Fear Is the Rider (3 page)

‘You're going out on the track in that?' said the sergeant.

‘Well,' said Shaw feeling foolish, ‘I was thinking of it.' ‘Son,' said the sergeant weightily, ‘where do you want your remains sent?'

Shaw smiled. ‘Bad as that, is it?'

‘Son,' said the sergeant again, ‘if you tried to cross the track in that tin can we'd be bringing you back in a plastic bag.'

‘Well, actually, I wasn't thinking of going far. There's a place called Pattersons Creek I wanted to look at. How far is that?'

‘Oh, Pattersons,' said the sergeant. ‘That's a different matter. You'll get there all right. It's only about fifty kilometres. It's east of where the track gets bad.'

‘So it'd be all right to run out to the creek?'

‘Provided you make sure you don't get off the track and take a few gallons of water just in case. How long are you going for?'

‘Just for the day. I'll be back tonight.'

‘Well, pop in and let me know you've come back. If I don't hear from you in a couple of days I'll come out and get you.'

‘Okay, sergeant, thanks.'

‘Got plenty of water?'

‘Yeah.'

‘If you do break down, don't leave your car. The sun'll kill you in two hours.'

‘As quickly as that?'

‘Quicker, if you try to walk in it. Just stay in your car, keep drinking water and wait till somebody turns up, even if it takes days.'

‘You make it sound pretty terrible.'

‘It is bloody terrible.'

‘And there's nothing between here and Obiri?'

‘Well, as a matter of fact there is now. There's an old pub just about exactly halfway, three hundred kilometres out. Funny old couple trying to set up a sort of hotel there.'

‘A hotel out there?'

‘Yeah, well, it's not as crazy as it sounds. There's quite a few travellers go through there now. You're the fourth to come in here this week.'

Shaw smiled at the sergeant's notion of ‘quite a few' travellers.

‘Girl came in this morning, matter of fact,' continued the sergeant, ‘mind you'—he looked reprovingly at the Honda—‘she had a decent vehicle.'

‘Track's not such a problem if you have the right vehicle, then?'

‘Oh no. I've been through a hundred times. But you've got to have a high clearance to get you over the stones and a four-wheel-drive to get you out of the sand and the soaks.'

‘Yes, I saw that on the sign. What's a soak?'

‘Where the artesian water comes up. Quite a few patches of it along the track. You'd sink out of sight in that thing. But there's nothing like that between here and Pattersons Creek, you'll have no trouble getting there. But for God's sake don't try to go any farther. And don't go off the track in that bloody toy.' He seemed to be getting quite angry about Shaw's Honda.

‘All right, sergeant, thanks a lot.'

‘No trouble.'

So Shaw drove out along the Obiri Track towards Pattersons Creek, turning his trip odometer back to nought so he'd know how far out into the desert he was going.

Kite hawks floating in the heat using only their kite tails to manoeuvre; a few rabbits motionless at the entrances to their burrows; the following trail of dust, yellow-white now and larger, wilder because the dust on the track was deeper and softer than on the road; the carcass of a kangaroo, desiccated; the saltbush growing thinner; the unbroken flatness of the plain with the sky clamped down on it as though capturing and isolating this one great circle of earth.

The gibbers, the broken, weathered red-yellow stones that covered thousands of hectares of the Stony Desert, creeping out into the saltbush country, occasionally thudding under the car as they were thrown up by the tyres. Heat everywhere, visible, on the ground, in the air, on the horizon, in the sky, heat everywhere except in the air-conditioned car where Shaw sat comfortably and pleasurably anticipating seeing Katie again.

A line of black across the horizon, from edge to edge of the plain, quickly becoming a line of scrub, small trees, the vegetation that grew along the watercourse which was Pattersons Creek—where no water had flowed for eight years. Closer, quickly closer and the scrub was improbably green.

There was a girl running out of the scrub towards him.

The car was going too fast. Shaw could feel the thick dust working on the front-wheel-drive like a strong current of water against the rudder of a boat. The scrub was on either side of them now; glancing to the left, he saw the girl's Land Cruiser parked a hundred metres or so off the track. He slowed down.

‘Don't!' shouted Katie, ‘Keep going. Fast!'

Again impelled by her urgency, he pushed down on the accelerator and the Honda went spurting along the track, the scrub blurred by speed on either side. Was that the figure of a man he had seen between the Land Cruiser and the track?

They shot out of the scrub into the desert on the western side. The gibber stones were thicker here and thudded repeatedly on the underside of the car.

Shaw looked back, but there was only dust to be seen. ‘Come on now,' he said, more calmly than he felt. ‘What is it?'

Katie was staring uselessly at the rear window. Her blouse was stained and torn.

‘There's a man back there…' She was still almost incoherent. ‘He'll kill me!'

‘A man…?'

‘A man…I think…yes, a man, wild, a savage…a dreadful man…'

Shaw slowed down slightly. ‘Well, he can't hurt you in the car. Take it easy.'

‘Drive. Oh please, drive. Drive to the police.'

