Lillipilly Hill (11 page)

‘Half past one,' he said to himself, after prolonged peering at the watch-face, tilted towards the moon. ‘I must have come about four miles. It can't be much farther.'

He looked around him. Ahead, the creek curved to the left, still broad and placid and slow. The black shape of a hill, rising abruptly from the very edge of the path, effectively blocked any view, while the opposite bank was so densely clothed in scrub as to appear a solid, impenetrable mass.

‘No clouds, thank goodness,' observed Aidan, staring up at the star-sprinkled sky. ‘I'd better keep going.'

He was feeling rather lonely now. He had not realized how utterly deserted this countryside was—he felt that he might go on walking thus for ever, without meeting another human being.

He had followed the curve of the bank without noticing it, and now he stopped suddenly, seeing nothing but dark water where he had been about to tread. Incredulously, he gazed out over a landscape utterly different from that which he had left a few moments ago. Before him lay a vast swamp, acres of moonlit wasteland dotted with mangroves and clumps of reeds, and apparently limitless. He could not see far enough to discern its farthest boundary—whether it was the bay, or more scrub, or even the sea. Nothing stirred between him and the horizon, and the only sound was the sad cry of a curlew, left behind when others of its kind had migrated northward.

Aidan sat down on a rock, and tried desperately to recall the details of the map. He could not remember hearing a swamp mentioned, but then he had to admit that he had not been sufficiently interested in the district to seek information about it. How he wished now that he had listened to the talk of his schoolfellows! They must surely have known of this place.

So obsessed had he become with the idea of escape
from Barley Creek, that he refused to think of turning back.

‘But how can I get across?' he wondered. ‘It would be hard enough in daylight, let alone in the middle of the night.'

Aidan was not particularly nervous, nor given to wild fancies, yet the utter desolation and loneliness of this spot began to worry him. City-bred, accustomed always to company, he was now abruptly aware that he could rely on no one but himself for a way out of his predicament. If he remained here to starve, he would probably not be found for days.

A long-drawn howl shattered the quiet of the swamp, and Aidan sat frozen with horror. No bird could ever have made a sound like that. Suddenly Aidan remembered Charles's talk of the bunyip that lived on Maloney's Hill, the mysterious creature that howled in the night.

Cautiously, he turned his head to look back at the hill. It was steeper and rockier than any of its neighbours, and frowned over the swamp like a fierce guardian. It would have made a fitting home for any number of bunyips.

‘There are no such things as bunyips,' Aidan told himself firmly. ‘It could have been something else—a dog, perhaps.'

Aidan might have been cowed by the sight of blood, and the thought of physical pain, but he was not to be vanquished by such things as unearthly howls and tales of mythical creatures. There might or might not be bunyips—this was a surprising country, where all sorts of fantastic things seemed possible—but this was a situation where one ought to sit quietly and use one's powers of reasoning. Which was just what Aidan did.

‘If it was a dog,' he reflected, ‘then it's either lost, or it belongs to someone. And if it belongs to someone, there must be a house not far away. If there's a house, then I could ask the way to Blackhill. I'll see if I can find the house, and wait near it till daybreak.'

It seemed a sensible plan. It was almost a relief to hear the howl again—and this time Aidan was certain that it was the baying of a dog. It came from the hill-side, immediately above him. Without giving himself further time to think Aidan began to scramble upwards over the jutting rocks, tearing his hands and clothes on the vines and the razor-edged sword-grass, and colliding occasionally with saplings that were invisible here, where the moonlight could not penetrate. The noise of his progress was so great that he did not hear the dog approaching down the slope, and did not see it until it was poised on top of the very rock over which he was climbing.

All this time Aidan had been thinking of dogs as friendly animals. It therefore came as a shock to him to realize that the creature towering above him was most definitely hostile. It was a large dog, and to Aidan it seemed as large as a tiger, with the same bared fangs and gleaming eyes. It stood in a patch of moonlight—looking around frantically, Aidan saw that the nearest tree was some yards away.

The dog growled, and crouched as if ready to spring. Not daring to move, Aidan clung to his rock, staring as if mesmerized into the animal's ugly face.

