by Nick Carter
As we continued to fly deeper into the outback at jet speed, I knew that we'd covered damn near six hundred miles already, and I wondered how the men could move in and out of Townsville so frequently if their ranch was way the hell out here in nowhere.
"Dempster," I called. "Are you sure you haven't overshot the place?" The pilot turned to look at me and I saw his hand reach out to the instrument board. Too late, I saw his finger come down on the ejector button. I felt myself being hurtled, seat and all, out of the plane. I went upwards with the tremendous force of the ejection mechanism and then, all in a matter of seconds, I felt the tug of the parachute opening up. As I floated down, the jet was a small streak receding in the distance. I'd been suckered in. They had gotten to Dempster another way, no doubt convincing him that to get rid of me was the only really safe move. The chute swayed a moment, then dropped me gently onto the dry soil.
The jet was out of sight as I unsnapped the harness that had me strapped to the chute lines. I let it fall to the ground and lay there — a silken shroud. I quickly pulled the flight suit from me. I'd only been down a minute and I was already feeling like a boiled lobster in it I gazed around and saw empty space, as far as the eye could see, dry land, parched soil. And there was silence — the silence of a tomb, unearthly, unbroken. I tossed a coin and started walking toward what I thought might be east. I'd walked perhaps twenty minutes when I took off my clothes, stripping down to shorts and my shirt, which I tied around my waist Thinking about Dempster made me forget my plight for a little while. He'd no doubt crash the plane somewhere and go into hiding. Or his flight schedule had been already laid out for him. In any case, he wouldn't be around. I'd kept them from killing him like the others, only to have him turn the tables on me.
The sun burned into me and though I kept walking, I could feel the enervating effects of the unfiltered rays. Soon I was dropping to one knee every little while and resting. I began to take a realistic look at my position. It was a lot worse than I admitted to myself then. I'd only been on the desert land for a little while. I had plenty of optimism and hope left. I decided that the only was to keep walking in as straight a line as I could manage. I'd come to something, sooner or later. And I did. More space.
My throat was starting to dry up and I knew what that meant. Thirst would be worse than hunger, especially out here, but they'd made me a candidate for both of them. As the day wore on, I began to feel dried out. Not only my throat but my body felt dry, baked. I began to walk in short spurts, resting between each one to conserve strength. But I knew that distance and strength weren't the real problem. It was the sun, relentlessly, unyielding, drying me out, withering, sapping all energy — the life-giving sun that was giving death.
By the end of the day my mouth was dry cotton wadding and I'd used up all of my own saliva. My stomach was starting to cramp up and I welcomed the night that covered the sun. The coolness was a form of relief, the millions of stars overhead, somehow a form of hope. I found a small hollow of hard soil and stretched out on it. Sleep was not hard to come by. It drifted over me gently, as though it were a dress rehearsal for death.
I woke up in bright sun, hot and burning, and found my lips cracked and painful. Standing up took an effort. My throat was raw — crying for water — and my stomach was still cramped with hunger. But I moved on to nowhere, in a land that was a huge, burning bush and I an insect on that bush. Only the bush was the arid land, with not even a cactus to break for its precious fluid.
I had kept some track of hours, but as my eyes ached more and more, time became a meaningless nothing, like everything else. By the afternoon, I no longer walked. I crawled along the ground in small moments of energy. The pain in my stomach was a constant, dull ache now, and my throat was swollen and raw. I could have gone much longer without water, certainly without food, if it were not for the relentless sun. But I was being dried away, little by little, and I knew that if I found no relief, I'd soon be as the dust, blown away by the first wind. I had reached a point where anger began to seize me, anger at the unseen foe that I couldn't fight. I staggered to my feet again, fed by the adrenalin inside me, lurched forward like a drunk and then fell. The process was repeated until I had no more anger and no more strength. When night came, I hadn't moved in hours. The night wind stirred me and I opened my mouth to it, hoping it would blow something wet into it. But there was nothing — and I fell back and lay spread-eagled on the ground.
I no longer knew if another day came, or two days, or three. I only knew there was the sun and my aching body, my mind hardly able to think any longer, my eyes barely able to focus. I was crawling along the ground when I raised my head, a major effort now, and strange shapes swam in front of my eyes. I squinted and pressed my hands against my pupils, squeezing out a few drops of lubricating fluid. I finally focused and saw a clump of trees, the short, zig-zag trunked tree the Australians call the Gidgee. My mind thought in slow motion but I realized that no tree lives without water some place. Yet to dig down to where there might be underground water to nourish the roots was as impossible as it would be to climb to the moon. The soil was hard as rock, dried clay, as unyielding as the sun above it.
