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“Why, Josh?” Carly asked seriously.
“Because anything else would be eating me alive.”
“Eww! Yeah! Alive! Are you listening, yabbies?” Carly spoke seriously to the scrabbling contents of the red bucket. “We’re nice, kind humans. We’re not going to eat you alive.”
Which seemed to deal with the whole too cute issue, thank goodness.
Ten minutes later, Carly was eating a hot yabby sandwich, with butter, pepper and salt.
Jac ate one, too, and it sure tasted good. “This is one of those moments when I blink and shake my head and can’t believe I’m here,” she told Callan, hard on the heels of the last mouthful, her lips still tasting of butter and salt.
“Yeah?” Callan waved pungent blue smoke away from his face.
He had a blackened and very rickety wire grill balanced on the stones over a heap of coals. It looked as if someone had fashioned it out of old fencing wire, but it held the lamb chops and sausages just fine, and they smelled even better than the yabby sandwich had tasted.
In a little pan, also blackened, he had onions frying in the froth from half a can of beer. The other half of the can he drank in occasional satisfied gulps, while Jacinda sipped on a mug of hot tea.
“I’ve just eaten something that a week ago I’d never even heard of,” she said. “I’ve swum in terrifying water, chock-full of bunyips. I’ve let you tell me about snakes in the house without screaming.”
“I noticed you didn’t scream.” He gave her his usual grin. “I was impressed.”
“Thank you. Meanwhile, there’s a road faintly visible over there that you claim leads eventually to Adelaide, but there hasn’t been a car on it since we got here, what, an hour ago? In fact, have I seen or heard a car since Tuesday? I don’t think so.”
“There have been cars.”
“I haven’t noticed them. I’ve been too busy. It’s incredible here. Carly is—Carly will—I hope Carly never forgets this. It’s going to change who she is.”
And “Carly” is code for “Carly and me.”
It’s going to change who I am, even more, but there are limits to my new yelling-and-jumping-induced bravery, and I’m not prepared to say that out loud.
“Wouldn’t be surprised if it changes the boys, too,” Callan answered.
He flipped a couple of lamb chops with a pair of tarnished tongs, drained the last of the beer and looked at her with those steady blue eyes, and she suspected … decided … hoped … that “the boys” was code, also.
Chapter Six
“Dad?” Through a fog of steam, the bathroom door clicked shut behind the new arrival.
“What’s up, Lockie?”
“Can I talk to you for a sec?” The tone was reluctant, yet confiding.
“Can’t it wait until I’m done in the shower?” Callan had been caught this way by Lockie before.
His evening shower was one of the few intervals in his day that was both relaxing and private, and maybe that was why Lockie came looking for him here. He knew the two of them wouldn’t be disturbed by Josh or Gran or the dogs or, tonight, Carly or her mother.
The shower ran on bore water from deep in the ground, which meant it was as hard as nails but hot and steamy and in plentiful supply. Conserving water was deeply bred into anyone who lived beyond Australia’s coastal fringe, but four minutes of steamy peace per day was, surely, not too much to ask.
Apparently, yes.
“Well, you see, the thing is …” Lockie trailed off. The reluctance had increased.
Callan sighed and surrendered his peace, realizing he wasn’t dealing with a mere request for homework intervention or a new computer game, here. “Go ahead, spit it out.”
“You know when we were at the water hole today?”
“I have a faint memory of something like that, yes, even though it’s been a whole four hours since we left the place.”
Out it came in a sudden rush. “I left my Game Boy behind on a rock.”
“You what?” Callan shut off the water and reached around the edge of the shower curtain for his towel. “You brought your Game Boy down there? Why?”
“In case I got bored.”
“But you didn’t get bored. I didn’t even see you with it.”
“I got it out after we stopped yabbying, but then we had lunch and I forgot about it and I left it and I only remembered it now.”
“Right.”
“Sorry, Dad.”
“What do you think we should do about it?” He wrapped the towel around his waist and slid the shower curtain aside, confronting his son.
