All Our Shimmering Skies

by Dalton, Trent

  The car feels like it will stall, but Greta presses harder on the accelerator and the wheels grip the road and the truck lurches back out of the flooded crossing. Molly claps her hands.

  ‘Pass me one of them smokes, will ya?’ Greta asks.

  Molly taps a cigarette from Greta’s pack and lights it for her with two confident strikes of a match. She passes the lit smoke to Greta who sticks it in the left corner of her lips where all cigarettes seem to Molly to belong.

  ‘You need anything else?’ Molly asks. ‘I got food. Water.’

  Greta turns to Molly. Raises her eyebrows. ‘We’re gonna need more of both, you know,’ she says.

  ‘I know,’ Molly says. ‘I know how to get more of both, too.’

  ‘More tips from your boyfriend, Tyrone Power?’

  ‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ Molly says.

  ‘He’s not? I thought you two were gonna run away together?’

  Molly shakes her head. She looks out the window. Two sapphire-blue butterflies are bobbing around a Leichhardt tree with the kind of glossy green leaves Molly could fan her face with in high summer, and yellow and white flowers that look to Molly like peeled oranges sitting on lollypop sticks.

  ‘So when’s this turn-off comin’?’ Greta asks.

  ‘Soon,’ Molly says.

  ‘Read that pan out again, will ya?’ Greta asks.

  Molly doesn’t have to read from the pan. She knows the words by heart. ‘“The longer I stand, the shorter I grow”,’ she recites. ‘“And the water runs to the silver road.”’ Then she sniffs. She’s got something stuck up her nose, a ball of dried blood, a clump of dirt. Ash, maybe.

  ‘Why did he write all these directions in riddles?’ Greta asks, frustrated. ‘Why didn’t he just say straight up where the bloody gold was?’

  ‘Because those riddles were just for him,’ Molly says. She blows her nose into her cupped hand. ‘He didn’t want anyone else to know what he was talking about. But maybe he wanted my mum to know. And maybe he wanted me to know one day and he knew we’d understand. We’d understand what he was talking about because we look at the world the same way he does. Because we’re poetic.’

  Molly sticks half a forefinger up her nose.

  ‘You’re poetic?’ Greta asks.

  ‘Yeah, poetic and graceful, like how my mum taught me to be,’ Molly says, not looking at Greta as she pulls a large black ball of snot from her nose and flicks it casually out her window.

  Greta shakes her head. ‘You sure you know where you’re going?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Molly says. ‘You sure you want to come with me?’

  Greta gives a half-smile, eyes fixed on the narrow side road that bends now past a row of honeysuckle trees with showy orange flowers that look to Molly like big fat orange caterpillars who have enjoyed too much plonk, which is why they’re crawling aimlessly across the tops of those silvery fern leaves.

  ‘Why did you come back for me?’ Molly asks.

  ‘Because you’re gonna take me to all that shiny gold,’ Greta says. ‘And then I’m gonna fly away to Hollywood like you said.’

  Molly smiles with her lips closed. ‘I think there was something else you came back for,’ she says. And the gravedigger girl turns her head to study Greta’s face and she watches her driver drag hard on her smoke and then she looks past Greta’s perfect profile, past her bruised and swollen left eye and the line of her forehead and the straight bridge of her nose, to a line of trees on the right-hand side of the road, and among those trees she sees movement. Something black and fast. Four legs. Long black horns. Then something else beside it coming out of the trees. Charging.

  ‘Watch out!’ Molly screams.

  And Greta turns her head just in time to see nine large water buffalo, frightened and reckless, charging at full speed through the scrub and onto the thin dirt road. Behind them Molly sees streaks of yellow-orange fur. Two vicious dingoes pursuing the smallest buffalo in the herd.

  One buffalo loses its footing in the uneven roadside and careens unstoppably into Greta’s door, horns crashing into moving metal. The fierce impact causes Greta to yank the steering wheel hard left and the truck slides across the slippery dirt road, then she reefs the wheel right and straightens the vehicle just as another confused and breathless buffalo charges across the road in front of her. Greta instantly turns hard right again, sending the truck flying down the sharp incline at the side of the road towards a thick cluster of stringybark trees, then she stamps on the flat metal brake lever and the utility glides on the wet grass until it crashes hard into the trees, though thankfully not hard enough to make Molly’s forehead traverse the mere three inches of air required for her head to make contact with the windscreen.

