Wings of the Storm

by JH Fletcher

  That was another key, Cal thought. The relationship between the earth and sky, the weight of the blue immensity pressing down … He could sense the land’s personality: ancient, withdrawn, abiding. People could do to it what they liked and it would make no difference. It knew everything there was to know, everything that would ever be known. It had existed since the beginning and, long after humanity and all its works were gone, it would abide.

  How the hell shall I ever paint this? Cal wondered, awed by the immensity of the task he had set himself. Wondered if it would be sacrilege even to try, to seek what could never be captured, the immense and brooding spirit of the land.

  I have no right.

  The moment passed. Provided I work with reverence …

  Hennie was pointing ahead. ‘There they are.’

  The ranges were very close now: stark, dangerous-looking, enormous after all the flatness they had seen.

  Cal was fascinated by the colours, tried to work out the palette he would need to bring what he was seeing to the canvas. Prussian blue, he thought. No, that’s not quite right. You’ll have to mix it with something, ultramarine, perhaps. And the bronzes, you must get them in. Red and yellow … Burnt sienna, maybe, with a touch of red. And the sky … also blue, but different altogether from the violet and mauve of the mountains.

  And felt excitement at the idea of getting to work.

  To Cal’s eye the clouds were closer than ever but, for the moment, the sun had come out again. It highlighted the rock formations that soared and twisted crazily, the strata fractured here and everywhere into a turmoil of stone. And old … Even from this height, the mountains spoke of the unimaginable aeons through which they had remained.

  Hennie swung the chopper over the middle of the range. Cal stared down. It was like coming through a door into a past that had been old millions of years before the first dinosaur walked the earth.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

  This was what he had come to see, the past from which later pasts, the present and the future, all hung. It was the extra characteristic, what the painters at the beginning of the century had called the fourth dimension. Time, made manifest.

  And the colours … Matisse himself could hardly have imagined such reds and golds and blues. All alive, all blazing in the harsh, yellow sunlight.

  Cal stared down, yearning. Everywhere dark canyons opened like wounds. Some of them looked hundreds of feet deep, yet so narrow that a man would find it hard to make his way along them.

  A gust of wind came, buffeting.

  ‘Want to go down?’

  More than anything he wanted it.

  ‘You sure it’s safe?’

  ‘Safe?’ Hennie was laughing, exultant. Danger was a drug, and he was as high as the stars. ‘Why shouldn’t it be safe?’

  ‘And the weather?’

  Hennie barely squinted at the clouds, repeated what he had said earlier. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll be in and out before you know it.’

  ‘Let’s do it, then.’

  ‘That’s my boy!’

  And down they went.

  On both sides the rock was so close that it was like flying down a chimney. The cliffs amplified the engine noise until it seemed to fill the universe. They drew closer and closer, yet Hennie never hesitated. Hands sure on the controls, eyes laughing, youthful with excitement, he took them down.

  ‘Like Auntie threading a needle …’

  They passed through bands of shadow and into the sun again, the light as fractured as the rocks. Below them the land lay tilted in every direction; Cal could see no level ground at all.

  ‘Where are we going to land?’

  ‘I’ve been here before. I know a place.’

  They were clear of the chimney now. A touch of the controls and they entered a narrow gorge enclosed by high cliffs. There was a narrow creek, the blink of water. Beside the creek, a patch of level sand as white as bone.

  The helicopter hovered, sank. The engine roar shattered the stillness, sent sand and leaves and debris flying. They touched. Cal discovered he had been holding his breath. He relaxed and opened his eyes wide.

  ‘Phew …’

  ‘Made it!’ Hennie, beaming, triumphant. ‘I told you.’

  He killed the engine. Silence, bruised and savaged, returned.

  ‘You haven’t got long,’ Hennie said. ‘Once that cloud gets over the sun, you’ll lose the colour.’

  Cal opened the door, went to climb down.

