The Lost Man(5)

‘How’s Brisbane?’

Nathan saw his son pause. Better than here, was clearly the answer.

‘It’s fine, thank you,’ he settled for instead. ‘I’m sorry about Cameron.’

‘Yeah, well, not your fault, mate.’ Bub opened his car door. ‘Jump in.’

Xander’s eyes were on the grave. ‘Do we just –?’

‘What?’ Bub was already behind the wheel.

‘Leave him here like this?’

‘They said not to touch it.’

Xander looked appalled. ‘I wasn’t going to touch it. Him. I was just wondering if one of us should –’ He faltered under Bub’s blank gaze. ‘Never mind.’

Nathan could see Xander’s city softness exposed like a layer of new skin. His edges had been gently rounded by nuanced debate and foreign coffee and morning news. They had not been chipped away and sanded down to a hard callus. Xander thought before he spoke, and he weighed up the consequences of his actions before he did anything. Mostly, Nathan thought, that was no bad thing. But it depended where you were. Nathan opened the car door.

‘I think we’ll be right, mate.’ He climbed in. ‘Let’s get going.’

Xander didn’t look convinced, but got in the back without argument. Inside, the car was cool and dark. The radio lay silent in its cradle.

Nathan looked over at his brother. ‘You going to follow the fence line?’

‘Yeah, reckon that’d be quickest.’ Bub squinted in the rear-view mirror at Xander. ‘Hold on back there, I’ll do my best but it’s looking pretty bumpy.’

‘Okay.’

They drove without speaking as Bub focused on the ground in front of his wheels, wrestling control back from dips and hidden soft earth. The grave quickly disappeared in the rear window as they went over a rise, and Nathan saw Xander’s grip tighten on the back seat. Nathan turned to stare out at the fence line separating his property from his brothers’. The wire vanished into the distance in both directions. He could see no end. As they passed a section where the fence posts looked loose, Nathan made a mental note to mention it to Cam. He caught himself. Another sharp jolt of realisation.

Bub started to slow as they reached the edge of Cameron’s land. The main road up ahead was hidden by a natural rise that ran along the eastern border of both Cameron’s and Nathan’s properties. On Nathan’s side it was mostly a dirt dune; on Cameron’s there was a rocky outcrop that had managed to weather a few thousand years. In the sunset, it glowed red as though lit from within. At that moment, it was a dull brown.

‘Where’s the car?’ Nathan said.

Bub had come almost to a halt and was peering through the windscreen. Xander twisted around, looking back the way they had come.

‘Nothing out this side.’ Nathan squinted through the dusty glass. ‘What exactly did the pilot say?’

‘He was going off the GPS, so –’ Bub shrugged. Not much help there. ‘But he said somewhere on the rocks, north of the grid.’ Bub changed gears. ‘I’ll drive onto the road. See what we can see.’

Bub kept close to the fence line, following the thin unofficial track that linked paddock to road. He cut through a gap in the rocks and with a jolt and a squeal from the engine, they found themselves on the other side of the outcrop. The unsealed road was deserted.

‘So, north, you reckon?’ Nathan said, and Bub nodded. The wheels whipped up a cloud of dust, and Nathan could hear the ping of stones chipping off the bodywork as they picked up speed. The road lay ahead like a dirty ribbon as the rock face loomed along their left side. In a few hours, it would block out the westerly sun.

They drove for a minute, then Bub slowed in front of an almost invisible break in the outcrop. There were no signposts. The few locals knew most of the off-road tracks and the occasional tourist was not encouraged to explore them. Bub turned the car into the gap between the high rocks and through to the paddock on the other side. From this vantage point, the outcrop was a gentle slope leading to the highest point before dropping sharply to the road.

Bub stopped, the engine still running, and Nathan opened his door and stepped out. The wind had picked up and he felt the grit cling to his skin and eyelashes. He turned in a slow, full circle. He could see rock, and the fence, now small in the distance. And the horizon. Nothing else. He got back in.

‘Try further up.’

They rejoined the road and a few moments later, Bub pulled in again through a different gap. They repeated the procedure. Stop, circle. Nothing but more of the same. Nathan was losing hope and had opened the passenger door to climb back in when he heard a soft tapping on the window. Xander was pointing and saying something.

‘What’s that?’ Nathan leaned in.

‘Over there.’ Xander was pointing up the slope, back towards the road. ‘In the light.’

Nathan could make out nothing as he squinted against the sun. He bent down, aligning his view with his son’s. He followed his line of sight until, at last, he could see. On a distant outcrop, on its rocky peak, there was the dull glint of dirty metal.

The driver’s door stood open. Not thrown wide, and not just a crack. Part-way ajar, the perfect distance for a man to simply step out.

After Xander had spotted the faraway sheen of the car, Bub had rejoined the road and driven them up to the next hidden track. He’d pulled in once again and this time, the Land Cruiser was impossible to miss. It was parked on the flat peak of the rocky slope, its nose facing the sheer drop to the road.