Lost Girls (25 page)

It would not
hurt to bring her along; he knew she was smart and would not get in
the way and she would give him pleasure in the nights. He nodded
and grinned. “OK, deal, I have a week’s work out west, you can come
along so long as you promise to jump on a bus or plane back to
Sydney to do your course once we get back to town.”

She smiled and
nodded her head, her smile seemed a bit too bright and brittle, as
if covering hurt, but he hoped that would pass.

Next morning
they headed away early. They stopped late morning at Top Springs
for a beer with the bartender, Mick, before driving on. Mick was a
fey Irishman, always good for a yarn. They chatted and exchanged
stories for half an hour over the cold drinks before heading
on.

Mick, always
one of the sharp tongue, said as they were leaving. “Well it is
good to see you back with another pretty girl on your arm, Mark. It
has been long months now since you brought one this way.

“This one is a
kindred spirit to you I see. You should take good care of her. Or
otherwise she could be nearly as dangerous to the world as you are.
So treat her right if you want her to stay nice.”

Somehow the
words jarred with Mark even though Josie gave Mick a bright smile
and blew him a kiss.

Their trip was
mostly enjoyable and Josie proved to be both a capable camp cook
and good company. She also went out of her way to pleasure him with
her body, arousing in ways he had not yet discovered. He found he
treasured her company, not love like for Belle, but she was a good
and practical companion.

But, whereas
before she had been a bright smile and pleasure to be around, now
there seemed to be a dark place in her soul that sat next to the
emptiness in his.

He wished he
could take it away. It was as if that part of him that had become
one with the crocodile had also created a dark place in her. He
wondered if it was jealousy, that she had grown attached to him and
now resented there being a place in his heart which he had reserved
to love others. Once or twice he tried to go there in midnight
conversations, but she always moved the subject on, as if unwilling
to confront this part of the person that was her.

On the fifth
night, a day on which they had travelled north through Rosewood,
stopping for a few hours to do some work there, they came to
secluded camping spot in Keep River National Park, a few kilometres
north of the main road, the Victoria Highway between Katherine and
Kununurra.

Tomorrow they
would drive into Kununurra for a half day of work and an afternoon
of shopping. Then he told Josie that he planned for them to have a
night together sharing the best room in the best motel in town
before they returned to Katherine for a final night together,
before Josie returned to Sydney and Mark went down to the Gulf for
other work.

Mark’s
affection for this girl was undiminished. He knew he would really
miss her once she was gone. It was not love, but it was a bond
between two people who had a dark place in their souls and yet
could share life’s pleasures together, or so he thought.

Part of him
felt he should offer her something more; allow her to stay on with
him in Katherine until the end of the year, she could always go to
fashion college next year. Maybe they could try the living together
thing for six months; he would come back to town for a night or two
every week when he could. Sometimes he could bring her out with
him.

He knew this
offer would make her deliriously happy, it was what she wanted, and
he would have liked to make her more fully happy. But he found
himself unable to compromise with this offer; it seemed that he
would be giving a part of himself unwillingly to go so far with
her. It felt untrue to offer it unless he was more sure it was what
he wanted.

So no offer was
made and he could feel a dark kernel of bitterness continue to grow
inside her. He hoped he could make it up to her with a night of
pleasure together at this waterhole in the wilderness, then two
more nights, living it up in civilisation before they went their
separate ways. He hoped that once she was on board the bus to
Darwin, followed by the flight to Sydney, she would start looking
forward to her future life and what she felt as the pain of his
rejection would ease.

They ate supper
by the waterhole and took pleasure in the animals and sounds of the
night that were gathered around.

Mark had seen
pig tracks in the mud at the edge of the billabong last night. He
told Josie he wanted to go off in the dawn and try and track one
down, suggesting that she should enjoy an extra hour of sleep.

She agreed, it
seemed a bit too readily but then she did like being in bed, even
without him. They made love and slept. Later in the night he woke
and saw her looking at him, her eyes dark and hurt.

He asked her
what it was?

She said. “Who
is Belle, last night when you were making love to me a couple times
it seemed like you whispered her name. Then you kept saying her
name in your dreams, you have been tossing and turning in dreams
for the last half hour, and you have kept saying her name over and
over again. Is she the reason you don’t want to stay with me? Is
she the person you really love, but pretend does not exist?”

Mark turned
away, he could not bear to hear Belle’s name spoken, the wound was
covered in six months of scarring, but it was still too raw. A
peculiar malice resonated in the way Josie spoke that name. It tore
away the thinly healed scab, opening a raw bleeding place
below.

He wished Josie
would stop but she was insistent. “Tell me who Belle is, or I will
find out some other way.”

Mark could feel
a slow rage burning and building. He would not cop this from
anyone. He turned to her, anger in his eyes,

“Josie, for
once in your life, shut the fuck up. Don’t ever mention that name
again, it has nothing to do with you and it never will.” With that
he turned his back on her, pulled the pillow over his head and
willed himself to empty all from his mind.

He had a vague
awareness that Josie was gone from his bed, he was glad. What
happened felt as if she was trying to prise open a place in his
heart that belonged to another. He would not share these memories
with anyone. He knew his words had hurt her but did not care, when
she spoke the name Belle with malice, his mind turned it back on
her seven fold.

As he drifted
back towards sleep he felt that his body was now one of the
crocodiles that consumed his beloved, at one in spirit with her and
them. He and they would protect their own; there was no space for
other.

His reason
tried to say that here was madness, but his crocodile mind would
not listen and did not care.