  ‘Best put your boots on,’ Hennie warned him. ‘It’s rough stuff out there.’

  Cal saw that he was right. Obediently he changed runners for mountain boots, laced them up, dropped to the ground. The air was hot and humid. He could hear nothing but the faint noise of flowing water; above and all around, the ranges held their breath.

  On either side of the creek, gum trees stretched their branches skywards. Further off there were more, leaves forming a mist of green against a wall of brown and purple rock. In the creek the water was brown and clear but, between the pools, its channel disappeared under boulders and clumps of coarse, spear-bladed grass. Along the valley walls the shadows lay dark, velvet-soft, the trunks of gums as pallid as ghosts. Everywhere lay shattered rock, like the debris of a cosmic explosion.

  Notebook in hand, eyes devouring everything, Cal clambered over the rocks, feeling the texture of the trees, the grass, the air. His mind buzzed with colour, and everywhere he could sense distance, not of kilometres but of centuries, of tens of thousands of centuries. Time bound the rocks, trees, water, himself, into one universal silence.

  Ahead of him the gorge twisted out of sight between towering cliffs of gold and purple and a dark brown flushed with rose. He was hungry to see what lay beyond the turn but, before he could get there, the sunlight went out and the colours vanished. Now everything was a uniform and ominous grey.

  Behind him Hennie was shouting. ‘Time to go!’

  Cal turned. He had come a lot further than he’d intended. Overhead the clouds had arrived, hanging so low that they seemed almost to brush the tops of the hills.

  Hennie gestured. ‘Come on!’ There was urgency in his voice, this man who normally was troubled by nothing.

  Cal went back as fast as he could, splashing through the shallow pools, hopping from rock to rock.

  By the time he got back, Hennie was aboard, eyes watching the clouds, from which a few warm drops were already beginning to fall.

  Cal joined him, panting, and hauled up the door behind him.

  Hennie said, ‘Let’s get out of here …’

  And fired the engine.

  The rain was falling steadily now, still manageable, but definitely much harder than before.

  Hennie ran up the revs, the concussion of the rotors beating furiously against their ears even inside the cabin. They settled themselves securely in their seats, tightened their belts and Hennie took them up.

  Back along the valley, dark and sombre now in the rain. Around the corner and into the space between the rock walls down which they had come like a lift down a shaft. They hovered momentarily so that Hennie could orientate himself, then up they went, not fast, not recklessly, but gaining height with every second. Cal watched the ground fall away beneath them. Twenty feet, forty, fifty.

  The rain came in a concussion of pearl-grey water that wiped out visibility in an instant. It was as though they had flown into a waterfall.

  The combined noise of rain and engine was indescribable.

  ‘Watch out your side,’ Hennie screamed. ‘Tell me if we get too close.’

  Cal did so but could see virtually nothing, only water and, intermittently, the dark and streaming wall of the gorge. Now wind came with the rain, flinging them to and fro. The cliff swung close. Cal opened his mouth to shout a warning, shut it again as the next moment took them away again. Away and back, away and, sickeningly, back once more.

  ‘Watch out! You’re going to hit it!’

  Hennie was screaming brilliant blue oat
hs as he wrestled with the controls. The wind thrashed them, howling; the rain redoubled its fury. Now Cal could see clearly the interstices of the rock, the rain cascading down every cranny. He shut his eyes as again the chopper lurched closer.

  He felt the blow, gentle at first, then violent. The machine swung around, crashed again and then again against the rock face. The engine screamed, climbing the octaves as the rotors broke, then cut out as it seized. The helicopter fell, smashing and bouncing against the wall, landing in a final crash of metal and the stench of fuel at the bottom of the cliff.

  ELEVEN

  He was alive, just. He tried to seize hold of that idea: alive, just, but could not come to grips with it. Between one instant and the next, all movement had ceased, violently; the howling cacophony of sound had ceased, yet still he was alive. Miraculously, they had landed upright; he was still in his seat. He felt pain where the straps had bitten into his shoulders but welcomed it, evidence of the miracle.