  The buffalo charge on and through the wall of scrub lining the left side of the road and Greta’s neck whips back and forth and she’s so disturbed by what’s happened that her fingers remain fixed to the steering wheel.

  She drops her head. Breathes deeply.

  Then she says, ‘Let me get this straight. We just survived an aerial bombing from the Japs, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Molly says.

  ‘Then we set off in search of buried treasure?’

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Then we got attacked by a bunch of wild water buffalo?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say “attacked”,’ Molly says. ‘But definitely fair to say we were charged by about ten water buffalo.’

  ‘What now?’ Greta asks.

  ‘Now we walk.’

  Molly grips Bert the shovel and grabs the shoulder strap of her duffel bag. She slips out of the truck and closes the door, turns to talk through the open window.

  ‘I’m glad you came back for me, Greta.’

  ‘I wish I could say the same thing, Molly,’ Greta says, resting her head in her hands.

  ‘I know why you came back for me, Greta.’

  ‘You do?’ Greta replies, rubbing the whiplashed muscles in her neck.

  ‘You were worried about me,’ Molly says. And that thought makes the gravedigger girl smile as she walks on down the narrow road.

  Greta watches the girl through two cracks that now curve across the windscreen. That strange child. Every last dark thing she’s witnessed so far today. And she wonders what mysterious, unstoppable force must be flowing inside that girl to make her do what she is doing up there on that road now.

  The gravedigger girl, skipping.

  *

  An empty dirt road separating bushland walls of banksias with furry yellow flowers that stick out from their branches like hot corncobs spitting butter, and these trees grow beside weeping paperbark shade trees that do their grieving in the open through outbursts of creamy white flowers that look to Molly like Greta Garbo’s eyelashes when they flutter in silver screen distress.

  ‘You ever been in deep country?’ Molly asks, using Bert the shovel as a walking stick.

  ‘Can’t say I have,’ Greta says, her eyes on the growing amount of road dirt flicking up on to her canvas saddle shoes.

  ‘You’re gonna love it,’ Molly says. ‘There’s so many things you can see there. It’s like a different world once you’re really inside it. There’s magic in there, Greta. You can start to see things the way the animals see things.’

  ‘Sounds like you’ve been in deep country many times,’ Greta says.

  ‘Yeah,’ Molly says, marching on. ‘In my head I have.’

  Brute wandering. Molly knows the secret to a long walk. Never think about the destination. Just think about the air in your lungs, the motion of your arms and legs. There is a rhythm to it, and once you have found it that rhythm can tick-tock through time forever. She loves the great riddle of walking. The more you take the more you leave behind: footsteps. And she looks behind her to see her footsteps stretching as far as she can see along the road that winds back through ironbark borders.

  Don’t think of the destination. Think of the red-tailed black cockatoo up there in the stringybark, with
scarlet panels beneath its tail flaps, like fire is fuelling its take-off. And marvel at the way it flies through the sky. It doesn’t fly like falcons and kites fly; instead its wings work hard, like the bird is rowing through the sky, rowing upstream through air.

  ‘Cockatoo,’ Molly points.

  ‘Woo hoo,’ Greta says, slapping a fat mosquito with an abdomen full of her own blood. ‘We any closer to this turn-off?’

  ‘Yep,’ Molly says, but her attention is taken by something resting on the branch of a billygoat plum tree. ‘Stick insect,’ she whispers, approaching the cryptic creature with soft footsteps. The insect is the same straw colour as the branch it rests on. ‘This feller has the most beautiful colouring hidden under his wings,’ Molly says.

  ‘Listen, kid, are you gonna stop and gaze at every little creature you find among the trees?’ Greta replies.

  ‘Just the ones worth gazing at.’ Molly beams then moves closer to the insect. ‘You ever wonder why things are the way they are, Greta?’ she whispers. ‘What if this feller was supposed to be right here on this leaf in this very moment? What if he was put here to remind you and me about something.’

  ‘Like what?’ Greta asks.

  ‘Like how pretty it all really is,’ Molly replies. ‘Who decided that gold would be worth so much, anyway? I’d take this feller over a gold pebble any day of the week.’