‘The police?' said Shaw, realising for the first time what he was doing.

‘The police. Yes, yes. The police.'

Ahead was one of the sand ridges, perhaps thirty metres high, that split the desert from horizon to horizon every twenty kilometres or so.

Shaw slowed down as the car rode up the ridge.

‘Don't stop!'

‘The police station's the other way,' said Shaw, flatly.

‘
What?
'

‘The police station is back there. We're heading for Obiri, which is nearly six hundred kilometres away.'

Katie took a long moment to understand this, then in a small voice she said: ‘Oh God. Well…go back. Go back!'

Deliberately, as the car reached the top of the ridge, Shaw stepped on the brake.

‘No! Keep going.'

Shaw stopped, leaving the motor running so that the air-conditioning wouldn't run down the battery.

‘If there's anyone behind us he's a fair way back by now. Just let the dust settle and we'll see what's there.'

A gentle breeze blew the powdery dust away in seconds. Shaw stepped out of the car, wincing as the heat fell on him.

The desert was empty. A kilometre or so to the east along the track he could see that line of scrub that was Pattersons Creek. Otherwise, north, south, east and west, the desert stretched on forever, almost all stone cover now, countless millions of strange-shaped fragments of red and yellow gibber lying on the surface of the sand, broken only by a few hardy tufts of saltbush.

Shaw climbed back into the coolness of the car.

‘All clear,' he said, ‘you're quite safe. Now, what's it all about?'

Katie was shuddering and sucking in air as though she were choking.

‘Gently,' said Shaw. ‘Gently.'

‘I'm sorry,' she said. ‘But he could have killed me.'

‘Who could have?' said Shaw. ‘What happened? Just tell me quietly, take your time. There's no one coming.'

Katie looked out through the rear window at the empty desert. She took a deep breath and seemed to sink into herself. Then she sat up straight.

‘All right,' she said, ‘I'll tell you…'

She had set up camp that morning in the scrub just off the track at Pattersons Creek. A couple of kilometres down the dry waterway, she had been told, was an old Aboriginal site with rock carvings she wanted to photograph. She intended to wait until about six o'clock then walk along the waterway in the comparative cool of the evening to try to find the carvings. The Land Cruiser stood in a good path of shade and she had strung out a tarpaulin awning from the roof rack and set up a camp stretcher, a folding table and a chair.

She took her axe from the rear of the Land Cruiser, chopped some dead timber into short lengths, and with a dozen or so gibber stones she built a small fireplace, lit a fire and set a can half full of water above it. Then she settled down in her chair with a book, waiting for the water to boil. A cup of coffee and perhaps a sandwich, then she intended to try to sleep through the heat of the day.

It was quite silent in the scrub. No breeze stirred the leaves and no bird moved except for the kite hawks wheeling silently, eternally, high in the hot air.

She smelt her attacker before she saw him.

A heavy stench hit her with such force that she started with shock. It was a smell she'd never encountered before. Not man, not animal, something carrion, but alive. It seemed to envelop and suffocate her, then became tangible as two arms wrapped around her body and began tearing at her clothing.

Shock and confusion were stronger than fear at that moment. Then something struck her heavily on the side of the head and she was hauled out of her chair, lifted high in the air and flung to the ground near the fire.

Silhouetted black against the sun, standing over her, was the shape of a man. Or something like a man, huge, naked to the waist, bearded, body black with the sun, and hairy. It was the trousers, filthy and torn, that made it human. The stench was animal.

She was dazed and couldn't see the face but it was making a sound, a low howl or whine, it was slobbering. She tried to get up and it leaned forward and hit her again across the head. She fell back, her mind disintegrating, still too confused for fear, still with the smell beating at her senses so that she could almost see and taste it.

She screamed.

Two legs were astride her own and the trousers were coming down. The flesh under the trousers was pale and then the genitalia, a bulbous pale protuberance in a mass of black hair. The stench, the stench.

The axe was there. Just by her side. She grabbed it, still lying on her back, and swung it hard with both hands, smashing the head down into the groin. Not deliberately; she just struck out desperately and that was where the axe head hit.

Trousers round its knees, the body reeled back, hands clutching the groin. There was a strange yell of pain, the cry of an animal or a human who didn't know how to speak.

Katie pushed herself to her feet and made for the Land Cruiser, but before she reached it something caught her by the neck of her blouse. Again the smell, and now, at last, her own fear. She wrenched free and went for the car again. But she knew she'd never get inside it before she was caught. The can of water on the fire. She bent and grabbed it, spun round and flung it at her attacker. The stream of sunlit silver hit the face. But the water wasn't boiling. Nor was there enough to blind him for more than a moment. She went for the Land Cruiser.

The trousers were still around the knees. She had a chance. But the hand grasped her collar again and flung her down. The hands, weather-gnarled and filthy, were clawing at the trousers, trying to get them off. She rolled over, and ran on hands and knees, then upright, fleet with terror, towards the track, the sun and death; away from the smell and the white flesh.

Then she saw the dust plume that was Shaw's car coming down the track.