Mark awoke with
the first glimmers of dawn, he would hunt a pig and feed it to his
crocodile spirit brothers; they were to calling him from the
billabong nearby, seeking sustenance from him.

Josie was still
not in his bed, he rose to look for her, now feeling some shame at
his cruelty to her in the night. In this morning light he did not
really want to hurt her, but he could still feel the anger of the
night sitting just beneath his skin.

He found her
asleep in his Toyota cabin, clad only in T shirt and sprawled out
across the front seats. She looked so young and vulnerable. He felt
tenderness for her, not his love for Belle, but affection for
another damaged soul, not so unlike his own. He felt a desire to
run his fingers through her hair and reassure her, to rebuild
affection between them. But the anger was still there too and it
stopped him.

Instead he took
his gun from the back, a 223, and a pack of bullets and went pig
hunting. He followed fresh tracks from the water out into scrubby
wasteland, then down into another dried out swampy place where the
pigs had been rooting for tubers. They had gone far but he followed
their trail, blocking out the memories of the night and focusing
only on the hunt, sharing his soul with hungry crocodile
spirits.

By the time he
returned, carrying a pig large enough to make his shoulders ache,
after the miles he had walked with it, he found the camp deserted.
He called out Josie’s name, nothing.

He carried the
pig to the billabong, there was no sign of a crocodile, yet his own
crocodile spirit was alive to a presence. His lay his gift at the
water edge, it would come when ready to carry it away.

Now he must
find Josie, they needed to pack up and drive on to Kununurra. He
called again loudly, no sound returned. He checked his swag; it was
as he had left it last night, undisturbed by her hands.

The doors of
the car were closed but he could see she was no longer inside. He
decided to look in more closely, going first to her side. The small
overnight bag which had rested at her feet when they travelled,
holding her few things was not there. He looked to his seat. There
was a sheet of paper on it. It had writing which looked like hers,
it certainly was not his. Perhaps it was a message for him.

Mark,

You are a
rotten bastard. I know your dirty secret. I found passports of
Belle and Elin, and read your diary, how you shot Belle. No wonder
you did not want me to know. I bet you killed the other girl
too.

I have done
plenty of bad things but I don’t kill people.

Yesterday I
would have done anything for you.

Today I can’t
wait to get even.

I found a big
pile of jewels which I am sure are worth lots.

So rather than
take the help you offered I will just help myself.

If you try to
mess with me I will send your diary to the police to see what they
make of it.

Enjoy the rest
of your miserable life before the police come.

I hope you go
to jail for a very long time.

Then we will
see who is laughing.

J

Mark read the
note with a numb mind which slowly transformed through sadness into
rage.
Why had he ever agreed to letting her come with him?
There was a part inside her that did bad staff, so like what was
inside him. The two of them together just did not work despite what
he had started to feel for her, affection and perhaps the start of
something more. Hell, he had even thought of letting her stay
around, to see how things worked out. Well that would not happen
now.

She had proved
herself jealous and incapable of trust, now she had taken his most
private possession and was threatening to give it to the police.
And she had taken his precious stone collection, something he
really treasured, both for its value and beauty, but most for the
good memories it held. She assumed she could just keep it or
else.

It did not work
like that. He would be bullied, he would not be blackmailed; she
would wish she had never started down this path.

He could feel
the crocodile spirit taking full possession of his mind and
transforming his rage into a primal hunting instinct. He would
follow her, he would take what belonged to him back and, if she
tried to stop him, he would finish her.

He picked up
his rifle again, chambered a new round and started to cast around
for her tracks. She was a city girl; she would not be much good at
hiding herself in the bush or avoiding him. He saw sandal
impressions in bits of soft dirt; that was what she was wearing on
her feet this morning.

Sure enough the
footmarks headed down the track he had driven in on yesterday. He
wondered why she had not taken the vehicle; the keys should be in
the ignition or on the driver’s seat. Then he remembered, one day,
she had told him she did not know how to drive; it was not
something a city girl who lived on the streets did.

He looked
carefully at the road going out. It was a two wheel track that only
locals knew. It had seen light traffic since the last wet season,
enough break up the hard crust and leave plenty of patches where
the soft dirt gave clear imprints of her sandals. He suspected she
would just follow this track back to the main road then hitch a
lift from there.

He knew his
geography of this place pretty well. The road wound around through
a gap in the hills and then came out the other side only two
hundred metres from the main road. Following the track it was about
seven kilometres to the main road, but as the crow flew it was
between three and four. There was a hill of a few hundred feet
high, followed by a second one, that blocked a direct path out. It
was easy enough to walk over, though the big broken rocks prevented
driving.

He did not know
exactly how long she had been gone but thought an hour earlier at
most. So she was probably half way back to the road, three quarters
at most, she was not that fit that she could do it like a marathon
even if she was trying to get away.

He tossed up
driving after her or going on foot. If she heard his vehicle coming
she would run into the bush to hide, and it was hard to keep track
of her footprints while driving. But he would have to travel pretty
fast to cut her off on foot, even if he took a shortcut. Perhaps he
would drive part way and then cut over the last low hill, it was
only about three hundred metres across but saved the best part of 2
kilometres on the road. That way, if he had not seen her from the
car, he could come out alongside the track about two hundred yards
from the main road. He was sure he would be in front of her there.
From there he could work back, checking the road for tracks if he
did not find her first. If she had turned off he would soon run her
to ground.

Once he caught
up with her and talked to her she would surely give his things back
and drop her threats if he showed her he really meant it. Surely
she was not so foolish as to try and run from a man with a gun.