The high parched grass scrubbed against Donovan’s waist. It was like wading through a haystack, but the blades were much sharper, and microscopic amebas seemed to be harvesting into the pores of his skin. It even felt like some had inched their way into his bandages. His foot was itching so badly that each step was painful that he had to slow down his pace.
If he had learned anything from observing Neji, it was a better feel for the unpredictable landscape. Without even judging the skies, he could tell that they were headed in the wrong direction.
The swagman had been keeping an even stride in front of him, but he knew better than to try and run away. Even if he gave it all he had, he wouldn’t get very far. His foot felt like it had been shot. So he tried placating the man long enough to scratch at his heel and hoped that the information might come in handy later on.
“I’ve been thinking,” he rubbed the layer of socks, “We’ve got a long way to go and I don’t even know your name.”
The man bent around and growled. “What’s it to ya?” he sarcastically demanded, as his roll dropped off his shoulder and onto the grass.
“Oh, no particular reason,” he shrugged. All he needed was a response, not another close-up of those straggling whiskers and rotten teeth. “Just making conversation. That’s all,” he added.
“Listen, kid,” the swagman leaned in close enough to peer into his optic nerves. “If I want to have a conversation, I’ll do the talking. Just follow me and keep your big trap shut. Got it?!”
Donovan’s blue eyes opened a little wider at the command, and he mockingly zipped his lips with his fingers.
The swagman picked up his twenty-pound assortment of rolled up canvas, and tossed it at the boy’s feet.
“Carry that and speed it up,” he gave the command.
Donovan shook his head with grief, and he strained so hard to get it over his left shoulder that he almost fell over sideways. He had to balance on his bad foot to swing his own backpack over his right shoulder, while mumbling complaints under his breath.
“What did you say?!” the man hissed, and got up so close in Donovan’s face this time that their noses met.
“Just that...,” he began to stutter. “II th..think we’re going the wrong way.”
“Wrong way from where?” the man tried to figure out the complex child. “If you knew your way back you wouldn’t be here right now. Besides, we’ve got a detour to make before we take the road back to Kansas,” his satire stretched from ear to ear.
“Kansas?” Donovan asked completely ignorant of the Americanized expression. “Don’t you mean the Kimberly Region?”
The swagman whipped out his knife and held it to Donovan’s throat, as the back roll and backpack slid to the ground again.
“I don’t like being mocked,” he pressed it tight against his throat, “and I never killed anyone that didn’t have it comin.”
A mosquito landed on the swagman’s face and he whisked the blade away to slap at it, which left behind a stinging scrape to add to the others.
“Bloody mossies!” he wiped the remains from the palm of his hand onto Donovan’s back. “Just remember, there’s no big bus comin’ to your rescue this time.” He swung his head from side to side and kept on walking.
Grudgingly, Donovan hoisted the excess baggage again and continued the painstaking journey to no where. As he followed the head of flying corks, there was hatred in his young eyes. Now he knew why his parents told him never to talk to strangers. He would have to devise a plan to get away.
The arid landscape had been peaks and valleys for so long that when Preston closed his eyes the outline of stony impediments remained, along with the deep seated rings from the binoculars.
Wearily, he massaged his temples and laid the hard lenses to rest on his lap. The sky was already beginning to cast hues of red and purple and they hadn’t turned up anything all day. The trips back to Darwin to refuel every few hours had left the three of them exhausted, but the feeling of disparity muzzled with the urge to beat the onset of night kept them pursuing the clouds and melting horizon. If Donovan was down there, the possibility of actually scoping him out would seem more miraculous now than ever. He could be anywhere and within the half hour they would have to turn back for the day.
As Preston blinked, he saw something flash in a valley. He rubbed his eyes again, wondering if it was just the glare of glass.
“Woe,” he said. “Let’s circle around again. I think I may have seen something,” he grappled for the binoculars, pushing them into position as he adjusted the lenses.
Yancey yawned and turned the rotor. The old man had made him change direction so many times that he had almost lost track. “What does that make.., thirteen times now?”
“Oh,” Preston’s back stiffened, “thirteen, huh? Could be a bad sign..,” he sounded concerned.
“Nah.., only if you’re superstitious,” Yancey replied and went ahead and coved in deep to narrow the margin.
“Got somethin’,” the tracker broke in. “Looks like a cover up. A ute.”
“Well, I’ll be damned if it’s not a signal. See that ledge on the mountain.., looks like a clear shot to me,” the helicopter lifted back up above the tree line.
“What do you make of it, sir?” questioned Preston.
“I think it’ll be a good place to bring her down for the night. Thirteen may be our lucky number, after all.”
Chapter Eighteen
Sludging through the knee high swamp of lily pads, Donovan reached deep into the muddy layer that swelled between his toes.
