Fear Is the Rider (13 page)

They found the Honda within minutes of leaving the opal mine.

‘Then where's the Land Cruiser?' said Shaw. They looked around the ghostly plain with its moon-washed veil of shifting dust. They could see the shapes of the mullock heaps over the opal mine and the abandoned truck, but there was no sign of the Land Cruiser. But it could have been there, drifts of dust still kept obscuring their vision.

‘He must have left it further down the track,' said Katie. ‘Can we get your car going again?'

The little car was stranded on a pile of stones and it was fairly easy for the two of them to push it across so that the front wheels rested on the gibbers. They got in and Shaw started the motor. He found he still had the shotgun over his shoulder and he wriggled it free and laid it on the seat beside him.

‘Should we go and look for the truck?'

‘Don't turn the lights on,' said Katie.

‘I can turn around. We could look for the Land Cruiser. That would take us back to Yogabilla.'

‘He might not have left it on the track,' said Katie. ‘The hotel can't be far ahead. I think…'

‘We could just go back for a while and see whether we can find it.'

‘No,' said Katie. ‘He won't know which way we've gone anyway. We might never find it, and we wouldn't get back to Yogabilla in this.'

‘All right.' Shaw put the car in gear and started along the track. ‘I don't think he's there,' he said. ‘In fact, if you think about it, if he could move at all he could have been up and after us by now.'

They could still see the opal mines to the right, but there was no sign of the Man.

‘Just the same, leave the lights off.'

Shaw drove slowly along the track, just able to see the surface through the drifting dust. Abruptly the dust disappeared and they were driving in the bright yellow wash of the moon which lit the desert like a gentle sun.

Shaw increased his speed.

‘You must have killed him,' said Katie.

‘I don't know. The roof fell on him even if I didn't hit him. If he's not dead he must be pretty sick.' There was something rolling around on the floor near Shaw's left foot. He leaned forward and felt for it. It was a live cartridge. He picked it up and slipped it into his shirt pocket. He must have dropped it scrambling in and out of the car earlier.

‘You mean you think he might be alive…hurt…buried down there?'

It hadn't occurred to Shaw before to concern himself with the possible agony of their attacker. If he analysed it now he would admit that he wasn't particularly concerned.

‘He could be.'

‘That's…that's pretty awful. I mean I know that sounds silly…but…'

Shaw did think it sounded silly, but rather endearing.

‘I know. It's a wretched business. But all we can do is try to get the police out, by phone. If he's still alive when they get here they'll be able to dig him out quickly enough.'

‘I wonder what he was,' said Katie, ‘some mad local, or some sort of feral man?'

‘God knows.'

‘I was beginning to think he wasn't even human—that smell, did you smell it?'

‘I smelt it.'

‘Like something dead.'

‘Yes. That hotel can't be far away. Keep an eye out for a light.'

Shaw knew there was a strain in his voice, to the point of hysteria, and it was because the very words ‘feral man' touched him with fear even now when he was sure they were safe, reasonably safe.

A couple of lights, not brighter than the moonlight but a different colour, appeared on the track ahead.

‘Those lights,' said Shaw. ‘Would that be the hotel? It's not a vehicle, is it?' For a moment he had the terrible feeling that the Land Cruiser had got ahead of them. But that was absurd.

‘No. They're lights in windows. That's the hotel.'

He glanced at her face illuminated in the beam of moonlight that came in through the hole the gun had broken in the roof. She was filthy and her hair matted and stringy, and the whole front of her blouse was torn so that her breasts were almost bare. Abruptly she seemed the most exquisitely desirable woman he had ever seen. As though she realised the emotion that was lancing his being she pulled her blouse together across her breasts.

The hotel was only a few metres off the track, an old wide-verandahed timber building, looking pristine and new in the moonlight. The yellow light in two of the front windows was a reassuring contrast to the ancient glow of the moon lighting the sand hills that rolled to the fence boundaries at the rear of the building.