He was strict about this kind of thing, and Lockie knew it. The boys were good, usually. Callan had trained them that way. They always left a gate the way they found it. They did a job, then put their tools away. They didn’t leave feed bags open to attract vermin, or riding gear lying around to get its leather cracked in the sun.
“I think I should go back first thing in the morning and get it,” Lockie said. “Like, very, very first thing.”
“I think you’re right,” Callan said. “And I think you know I’m not happy about this. How long did you have to save up your pocket money to buy that thing? A year?”
“I’m not happy about it, either.”
It was almost fully dark out, now, and they were just about to eat. Mum had cooked something special, the way she often did on a Saturday or Sunday. Smelled like lasagna and garlic bread, and the kids had already discovered and reported that there would be hot peach cake and ice cream for dessert.
Callan was hungry. He’d been up since five-thirty this morning. He didn’t want to have to stir from the house again tonight.
“Is it going to be safe on a rock all night?” Lockie asked him.
“Yeah, that’s what I’m wondering. What do you think?”
“If dew gets in it, or a ’roo knocks it off, or a cow steps on it, it could get destroyed.”
“All those things are possible.”
“So maybe I should go now,” Lockie said.
“No, Lockie.” Callan sighed. He wasn’t going to send a ten-year-old out alone on horseback or a quad bike after dark, on the tail of a long day. “We’ll eat, and then I’ll go.”
“I can come with you.”
“Nope.” Lockie looked yawning and droopy-eyed already. He’d helped with the horses, done various yard chores. He didn’t need to come. “You can watch some TV, then read in bed for a bit and go to sleep.”
“I can pay you my pocket money for the next couple of months, like, for your time.”
Callan laughed. “No, you can just not do it ever again.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
He told Mum about the problem as he helped her serve out the meal, which was indeed lasagna, and he felt hungry enough to eat a whole trayful.
“Take Jacinda with you,” she said at once. “You won’t ride, will you? You’ll take the four-wheel-drive?”
“Seems best. Although it’s rough, getting to that spot in a vehicle, especially in the dark.”
“You can walk the last few hundred meters. But you must take Jacinda. Two pairs of eyes. Even if Lockie thinks he can describe to you exactly which rock it’s on.”
Which Lockie couldn’t.
“If Jacinda wants to come,” Callan said.
“Of course I’ll come,” Jac told him.
They’d just eaten Kerry’s fabulous meal, all appetites sharp after the day spent outdoors. She felt deliciously sated, and she felt exhausted. It was very tempting to pick up on the various outs he’d offered her and let him go alone. If she was too tired, if she didn’t think Carly would settle to sleep without her, if a rough ride in a four-wheel-drive held no appeal …
But she’d vowed earlier in the week to jump at any chance to help around here. Searching a creek bed with a flashlight in the dark was definitely something she could do.
“So Gran will put me to bed?” Carly wanted to know.
“That’s right, ducks,” Kerry said cheerfully.
“Yes,” Jac agreed, wondering how many new nicknames her daughter would have at the end of four weeks. She already answered quite happily to Carlz and ducks. “And I’ll creep in and kiss you as soon as I get back, beautiful.”
“Kiss me now, too.”
“Of course.”
A few minutes later, Jac had a not-very-suitable pink angora sweater over her T-shirt, and two flashlights in her lap, and she was seated next to Callan in the four-wheel-drive, ready to leave.
He hadn’t exaggerated about the rough ride. “Problem is,” he half yelled above the engine noise, as they bounced and lurched along, “there’s a track, but you tend to lose it in the dark.”
“Because it’s not much of a track, if it’s what we rode along today.”
“You have a point.”
“Ow! And I’m going to have some bruises!” Her shoulder bumped the door.
“Sorry, I should have insisted that this would be way too much fun for you in one day.”
“After the fun of the bunyip jumping?”
“But you did like the horse riding and the barbecue, right?”
“I liked the bunyip jumping, too, Callan.”
