A Changing Land(135)

Giving a weak chuckle at the stupidity of his accident, Anthony burrowed his cheek in the dirt, his breath shallow. He could see the fox from where he lay, sitting on the ruined verandah, his head tilted to one side. There was an ancient hitching post to the left of the animal and wavering trees. The ground grew colder. The increasing chill and accompanying shivering began to surpass the excruciating pain in his leg. He prayed silently, wishing for help, wishing to be found. His breath sent bursts of dirt from the ground near his mouth, the same soil creeping steadily into his nose. Anthony sensed that even with the temperature dropping to zero and a nasty frost looming, exposure wasn’t his main concern. He tried to turn over, however the earth rose up like a billowing sheet and he collapsed. There was something seriously wrong and although he could only guess at the extent of his injuries, his eyes pictured a black and white film running to the end of a flickering negative. When the next river of pain struck him, his fingers gripped at the unyielding dirt. ‘Sarah,’ he whispered weakly. ‘Come home’.





Lauren woke late, a thin line of drool forming a wet patch beneath her cheek. A curtain of spindly needlewood leaves obscured her vision and she lifted her legs from where she’d hooked them over the side of the dray, struggling into a sitting position. Her clothes were damp from last night’s rain and her lower back argued nastily with the abrupt change in her position. The old nag still tethered to the dray complained briefly by snorting and striking the earth.

‘Shhh. You’re lucky you’ve still got a job.’ Rubbing away sleep from the corners of her eyes, Lauren dragged the dray free of the obscuring stand of needlewoods. Miles of lightly timbered country spread out in all directions; a flat monotone of space made busy by hopping kangaroos, emus and darting birds. Lauren sniffed at the silence, lifted her skirt and, squatting in the dirt, relieved herself.

Dawn had long disappeared. The sky was a blue haze. There were thin tails of smoke in two directions and a background of grey–blue clouds in another. It was in this direction that she believed the rutted track led. Having followed it till near midnight she figured there were only a couple of hours’ travel left before she arrived at the homestead. She walked in a circle, fanning out from the dray in search of the track. Surely she couldn’t have strayed so far off course, yet there was no sign of her own tracks let alone the one that hopefully led her to Wangallon. ‘Damn rain,’ she cursed, spitting onto the ground. Returning to the dray she swigged down a mouthful of water, swished it around her mouth and spat it out before swallowing a good measure of the liquid. Lauren refused to admit she was lost. It wasn’t possible. Climbing into the dray, she twitched the reins and headed away from the thin streams of smoke. She was positive Wangallon wasn’t in that direction.





Two hours later Lauren stopped to check her bearings. There was a dense tree line to her right and the clouds on the horizon were gone. She sipped at her waterbag, wondering if there was a creek or river nearby, for she wasn’t the only one greedy for a drink. Her horse seemed to be getting slower and the wooden seat was bruisingly uncomfortable as the dray bumped across the uneven ground. By noon Lauren admitted she was lost. She stopped under a towering belah tree, certain her horse would drop dead if she didn’t rest. Lying flat in the dray, the sun filtered through the leaves onto her face, the heat pricking at her skin. She supposed she would have to wait it out until the late afternoon and then continue onwards.

‘God’s holy trousers, you’d think someone would live out here.’ There had been such grand images in her head: A homestead rising from amid the wilderness like some ancient monument, a fine building, long and low with an impressive garden surrounded by a paling fence. That’s what she imagined Wangallon to be like. After all, everyone knew the Gordons had money and folks like that knew how to carve a home for themselves in the bush. ‘Much good it will do me now.’ Lauren tipped the waterbag up and moistened her tongue with the few remaining drops. It was turning out to be a real bugger of a day.

It was the soft lowing of cattle that woke her. She’d been dreaming of her mother standing over her, calling her a silly fool as she kicked at her bones polished white by the sun. Lauren licked at her sunburnt lips, barely able to raise any spit. She was going to die. She knew she was going to die. And that would be just her luck. It was fine for her mother to be calling Susanna a slut, but Susanna wasn’t the one lost in the scrub. Susanna wasn’t the one deserving of a better life. The sound of cattle grew closer. Lauren scrambled into a sitting position, wiping at her tears and licking the moisture from the back of her hand. She concentrated all of her attention on the noises about her. There was wind she could hear, the odd bird, a clicking sound in the tree above her, the laboured breathing of the old nag and there, it was a crack. Rifle fire or stockwhip, she wondered? There was a cloud of dust in the distance. Lauren watched the low hanging pall move steadily onwards. Another whack sounded and this time she knew it was the crack of a rawhide whip. The growing sounds of cattle spread about the countryside. Lauren patted uselessly at her sleep-creased clothes and, spitting in her palms, smoothed her hair. Pinching her cheeks red she tugged at the reins, turned the dray and drove the stumbling nag towards the dust.