But then I saw other shapes, some motionless, others moving in long jumps. Kangaroos, the big gray variety, grouped under the Gidgee trees. They would need water to survive. They would lead me to water. I crawled forward. But the mind, distorted by thirst and sun, functions like a short-circuited system, giving off sparks in the wrong places, sending electrical currents through the wrong wires. I inched forward like some hungry wolf, drawing closer to the kangaroos. Dimly, I remembered that the kangaroos had a kick that could kill a man. I had to watch out for those huge back legs and feet. Inching still closer, I rose up on my haunches and stayed motionless.
The kangaroo is a curious beast and finally two of them hopped toward me cautiously. A big male came closest and, with my sun-baked mind intent on the impossible, I waited. When he hopped still closer, I leaped with the strength borne of desperation. I landed on his back, wrapping my arms around his neck, my legs around his back like a big jockey on a strange steed. The big 'roo, as the Australians call the animals, took off in a gigantic bound. He landed and I lost my grip. He leaped again and I went sailing off into the air to come down on the hard, dry ground with a tremendous crash. It would have been a doubtful move in possession of all my strength and wits. In my present state, it was a piece of pure foolishness — the result of my tortured, distorted mind.
I lay there and felt the sun drift away as everything closed in on me, a blanket of grayness deepening into a void of nothingness. I lay still, unfeeling, uncaring, and the world stopped for me.
V
I felt the wetness as though it were coming from some distant world. I was no longer a part of it. And yet it was calling to me, beckoning me through the senses. The dried, stiffened, sunbaked muscles of my eyes moved and my eyelids fluttered, finally opening on a blurred world of fuzzy shapes. Again I felt the wetness, this time cool and soothing against my eyes. Slowly, the fuzzy shapes began to sort themselves out and I saw heads looking down at me. I tried to raise my head but the effort was too much and I opened my mouth, gasping, like a fish out of water. I felt the cool wetness dripping into my mouth, trickling down my throat and suddenly it came to me. I was alive. 1 swallowed and more water trickled down through the swollen, raw lining of my throat.
I looked up at the faces again. Some were brown, some beige, some had dark, wavy hair, one old man had hair that was almost blond. They had wide noses and fine lips, weathered eyes. Strong but gentle hands were helping me to sit up, and I saw old women in tattered shirts and young naked girls, with small breasts already hanging low. The men were fine boned mostly, none too large. I knew who they were, but they couldn't say the same about me. I was a human being they'd found near death, alone, without water or food, on this severe, unrelenting land — their land, the land of the Australian aborigine. They were a distinct people, these aborigines, anthrop
ologically and racially, probably the oldest race of nomadic tribesmen in the world. Their origins still shrouded in the dim mists of history, they lived on in the vast Australian outback, some rubbing shoulders with civilization, others remote as their ancestors were a thousand years ago.
I looked around. They had carried me to their village, if it could be called a village. It was little more than a collection of cloths hung on poles around which a family or a group gathered in small knots. But the effort of looking around was exhausting and I fell back upon the ground. I felt damp cloths being wrapped around my blistered skin and I went to sleep.
It was probably hours later when I woke to see an old man on his haunches beside me and a small campfire burning low. He took a clay bowl from the fire and gestured for me to sit up and drink. The liquid, whatever it was, had a sharp, almost bitter taste to it, but I got it down and I could feel it inside me, warming, the way good bourbon makes your body tingle.
I lay on my side and watched the old man as he worked on a boomerang with crude tools. A spear and a woomera, a device for throwing the spear, lay on the ground beside him. I watched him for a while and then fell asleep again. It was night when I woke and the land was dotted by small campfires. My throat felt better and my strength a returning. A young girl came over to me holding the leg of a bird, a huge leg that could only have come from an emu, the giant flightless bird related to the ostrich, I ate it slowly — it had a strong but not unpleasant flavor. I realized, of course, that a piece of rawhide would probably have a not unpleasant flavor to me at the time. I was still quick to tire and I fell asleep again after eating. But in the morning, I managed to get up, a little shaky at first, but able to walk. I towered over most of the aborigines but here, in this, their land, I was a pretty helpless giant. We could not communicate in words, but I learned how effective the use of signs and gestures could be.