Instinctively, they turned to look at each other at the same moment. His face was shadowed and indistinct in the darkness, but she could see that grin. And she could feel the awareness, the way she’d been feeling it at certain moments for the past four days.
They were both so cautious about it, so full of doubt. It was still only a hint in the air, like the smell of approaching rain or the sound of a church bell across city rooftops. Distant. You had to strain to catch it. The rain might pass over different terrain and never fall. The wind might carry the sound of the bells away.
And they might very easily never act on this … this little zing, this recognition. They might let it go. Smile and move on. It might fade as they got to know each other better, if what they saw on the surface wasn’t reflected deeper within.
Or they might get too scared, because things like this rarely stayed simple for long.
For now, it made Jacinda’s heart beat faster sometimes, it made her stomach go wobbly, and she watched these things happening in her body and didn’t know what to think.
The vehicle lurched again, throwing her in his direction, this time. They jarred against each other, one solid, the other soft. He reached and clamped an arm around her shoulder, working the wheel with one hand. “Going to stop under that tree, and we’ll walk the rest.”
The awareness hit again, stronger in her because she’d felt his body against hers, harder to resist. It made her breathing go shallow. It started her wondering.
The tree he’d mentioned loomed in the headlights, its trunk the same grayish white as the horse Jac had ridden today. After a couple more lurches and the screech of protesting suspension, Callan braked beneath it, switched off the engine and jumped out.
Jacinda followed him, handing him a flashlight.
“See that moon?” he said. “We hardly need these.” He tossed it up in his hand and caught it. “We can leave them switched off until we’re searching the rocks.” Lockie’s description of the Game Boy’s location had been vague.
They tramped along in the dark, surrounded by the same magical blue and silver shadows and shapes that Jacinda had noticed the other night. They didn’t talk. Callan had said as they drove that there might still be wildlife at the water hole at this hour. They always came down at dawn and dusk to drink. “And if we’re quiet, we can take a look.”
It was good not to talk. Good just to walk along, listening to the sound of their feet on rock and sand, listening to the way Callan’s boots creaked, aware of the way he moved with such sure-footed balance and such economy.
In Los Angeles, everyone seemed to talk all the time. They were chained to their cell phones, locked in meetings, constantly updating arrangements, passing messages through secretaries. There was a whole, ever-shifting hierarchy regarding who Kurt would speak to directly, who he’d call back right away, who he’d fob off on an assistant and who he wouldn’t call back at all.
There was a standard repertoire of lies and evasions. I lovethe script. This is so fresh. We ’re in contract negotiations right now. Our marriage is rock solid. Jacinda had believed way too many of those statements for way too long—believed them when she’d heard them from Kurt, from his staff, from his so-called friends.
She’d had a solitary childhood. Too much silence. First, her parents’ quiet, immaculate home, and then her own protective silences, withdrawing to the inner kingdom of her imagination, as she sat squashed into the corner seat in the back of the car while Aunt Peggy drove her cousins around.
When Kurt had brought her into his world, fresh from taking her college degree in English and creative writing, she’d loved the opening of new horizons; she’d loved all the talk, meeting other writers, traveling to Europe, adventures on yachts and ski slopes and horseback. She’d wanted to talk and hadn’t needed silence, at first.
But then she’d hit overload, and had discovered that her distant, reluctant parents had given her a positive legacy, after all. Silence could be good sometimes. It could be necessary. It didn’t mean that communication disappeared. Sometimes you could understand more about a person when you left some space between all the words.
“We should start looking for the wretched thing,” Callan finally said. His voice sounded a little rusty, as if he hadn’t wanted to break into the rhythm of their walking. “Here’s the water hole just ahead.”
“Can we check for kangaroos first?” she asked him on a whisper.
“They’re much less scary than bunyips, I promise.”
“No, I want to see them drinking. You said we might.”
He looked at her, gave a quick nod, grabbed her hand and they crept toward the water hole. It looked still and beautiful, but they crouched behind a rock, waiting and watching for several minutes, and there were no animals there.
