The Crocodile Nest

by Des Hunt

  ‘What should I call you?’

  ‘Ham, of course. Everyone else does.’ Then his eyes twinkled. ‘For God’s sake, don’t call me Dad or you’ll scare all the women away. They’ll think I’m old.’

  ‘You are!’

  A chuckle. ‘Yeah, but don’t tell anyone.’

  The conversation continued in this vein, mostly talk about Australia and what it was like living here. Nothing of consequence was said. Alice was never mentioned, nor why Ham had avoided his responsibilities for so many years. Neither of them was ready for a discussion that cut too deeply below the surface. It was still not clear whether they ever would be.

  After the meal, Ham took Luke through the forest to his room. They passed a dozen or so chalets scattered amongst the trees before reaching the staff accommodation.

  ‘We’ve got a full staff quota at the moment,’ explained Ham, ‘so I’ve organized the old caretaker’s place for you. He moved in with a widow up the road a couple of months back. But before we go there, though, there’s a couple of fellas I want you to meet.’

  He led the way off the formed path into an area where there was more undergrowth, with vines climbing up the trees.

  ‘Watch that stuff there,’ said Ham, pointing to a vine with spines on the stems. ‘You get caught up in that and it’ll take some time to get free. That’s why it’s called wait-a-while.’ He chuckled. ‘There’s another one with longer spines called Hairy Mary. Then there’s the strangling fig, which you’ll see in a moment. You’ll find that Aussies have interesting names for lots of things.’

  Fifty metres into the forest, they reached their destination—a cage built around a huge tree. The trunk seemed to be made up of a whole lot of thick vines. The middle was hollow as if there might have been another tree that had rotted away. This had to be the strangling fig.

  Before they got to the wire, two dogs leapt out from under the tree.

  ‘Meet Spock and Kirk,’ said Ham, ‘my two pig dogs.’

  Kirk was a brown colour with flecks of white, whereas Spock had more black, with white paws and big ears. Both were highly excited.

  ‘Are they friendly?’ asked Luke.

  ‘Towards humans, they are. But to a pig, they’re not. You’ll see.’

  ‘Can I exercise them?’

  ‘Yeah, they’d love that. They’ll run all over the place to begin with, but they’ll soon settle down. Take them out the back way so that they don’t disturb the guests. Here, I’ll show you the way.’

  They took another bit of a track that soon opened into a clearing containing a garage-sized building. Attached to one side was a lean-to.

  ‘This is your room,’ said Ham, opening the door.

  The room had the smell of recent cleaning. Everything was neat, not that there was much to be untidy: a bed, a dresser and an ancient sofa. Through a door were a shower, washbasin and toilet. It was hardly five-star, but it would do.

  ‘You can thank Ellie that it’s so tidy, but from now on you’ll have to keep it in order.’

  ‘OK,’ said Luke.

  ‘Also,’ continued Ham, ‘Andy will still need to use the bathroom. Andy McKenzie. He’s the caretaker. That’s his workshop alongside. He’s up in Cooktown today, but you’ll soon recognize him when he gets back. He’s over two metres tall with wiry grey hair. You should get on well with him. If you want to know anything about the forest, ask Andy. He knows everything.’

  Luke nodded.

  For a while they stood looking around the room until the silence became embarrassing.

  ‘Look,’ said Ham, ‘I’ll let you get settled in. I usually have a bit of a nap in the afternoons. I start pretty early in the mornings. Let’s say I’ll meet you up at The Nest about five, eh?’

  ‘The Nest?’

  ‘The building with the restaurant. We call it The Nest.’ At the door, Ham turned and said, ‘You can have a swim in the pool if you want. Just make sure you keep the gate closed.’ Then he was gone.

  Luke wasn’t sure whether he wanted a swim or not. Probably a look around Cape Tribulation would be best. He lay down on the bed to test the mattress and have a bit of a think.

  The mattress was pretty comfortable, with only a few hard spots. Much the same as his thoughts. Ham seemed like an OK sort of guy. Perhaps a little quiet, but that was better than being a loudmouth. Luke was beginning to like him. Which would make it all the more difficult to confront him about the scam—something that had to happen fairly soon.