Another shape detached itself from the shadows under the trees, and came forward to join the dog. As if in a dream—or rather, a nightmare—Aidan found himself gazing up into the muzzle of a rifle, whose barrel gleamed in the moonlight. Holding the rifle was a tall figure that seemed no more friendly than the dog.

Aidan summoned what dignity he could.

‘Please call off your dog,' he said. ‘I'm not doing any harm.'

‘What are you doing here, then?' demanded a suspicious voice. The rifle remained steady in its owner's hand.

‘Put down your gun, and I'll tell you,' said Aidan. He began to move upwards, and at once the dog snarled and snapped.

‘Down, Patchy,' said the voice, which was quite young and fresh, and belonged, Aidan suspected, to someone not much older than himself. The rifle was slowly lowered, and Aidan was permitted to climb the rock and stand beside the stranger.

‘I'm lost, that's all,' said Aidan. ‘I'm going to Blackhill.'

He was still shaking from the encounter, and his voice was tremulous, but he hoped that Patchy's owner would put this down to breathlessness.

‘Queer time to be going to Blackhill, ain't it? Where did you come from?'

‘Barley Creek,' said Aidan shortly.

The other boy stood deep in thought for a few moments.

‘I reckon you'd better come home with me,' he said at last, in a more friendly tone. ‘You'd never get across the swamp at night. Come on—don't mind Patchy. She won't hurt you unless I tell her to.'

Bewildered and weary, Aidan stumbled up the hill, struggling to keep close behind the stranger, who travelled with the easy confidence of one who knows every yard of the way. It seemed to Aidan that the crest of the hill was quite unattainable—no matter how fast they walked, it never appeared to be any nearer.

Suddenly the dog bounded ahead, with a series
of strangled barks which were her sole expression of pleasure. She vanished into dense undergrowth, and her owner said to Aidan, over his shoulder: ‘Watch these vines—they scratch. It's easiest if you get down and crawl.'

He dived after Patchy, and Aidan, feeling that nothing would ever surprise him again after the events of this night, obediently wormed his way through a tunnel of scrub, smelling pungently of damp earth and gum leaves. Standing erect at last, he felt beneath his jacket to reassure himself that his precious books were still safe, and looked about him.

‘Here we are—this is my place,' said the boy, not without pride.

Aidan gazed in vain around the clearing just below the top of the hill. There was no sign of a house, or a building of any kind. Before him, a single gigantic bluegum reared against the sky; on one side was a wall of rock, and on the other, a row of scrub pines. He looked at the stranger questioningly.

‘Do you live in a tree, then?' he asked, wondering if this could be some strange sort of a joke.

The boy merely gestured towards the rock, and Aidan moved closer. He saw then that the rock was not solid at all, but was in fact a large cave, the entrance being partly hidden by a clump of wattle.

‘I'll light the candles,' said the boy, stepping into his domain. ‘I let the fire go out at nights, in the summer.'

The squat, tallow candles threw long flickering shadows over the walls of the cave, revealing a level, sandy floor, a bed of bracken and sacking, a battered kettle and frying-pan, a few other eating utensils, and, in the farthest corner, a pile of rabbit skins. Patchy had settled herself in what was obviously her usual position—just inside the entrance. She put her long grey muzzle down on her paws, but her eyes remained open, their gaze fixed steadily upon Aidan.

‘Want a drink of tea?' asked the boy, pulling off an ancient felt hat of doubtful shape. He was thin-faced, sunburnt, and black-haired; his eyes were large and very dark. His clothing consisted of a grey undershirt with a spotted handkerchief at the neck, and an old pair of trousers reaching half-way between his knees and his bare feet.

‘Yes, please,' said Aidan eagerly, trying not to gape at his host's unusual appearance. After all, he told himself,
he
must look rather strange too, with his clothes torn and stained, and his face still swollen from Paddy's attack—but how extremely remote and senseless that affair seemed now! With a feeling of deep relief and thankfulness he sat on the powdery
sand, watching the boy kindling a fire at the stone fireplace beside the wattles.

‘My name's Aidan Wilmot. What's yours?'

‘Clay,' said the boy, not looking up from his work. Already the pile of dry twigs and bark had begun to catch alight.

‘Just Clay? Is that your first or last name?'