  He turned to look at Hennie. The pilot was lolling in his harness. His hands were still on the controls but he was out, a livid mark on his forehead showing where, despite the harness, he had struck his head.

  The stench of leaking fuel, pungent, potentially lethal, brought him back to reality. He remembered Hennie showing off his new toy, chortling.

  They got only one problem. One of these mothers hits the deck, you’re toast.

  Panic. He wrestled with his harness, managed to unclip it. He tried to open the hatch. It wouldn’t budge. Cursing, he raised his feet — thank God he was still wearing boots — and lashed out with all his strength. Once. Twice. The hatch flew back. He turned, unclipped Hennie’s harness and tried to drag him clear. He would not come. Cursing, sweat pouring, Cal hunted, found that one of Hennie’s feet was jammed under the controls. He managed to push himself down, head first, to reach the pedals, twisting and wrenching frantically until the foot was free. He worked his way out again, dragged Hennie clear by the shoulders and let him drop to the ground.

  The death reek of spilled fuel was everywhere.

  With the strength of terror, he tossed Hennie’s body over his shoulder. Half-running, half-staggering, he put distance between himself and the wreck.

  Suddenly, a thought.

  He dropped Hennie, sprinted back to the helicopter, grabbed the two water bottles with trembling hands and got out again, running full-pelt. He was halfway back to the pilot when the chopper blew. There was a dull thud. In the same instant, the shock wave hit him squarely in the back. He was flat on his face upon the broken scree of the valley floor, no idea how he’d got there. He rolled over in time to see the fireball, orange and red and black, cascading skywards. Flame bellowed.

  He lay, poleaxed by heat, shock, the expiring scream of adrenalin through his veins. So easily they might have been inside. Had he been knocked out, too …

  But he had not.

  He staggered to his feet. Hennie was crumpled on the ground a hundred metres away. He, too, was alive. They had water in the bottles, in the creek. They would have a deal of walking to do, but it wasn’t the end of the world.

  Not that they had much to feel cheerful about, either. He had seen from the chopper what the ranges looked like. Hennie had called it harsh country. It was certainly that. They had no food, the heat was savage, they were an unknown distance from aid.

  Now the real struggle would begin.

  Suddenly, between dream and dawning, Kathryn was awake.

  Her heart was pounding. She lay tense, listening. The morning’s immaculate stillness was accentuated rather than broken by the distant crying of the sheep.

  Something was wrong.

  Her heart told her, the uneasy flooding of her blood. That damned second sight again … She got out of bed, pulled on a robe, walked outside. It was half-past seven, the sun well clear of the horizon. It would be warm later but, for the moment, a cool breeze blew from the east. She turned her head, staring northwards. Out there, there would be no cooling breeze, only immensity and silence, the indifference of fearsome heat.

  She sent her thoughts, the delicate tendrils of her instinct, winging into the vastness. What had woken her, she who never woke until she was ready? A scent of roses wafted on the breeze. There was nothing, she told herself. Go back to bed.

  But could not. She walked to the end of the verandah, came back; walked slowly around the tennis court, came back.

  Foolish how they continued to call it that, she thought. No one had played on it for years. The net posts and netting were rotten now, all that remained of her childhood’s energy and sweat, the rosy flesh shining, the cries of triumph and despair. The tennis court, she thought. What relevance does it have? What relevance do I have?

  She walked round and round the earth rectangle, while the wind stirred the fig tree’s brittle leaves. She could not settle, forced herself eventually to sit in one of the verandah chairs, pitting her will against the nervous fluttering of her stomach. Waited for the sunlight, gathering heat with every minute, to dispel the forebodings of the dawn.

  It is so still, she thought, yet in reality we are rushing through space. The scientists say that if the earth stopped, we would all fly into the void. As Cal has flown into the void. Yet is so close I can feel his breath, the warmth of his presence. This instant he is beside me. When I turn my head, he smiles.

