The Lost Man(100)

‘Did they live in this house?’ Lo said.

‘No, it wasn’t built then. They were somewhere closer to where the grave is now. Anyway, they’d gone out riding together one day and had got off their horses to have lunch or whatever, and suddenly they realised a dust storm was coming.’

‘Oh no,’ Sophie said. ‘I really hate them.’

‘Me too,’ Nathan said. The sight of the sky turning red as a towering wall of dust bore down. The storms engulfed everything in their path, sucking away the oxygen and filling the air with missiles. They sent the cattle stampeding and reduced visibility to nothing.

‘You know how fast they come in,’ he said. ‘So the stockman put his wife and the littlest kid back on their horses and told them to ride home. But the older boy had gone exploring. Over the crest or somewhere. Out of sight, anyway. The stockman went looking for him, yelling out I guess, while the storm would have been coming closer.’

Nathan thought for a minute. He remembered himself driving in desperate circles as he searched for eight-year-old Xander, and the way his heart had pounded in his ears and the fear had run pure and cold. Please let him be okay. It would have been worse for the stockman, alone on horseback, on the brink of a natural nightmare.

‘Did he find his little boy?’ Sophie asked.

‘Yeah, he did, eventually.’ Nathan hesitated. ‘But the kid’s horse had panicked and thrown him off. The kid was okay but the horse was gone.’

‘So what did the man do?’

‘He must have decided one horse wouldn’t be able to outrun the storm carrying both of them, because he gave his own horse to his little boy.’

Nathan imagined the man telling, ordering, his son to go on without him. Promising him he would find the other horse and be right behind. Saying it, and knowing that wasn’t true.

‘Did the little boy get home safely?’ Sophie asked.

‘He did.’

‘But not the stockman?’

‘No. He would have known he wouldn’t.’

‘That’s sad.’

‘Yeah, it is. Although.’ Nathan paused. ‘I like to think that maybe he wasn’t sad, right at the end. Knowing that at least his kids were safe.’

‘He’d done it to save his family,’ Sophie said.

‘Exactly.’ Nathan turned to Lo. ‘So I know it can be a bit creepy out there, but it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to be scared of him.’

Lo thought it over. Finally, she leaned in. Nathan could feel her breath on his face and see the specks of paint on her skin.

‘I wasn’t scared of the stockman,’ she whispered. ‘I was scared of Daddy.’

‘Oh.’ Nathan took her hand.

‘He’s not coming back, though, is he?’

‘No. He’s not, Lo.’ He put his arms out and she hugged him. She was small and warm. ‘It’s going to be okay. You’re safe here and we all love you.’ He pointed at her artwork. ‘And you know what else? I reckon you’re a better painter than your dad.’

He got a small smile at that. ‘No,’ she said with something that sounded suspiciously like false modesty. ‘Daddy’s painting won a prize.’

‘That doesn’t mean anything. Yours are just as good.’

‘No, they’re not. Stop being silly.’

‘It’s true.’ He got up. ‘Hang on.’

Nathan went inside, his vision poor as his eyes adjusted to the light. Lunch smelled great as he passed the kitchen. Through the hall window, he could see Bub and Harry out on the grass. Bub was bowling now, letting Harry have a go of his bat. The door to Ilse’s office was ajar, and Nathan toyed briefly with the idea of going in to see her. Say hello. Say he’d missed her. He hesitated, but kept moving. The girls were waiting.

In the living room, Nathan stood in front of Cameron’s painting. He raised his hands, feeling the buzz of an outlaw as he lifted the frame from the wall. It was surprisingly light for something that seemed to take up so much space in the house. Nathan waited a moment, but nothing happened. Cameron’s spirit did not, in fact, rise from its otherworldly slumber to warn against the perils of leaving fingerprints on the brushwork.

Nathan grinned to himself as he carried the painting down the hall, looking at the colours of the land and the sky and the grave. He realised that what he had said to Lo was absolutely true. There was nothing special about this painting. There was no life in it. It was the flat uninspired work of a man who was too blind to see all the good things he had.

He stepped out onto the porch, the screen door slamming behind him, and was greeted by a stunned silence. Lo’s mouth actually dropped open. No-one said anything for a long moment and Nathan was vaguely aware that even the sounds of cricket ball against bat had stopped.

‘Oh my God,’ Sophie gasped. ‘What have you done?’ But beneath her horror, her eyes gleamed with delight at the sheer scandal of it.

‘Yep.’ Nathan nodded. ‘I touched the painting.’

‘You’ll be in so much trouble,’ she breathed. Lo was giggling, her hands over her mouth.

‘I won’t. Because it’s just a painting, Soph. That’s all. And yeah, it’s pretty good, I suppose. But my question right now is, is it better than Lo’s?’