Siddon Rock (26 page)

It was close to four o'clock when the searchers started to move away from the salt lake towards the north.

Jimmy James went ahead again, leading the group across pale, salt-infected land. The tracker followed the signs that no-one else could see, moving steadily towards the farm that had been Young George Aberline's. Then he turned towards the Yackoo.
That'd be bloody right
, Fatman Aberline muttered as they skirted the rusting hulks of the Bush Bashers' abandoned machinery,
right into the bloody Yackoo.

But as they approached the Yackoo, at the margin where the cleared land changed to virgin bush, the tracker stopped the group with an extended arm. At the edge of the scrub stood Nell with her dingoes close to her.

Bluey Redall said to Marge that night,
And that Nell looked really different. I thought it was the sun in my eyes at first – you know, getting on in the afternoon. She didn't say nothing, but that tracker just backed off like he'd been bit. And you know what he said? Men're not allowed.
He paused, and shook his head in amazement.
Bloody men are not bloody allowed. Now don't that just take the bleedin' cake.

And when the copper went to go around him, it was like he was a friggin' sheep-dog
, Young George said over that evening's meal at the Two Mile.
He weren't angry or aggressive. He just stopped every move that copper made.

Bert Truro, of course, in his telling of it, protested that he would have gone on but was pulled back by the other blokes. What he would leave out was his shock at the sight of Nell standing there. Each time he thought of it he
remembered the night he tried to burn her hut and how, as he fumbled with petrol and matches, she had appeared at the edge of the clearing. The dingoes, then, had not seemed like the slinking scavengers he knew they were, but wild animals held back by her voice. He couldn't bear to think about, let alone tell, of how he turned and ran like a frightened cur to the safety of his utility truck.

But no matter what protests the men in the search party voiced, no matter that they made threats ranging from dismissal to castration, Jimmy James walked away and the strength of his conviction took them with him.

When Nell stopped Jimmy James leading the search party into the Yackoo she beckoned Catalin and Sybil forward, then turned to Alistair Meakins who stood apart from the angry group gathered around the tracker. She raised her hand slightly and Alistair was suddenly taller and slimmer; but as Allison made to step towards Nell, Alistair pulled her back. The moment between swirled with a shrilling of future voices of the town which were as sharp as the razor with which Alistair shaved Allison's legs.

Nell saw the hesitation and dropped her hand, and Alistair went with the men who followed Jimmy James.

As the men turned away, the women walked into the bush, the dingoes slipping from shadow to shadow, melting into the place.
Jos's not here now
, Nell said,
been here, but gone
now.
Skirting whippy mallee trees with their many trunks, and bushy wattle, the women stayed close behind Nell, Sybil helping Catalin through the scrub that caught at the cello case with long fingers. Nell repeated,
Was here, Cata, this mornin'. Not now.

Quite suddenly the thick bush gave way to a large clearing, a park-like space with tall, straight trees stretching skyward where their canopies touched together. Long shreds of bark hung from the trunks of some, as if stripped by a giant hand, revealing pale new wood. The sunlight slanted obliquely to the floor, turning the flushed bronze of the new growth eucalyptus to a stained and fiery roof, picking out papery, fragile-looking pink and white flowers that grew in the dark leaf litter and dead bark. In the cathedral silence the snap of a breaking limb was sharper than a rifle shot. Birdsong did not soar and echo, but hung in spiralling threads from the topmost branches.

In this space was a three-sided shelter, with strong branches wired together and a roof woven from small tree-limbs in several layers, so that it was waterproof.
Macha made this, when she was a kid
, Nell said. She pointed to a bedroll that lay near the shelter.
That's hers. She sleeps here some nights. Jos here last night. Macha too.

How do you know?
Catalin said.

Nell took the women back to where the thick bush met the edge of the open space and spread her hands wide, indicating the earth. The sunlit afternoon became the darkest time between night and early morning. Nell pointed at the
floor of the Yackoo, at the earth that appeared unsullied and pristine, and Macha burst into the clearing. She made a small fire in a well-used ring of stones, and sat with her back against the tree that was the prop for the shelter. Her rifle lay across her knees.

A tiny light flickered between the trees, so small it could have been a firefly. It moved unsteadily into the clearing, and the torchlight lit small feet cautiously feeling their way in unfamiliar territory. The feet stopped for a moment, then moved towards the fire.

Through a shifting haze that took all sound, Catalin tried to move to the tiny glow of torchlight, but Nell held her arm,
Stop.
They watched as Macha Connor ran to Jos, picked him up and wrapped him in a blanket. She put him down on her bedroll by the fire, placed the second blanket over him, and sat by him until the grey chill of dawn.