Shaw drove the Honda to the edge of the veranda and they both got out and hurried across the old wood flooring to the front door. Katie's footfalls rang loud as her sandals struck the timber but Shaw's naked feet were silent.

There was no knocker on the door and Shaw rapped loudly with his knuckles.

No sound came from within the hotel and they stood in silence, constantly glancing back along the track, a long shadow in the moonlight, wondering whether, by any chance…

Shaw knocked again.

‘There has to be somebody here,' he said. ‘There wouldn't be a light on if there was nobody here.'

Katie said nothing.

Eventually there was a shuffling sound from behind the door.

‘Who's there?' The voice of an elderly man.

Shaw was tempted to announce his name, but that wasn't what the question meant.

‘We're a couple of travellers in trouble,' he shouted through the door. ‘Could we use the telephone?'

There was a long pause from the other side of the door.

‘The telephone operator doesn't work at night,' said the old voice.

Shaw looked desperately at Katie.

‘Please let us in,' he called. ‘We really are in trouble. We're quite harmless.' The assurance sounded absurd to his own ears.

There was another long pause and the sound of muffled voices inside.

‘Please,' repeated Shaw. ‘We need help.'

Metallic shuffling behind the door, then it slowly swung open. An old, old man, gnarled with the weather of the Centre for many decades, white-haired and pale in the light of the moon, peered out at them.

‘Look, I'm sorry to disturb you,' said Shaw, ‘but we're in trouble. We've just had a run-in with some sort of lunatic. Have you got a phone we could use? We want to ring the police.'

The withered old face stared at them uncertainly, looking from one to the other as though trying to understand what two young strangers would be doing out here in the desert at this time of evening.

‘Eh?' he said.

Katie broke in, ‘We're sorry, but could we just use the phone? We're stuck out here and…'

The old man shouted suddenly, ‘I can't hear you. I'm deaf. Just a minute. I'll get Mother.'

He slammed the door in their faces and they heard a bolt slide home.

Katie and Shaw looked at each other.

‘It'll be all right,' he said. ‘It must be a bit of a shock for him. We look pretty strange.'

‘It's just that I can't help thinking he's still following us,' said Katie, looking back along the track.

‘I know,' said Shaw, ‘but he's not. It's all right.'

The bolt sound again, and the door opened. An old woman, tall and thin with a frail dignity, dressed in an ancient floral gown, stared at them, trying to understand their presence.

‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘We only operate in the winter.'

The old man was peering over her shoulder. He was shorter than she was.

Shaw started to speak but Katie cut across him.

‘No. You don't understand. We just want to use the phone. To call the police. There's a man back there who attacked us…'

The old lady's voice was slightly quavering but still had some authority.

‘It's all closed. You'd better go on. We don't sell petrol or food or anything. Not in the summer. I'm sorry.'

‘But do listen to us,' said Katie. ‘Please try to understand that…'

‘This is hopeless,' said Shaw with a sudden surge of ruthlessness. ‘We can't…come on…'

As gently as he could, he pushed the old lady backwards. She went unresistingly, her mouth opening and shutting in silent protest. The old man stood irresolutely, then retreated behind his wife as Katie and Shaw pushed forward through the door.

They were in the bar of the old hotel, neglected, with bottles on the shelves, a stag's head on the wall, some old beer advertisements. A couple of oil lamps gave a gentle light at a table on which lay the remains of a partly eaten meal.

The old lady seemed to accept the idea that Shaw intended no violence.

‘I'm terribly sorry,' she said, ‘but we can't help you. We've nothing here. You see the hotel only operates in winter. Nobody comes through in the summer so there's no point in our opening.'

Shaw had abandoned any hope of trying to explain to her.

‘You just sit down and finish your meal,' he said as kindly and gently as he could. ‘We won't bother you. Where's the telephone?'

The old lady pointed to a complicated and oddly new looking piece of apparatus on the far end of the bar.