“Keep feelin’ around kid, you’ll find ‘em!” the swagman ordered as he howled at the struggle to keep his balance.
Despite his aching tendons and throbbing heel, there was one thing that felt good about the dilemma, which was the coolness of the mud. However, the thought of what might cling to his open sore beneath those murky shallows was enough to even snuff out that pleasantry.
The nameless face that he liked to think of as “Corky” stood on the bank, laughing like a lunatic while he pulled at the roots of the floating vines, as he tucked them into his pants pockets. Neji had told him they were edible, but whether or not the swagman knew it was his problem. He planned to steal them away for later.
Donovan was beginning to size him up as best he could, and since he was having to do all the work, it meant that one of them was lazy.., and possibly a heavy sleeper. If he planned it just right, those stems might give him the strength he needed to slip away in the middle of the night.
“What’s the matter, lily white? Haven’t you found any yet?” his voice began to slur as he sucked down the second bottle of black labeled whiskey.
“A couple,” he answered hopefully.
“Then toss ‘em here and get out!” the man demanded.
So Donovan pitched the mud oysters quickly at the bank, but the swagman reached down and caught them before they hit the dirt. With this, he reasoned that the mans reflexes hadn’t slowed yet.
With the knife in hand, the swagman wedged it between the opening of the first and slurped out the insides. Then he cracked open the second and scooped it out, letting it wiggle on the tip of the blade as he shook his head.
“Too bad there’s only enough for one of us,” he went ahead and swallowed it whole.
Donovan expected as much. But as he started to pull himself upon the muddy bank, his knees buckled beneath him and he landed face down in the reeds. He remained there motionless.
The swagman grunted and walked over to him pushed the open bottle against his nostrils. With each inhalation, Donovan’s head jerked, which was followed by a hard slap on his cheek.
“Ouch!” he wailed. Wearing this man down wasn’t going to be as easy as he had thought.
The swagman laughed, “Next time you decide to play dead, kid, I’ll make sure to plant you six feet under.”
As soon as Donovan stumbled to his feet, the swagman shoved him to
the ground again.
“Shhh.., it’s supper time,” the man warned with a motion and looked around.
Some straying bustards were nearby with a kangaroo and a joey scanting along behind them.
Out of all the choices, Donovan thought they would be having roasted bird again, but when he saw a pistol pointed at the smallest of the marsupials that was straggling for its mothers pouch, it was dejavu all over again.
“No!” he shouted. “Not the joey!”
Swiftly, the man kicked him in the ribs and fired. Upon impact the marsupial fell before another explosion ripped the air.
“I’m gonna do you a favor and let you have the bustard,” as he walked right past the joey that was bloody and twitching on the ground, with its mother long gone.
“You mean you’re going to leave it there?” Donovan protested out of disgust.
“It’s a little heavy to be lugging around, don’t you think?” as though taking satisfaction from the needless quandary.
Donovan looked away so that the swagman couldn’t see the desperation on his face and the tears in his eyes, as he went to retrieve the kill.
With the head ranger’s knowledge of the terrain and its boundaries, he knew where the majority of the clans lived. Still they did have to cut their way through the brush in some places, before finding a trail that would eventually lead to a campsite. The assistant ranger, who was also the nephew of the stocky commander, showed off his zeal for the man hunt by scouting ahead of them. He would case out each area to help navigate direction and had proved to be useful since the distances were so great.
For the past hour, they had traveled as far east as was accessible by truck, which meant hiking to the remote parts and then tracking all the way back to begin again. Most of the day had been wasted doing as much, but as long as the young stallion kept up his stamina, so would Allister. The more they fought against the harsh extremities, the more intense his search became to find his son.
They had happened upon several snakes and with night setting in the head ranger said it would be too dangerous to track after dark. He also said this would have to be their last stop before the sun rose again, but Allister planned to persuade them otherwise.
For the most part, the clans they had met seemed civil enough. At least Allister believed they wouldn’t act aggressively to a stranger, especially a lost child. It was an unfounded faith in a people he didn’t know, but it was all he had.
The assistant had made the crest to the top of a mountain and turned around with a boast of his discovery, as he rubbed his stomach and sniffed the air, “Mmmm.., Barramundi.”
“Don’t get too far ahead of yourself. We haven’t exactly been invited,” replied Allister, as the head ranger quickened his pace to catch up.
Allister took hold of a thick root and worked his way up as well, but by the time he had conquered gravity, the two men could no longer be seen. He knew that he would find them near the fishy source, but they were waiting for him just before the camp.
Loose shells were tossed to the side of an overweight Aboriginal woman dressed in a dirty orange tank top with a pink and yellow-striped skirt. A tamed dingo was stretched out on its belly beside her, gnawing on a bone as it watched the white ovals with a muzzled urge to nab them.