At first light they saw Macha pick up her rifle, check that Jos was still asleep, and walk away. Then the picture dissolved and the bedroll became just three blankets in a heap next to a ring of stones.

Catalin scrabbled in the bedding, searching for anything of Jos. As she lifted the canvas groundsheet a camera fell at her feet. She opened the battered leather case and saw the inscription inside the flap:
Meinem Sohn Hansi. Halte dein Leben fest, in Liebe, Mütterchen.
She started to read it aloud,
My son Hansi, hold your life still …
but found that her voice could not find the words; her tongue could not shape the language of the mother's love, and in her voicelessness
she realised her fragility in the world. The old army-issue blankets were rough against her face as she inhaled deeply trying to find Jos in the tight warp and weft of the fabric. The dense wool was foreign against her tongue. She shook the blanket hard but only dust flew out and the smell was that of earth.

Macha go this mornin'. Jos stay here
, Nell said.
Then he go.

When?
Catalin demanded.
When did he go? Where?

He's here this morning
, Nell repeated.
Then, he went.

Nell showed them where Jos walked away from the enclosed space, through the bush towards the north. She stopped at the furthest edge, where the Yackoo ended and open plains began.
Came out here. Macha too, later. But after – a trick thing
.
I can't tell.
Nell could have added that what she saw there she didn't want to believe, and so could not tell it.

Nell turned back towards Siddon Rock, but Catalin was taking the cello case off her back. She knelt on the ground and held the instrument so that the sun caught the writing through the long shadows cast by the trees. The three women read the inscription:

 

Margit Catalin 1879 to 1930 … Viktoria Margit 1899 to 1948 …
Catalin Viktoria … Josis Matthieu …

 

Does that mean he's all right? That there's no dates?
Sybil asked hesitantly, glancing at Nell who was looking off into the distance.

I do not know
.
I do not know, I do not know.
Catalin's voice cracked and rose in panic, and she knelt in the dirt with her arms around the cello until Nell and Sybil lifted her and took her back to the town.

When Nell stopped the search party entering the Yackoo, Jimmy James walked away from the group with Inspector Bailey.
Gotta get rid of these blokes
, he said to him.
They messed up things too much. Gotta go on my own now.

Do you want me with you?
the Inspector asked.

Nah. Just me.

Young George Aberline was vocal in his anger at being dismissed.
Bloody boong telling us what to do
, he snarled.
Who the fuck does he think he is?

He's a bloody good tracker, that's what he is
, Inspector Bailey said shortly.
And we've gotta give him the room to do what he does best – find people. It's thanks to you lot stamping around all over the tracks that he's having trouble finding anything.

The group of men turned back towards the town, but Young George stood watching the tracker walk slowly at the edge of the Yackoo, heading steadily north. He saw him stop, look back towards the town and the lake, then continue on his way until the curve of the bush hid him from sight. Then Young George reluctantly turned away.

Jimmy James stopped often, sometimes squatting to see closer. Once he crouched for some time, examining
what he saw on the earth, then looked back in the direction of the town and the road leading from it. He looked around the place closely, but could not find what he sought, and continued north, never deviating from the margin separating cultivated ground and bush.

The light was failing when he reached the extreme north edge of the Yackoo. He stopped, reading the story written there. He walked carefully and looked intently at an area close to the trees, then he bent down and picked up a .303 rifle shell. Standing as tall as he could, he looked out across the open plains towards the interior. There in the distance was a figure on the ground. How far away was this? However far it was, Jimmy covered the distance in no time at all, slowing to a walk as he came close and saw that the figure was a large dingo. A strange animal this, with darker reddish fur and broader shoulders than the local breed. Not one of Nell's dogs then, which were pale-furred and sleek. Jimmy James bent down close to the animal's head and looked into its eyes, but all he could see was the colourless stare of a dead dog.

Whatever Jimmy James surmised from the signs written on the earth, this was what he reported to Inspector Bailey and the men of Siddon Rock who were waiting on the verandah of the Railway and Traveller's Hotel:

There's dingo tracks everywhere
, he said.
Boy and man tracks underneath. I can't read the ground right, it's all churned up. That swimming place, perpetual pool, in the lake – there could be boy tracks, but there's so many other
footprints over 'em, it's hard to say if they're going into the lake or walking along the edge.

Out at the north end of the Yackoo I thought there could be something. Looked like a man on the ground, but it turned out to be a dead dog – maybe dingo, maybe dingo-kelpie from the colour and size.

Bert Truro sniggered into his beer.
Bloody old boong gin'll be ropeable, havin' one of her mongrels killed.