sure.'

Shaw looked at the dishevelled girl. Her face was stained with dust, and the buttons were gone from the top of her blouse. She was holding the neck closed with her left hand. There was a red mark on her left cheek and forehead.

‘Are you all right?'

She was breathing steadily now, long controlled breaths, but her eyes were still staring.

‘Yes, I'm all right. I will be in a minute. Oh, thank God you were there.'

‘Sure. Well, come on,' he said briskly, ‘we'll go back and get your car.'

‘Don't be stupid,' she said sharply. ‘Oh, I'm sorry. But…he's there.'

‘I doubt it,' said Shaw. ‘My guess is that he'd take off like a rocket as soon as he saw my car. He's probably halfway to Yogabilla by now. Did he have a car? I don't suppose you know.'

‘I didn't see one. I don't think so; he didn't seem…'

‘Seem what?'

‘I don't know. He was…strange, terrible, part of the country—oh, I don't know what I'm talking about. But I think…I feel he
lives
in the scrub.'

Shaw looked at her cautiously. ‘Yes. Well, it's possible. But it's very unlikely he'd hang around after attacking you like that. He's obviously some sort of lunatic. It was a dreadful experience for you, but you're all right now. Let's get on back.'

Katie touched his arm. ‘You've no idea what he was like. He was…he wasn't human…Please forget about the truck. Let's go back to Yogabilla for the police.'

Shaw shrugged. ‘Fair enough. They'll want to come out here anyway, and you can pick up your truck then. Come on, we'll get back.'

He manoeuvred the Honda carefully on the narrow track to turn around without going on to the soft sandy edges, then began driving east, back towards Pattersons Creek.

‘Where are the keys to your truck?' he asked.

‘I left them in the ignition.'

Shaw thought about that. ‘Well, it doesn't matter. He's not likely to steal it.'

‘Why not?'

‘There's nowhere for him to go. If he tried to take the truck the police would pick him up in half a day. There's only this track and then the road north and south from Yogabilla.'

‘He could go out into the desert. That thing will go anywhere, and there's plenty of water and petrol in it.'

‘Of course,' said Shaw. ‘I hadn't thought of that. Is it insured?'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, what the hell? Shocking nuisance, I know, but not a tragedy.'

‘Of course not.' She was thinking of the tragedy it could have been.

‘If it's still there, you're sure you don't want to pick it up?'

‘No,' she said sharply, ‘he might be there too.'

Shaw glanced across at her; she was still holding her blouse at the neck.

‘There's two of us now, you know,' he said. ‘Even if he stayed there he wouldn't attack us both.'

Katie looked at him. Her eyes were glistening now rather than staring.

‘You never saw anything…a man…like this. He was… he was fearful, huge…and he stank,' she added irrationally. ‘He has the axe. No. Don't go near the truck, please. Just go through the scrub as fast as you can and get to the police.'

‘All right,' said Shaw reassuringly. ‘It doesn't matter anyway, it won't take long to get back to it once we've got the police.' Then, with his own touch of fear, ‘He didn't have a gun or anything, did he?'

‘I didn't see one. I don't think so.'

‘You don't have one? There's nothing like that in your car?'

‘A gun? No.'

‘Ah. All right, then.'

‘Have you?'

‘Have I what?' said Shaw.

‘Got a gun.'

‘No.'

‘Oh.'

‘Don't worry. Nothing can hurt us in the car. We'll be in Yogabilla in an hour.'

‘Can't you go faster?'

‘Better not. This little bus wasn't meant for roads like this.'

‘What are you doing out here? I thought you were going direct to Adelaide.'

‘Oh, just drifted out. Had some time to kill and just drifted out to have a look.'

‘Thank God you did.'

‘Yes.'

They both saw the dust cloud at the same time.

Yellow-red, high and turbulent, it rose from the scrub a few hundred metres ahead and moved rapidly towards them. Shaw slowed the car down to a walking pace.

‘Is that him?' he said stupidly.

Katie gasped. ‘Turn around!' she said urgently. ‘Turn round quickly!'

Shaw didn't answer. He stared ahead at the dust cloud, waiting for the vehicle that was causing it to break out of the scrub.

‘Turn around!' Katie's voice was shrill. ‘Turn around and get out of here!'

‘Wait,' said Shaw, ‘there's nothing behind us. We'd never get through to Obiri in this. He can't hurt us in the car. Anyway, you don't even know if that's your truck.' He didn't even convince himself.

The Land Cruiser came shooting out of the scrub, rocketing towards them, faster than any sane man would drive it. Encased in steel bars, rolling from side to side of the track, with its vast cohort of spiralling dust, it looked like some military vehicle on a desperate enterprise. Its metallic brown duco glinted in the sunlight.

‘That
is
my truck,' shouted Katie. ‘Turn around!'

‘There's no point in turning around,' said Shaw tersely. ‘We'll just go past him.' And once again he said, ‘He can't hurt us in the car.' He accelerated and drove fast towards the Land Cruiser, keeping well to the left of the track just clear of the sandy verge.

The Land Cruiser veered to the same side and impossibly increased its speed. Shaw swung to the right-hand side of the road and slowed down.

‘He's mad,' he said, to himself.

‘He's going to ram us!' shouted Katie.

The Land Cruiser was only a hundred metres away now, rushing ahead of its own dust cloud, the bull bars and the roll bars an unshatterable armour. If it hit the Honda the little car would be a wreck and the Land Cruiser would hardly falter in its charge.

Shaw put the Honda into first gear and accelerated violently.

‘Turn around!' screamed Katie.