  Chapter 15

  It was almost four when Luke awoke, surprised that he’d drifted off so easily. After a quick shower, he was ready for a bit of exploration.

  The workshop door was locked, so he couldn’t have a nosy in there. A metalled drive formed a tunnel through the forest in the direction of the road. That would be the way Ham wanted the dogs taken out, but before doing that Luke wanted to have a look around The Nest. In particular he wanted to check out if there were any computers that the guests or staff could use.

  He found them in the games room. Six computer stations, along with a table-soccer game, a couple of chessboards on coffee tables, and bookshelves filled with old, dog-eared paperbacks. The computers stood out as the only things that looked less than twenty years old. Each was showing a screensaver that cycled through photos of the Cape Tribulation area—the same images that Ham had sent with his first email.

  Luke chose a station and moved the mouse. The screensaver was replaced with a message:

  For access, insert credit card in the card reader, followed by your PIN on the keypad.

  Charges: $2 for first half-hour; each subsequent half-hour $1.

  Beside the screen was the card reader.

  The charge was cheap enough, but out of reach for Luke, as he didn’t have a credit card. Maybe the office would have some special cards. He’d need something, because he didn’t want to spend his holiday without access to computers.

  It turned out they didn’t have special cards for guests, although Ellie said that staff did have cards that gave them free access. She suggested that Luke ask Ham about using his.

  With nothing better to do, Luke decided to take a walk with the dogs.

  Kirk and Spock screamed around excitedly for the first couple of minutes, before settling down to a sniffing routine. Luke experimented with calling them, and was impressed with their instant response. He commanded them to heel, and, to his amazement, that’s what they did. So he tried ‘sit’, and discovered that worked, too. Spock seemed to be the older of the two, and was happy to trot alongside Luke, whereas Kirk did everything at speed, even peeing in a hyper way.

  Walking down the side road, Luke found that there were other places set into the forest, all designed to blend in without disrupting the trees too much. A travel brochure he’d read back in Cairns said that in the 1970s, Cape Tribulation had been a place for hippies. Apparently the popular activities had been growing and smoking marijuana, followed by running around nude on the beach. Luke could imagine the marijuana bit, as there were many similarities between this place and the Three-oh-nine.

  He found the beach, but there were no nudes. A few people were lying on the sand trying to get the last of the sun. Nobody was swimming, even though the water looked inviting. Maybe they’d taken heed of the signs he’d passed that warned of stingers in the water.

  A short walk along the beach took him to a small estuary where he found an even better reason for not swimming. It was a crocodile-warning sign similar to the one he’d seen in Cairns. Kirk took off for the water and was immersed before Luke had a chance to respond.

  ‘Kirk!’ he screamed.

  The dog shot him an I-can’t-hear-you look before walking into deeper water.

  ‘Kirk! Come here!’

  This time Kirk hung his head, before turning and slowly walking to the shore. Luke sat them both down and explained about Cooper the crocodile—the one that ate dogs. Spock seemed suitably impressed, but Kirk kept looking at the water as if saying, ‘OK, so w
here is he?’ He even looked excited at the prospect of tangling with a crocodile.

  After that, they walked back home along the main road. Halfway along, there was another warning sign. This one was just a printed note stuck to a post. A cassowary had been sighted in the area recently, and people were warned to keep clear as the birds could attack if frightened. It said a cassowary could stand as tall as a human and weigh over sixty kilos. They used their clawed toes as weapons, jumping and kicking with both feet at once.

  It sounded scary, but the bird was nowhere to be seen. Spock picked up a scent, which they followed along a track for a while without seeing any trace of the animal. Luke smiled to himself. These notices sure got you interested in what you might find in the area. So much so that he was beginning to suspect that they were put there just to wind up the tourists.

  It was well after five when Luke walked into The Nest. Ham was drinking at the bar with a man who looked vaguely familiar. Ham looked up and saw Luke. It took him a moment to register what he was seeing, almost as if he’d forgotten he had a son.

