Happy for the distraction, I rifled through the junk covering the dashboard. I found a stack of maps, held each up in turn, pulled out the right one after much searching.
‘Right, if you take a butcher’s you’ll see that I jotted down some notes.’
The brittle paper threatened to crumble to dust in my lap. Strange symbols had been drawn in, cutting roads in two or blotting out entire towns.
‘What’s this?’
Tobe stole a glance. ‘The doodles that look like trees, they’re trees that are blocking roads. The doodles that look like cars, they’re cars. Those big smears, well… Do I have to go on?’
I couldn’t see anything that looked like a tree or a car. Art was never Tobe’s thing.
We crossed the barren land, the transport easily coping with the rough surface of the old highway. My spirits slowly lifted. Before too long, Tobe and I were lost in the joy of a meandering drive, looking at the world with little-boy eyes. Once or twice, Ruby laughed loudly, happily playing with the dogs. Each time, Tobe and I grinned stupidly.
The hours crawled along. Every now and then, my sadness returned.
We barely spoke as the road wormed through the bush and cut through the bare paddocks. I rolled bush tobacco, passed Tobe water when he asked, occasionally offered to drive. He declined, every single time. I checked the map every now and then, at some point directing us onto an unobstructed back road. Of course, unobstructed didn’t mean smooth or easy; deep cracks zigzagged across the blacktop.
‘There’s nothing this baby can’t handle.’
Tobe patted the steering wheel as we flew over the cracks and kept on, our course a twisting snake. Tobe had done his research; every road that was clear on the map was clear in real life. But to find a way south we had to keep doubling back, taking tracks through dense scrub or dirt roads that seemed to lead nowhere. The transport shook constantly, sometimes so hard that we had to yell at each other. When the bush spat us out and the road once again cut through bare paddocks, the light was so bright that we had to slow down a little to get a grip.
‘Wouldn’t want to get lost out here.’
‘Shit yeah.’
‘Yeah, shit yeah,’ Ruby called from the back.
Soon, the bush swallowed us back up, the sunlight a dappled shimmer through the patchy canopy. At some point, we started passing through towns so small as to barely be there, ruined houses and crumbling memorials to a forgotten war the only signs of civilisation. In some of the towns, the houses still stood proud, the damage purely cosmetic. Some of the ‘Welcome to Wherever’ signs we saw were a little too clean, still easily readable. For a long period of time, there wasn’t a single wreck to be seen.
Something felt wrong. Nerves frayed, we opened up the engine and shot through.
‘I’ve got to take a piss,’ Tobe said once we had put a fair bit of distance between ourselves and the towns.
I was glad he had said so; I had stiffened from sitting so long.
Tobe slowed the transport as the bush around us began thinning out to a clearing. A cracked concrete picnic table sat next to a pile of rubble, all that was left of an ancient public toilet. Nailed to a tree was a faded sign declaring the clearing a mineral spring, in case anyone missed the rusty water pump hidden behind the rubble.
We stopped and jumped out.
The air was dry. Flies swarmed us. Tobe threw open the side door and the dogs ran free.
Ruby hopped down, her eyes wary. She looked left and right, seemed satisfied, then looked up at Tobe. ‘What’s up?’
‘How about you keep an eye out’—he waved at the bush—‘while I do my business?’
‘No worries.’
‘Good girl.’
Just as with Louise, there wasn’t a hint of sarcasm or condescension in his voice. There was only pride. The reminder of Louise saddened me, brought it all back. I looked away, tried to think of anything but the face I would never see again.
I heard Ruby scamper off into the bush, following Red and Blue. I left Tobe to do his thing, wandered around trying to distract myself.
‘Tobe!’ I yelled, drawing up to the water pump.
‘Hang on a sec.’
The pump itself looked as dry as dust. But you never know your luck; the dirt around it was darker than that by the road, the flat tang of mineral water spoiled the air. I took a step forward and Tobe clamped his hand on my shoulder, surprising me, stopping me dead.
‘Hold your horses, Bill. You can’t be too paranoid out here.’
He started poking his rifle into the discoloured earth. Everything seemed normal. He increased the pressure and the ground simply gave way. Tobe grabbed my arm before I could follow it down; he knew how clumsy I was.
‘Come on, let’s go.’
I nodded, trying to forget the sight of the sharpened stakes and broken glass that covered the bottom of the pit.
‘Ruby! Blue! Red! Come on, stop fucking about!’ Tobe called, already back at the transport.
The dogs burst out of the bush, sprawled on the road, hot and happy. Ruby smiled blissfully, a beautiful thing to see.
‘Get in! Now!’
Ruby and the dogs caught on. Tobe and I rushed back to the cabin and jumped in. We sped away, the engine roaring. I urged Tobe to put on more speed nonetheless.
‘What was that?’ I asked.
‘A Punji trap.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Basically, a horrible way to die.’
‘Mate, there was nothing about it on the map.’
‘Yeah, sorry—I haven’t been out this way in ages.’
‘Creeps, you reckon?’
‘Something like that’s too clumsy. Anyway, why would they bother?’
‘First Country, then?’
‘It’s not their style. You know what they’re like—if we don’t fuck with them, they won’t fuck with us.’
‘Fair enough. But it has to be someone…’
‘Yeah, probably an old farmer or some shit. Wouldn’t be surprised if they were holed up in one of those towns we passed.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Who’d live out here?’
And then I looked around at the parched land that dwarfed us. It was pretty much the same as home.
We fell silent and drove on. Eventually, I realised that we had steadily been climbing higher; behind us, through the breaks in the bush, I could see to the horizon—a parched land of dying trees, bleached grass, dead towns.
A world of thirst and ruin that sprawled as far as we could see.
We climbed higher still.
The bush slowly became thicker and lusher, fed by underground springs. Trees once again scraped at the transport. The shimmering light never changed as we crawled over the peak and started our descent. Tobe gripped the wheel with both hands, trying not to miss a bend, trying not to send us into a ravine.
And then we shot out into open land.
Tobe floored the accelerator; we rocketed across another bare paddock. I had no idea where we were. I looked down at the map. Whichever forgotten shire we were passing through had faded to nothing, lost in a fold.
‘Shit.’
I saw Tobe’s eyes flick away from the road. I scooped up his rusty binoculars. The way ahead looked clear, the land on both sides empty. Far in the distance, a line of bush cut across the horizon.
‘Ruby!’
As quick as a striking snake, she slithered back through the hatch.
‘Give Bill a hand, will you? Two heads are better than one.’
She looked at him strangely.
‘What he means is…’
She rolled her eyes at me.
I passed her the binoculars. She took them, scanning the way ahead without saying a word. I kept my eyes on the land in case something broke its monotony. An unforgiving place, it made our trek seem futile, ridiculous, insignificant.