Lost Girls (13 page)

The ground
where the float rested seemed solid but she would prefer to get it
ten centimetres back from the edge. In that place she would still
be able to rest her upper shoulders on it and try and use this to
lever her body out.

At last it was
in position. She bent her body forward as far as it would go
resting over the foam, wrapping an arm around each side, resting
them on the salt and crossing them above her head. He cheek lay
flat on the foam. With consciouseffort she blocked everything else
out of her mind and focused it only on her body and its relation to
the mud, making tiny muscle movements in her waist, hips and legs,
testing for any places or spaces of give. One foot, her right, felt
less tightly held than the other. She flexed her pelvis and managed
to raise this hip slightly. Her foot slipped up, perhaps one or two
centimetres, with a sucking sensation.

Now she had to
hold that gain before she tried to raise her other leg. She used
her right arm and shoulder to inch this right side of her body
forward until the suction stopped her progress. Now she
concentrated on her left side. Her foot felt trapped in a vice but,
as she worked her knee around, she realised she could move it
slightly backwards and forward. She did this several times gaining
gradually increasing movement. Now she must use this loosening to
try and lift her left side.

She stilled her
body completely and concentrated her mind only on that place; she
would put maximum effort into a single movement to lift that hip.
One, two three, she convulsed her body. At first it felt futile,
stuck in a vice. She redoubled her effort of lifting that hip as
she struggled to keep the rest of her body locked in place.
Suddenly her foot gave, and she realised she had gained five
centimetres on that side. She felt a flood of exultation though her
body was shaking with the effort.

She stilled
herself again and regathered her strength to do it again, back to
right side. She gained a further five centimetres. Once more she
did it, now the mud was only a bit above her waist and she was able
to rest her body on her elbows improving her leverage. Now she
repeated her side by side movements with the support of her
shoulders and upper body. Slowly she slid free. Suddenly she was
out, lying stretched out on the salt and panting with
exhaustion.

She looked back
at Mark and he gave her a wave and a huge grin. She felt ten feet
tall. Her body was covered in slime, but she was still alive and
her own efforts had made it so.

She sat up and
cautiously stood up, testing the surface. It felt solid. She took
two steps further away just to be fully sure. She sat down again on
her foam board.

Now she felt
light headed as the adrenalin washed away. She pointed to the line
of softness. “Do you see that? That is the bad bit.”

“Yes, I can see
it now.” They looked in both directions, following its course as it
snaked across the surface. It widened in one direction and narrowed
in the other. The both started walking along the opposite sides,
heading towards the narrowest place, after which it widened
again.

Elin asked,
“Should I come back to your side or shall we go on and you come to
mine?”

“No going
back,” he said, “you managed to cross it, now it is my turn.”

She walked away
from the edge until she reached the end of the rope and sat
down.

Mark walked
forward until a metre from the edge. He lay down and wormed his way
forward on his flat body, pushing his bundle in front. At the soft
place, he placed the bundle on the other side to support his body
as he slid it above the surface of this gap. Then, when his hips
were across, he rolled onto his side and swivelled his legs
across.

Now they were
both on the same side and she came to him and they gave each other
a high five. They surveyed the horizon. On the distant horizon,
directly in front, they could see a slight rise. Behind them now
the horizon was only undulating salt from their view.

They headed for
the rise. It was a tiny relict sand dune, sitting about a metre
above the surrounding salt. Parts of the surface were encrusted
with white hard baked material which she realised was concrete like
layers of dried bird poo, made rock like from the baking sun.

They sat side
by side on their little hill and shared a drink from the water
bottle as they looked back to the faint line of the edge from which
they had come, now a dark smudge behind the glistening silvered
surface over which they had walked.

“I think this
is a good place to stop and sleep,” said Mark. “What do you think?
“

She nodded,
lost for words. She felt a wild exultation at being in this place.
It felt as if she had dreamt of it all her life.

In the
glimmering of lights and shadows she imagined that here gods and
goddesses came down from the sky and walked on the land. She too
walked amongst them, as did the man who sat beside her. The light
lit her hair with flashes of silver and the palest gold. She
stretched her body back and with her hands raised her hair out
beyond her in a shimmering wave. Then she turned and kissed the God
who sat beside her, in the glowing moonlight, full on the
mouth.

“That is a kiss
of joy from the Elf Queen of the Vikings to the King of this Desert
Land,” she said. “This place is a union of the desert in your soul
with my soul come from the sea. Both are mingled on this vast
plain. Today the desert is in the ascendancy but another time the
sea will rule again. In that time and from this place it will cover
the known world. I would like to come back to this place when the
sea rules again and sail upon it with you. Then I will be the
Captain, tonight it is you who rule.”

Mark put his
arm around her shoulders. He hugged her body, pulling it to him.
“For now you are my Elfin Queen of the desert. But one day I will
return and sail these waters with you,” he said.

She nestled in
close to him feeling fully content to be his desert queen of this
night.

Mark smoothed
out a space on a flat patch of sand, and unrolled his bed roll.
Inside was a thin piece of high density foam, with two thin light
blankets of soft wool, perhaps cashmere. He took the piece of foam
she had carried. He placed at the end of the sleeping mat for a
pillow then spread one blanket to cover it.

He indicated to
her to come over to him where he sat on it. She walked towards him.
As she came alongside he stood up next to her and unbuttoned her
clothes, sliding them to the ground. He took a hanky from his
pocket. Slowly and tenderly wiped all traces of mud from her feet
and legs, inch by inch, moistening it with the water bottle. Now it
was only her naked body reflecting the light.

He took off his
own clothes. His body hair was dark though the moon glowed off
highlights in his hair. She could see his member standing proud and
erect in the silver light. It looked like the body of a Viking
king, sword erect and she his Viking queen, waiting to receive
it.