Shaw ignored her. There was no time to turn. He intended to try to swing around the Land Cruiser at the last moment. He slipped into second gear. The Honda was travelling at eighty kilometres an hour, the Land Cruiser even faster. A collision speed of almost two hundred kilometres an hour.

‘Go off the track, go off the track!' Katie's hand involuntarily reached for the wheel. Shaw gripped it tighter. Off the track were the soft sand and the sliding gibbers. There was little chance the Honda could travel across the shifting surface. He had to go around the Land Cruiser. In a moment, a second—but his mind seemed to have moved into a different dimension of time—it all seemed to be happening in slow motion. Now the Land Cruiser was dead ahead, huge, invulnerable, a killing head of metal on a javelin of dust. Shaw swung to the left and tried to push the accelerator through the floor. The Land Cruiser swung to meet him. Death was there for a moment. Shaw swung the wheel over harder and the Honda shot off the track into the desert. There was a face above the wheel of the Land Cruiser, dark and laughing or snarling, glimpsed only for an instant.

The dust of the Land Cruiser rolled across his vision and he was driving blind, accelerator still to the floor because he could feel the front-driving wheels sinking into the sand and knew that if he slowed down he could never move again. He looked behind quickly. Nothing but dust. The Land Cruiser must have missed the Honda by centimetres and gone careering down the track. If he could turn to the right now and get back to the track he would be able to make the run for Yogabilla. But where was the Land Cruiser? He could see nothing behind him but his own dust. The Honda was slowing down as the wheels sank farther into the surface of the desert. Shaw dropped back to first gear. He tried to turn hard to the right but the wheels were cutting deep furrows in the sand and stones and wouldn't respond. He'd have to make a long gentle turn keeping the motor revving to breaking point as the Honda wallowed along in first gear. But where was the bloody Land Cruiser? Nothing behind him but dust, yellow, gyrating, impenetrable.

The Land Cruiser had rocked down the track for a hundred metres, then it turned and drove into the desert. For the four-wheel-drive truck there was little difference between the surface of the track and the surface of the desert, and it went towards the struggling Honda at eighty kilometres an hour.

But the Honda couldn't be seen, only the billowing pall of dust that hung behind it, bigger and denser in the desert than on the track.

The Land Cruiser charged towards the thickest area of dust because the centre of that was where the Honda had to be. The Honda was barely making fifteen kilometres an hour: the Land Cruiser needed only seconds to run it down.

Shaw's arms were aching as he held the steering wheel hard to the right, forcing the driving wheels to plough through the sand. He was holding the wheel down so hard he felt something must give in the steering linkage. But if he could get back to the track the little Honda would shoot ahead of the Land Cruiser and then Yogabilla was only thirty kilometres away. Katie was shouting something, but he couldn't hear her over the screeching motor. He was still driving through the dust fog that the Land Cruiser had raised on its charge down the track, but the track itself couldn't be far away.

The Land Cruiser was driving blind and fast in the dust cloud of the Honda. The driver knew that the Honda was somewhere a few metres ahead, but the dust was all encompassing; the only visible world was the inside of the vehicle. But he knew that in the open desert there was only one thing he could hit and that was the Honda, and he kept the Land Cruiser roaring through the dust, waiting for the impact of the bull bars on the frail metal of the small car.

The dust had cleared ahead of Shaw and he could see the track fifty metres to the right. He was travelling almost parallel to it now, forcing the Honda round in the long arc. The track was clearly defined by the low ridge of gibber stones along the sides, running like wide railway tracks towards the scrub of Pattersons Creek a few hundred metres away. The Honda was holding steady at just over ten kilometres an hour. In the long swing he was making towards the track he would be almost at the scrub before he made it. If he made it. Where was the Land Cruiser? He knew nothing about desert travel. Was the Land Cruiser struggling with the soft surface like the Honda? If so, he would make the track. But if it weren't…

It wasn't. It came surging past within a foot of the Honda on Shaw's side. He was suddenly aware of the vast bulk of the thing roaring past just to his right. Shaw looked up to the offside window of the Land Cruiser and could see nothing but the blur of the vehicle flashing past, travelling so unbelievably fast, untrammelled by the sand, that the Honda might have been stationary.

It was ahead in a second and its dust rolled across in front of the Honda and Shaw lost all vision again. He knew the track was to the right and he had to hold the Honda over, fighting against the pull of the sand. But now the Land Cruiser was ahead of him. Whoever was driving it was determined to kill him and Katie. Vaguely he realised that sometime he would have to wonder why, but now his mind was curiously detached, capable of observing his own aching arms, the distraught girl beside him, the rolling, smothering dust that enveloped that car and was seeping into the interior. The man in the Land Cruiser would not be able to see the Honda now, Shaw reasoned, because his own dust cloud would hide it. So he would swing around in a wide half-circle to get around his own dust. Then he would be able to see the Honda, then he would run it down before it reached the track. Or he might just turn and hurtle into the dust, then do it again and again, keep on doing it until eventually he hit the Honda.

Either way, Shaw realised, the Honda had very little chance of reaching the track.

Could they just get out and leave the car? Run through the dust to the scrub of Pattersons Creek? Too far. The dust would clear and whoever was in the Land Cruiser would see them and run them down long before they reached the scrub. Meanwhile, Shaw was holding the Honda to the right, crawling nearer the track, metre by metre. Only minutes now.

If he could only hold the curve he was on, he would reach the track in minutes. If the Land Cruiser charged at them blind through the dust, the odds were it would miss. There was a chance, just a chance. Shaw's right leg was aching as he unconsciously strove to push the accelerator down further, desperately seeking more power from the roaring motor.

The dust ahead suddenly evaporated. They had driven out of the dust of the Land Cruiser. That meant…