The blackened fish was popping in an iron skillet over hot coals where a small child toddled around naked with a stick in his hand, poking at the simmering rocks and slapping at the dirt. And an old man with white hair and a long wiry beard was relaxing on the well trodden grass with his arms folded behind his head.
As soon as the dog saw the men emerging from the woods, it stood to attention and began barking. The head ranger spoke out to the woman and she ran to greet them, as the dog went for the eggs.
The old man bolted up from his grassy mat and yelled for the dingo to scat, which it did, but not without slinking into the side of the mountain with the prize clamped between its teeth. The rangers laughed and an entire family came out of the opening where the mutt had taken refuge.
Expecting to hear Gagadjuan, Allister was surprised when the rangers began conversing in English, or rather Aussie slang. From the looks of these people and their primordial living, it was hard to imagine them being educated at all. As it turned out, they were all cousins and very glad to be reunited.
Until they had learned his reason for coming, everyone in the tribe watched Allister suspiciously. They seemed as awestruck by his appearance as he was with theirs.
Naked children with bloated bellies came abounding into the open campsite, excited by the visitors. And the toddler that had been slapping at the coals found Allister’s fair skin more amusing.
Handing them an enlarged school picture of Donovan, he asked if anyone had seen him. With sympathy, everyone looked to each other. The tribesmen who had been out hunting that day hadn’t witnessed anything unusual.
“If you do happen to see a child resembling him,” he stressed, “there is a sizeable reward.., enough to take care of your families for years.”
The word spread fast throughout the ring of faces who hadn’t understood. The head ranger handed one of the elders a sheet of paper with park contacts on it.
Even though these people were without a lead for them to follow, they did give directions to another camp nearby, as well as offered food and a place to sleep for the night. Both rangers accepted so graciously that there was little Allister could do to change their minds.
They had entered a tunnel which led to an underground cavern with barely enough head room to stand at full height. With the flames of the fire licking the top of the clay ceiling, it was fast becoming so hot that Donovan was gasping for a fresh breath of air, while digging with the small hand pick into the hard wall.
The bustard was cooked through and the unseasoned juices dripped onto the coals, filling he smoky hole with the smell of burning flesh. As each stroke became more labored than the last, he couldn’t refrain from dropping the pick to hold his stomach.
For a second, the swagman looked concerned, but it passed as soon as he tore off a hind quarter and tossed it at him.
Donovan dodged to keep the unwanted portion from searing his leg.
“Eat up,” the swagman growled as he took a can of beans from the roll and peeled back the lid.
Donovan kicked it away from him. “You eat it,” he said defiantly as he scooted further away.
The swagman probed his victim carefully, as though premeditating the best angle to strike. “Better watch it, kid. Makes no difference to me whether you’re conscious or not. I’ll get what I came for one way or the other. Something has to make up for this detour”
Hot release rose up Donovan’s spine. His vulnerability was still too great from where he sat.
“Look, mister. If it’s money you want, my father has plenty—more than you could ever mine out of this rat hole,” he said.
The man stabbed his knife at the red dirt. “And what makes you think it’s enough?... What did you ever do to become so valuable?”
“I know my father. He would give whatever it took,” Donovan tried to keep a straight face and hoped that it were true.
“For some limp wristed little pomme with an attitude? You Brits beat all, thinkin’ that just because you got a little more than the next guy, it makes you more human. You don’t know nothin’, especially when it comes to us Aussies Take Ned Kelly. Now that was a real man.”
“I see your point,” Donovan continued to dig without expression. “You remind me of him.”
“What do you mean by that?” he snapped curiously.
“Well,” Donovan pondered, hoping that his tutoring in history would come in handy. “He may have lived in the 1800’s, but a bushranger all the same. Made out to be some kind of Robin Hood when all he really did was rob people blind, and took whole towns hostage at a time.”
“He was a hero,” the swagman said hastily.
“Yep,” sighed Donovan. “I g
uess that’s why he was hanged in his twenties And the way I see it, you’re a little past your prime,” he gripped the pick tight.
Before the madman even thought to respond, he flung the knife at Donovan’s head, who ducked just in time as it stabbed the wall behind him.
Scrambling away on his hands and knees, he headed for the opening as the swagman leapt over the fire after him. Donovan stabbed the pick into his leg and kept on going. The man screeched in agony as he limped off after him. It was either run or die.
Unable to see his feet in front of him, the moon shimmering on the horizon of water was his only light and not enough to guide him, as the ground beneath him started to sink into the bottomless black hole. He struggled to the left again and tried to stay clear of the river bank, as briars grabbed at his legs and trees knocked him flat.