‘It's the only part that matters,' retorted the boy, and Aidan knew better than to question his host further on the subject, although he was filled with curiosity. Studying Clay covertly, he decided that he could not be more than sixteen. His speech, though it was rough enough, was a little too careful to be that of a swaggie, as far as Aidan could judge.

Aidan transferred his attention to the dog. He had never seen an animal like Patchy before. She was lean but powerfully built, with heavy, muscular forequarters and a large, well-shaped head. In colour she was an odd mottled grey.

‘What kind of a dog is she?' asked Aidan.

‘Blue cattle-dog, mostly,' said Clay, looking up at last. He hung a billy-can over the fire, and sat down beside Patchy, rubbing the dog's short, wiry hair. ‘Best dog there is. She don't like strangers, but she'd do anything for me.'

He was boasting now, about what was obviously
his dearest possession. He glanced at Aidan over Patchy's alert head.

‘If I hadn't called her off, Patchy would of kept you there on that rock for hours. She heard you coming—we're not used to having people on the hill, 'specially at night.'

‘Is this Maloney's Hill?' demanded Aidan, not wishing to dwell on the subject of his meeting with Patchy.

‘Yes—do you mean to say you live in Barley Creek, and don't know Maloney's Hill?'

‘We haven't been here long,' said Aidan.

‘It's easy to see
that.
Wilmot—wasn't there an old man called Wilmot on Lillipilly Hill?'

‘He was my father's uncle. Now my father lives there. Only we might be going back to London soon.'

Clay looked puzzled.

‘I thought you said you were on your way to Blackhill?'

So Aidan told him the whole story, beginning with the fight, and not omitting any of the details of his inglorious part in it. Clay listened attentively, without interrupting.

‘So I was on my way to Blackhill when I heard your dog, only I thought it might have been a bunyip,' Aidan concluded.

Clay stared at him so fixedly and thoughtfully that Aidan felt uncomfortable, and began to wish that he had not told the other boy about the fight.

‘But you weren't scared of walking all the way to Blackhill at night,' Clay said at last. ‘Why should you run away from a bit of a punch on the nose?'

‘I don't know,' mumbled Aidan. ‘Is the tea ready?'

Clay rose and busied himself at the fire. Aidan addressed his back.

‘I suppose nothing frightens you. You look as if you could fight anyone.'

Clay handed him a pitch-black, steaming mug of tea. There was no sugar, but it was still the best drink Aidan had ever had.

‘I've been in a few fights, over in Blackhill,' said Clay, not boasting now, but frowning in his effort to express his thoughts. ‘I just felt real angry, nothing else. I reckon, though, that I'd run a mile if I heard a bunyip in the middle of the night.'

‘Do you think there are such things as bunyips, then?' asked Aidan, in surprise.

Clay gazed out at the black and silver hill-top.

‘I dunno. Never saw one, but my Pa did. He hadn't been drinking then, either—not that time.'

‘Where's your father now?' Aidan had not intended to pry, but his curiosity was getting the better of
him. In his experience, boys of sixteen simply did not live entirely on their own, in caves on lonely hill-sides.

‘Couldn't tell you,' said Clay indifferently. ‘Outback, maybe, with his swag. Haven't seen him for about five years. I don't think Ma knows, either—she works in Blackhill, in the hotel.'

He turned to look directly at Aidan. His eyes were very big and black in the firelight, and quite fierce.

‘You're not to tell anyone about me—not anyone. If you do, I'll find out somehow, and come and knock you down.'

Hurt by this attack, Aidan put down his mug.

‘I must be going, if you would tell me the way.'

Patchy began to growl, and Clay stepped forward to take Aidan's mug.

‘Don't be stupid. I'll get some more tea. You can't leave till daylight, anyway. That's Heron Swamp, and it's five miles wide. Even if I take you, it'll be a whole morning's journey.'

Aidan hesitated, then sat down again. He realized that Clay would make no further apology for his brusqueness, and he found that he did not really mind. The cave was snug and peaceful and safe, and Aidan certainly had no objection to staying there until dawn. His determination to reach Blackhill had
become dulled and weakened; he just wanted to sit near Clay's fire, drinking tea and talking.