  Our lives are like a journey. One of many we might have taken, might indeed be taking; other lives beneath the skin of this life. In those other lives, I might already be dead, I might be married to Charles, I might be a man. Or a star.

  As it is … I am myself. Am Cal, too. I am the dawn that separates and unites us. We have travelled far together and shall go further; upon this verandah, in the morning light, in the Outback’s silence. Because for us there can be no isolation, neither now nor in the future, in this life or all the other lives. Our spirits touch. I am with him to the ending, not of this world, but of all worlds.

  If forever means what it says, then that is where we shall be. In another of our lives we were one, now are one again. Which is why I know without knowledge, am certain without evidence. My flesh and spirit know it. In the vastness beyond the northern horizon, something is wrong.

  Time passed. And passed.

  Her heartbeat was quieter now, resigned to whatever had woken her. Whatever it was, this was also part of the whole.

  Footsteps inside the house. Her father. Now that reaping was over, Claude Fanning had been catching up on his sleep. Water ran. Floorboards creaked. He went out the back, towards the sheds. She heard the diminishing sound of the ute as he drove away along the track to the upper paddocks.

  It was five to eight. She went indoors, as though going to an appointment. She switched on the radio, listened to the news, awaiting the inevitable.

  Nothing.

  There was no comfort in it. All it meant was that the authorities were still unaware. She alone knew, and would wait, not for unneeded confirmation, but because she could do nothing else.

  Now the radio was playing classical music. She turned it off and went back to her bedroom. She closed the door behind her, lay upon the bed. Her eyes watched the ceiling. And beyond.

  ‘The beacon,’ Hennie muttered, over and over. ‘That’ll bring them in.’

  He had been out for almost half an hour; now, three hours later, his voice was still slurred, as though his teeth were loose in his mouth. The bruise covered half his forehead, to remind them both what a hell of a smack it had been.

  Cal had half-carried, half-dragged him to the patch of sand where the helicopter had landed when they had first come here. He had bathed his head, made him as comfortable as he could, waited. As soon as Hennie came to, he had started talking about the beacon that every aircraft carried, how it would bring the searchers to them amid these tangled hills.

  Cal knew there was no beacon, no signal. The helicopter was now a heap of grey metal, radiating heat in vicious little spurts of flame. Neither the beacon nor anything e
lse would have survived the fire. He said nothing. Let Hennie go on kidding himself a little longer; time enough for the truth when he’d regained his strength.

  There would be searchers, certainly. When they were logged overdue, Moomba would send an aircraft to look for them, but in this valley they were not only far off course but virtually invisible from the air. There was no realistic hope of anyone finding them. The authorities might decide to send a ground party, but Cal doubted it very much. After the rain, as Hennie was always saying, the ground would be like glue. Besides, the Gammon Ranges covered a vast area; no-one was going to find them here except by luck.

  Cal believed in making his own luck. Sitting here on the million-to-one chance that someone might stumble on them made no sense at all. The accepted wisdom was that you never, never, left your vehicle after an accident, but this was one occasion when, as far as Cal could see, they had no choice.

  Though how they were going to set about things, without food or map or compass and with one man injured, he had no idea. Hennie had lived in the Outback for years; perhaps, when he’d had a chance to recover, he might have some suggestions. For now, he was sleeping. As far as Cal could tell, it was good sleep. When he awoke they would decide what had to be done. At least they had water.

  The day dragged past. Hennie still slept. Cal walked to where the gorge made its left-hand turn. The going looked terribly rough.

  Towards evening he thought he heard the faint sound of an aircraft, but the hills enclosed them as tight as a fist and he could see nothing. Not that it would have helped; they were too far away. Even if the plane had flown directly overhead, Cal doubted it would have seen them. Eventually the sound, so faint that Cal could not be sure he’d heard it at all, died away.