  She blows gently on the stick insect, and the lanky creature raises its head and tail and moves its wings to make a hissing sound and that movement reveals its great treasure, its glorious spoils: a vivid pink at the base of its hind wings, a pink so deep and appealing to Molly that it makes her giggle. ‘You’re all right, mate,’ she says. ‘Don’t be scared. This is Greta Maze and I’m Molly Hook. We’re heading deep into your scrub now because I gotta find Longcoat Bob. But don’t worry about us, okay. Greta and me. We’re the good people. We’re the good guys.’

  The insect’s head ducks back down and the creature creeps on along the branch.

  Molly smiles at Greta then returns to the dirt road. ‘Not far now,’ she says.

  *

  A bridge with no guard rails on its sides, stretching twenty feet across the thin freshwater creek running beneath it. The bridge is made of railway sleepers that are permanently wet and rotting. Molly stops in the middle of the bridge and she rests her backside on the edge of a sleeper, letting her legs and her dig boots dangle over the creek. From her duffel bag she pulls her water bag and glugs down four mouthfuls of rusty Darwin tap water, before throwing the bag to Greta, who splashes water across her sweaty face and enjoys a refreshing drink.

  ‘“The longer I stand, the shorter I grow,”’ Molly recites. She opens a small tin of pineapple pieces with a rusted can opener, sucks the syrupy juice down first and lifts the wedges of preserved pineapple to her mouth with grubby fingers.

  Her eyes follow the flow of the creek, which disappears into a tunnel of foliage, where monsoon vines and scrub and weed have woven together to create a perfect cylinder that snakes off into the blackness. That tunnel, Molly thinks, could be just big enough for the old Ghan train to Adelaide to run through.

  ‘They say you can’t see nuthin’ in the daylight further up this creek,’ she says out loud. ‘It gets so dark up there you need a candle to find your way out, even in the daytime.’ Molly looks round at Greta. ‘That’s how it got its name. Candlelight Creek.’ She turns back to the tunnel. ‘“The longer I stand, the shorter I grow,”’ Molly repeats.

  Greta nods her head, something dawning on her. ‘A candle,’ she says.

  Molly nods. ‘Candlelight Creek. The water that leads to the silver road.’

  ‘You plan on walkin’ up there?’ Greta asks.

  ‘That’s the way to the silver road,’ Molly says.

  Greta feels a cold shiver in her bones. ‘It gives me the willies,’ she says, looking deep into the tunnel. ‘You ever been up there?’

  ‘My dad told me never to walk up Candlelight Creek,’ Molly replies.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He said it’s very dangerous.’

  ‘What makes it so dangerous? What’s up there?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Whaddya mean you don’t know?’

  ‘Dad never told me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I was never supposed to go up there so why would he tell me what’s up there?’

  Molly stands and grips Bert the shovel tight as she slides down a steep mossy embankment connected to the side of the bridge which leads to a path running adjacent to Candlelight Creek.

  ‘Maybe we should respect your father’s wishes,’ Greta says, standing nervously at the top of the embankment.

  ‘Silver road’s the only way to your gold,’ Molly says. ‘And wherever that gold is, I reckon Longcoat Bob won’t be too far from it.’

  Greta stares deep into the tunnel of foliage, her bones tingling.

  ‘You got any candles?’ she asks.

  *

  The deep country creaks and moans. Soon the gravedigger girl and the actress are so far up Candlelight Creek they can no longer see where the creek begins or ends. The water is clear, but there’s so little light under the archway foliage that the creek looks black and glassy. The thick monsoon vine forest lining the creek narrows and encloses to a kind of natural and suffocating tube of wild growth, only ten feet wide in some parts. Their feet stepping and sliding over moss-covered bank boulders lining the water. The relentless ear scratch of cicadas. The smell of mud and earth and mangrove.

  Greta’s foot slips on the slimy buttress root of a blush satinash tree and her increasingly damaged saddle shoes land in the shallow left edge of the creek. Gripping the handle end of Bert the shovel, which Molly extends to her, she pulls herself back out.

  ‘Why d’you want to find this Longcoat Bob so bad, anyway?’ Greta asks.

  Molly pauses to think on this. ‘I’m gonna ask him to lift the curse,’ she says.