Now she lay
down and gestured him to her, spreading her hips wide and arching
her body towards him. The lovemaking of the hot day had been wild
and exciting. This belonged to another world where only gods and
goddesses dared to dwell.

They slept in
their silvered world, waking in the earliest dawn glow. Far out the
palest streaks of deep red were lighting the eastern sky as the
moon lay low to the west. The watched the silver light fade as the
red brightened to streamers of pink and gold which shot high into
the sky. The lakebed glowed with a mix of both sets of colours. As
they lay with bodies pressed together their awareness of the
outside world faded and soon it was only the two of them in their
blanket cave in the soft dawn light, the Warrior Elfin Queen and
the Desert King, bodies joined. They clasped together, his hands
running through her hair. Her hands felt hard muscles and scars on
his back. She had never really known any feeling for a man which
compared to this before. She had found the one and would stay with
him until it ended, that was enough. She told him these words.

He said he
would write them in his diary, record them for the world to know,
his and her joy of togetherness.

When the sun
was risen they rose too. They walked back across the lake bed
following last night’s tracks. They lit a fresh fire for breakfast
and then drove on, she now sitting in close to him with her arm
linked through his. Sometimes she dozed; sometimes she looked at
his face and smiled.

They crossed a
broad dry river bed with the name Coopers Creek on signposts, no
water was to be seen. They kept driving, coming in the late
afternoon to Birdsville, where Mark booked a room in the hotel for
them to share. They showered and put on fresh clothes, then ate
large steaks, washed down by beer.

In the late
afternoon, just as the sun was setting and the day’s heat was
easing, he brought her to the Diamantina River, a channel with
waterholes and high green grass. On the rocks on the other side
they sat on the hill of the Thutirla Pula or Two Boys Dreaming
Place. Together they imagined these black people of legend walking
across the remote deserts of this land, another story and imagining
which now resonated with each of their own.

He told her of
his crocodile spirit totem and told her that she was embodiment of
the elf queen of Lord of the Rings become flesh, all he needed to
do was add an F to her name for her to become Elfin.

They laughed
together then made love together in the soft grass of the
riverbank. She puzzled at why she thought this man was dangerous,
he was captivating and entrancing but she felt safe and secure with
him. She had chosen to stay with him wherever life led.

However she
knew there was a broken part inside him that had broken when his
own mother had deserted him and died. It was not very different to
the part which had broken inside her when her own mother had died.
He had told her the stories of his life, the good and the bad, of
his African lover, now dead, and their African son, even stories of
others he had killed. But this only made her trust him more.

Mark found
himself surprised at how much this elfin slip of a girl had grown
on him. He had been surprised when she had come to sit next to him
for that Coober Pedy breakfast. As their eyes joined and minds
connected he had sensed something in her that was a kindred spirit
to his. It was a wild fearlessness, the sense that all things were
possible if one had nothing to lose. He read in her eyes that she
also saw this in him, he also saw the reflected sense of danger she
perceived in him.

He understood
it, not that he would set out to hurt one such as her, but he had a
capacity to create danger for others in his life, it was a law of
unintended consequences. His sixth sense said he should walk away,
that for her he was danger too and she would be safer to stay well
away. But he was as drawn to her as she was to him. So, really,
walking away was a non-option. Instead he decided to bring her with
him and share his wild ride through the world with her.

Their first
lovemaking had been an adventure into the wild side, she had not
cried out or complained at the prickles in her buttocks on the hot
hard ground of the springs, she had not sought his help to escape
from the mud, she had stood there totally trusting in her nakedness
as he cleaned it from her body. So, beginning in that first night
of togetherness, he told her of his life with no details spared and
she had told him equally of hers.

She had told
him her name was Elin, but almost from the outset he had renamed
her Elfin, his Viking Fairy Goddess, she with the hair of gold and
a willowy body, slim but full. Her head came only to his shoulder;
when he lay on her he covered all of her with his own self. But
there was steel inside that wiry frame, she like him would give no
quarter when a fight must be had. He most loved the indomitable
braveness in her, one who would go to any place and suffer all
things without reproach.

Within two days
she had told him she preferred to stay with him than return to the
ship, her life had moved on and she now wanted to be here, to be
with him.

He had said he
wanted her to stay too. Neither spoke the love word but both knew
that best described it. When he looked at her he felt fiercely
protective, when she sat nestled into his side, as he drove, he
wanted to drive on and on forever.

But in another
part of his soul he sensed that, as a fairy queen of the
otherworld, she was only his to keep and hold for some short time,
and then she would vanish as if she had never been. He could see no
clouds, he could see no danger, but his soul he knew that, for her,
he was danger. She was too fragile for her bravery. Somehow it
would break her with he serving as its instrument. He knew he
should leave her for her own safety, but yet could not. He knew she
would not let him even if he tried. It was a journey together to
the end, whatever and wherever it came. He hoped it would come for
them together; somewhere out in the wide ocean as she chased a
Viking dream. Whatever life they had together it would be life
enough for him.

They were
heading for an opal field in south-western Queensland, part of the
Winton field, a vast area of former inland seas where opals had
been laid down over millions of years past. Mark had been told of a
mine out there, long abandoned, and given a map of it by an old
timer in Coober Pedy. It was a place this man had always planned to
go back to, having found a seam which promised great riches, but
which he had been forced to leave by heavy rain and flooding
decades before. He had always promised himself he would go back.
Now he had admitted that his health was failing and it was beyond
him to revisit the place he had not been to for almost forty years.
So he had asked Mark to do it for him, giving him the map that he
had scratched out way back then.