Catherine Jinks TheRoad (32 page)

The one thing that Alec
could
determine from his examination of the surrounding countryside was that it didn’t lend itself to concealment. Low tufts of yellow grass and widely scattered saltbush could have provided cover for nothing more dangerous than a fox or snake. But the further east they drove, the thicker the vegetation became. Mulga began to sprout. The saltbush grew higher, thicker, denser. Even so, Alec took heart, because he noticed – almost subconsciously – the subtle change in the landscape. The landscape was
changing
. Which meant that they were
getting some
where
. They weren’t just going round and round on some paranormal loop. On some temporal treadmill.

‘Hang on,’ said Graham. ‘What’s that?’

Chris had been reducing speed as the track became more and more uneven. Now he halted, sizing up the old Ford XP ute that sat facing them about twenty metres away. It was white, with an alloy roo bar.

There was no one in it.

‘Okay . . .’ said Chris softly. He peered about, then tapped the horn. Alec winced. He didn’t know if it was a good idea, drawing attention to themselves with such a strident
parp-parp
. His instinct was to keep his head down – suss things out quietly.

‘Don’t do that,’ he said. But the brothers ignored him.

‘Can you get around it?’ asked Graham.

‘Do we need to?’ Chris responded. ‘There must be someone nearby.’

‘I’ll check it out,’ Graham said. He exited their own vehicle awkwardly, limb by limb, and left the door open. Hitching up his khaki pants, he loped over to the ute, inspecting first its interior, then its tyres, then its rear end. He tried a door handle, but it wouldn’t yield. Chris kept the Land Rover’s engine idling. Alec found himself glancing repeatedly to his right and left, and over his shoulder. The sound of the horn had met with no response; no one had appeared suddenly from behind a mulga, zipping up his fly.

It occurred to Alec that this abandoned ute was not, in fact, a very encouraging development.

Graham returned to the Land Rover, a frown puckering his freckled forehead. He draped himself over the front passenger door, which was still ajar.

‘Nothing,’ he said ‘A few tools in the back. All locked up.’

‘Locked up?’ Chris repeated. ‘Hmmph.’

‘Like they were going to be gone a while.’ Graham scratched his scalp. ‘Could
they
have run out of petrol?’

Chris sighed. Alec cleared his throat.

‘Maybe they went back to the house,’ he said.

‘Maybe,’ Chris replied. Graham folded himself up and got back into the Land Rover. His door slammed shut. Slowly, cautiously, Chris steered their vehicle around the obstacle that lay in its path, bumping over ruts and rocks, flattening saltbush, churning up dust. When they were back on the road again, Alec said: ‘Should we be lookin for tracks?’

‘Eh?’ Graham was rubbing his eyes.

‘They mighta gone off into the bush, for some reason.’

‘Why would they do that?’

‘I dunno.’

‘Could you track them if they did?’ Chris queried, and Alec heaved a sigh.

‘No,’ he admitted.

The silence that followed was as expressive as any amount of comment. Alec chewed his lip. They proceeded along the choppy surface of the road for another ten minutes or so before it occurred to Alec that they were approaching a dry creek bed. He knew it instinctively, perhaps because a thick line of trees lay ahead, perhaps because he recognised one or two of these trees as eucalypts. Chris swore, and then they were suddenly down on the creek bed, rocking and bouncing, thrusting up the opposite bank with a great roar of changing gears. Dust billowed out behind them. There was a spring-shaking shudder and all at once they were on a level surface again, heading for a shallow incline. Several large bushes were now close enough to the road to cast pools of shadow.