Catherine Jinks TheRoad (12 page)
Read Catherine Jinks TheRoad Online
Authors: Unknown
‘Mullet!’
So powerful, so irresistible were the smells ahead of him that Mullet ignored his master’s shout until his collar was seized. He was hauled backwards, choking, and the memory of other, similar incidents cowed him. Then the dirty shorts were thrust under his nose. He was familiar with their scent, which had been spread throughout the house behind him; he knew it from other houses too, from cars, from his own kennel. The boy had once hidden in his kennel while Mullet strained at the end of a taut piece of nylon rope that was tied to a Hills hoist. The boy had been something of an interloper. An intruder. Mullet had been banished from his presence, on occasion, as well as from the territory that Mullet had marked out as his own. There had been confusing spells in a wire pen, among the stink of poultry and engine oil.
The boy’s appearance had always seemed to herald one of these spells.
Knowing what was expected of him, he began to follow the boy’s scent around the yard, trotting from one jumble of wood and iron and plastic to the next. Most of the traces were very faint. Some were strong, but not fresh. The smell of dog was everywhere too, and it distracted him. Finally they ended up down the back, near the gate, where the man peered into the rusty hulk of an old car.
Here Mullet found a trail that would have made him bark, if he had still possessed functioning vocal cords. (His master hated noisy dogs.) He pursued it to the gate, was checked, tracked it back to the house, then retraced his steps.
‘What’s that?’ said the man. ‘You got something?’
The gate was in the way. Mullet paced back and forth in front of it, his nose to the ground. When the gate was finally opened, he trotted through it ahead of his master and cast about until he found what he was looking for.
‘That’s it. That’s my boy. Get him, Mullet, the little shit.’
There were secondary trails ambling about, and Mullet was fooled by them once or twice, but the strongest – the straightest
– headed away from the house, towards the west. So he set off in that direction, with the man at his heels.
5
e should have been there by now.’ At last Noel admitted it. Peter had been thinking the same thing for some time, but had been afraid to voice his mis
givings. They had left Broken Hill at ten fifteen. It was now half past one. And they hadn’t even reached the roadhouse yet – let alone Mildura.
‘Could we be on the wrong road?’ Linda inquired.
‘I can’t see how.’ Noel was muttering. He always muttered when he was under stress. ‘There aren’t too many roads out here.’
‘But could we have taken the road to Menindee by mistake? Or the road to Adelaide?’
Noel shook his head.
‘If we had,’ he said, ‘we still would have reached something before this. It doesn’t take three hours to get to Menindee. And Coburn’s not far from Broken Hill, on the Adelaide Road. Not that Coburn’s very big, but it’s
something
.’
‘Then what’s going on?’ Linda demanded.
‘I don’t know.’
‘We haven’t been going slowly, have we? It doesn’t feel like we have.’
‘We haven’t,’ Noel declared. ‘I always check the speedometer.’
‘Could it be broken?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘Mum,’ said Rose. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘You can have an apple.’
‘I don’t want an apple.’
‘Well I’m sorry, that’s all you can have.’
‘But I wanna
biscuit
...’
‘Oh be quiet, Rose, will you?’ Peter snapped. He knew that she was getting tired of the car – that she was bored and restless – but he had no sympathy. He was getting tired of the car himself. ‘You’re being a pain.’
Rose’s face crumpled. ‘I’m not!’ she cried. ‘Don’t say that!’
‘Peter!’
Linda’s voice was sharp and threatening. ‘Stop it! You kids be good, all right? Just be good.’
‘I
was
being good,’ Louise mumbled, but no one paid any attention. As Rose blubbered, and her parents conversed, Louise continued to draw pictures of girls with long hair in her sketch book. Peter leaned forward.
‘It’s not the way I remember it,’ he said uneasily. ‘The bush should be getting thicker. Don’t you think? When we first left Wentworth, on the way to Broken Hill, there was thicker bush.’
‘I didn’t notice,’ his mother retorted. ‘I was too busy doling out sweets and settling arguments.’
‘Don’t
you
remember, Dad?’ Peter turned to Noel, who pondered this proposal for a while before answering.
‘Yes,’ he confessed, reluctantly. ‘But there must be a logical explanation.’