‘But you won't be able to get through,' she said. ‘The girl's only there between nine and ten in the morning, usually. That's when we call through for anything.'

Katie and Shaw went over to the bar.

‘It's a radio telephone,' she said. ‘I think I know how to work it.'

She picked up the mouthpiece and moved a couple of switches on the machine.

‘Hello, hello,' she said. ‘Can anybody hear me?'

There was a rustling noise from the machine, like the sound of the wind in the desert at night.

Katie moved the switches again.

‘Hello, hello. Can anybody hear me? This is an emergency call, can anybody hear me, anywhere?'

There was a quick burst of static and a staccato sound that could have been a human voice grossly distorted.

‘Can you hear me?' said Katie. ‘Listen, if you can hear me, we are at the hotel between Yogabilla and Obiri and we have been attacked by a dangerous lunatic. Please contact the police and tell them. Can anybody hear me?'

Now the only sound that came from the machine was the sighing wind noise.

Shaw turned to the old lady.

‘Have you got any sort of transport here?'

The woman seemed to have to think about this.

‘All our supplies come out from Obiri in the truck, once a week.'

‘Yes, but have you any transport here, a car, a truck?'

She thought again.

‘Well there is Jimmy, that's our man you know, he has a motorcycle. But he went off shooting this morning and we haven't seen him since.'

Katie and Shaw looked at each other. Jimmy would be the Aborigine who was shattered and dead in the soft mud back along the track. There was no point in saying anything to the old lady.

‘Try the radio again,' said Shaw.

Then they heard the sound of the motor.

Far off, steady, the sound of a heavy vehicle grinding along the track in low gear.

Katie and Shaw rushed to the window. Down the track to the east, dimmer than the moonlight, they could see clearly the headlights of a vehicle.

‘That's my Land Cruiser.' Katie sounded as though she were in tears.

‘It can't be,' said Shaw, knowing it was.

‘It's my Land Cruiser I tell you. I'd know the sound of it anywhere, it's my truck. He must have got out.'

‘Christ!' Shaw stood staring out the window at the two distant lights, trying to think.

‘There's no point in running,' he said. ‘We can't beat him along the track at night. We'll hold him off here.'

‘How?'

‘Just lock ourselves in. I'll get the gun.'

‘There're no bullets.'

‘Yes there is. One.' Shaw felt for the cylinder in his shirt pocket. It was still there. He was making for the door. ‘I'll be back in a minute. See if you can get any sense out of them. See if they've got a gun.'

He ran out to the Honda and grabbed the gun from the front seat. Then it struck him that the Man couldn't possibly know where he and Katie had gone. He must be just driving west along the track either in the hope of finding them or just to get clear himself. If he could hide the Honda…?

He clambered into the car and started the engine. He could see the lights of the Land Cruiser quite clearly but they were still a long way off. It would be some minutes before it arrived at the hotel.

He drove around to the rear of the hotel and found what seemed to be a stable with barn doors swinging open. It was part of the main building. There was room to spare for the Honda and he drove in to the stable. A doorway opened from the stable into the main building and Shaw assumed that would lead to the bar. There was a torch in the back seat of the Honda and he used it, careful not to let it shine outside the building, to discover how to close the barn doors. They swung together easily and a drop beam fell from one side into a catch on the other. Shaw lowered the beam, then keeping the torch pointed to the ground made his way through the door into the main part of the hotel, carrying the shotgun. He came out into a corridor and found the bar by the light which came under the door.

Katie jerked around as he came in, but the old people were now seated at the table, proceeding with their meal.

‘Have they got any guns?'

‘I don't think so,' said Katie. ‘I'm not sure they understand me.'

‘I'll put these lights out,' said Shaw, ‘there's just a chance he'll think there's no one here.'

‘He'll have seen the lights by now.'

‘Perhaps.' Shaw blew out the oil lamps.

‘Young man,' protested the old lady, ‘we can't see to eat.' Although, indeed, the moonlight flooding into the bar provided almost as much light as the oil lamps had.