  Greta takes a moment to get her breath. ‘You know, Molly, there’s such a thing as rotten luck and it’s a fact of life that it lands on some people more regularly than others.’ Another deep breath.

  Molly nods. ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you think we should talk about what happened to your dad back there?’

  Molly turns, looks back up the creek. ‘Nah, I don’t think we need to talk about that.’

  She moves on. Thick jungle now. A closed canopy of palms and ferns and wild weed. Strangler figs germinating in the forks of trees, their aerial roots wrapping round their life-giving hosts and slowly killing them. Vines and climbers merging and turning into suffocating monsters in the dark that seem to whisper to each other. Molly can hear them, talking about the gravedigger girl and all she has seen in her short life and why she’s come so deep into Candlelight Creek, and about her troubled father, the good man and the bad man all at once, wedged into the fork of a tree, his leg blown off and resting by a thunderbox. Poor little gravedigger girl.

  ‘Ya reckon Uncle Aubrey is still alive?’ Molly asks.

  Greta pushing along the creek edge, her hands pulling a spiky fern frond away from her face. ‘I fear it’s gonna take more than a world war to finish off your uncle.’

  ‘Stop,’ Molly says.

  ‘What?’

  Molly frozen stiff. ‘Stop moving,’ she whispers. She stares up along the creek. ‘See up there. Eyes in the water.’

  Greta leans forward to peer further up the creek. She mistakes it for a log at first. Then two milky white eyes blink in the glassy water.

  ‘Shit,’ Greta says.

  The eyes disappear beneath the water and then the eyes reappear, breaking the water closer to Molly and Greta on the creek edge.

  ‘Crocodile,’ Molly whispers. She can see the creature’s body clearly now. Almost twelve feet in length, half of that being its tail. Green-brown scales that shimmer in the water, colours blending like the insides of gemstones; a skin as ancient and earth-born as the old rocks she finds deep b
eneath Hollow Wood Cemetery. A long snout and a thick jaw and rows of bloodstained, conical teeth – teeth for biting into lizards and bats and rats and wallabies and gravedigger girls who step too far out of Darwin. Then a second pair of milky white eyes emerges behind the lead crocodile and then a third pair of eyes emerges beside the second one.

  ‘You see them?’ Greta asks nervously. ‘We need to go back, Molly.’

  ‘Wait,’ Molly says. ‘They’re freshies. Freshwater crocs aren’t like saltwater crocs. They don’t attack like salties. Freshies are more . . .’ – she searches for the right word – ‘graceful.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Greta replies. ‘Graceful? For fuck’s sake, let’s go.’

  ‘Sam says he talks to these fellers,’ Molly says.

  The lead crocodile inflates its body. A warning sign: go back where you came from.

  ‘This is Longcoat Bob doing this,’ Molly says. ‘He sent these fellers to scare us. He doesn’t want us comin’ any further.’

  ‘Mol’, I’m afraid you’re talkin’ bullshit now, kid,’ Greta says. ‘Let’s go back.’

  ‘I’m not talkin’ bullshit,’ Molly says. ‘Didn’t you wonder why all them water buffalo were charging at us like that? Bob sent them for us, too.’

  ‘They were scared of something and they were running from it,’ Greta says. ‘That’s the natural response, you see, Molly, when you’re scared of something, like, oh, I don’t know, say, seeing three adult crocodiles halfway up black-arse Candlelight fucking Creek! Let’s go now, Molly.’

  ‘I’m not going back,’ Molly says. ‘That’s what Longcoat Bob wants. He wants us to scramble at the first sniff of trouble. Nup. Not me. Sorry, Bob.’

  The crocodiles swim closer, their slender bodies snaking stealthily through the water. Molly grips Bert the shovel. Then she talks to the crocodiles. ‘My name’s Molly Hook and this is Greta Maze,’ she says. The three crocodiles pause in the water, all eyes on the humans. ‘Greta’s a gifted actress who’s gonna make it to Hollywood one day. I’m just a girl from Darwin and I’ve come up here lookin’ for Longcoat Bob.’ Molly waits for a response from the crocodiles but they say nothing. ‘The Japs bombed Darwin all to hell.’ She breathes deep, thinks of something else to say. ‘They blew my dad to bits. I found him in a tree. That bomb must have lifted him right up off the ground.’