They followed the track for two kilometers, then they slammed into a gully that wasn’t on the rally instructions. The Land Cruiser bottomed out, hard, smashing the oil filter into the front differential, cracking it and spraying precious engine oil over the undercarriage and the ground. Rick, unaware of the damage, kept driving. The engine blew before he completed another kilometer, leaving him no choice but to pull off the dirt track.
Within seconds they knew they were off course. The gully wasn’t on the rally instructions.
“ No tracks,” Rick said.
“ Off course, I messed up. Sorry.”
“ I should have stopped when we hit. If I’d been checking the gauges, I would’ve seen the pressure drop.”
“ What now?” she asked.
“ Radio for help.”
She heard him using the radio as she checked under the car. After confirming that the oil filter was out of commission, she went to the back and opened the tailgate, but it was no use, they had no spare filter. If only she’d paid better attention to the rally instructions, she thought, as she heard Rick trying to raise someone on the CB.
“ Radio’s broke,” he said.
“ Are we in trouble?”
“ Not really. We have plenty of oil. We’ll drive slow and keep pouring it in as we lose it. We should be back to the course well before the last car goes by. The sweep car will pick us up.”
“ It’s my fault,” she said. “If I’d called that last turn right, we wouldn’t be here.”
“ Plenty of blame to go around,” he said. “If I’d paid better attention to the gauges, we wouldn’t be here either.”
“ It’s more my fault than yours,” she said.
“ Someone’s coming,” Rick said.
“ Who could it be?” She followed his pointed finger with her eyes, saw a slow moving cloud of dust coming toward them.
“ Beats me.”
A few minutes later a vintage Jeep stopped alongside the stricken Land Cruiser. An old Aborigine was driving. Sitting next to him was an even older looking woman, obviously not well. The old man had a weathered, wrinkled face that spoke of great sadness. His silver hair, reflecting the sun’s glow, gave him an angelic appearance.
“ Can we help you?” Rick said.
“ Yes you can.” The aging Aborigine got out of the open top Jeep, taking every step deliberately, stiffly. “My wife is dying.”
“ What can we do?” Rick asked.
“ Bury us.”
“ I’d rather go for help.”
“ I wish you could, but our time has come.”
“ You said your wife was dying?” Ann said.
“ I won’t live long after she goes.”
“ How do you know?” Ann said.
“ I know.”
“ What can we do?” Rick asked again.
“ Help make her comfortable.”
Ann walked over to the passenger side of the Jeep. The door handle was hot to the touch, but it was more than just the heat that gave her a slight start as she grabbed it.
“ Is there anything I can do to help you?” She asked.
The old woman opened her eyes and Ann looked into dark brown pools that spoke of a youth trapped in a decaying body.
“ My time has come, child.” She smiled, saying it with a thick Australian accent.
“ How can you know that?”
“ Take my hand.” She had a firm grasp that turned Ann’s knuckles white, then the old woman’s grip went slack.
“ She’s gone,” Ann said, tears welling up. “I don’t understand.”
“ You can bury us off the road. There is no need to mark the graves.” The old man grasped Rick’s hand, then collapsed. True to his word, he was gone too.
“ What’s happening?” Ann said.
“ I’m not sure, but I feel as if we should do what he asked.”
“ We don’t even know their names,” Ann said.
“ We have to bury them.” Rick kicked up sand as he walked to the rear of the Toyota.
“ We can’t just dig a hole and cover them with dirt.”
“ What else can we do?”
“ Go and tell someone.”
“ That would be wrong.”
“ How do you know?”
“ I just know.” He started unloading the car, pulling out the spare tires, tool chest and the tent before he came to the shovel.
“ We can never tell anybody about this, can we?” she said.
“ No, I don’t think so.” He sighed. “We’re through with the Toyota. Get what you think we’ll need and put it in the Jeep.”
He took twenty paces off the road, far enough that the bodies would be left undisturbed by the rare passing car, and started to dig into the dry, hard ground.
Ann finished unpacking the Toyota, taking out the emergency water, food rations, sleeping bags and their backpacks. She left the tent Rick had unloaded on the ground and put the rest into the back of the Jeep. Then she went over to Rick.
“ Let me take a turn at the digging. I don’t want you to have a heart attack and die, too.” Ann, only a year younger than his forty-eight, was in much better shape. She ate better and did aerobics four or five times a week to keep up her figure.
“ I’m going to get some water.” He gave up the shovel. “Want some?”
“ It’s in the Jeep,” she said, “and bring the tent when you come back.”
“ What for?”
“ We’re going to wrap them in it. We can’t just throw dirt on them. It isn’t right.”
He walked the distance back to the car and Ann saw that he was done in. His heavy breathing told her that two months of swimming twenty laps in the pool every day to get in shape for the race hadn’t made up for twenty years of meat, potatoes and prime time television.
She dug steadily for fifteen minutes, till he spelled her, then she dug again. It took two hours before they had a two foot grave. Another two, before they reached four feet, when they called it quits.
Ann lined the grave with their two man tent and smoothed it out so no dirt would touch the bodies. After she was satisfied everything was in order, she motioned for Rick to go and get the old man. He carried him like a child and with Ann’s help, they lowered him into the ground.
“ I’ll go and get the woman,” he said.
“ No, let me.” Ann got up and went to the Jeep, wondering if she’d be able to do it. She had expected the woman’s skin to have the clammy feel of death that she’d read about in the Ken Douglas thrillers she liked to read, but it didn’t. This old woman seemed to be resting, at peace, not dead.
She slid her arms under the body and carefully lifted her out of the Jeep. She was so light, so old and so comforting. All of Ann’s doubts about whether or not they were doing the right thing vanished as she carried her to her final resting place and laid her beside her husband.
“ They look so peaceful,” she said.
“ They do,” Rick said.
“ Let’s do it.” She knelt and wrapped the tent around them.
“ Yeah.” Rick started to cover them with dirt and sand and gradually their wrapped bodies disappeared from view.
“ I hope we live up to you,” Ann said when he finished and was patting down the top of the grave.
“ Why did you say that?”
“ I don’t know.”
“ Let’s go,” he said.
“ What about our car?” she asked. “If they find it, they’ll find them.” She pointed to the fresh mound of dirt.
“ With a little oil it’ll make it back to the race course. We’ll leave it there.”
Three hours later they were driving about twenty kilometers an hour over dry cracked ground, when Rick saw a pack of dingoes loping off in the distance. Although they were bundled well against the cold that comes with the night in the desert, the sight of the animals gave him a chilly, uneasy feeling.
During the race they had seen several of the wild dogs, but these were different, they seemed somehow menacing. Rick felt an electricity in the air and sensed that Ann felt it as well.
“ Look!” she said. “They’re running along with us.”