The Island(67)

“It’s a Lee-Enfield Number Four. I shot one once when I was a girl. It belonged to a friend of my dad, a Canadian guy. This is an old one—see all the scoring on the stock and how the sight’s worn down? It’s from World War Two, I think.”

“Cool! Can you show me how to use it?”

She thought about that. Tom would have said no. But if she got hurt or killed and they had the rifle, they’d need to know what to do.

“Both of you, come here,” she said. “Like I say, I’ve only ever had an afternoon with a Lee-Enfield, but most bolt-action rifles operate on the same principles. It’s actually pretty easy. Let me show you guys how it works.”

She took off the bolt and removed the magazine. It looked like it hadn’t been serviced in years. It needed gun oil, and the walnut was cracked, but she cleaned it the best she could.

She showed them how to load the weapon, how to eject the cartridge, how to aim, how to brace it against their shoulders, and how to shoot.

“There’s going to be a kick, so be ready for that when you pull the trigger, but don’t be scared of it, and don’t tug the trigger—pull it, gently.”

“Who taught you all this?” Owen wondered.

“My mom and dad were both in the military,” Heather said, without elaborating about her father’s breakdown and eventual medical discharge.

“Were they in the war and everything?” Owen asked.

“Yes.”

“Did either of them kill anybody?”

“Yes.”

“If we have a rifle, could we go down to the ferry and sort of hijack it?” Owen asked.

“Maybe. I think they tie it up on the far shore, but I’ll check tonight.”

“I’m hungry,” Olivia said.

“I’m thirsty,” Owen said.

“I know,” Heather said.

There was nothing else to say.

She took out the pack of cigarettes, her own cigarettes back again. She lit one with his lighter.

“Can I have a puff?” Owen said.

“No.”

“Why not? You’re smoking.”

“It’s like parents always tell kids: Do as I say, not as I do.”

Silence.

A lagoon of blue sky. A green sea. And that sun pouring down countless photons into the dreary, withered yellow valley on the very northern tip of Dutch Island.

Owen was staring at the trees. “Do you remember what they told us at Uluru? A single gum tree standing by itself might be evidence of an underground water source. And here there’s four of them.”

They stared at the eucalyptus trees.

“They’re drinking from somewhere,” Olivia said after a while.

“You two wait here in the shade and I’ll see what I can find,” Heather said.

“I’m coming with you. Two eyes are, like, totally better than one—I mean, four eyes are better than two,” Owen said.

“I’ll help too!” Olivia announced.

They walked to the base of the biggest tree. It was old, blackened, and weather-beaten; all the bark had gone from the trunk, and the lower branches crumbled to the touch. It wasn’t dead, though—there were leaves on the upper branches.

The soil around the tree was dry red dirt filled with large rocks and smaller white stones. Little spiky tufts of grass were growing up through the browner bits.

Heather bent down, dug two fingers into the soil, took out a clump of earth, and examined it. It fell apart in her hand.

Olivia was watching her. She grabbed a handful of soil and held it up to the light. “What does a spring look like?” Olivia asked.

“A little bubbling thing of water,” Heather said. “But I don’t see anything like that. More likely it’s beneath the ground. Maybe very deep.”

In the book Olivia had been reading, Dark Emu, there was something about the Aboriginals digging deep wells into the aquifers in the desert. Although Australia was a dry continent, rain had fallen on it for hundreds of thousands of years and accumulated underground in layers of rock. Perhaps there was such an aquifer here.

“We’ll keep looking,” Heather said. “Those handprints on the rock mean that people did come here in olden times.”

Owen was walking around the tree in widening circles looking for any signs of water.

“What was that?” Olivia said.

“What do you hear?” Heather asked.

“The dogs are coming this way.”

“We may have to move soon,” Heather said.

Olivia dug her hand deep into the soil and took out a handful of dirt. Six inches down, it was even drier than on the surface.

Heather took the rifle off her back and helped move the earth as Olivia dug into the soil with two hands, burrowing into it like a Labrador.

Owen joined in, scooping a handful of dirt into his palm and running it through his fingers.

For two kids whose father had been killed and who were scared, hungry, and thirsty, they were doing very well.

“Does it feel moist to you?” Heather asked.

“It’s like the graham-cracker base of a cheesecake.”

Heather smiled. “Yeah, it is like that, isn’t it?”

While Heather kept watch, they dug farther into the soil, but it just seemed to get drier and drier the deeper they got.