Rog studied the maps and chewed over the question very slowly. ‘Blackfeller, you say?’
‘Yes. No, not an Aborigine. West Indian. Like the cricketers.’
‘Oh yeah? Well, I can’t see why he’d go bush. Head for a beach more likely.’
I thought about Danny Roberts and Clinton’s day in the bush and how Clinton had pressed for information and was upset at not getting it. He was on some kind of quest and I had the feeling he’d carry on with it up here.
I shook my head. ‘I think the bush’d be right. Say he’s on some kind of survival kick. Where would he go?’
‘He’s a smart bloke?’
‘Pretty smart.’
He put his finger on the map. ‘I reckon he’d head for the Daintree National Park. Very rugged up there, rough as you like, but you can get help if you need it. Should have a permit, but.’
‘I doubt he’d bother with that.’
‘The rangers’d spot him eventually then, but he could get himself pretty well lost in there for a while. Does he fish?’
He had a good teacher, I thought. ‘Yeah.’
‘Plenty of fish. He’d have to carry a lot of fuel. So will you if you’re going in after him, Cliff. And I’d advise you to talk to the rangers first.’
‘Right, I will. Thanks Rog.’
I didn’t talk to the rangers, but I did load up on fuel, wet and dry supplies and camping gear. As I stuffed the tent in next to the primus stove I smiled at the thought of what my city friends would say if they saw me. I was no fan of ground-sheets and guy ropes. Didn’t like damper. I was notorious for preferring pavements to paddocks, beaches to the bush. To hell with them, I thought and went out and bought a pair of Rossi boots and an Akubra hat. At Rog’s suggestion, I bought a couple of cartons of cigarettes. According to Rog, smokes could buy you useful cooperation in the bush. I hadn’t bought cigarettes for years and wondered if I’d be able to resist temptation when I was sitting at my camp fire with a belly full of tinned stew and an enamel mug of Bundy rum in my hand.
I knew it was a crazy thing to do, head off into a wilderness area with only a guess to go on. I rationalised it to myself by thinking that the kid at the hardware store would be right and that the decrepit Land Rover wouldn’t make it to the Daintree. But in reality I was indulging myself at a rich man’s expense. I could keep a log of my travels, report on information received, play at going bush myself. Why not? The way my life was at the moment, any change, any diversion from the tried and tested routines was welcome. With Glen Withers married, Cy Sackville dead and Frank Parker retired from the police, I had a sense of a phase of my life slipping past me. It wasn’t anything like tragic, but it wasn’t altogether comfortable either. I could treat this trip as a kind of emotional divide between the old comforts and what lay ahead.
But I didn’t entirely rule out the possibility that I might actually find Clinton Scott sitting under a tree in the rainforest.
I didn’t find him although I’d set out on the right track. The country and my inexperience defeated me but I had some luck. I had a few days wandering around the fringes of the national park, camped and coped pretty well with the rough roads, the heat, the insects, the sun, the rain and damp wood. I resisted the lure of tobacco but used the Bundy to put me to sleep in the noisy bush nights. I asked people about the Land Rover and a few claimed to have seen it. I gave them cigarettes. Eventually I entered the national park and was stopped by a ranger within two days.
He told me I was facing a fine and confiscation of my vehicle. I told him my story and showed him my credentials. He was unimpressed. He searched the Pajero for drugs and firearms and looked disappointed when he found only alcohol and tobacco. We stood by our vehicles, two big men in shorts, boots and wide-brimmed hats. He was coming across as tough but something told me that it was partly an act. After a while I sensed what it was, he was lonely.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘I know I’m in the wrong and what I’ve done is dopey. I’ll pay the fine. No worries. But I’ve got a distraught father on my back and I’m trying to do something for him. Are you a father?’
He took off his hat and scratched at where the sweat had matted his hair to his scalp. ‘Yeah, I am. Two boys. Not that I get to see ‘em that much.’
‘Well, you understand what this bloke’s going through. His boy’s just disappeared up here.’
‘Old Land Rover?’
I nodded and recited the registration number.
‘She caught on fire.’
‘Jesus. What happened to the driver?’
He wiped the sweatband on his hat with the tail of his shirt and put the hat back on. ‘Follow me,’ he said.
I learned a bit about 4WD driving over the next hour. The ranger seemed to be able to miss all the bumps I’d been hitting and I finally picked up the knack of reading the slopes and ruts in such a way as to anticipate the next trouble spot and avoid it. He kept up a good pace and several times had to stop to allow me to catch up. I was dripping with sweat when we finally pulled up at a small settlement by a creek. It consisted of nine or ten fibro, tin-roofed houses dotted around a two-acre clearing. There were fenced, bird-proofed garden beds, gravel paths and clothes lines strung between trees. Two 4WDs parked in the shade looked serviceable, three others nearby looked as if they were cannibalised to keep the others running.
Half a dozen Aboriginal children were playing by the creek, some women were working in the gardens. I saw no men. The ranger climbed down and gestured for me to do the same.
‘Abo reserve, this,’ he said. ‘The men’re off working or hunting, most of ‘em. But the old bloke should be round. Go easy. They don’t like whitefellers, especially blokes who look like you ‘n’ me.’
‘Why’re we here?’
‘You’ll see.’
We crunched up a path to one of the houses and waited until a woman working in a garden nearby came over to us. The ranger took off his hat and I did the same.
‘Tommy around, Mrs Palmer?’
‘Should be, Mr Lewis. Reckon he’s down by the creek teachin’ the kids somethin’ or other.’
‘Thank you.’
Lewis restored his hat to his head and we moved off. ‘Get some of those smokes you’ve got in your vehicle,’ he said. ‘Couple of packets. Tommy loves a smoke.’
I got the cigarettes and we began to walk towards the creek. We were still almost a hundred metres away when a figure seemed to rise out of the ground and move towards us. It moved slowly, bent over to one side.
Lewis chuckled. ‘One of the kids must’ve spotted us. Tommy’d try to tell you that he saw our faces in the water or in the clouds, but that’s all bullshit.’
‘What’s the matter with him?’
‘He’s old. Christ knows how old. He was a stockman for donkey’s years. Needs a hip replacement.’
I wondered whether he’d get it. ‘This looks like a well-run place.’
‘It is. They run it themselves. Never any trouble here. Two rules-no whitefeller religion and no grog. They’re very strong on the old ways. The boys get initiated and all that. Fucking cruel if you ask me, but that’s the way they want it. Seems to work. No petrol sniffers here, mate.’
The old man limping towards us stopped and we had to go the extra yards to reach him. I thought that was a pretty good strategy for getting the upper hand. Tommy was very, very old. What little hair he had was white and his thick beard was the same except where it had been stained by nicotine. He had been tall but age and injuries had shrunken him. One eye was milky with cataract, the other looked all right. He was rail thin in his clean denim shorts and army shirt.
‘Gidday, Tommy,’ Lewis said. He didn’t take off his hat or offer to shake hands.
‘Mr Lewis. Who’s that with you?’
‘Names’s Hardy,’ Lewis said. ‘City bloke.’
In my shorts, sweat-stained work shirt, three-day stubble and boots, topped off by my Akubra, I thought this description a bit unkind but Tommy nodded as if he could see beneath the surface of things to the essential man within. Still, he was guarded.