  ‘Luke! Luke! Wondered where you’d got to. Pull up a chair.’ It was clear that the beer in his hand was not the first.

  ‘I took a walk along the beach.’

  ‘Did you see the cassowary?’ asked the other man. His voice seemed accented, but it could have been the effect of the alcohol.

  ‘No, but I saw the sign.’

  ‘It was there this morning. I saw it walk along the road.’

  ‘The main road?’

  ‘Yes. They quite often come out of the trees.’

  Luke smiled. ‘I thought the locals just put up the sign to keep the tourists interested.’

  ‘No!’ replied the man. ‘It is more serious than that. They can attack people.’

  The accent was clearer now: precise, as if English had been learnt in a classroom.

  ‘Not very often, Chizza,’ said Ham. ‘They’re more likely to run away than attack.’

  The man shook his head. ‘I would not trust them. They are much too big for me.’

  Ham chuckled and turned to Luke. ‘Luke, this is Dominik Chisca. But only his enemies and the tax department call him Dominik. Everyone else calls him Chizza.’

  Chizza moved behind Ham and stuck a hand out. ‘Good to meet you, Luke.’

  They shook. He was a dark, powerful man, with arms as thick as his legs. A short neck supported a head that seemed too small for his body. There was no hair: what hadn’t fallen out had been shaved to disguise the baldness. He had a grip to match his frame, and used it to crush Luke’s hand, only releasing it when Luke grimaced with pain.

  ‘Chizza’s the one who took that photo you used to identify me,’ said Ham, unaware of what had happened behind his back. ‘You can thank him for your finding me.’

  Now Luke could place the man: he was the one posing with the pigs on the back of the ute.

  ‘He’s a pig hunter, too. Well, sort of.’

  Chizza smiled. ‘Yes, but not like Ham. I use a gun—he uses a knife. I like them to be dead before I touch them.’

  ‘We were thinking of going out tomorrow,’ said Ham. ‘You want to come?’

  Luke was still recovering from the hand-crush. ‘Yeah. I suppose so.’

  Ham turned to him. ‘I thought that’s what you wanted.’

  ‘Yeah, it is.’

  ‘Well, you could show a bit more enthusiasm. You don’t have to come if you don’t want to.’

  ‘I want to come.’ A pause. ‘It’s just that I wasn’t expecting it to happen so soon.’

  Ham looked at him for a moment longer, before turning and emptying the beer in his glass. He turned to Chizza. ‘OK. Are we out of here?’

  ‘No!’ said Chizza. ‘There is plenty of time.’ He drained his glass. ‘It is your turn.’

  For a moment it looked as though Ham would argue. Instead, he turned to Luke. ‘Look, we’re going to be here a while, but we’re going over to the Reef Sands Resort for a meal later. Why don’t you go and put on something warmer, as it gets cold pretty quickly at this time of year? Have a look around the place and meet us back here in an hour, eh?’

  Luke had looked around most of the place already, but he was pleased to get away from Chizza. He couldn’t understand why the man would want to hurt him. Or maybe he did it to everyone he met, just so they knew not to mess with him. Well, the message had got through. Already Luke didn’t like Dominik Chisca, nor that he was coming on the pig hunt.

  It was already dark out, and the paths were now lit by coloured lights. After getting a sweatshirt from his room, Luke went looking for the swimming pool that Ham had mentioned. He found it on the other side of The Nest. Flaming torches had been lit at the sides of the gate, which, with the background of lush vegetation, gave it a very tropical look.

  Inside was not well lit, but Luke figured this was meant to give the place a romantic touch. Around the pool were doublesized loungers so that lovers could enjoy all the delights of the tropical paradise. Not that there were any lovers, nor anybody else. Perhaps the water was too cold.

  He went to the edge, knelt, and dipped his hand into the water. It wasn’t too bad at all. He’d swum in much colder stuff up the Three-oh-nine.

  Then out of the corner of his eye, something moved. He turned towards it, and a moment later was scrambling back from the edge.

  ‘Shit!’ he cried.

  It was a crocodile, slowly gliding towards where his hand had been in the water just a moment before. Its eyes were glowing orange in the light from the flaming torches. Luke stood and backed away towards the gate, scared that the thing would come out after him. Seeing a crocodile without bars in front of it was not as fascinating as he’d anticipated. It was downright terrifying!

  Then as he watched, the eyes dimmed and the movement slowed, until the animal was just drifting in the swirl created by the filter pump.

  That was strange: why would it back off like that? Something was not quite right here.

  Cautiously, Luke moved back to the edge of the pool and stood looking at the thing. Nothing happened. It continued to float off into the shadows at the other end of the pool.

  He waved his arms around. Immediately, the crocodile turned and began swimming towards him. When it got closer, its eyes lit up. Luke waited, standing motionless, hoping he’d got it right. He had. Before it bumped into the edge, the eyes went out and it began drifting.

  Luke reached out and grabbed it by the tail. The eyes lit up and the thing tried to pull away. As he lifted it from the surface, a churning propeller began spraying water everywhere. He chuckled to himself: he’d been right—the crocodile was a robot.

  Closer examination revealed a movement sensor which controlled when it came on and what direction it moved in. Power came from solar panels along its back, done up to look like scales. No doubt it lay dormant during the day, charging itself, so that it could terrify people at night. Well, it could certainly do that—Luke’s heart was still beating faster than normal.

  They rode in Chizza’s flash new twin-cab ute, which for some reason he called a truck. They could have walked, but clearly Chizza liked showing off the thing. Most of Cape Tribulation would have heard it roaring the short distance back along the main road towards Cairns. It sounded like some of the vehicles that went drift racing up the Three-oh-nine. But back there the vehicles were driven by young people, not forty-something men.

  Reef Sands Resort was where Beth and Lora were staying, although they didn’t seem to be around as the two men marched up to the bar. The barmaid gave them a big smile and began pouring their beers—obviously they were well known in the place.

  Luke ordered a cola and sat listening to the two men argue about who was going to win the State of Origin game in Brisbane in two days’ time. It sounded like an argument that could go on all night. He needed to find something to fill in the time. Maybe Lora and Beth were in the dining room.

  He didn’t find the women, but he did find a computer alcove at t
he back of the bar. Two computers were in use, with a third one showing the same screensaver he’d seen at The Nest. Hoping they might have free access, he pressed the space-bar only to be asked for his access key. The text below said that in-house guests could obtain a code from the desk. Yet another set of computers he couldn’t use.

  Back at the bar, he found Ham sitting by himself.

  ‘What you been up to?’ asked Ham.

  ‘Trying to find a computer to use.’

  ‘Use the ones back at The Nest.’

  ‘I can’t—I don’t have a credit card.’

  ‘You need a staff card then. We’ll get Chizza to give you one.’

  ‘Is he in charge of them?’

  ‘Yeah. He’s the local computer geek. Looks after the computers at a lot of the places.’

  Luke was processing this information when the man returned to his seat, and immediately drained his glass. ‘Your turn to buy.’

  Ham peered at his watch. ‘Shouldn’t we go through and eat?’

  ‘No! We have another round. Then we go.’

  Ham accepted that with a shrug, and once again Luke was forgotten. He went through to the dining room, and this time did find Lora and Beth. They greeted him as if they hadn’t seen one another for days.

  Over the next half-hour, Luke got the rundown on their afternoon. Beth had hired a small electric car called a Reva. It was a convertible, and, while it couldn’t go very fast or far, it was perfect for visiting the local tourist places. Already they’d visited two beaches, three shops, one café, and a place that had a tame flying fox. However, their biggest story was seeing a cassowary. Not down by the beach where the sign had been, but in a sort of swamp alongside the main road. Lora even had a photo of it, which, if you looked carefully, did show some red and purple colours amongst the dark foliage.

  They’d just started telling him about their plans for the next day when Ham and Chizza came through from the bar. Luke made the introductions, and then sat embarrassed by the drunken performance of his father, who spoke too loudly, was being too friendly, and had trouble standing upright.