One of the men told me they were going on a hunt for food. I said I'd like to come along. I had Wilhelmina slung around my shoulder but I didn't want to use the gun if I didn't have to. I didn't know whether these primitive people had had any experience with firearms. The nomadic aborigines, different in so many ways from most primitive peoples, were also unique in that they were not at all warlike. They hunted to live and moved about constantly on what some tribes, familiar with the white man's tongue, called the "walkabout." Two young men, an old fellow with a gray beard and straight, silver-blond hair and myself made up the hunting party. I didn't see a damn thing to hunt on the open plains, but I learned, once again, a fact I had known but almost forgotten. Seeing is more a matter of knowing what to look for than anything else. We moved slowly along the dry bed of a stream and they paused to point out tracks to me, and then, by gesture, described the animals that had made them. I saw snake, wallaby, kangaroo, lizard and emu. And I learned that to the aborigine, the tracks were not just marks left in the soil but each one was a picture story. They would study a track and decide whether the animal was moving slowly or quickly, whether he was young or old, how long ago he'd passed this way.
Primitive people, I asked myself? Yes, in a big city, around mechanical devices they knew nothing about. But I was the primitive here. They decided to go after a lizard who, by their calculations, had passed only recently. With the old man doing the tracking, we caught up to the lizard, a big fellow with a vicious set of claws. The hunters speared him quickly and we carried him back to the others. A fire cooked the reptile and once more I found myself enjoying food I'd have rebelled against at any other time.
In the days that went by I lived with the aborigines, moved with them and went along to hunt with them. Little by little my muscle tone rebounded, and the blistered skin of my body returned to normal. My strength was almost fully regained, and one morning I began to try to tell them that I had to leave, to return to civilization. Somehow, I got it across — with the fact that I didn't have the faintest idea of how to get back. I knew if I struck out blindly, I'd probably end up in the same fix I was in when I was catapulted out of the plane. I didn't think I could survive a second time — not so soon, anyway.
The old man spoke to two of the younger ones and they came up to stand beside me. I wanted to say thanks for saving my life but how the hell do you say that in sign language? I'd seen little in the way of affectionate gestures among these nomads, but I fell back on the bow, low and sweeping, with hands folded before me. I think they understood. They nodded and grinned anyway.
The two young men started to trot off and I followed. They moved along still damp gulleys where their feet stayed cool. They took advantage of the shadowed side of a slope, no matter how slight the slope. And at night, we always had some meat to cook by the fire. Then one morning, they halted and pointed along a low rise on the dry, parched land. They indicated I was to follow it and then continue along the same direction. I bowed once again and started off. When I looked back, they were already trotting off the way we'd come.
As the hours went by, I saw that the land was becoming slightly less parched, perhaps a fine line of distinction, but nonetheless true. I noticed brown patches of dried grass, and some low bushes, and then, in the distance, a cluster of houses. I found an old man and some seedy looking cattle. He had no telephone, of course, but he did have water and some canned food. I'd never had a better banquet at the Waldorf. He gave me directions to the next ranch, a larger spread, and by moving from one to another, I found one with a car. I identified myself and got a lift into a dusty town where there was a territorial agent with a radio. He put a message through to Ayr and Major Rothwell's office and within the hour a jet plane came to a halt on the flat, dry land alongside the town. With borrowed shirt and pants. I went back to Ayr. Major Rothwell was at the airfield and his eyes echoed the disbelief in his words.
"By God, Carter," he said pumping my hand. You're even-thing they say and more. We'd counted you out as dead. Lieutenant Dempster's plane, the one you went off in with him, crashed at sea. We thought you were both in it."
"I doubt that even Dempster was in it," I said. "He ejected me and left me to die in the outback."
"My God!" Roth well exclaimed as we got into a chauffered car. "What in God's name for. Carter? Did you have him dead to rights on something?"
"No, but I was getting too close to something," I said grimly. And I'm going to get closer. Are my things still at that cottage?"
"Yes, we haven't done anything about that yet," the Major answered.
"Then all I need is a new set of keys," I said.
"Mona will have those," Rothwell assured me. "She'd have been with me, but she took a few days off. She doesn't know you're not done in."
"I'll surprise her" I said. "But I'd like to wash up a bit first."
"You can do that at headquarters," the Major said, and then he bit his lip apprehensively. "But there's one thing. Carter. I called Hawk and told him about the plane crashing into the sea with you and Dempster in it."
I grinned and made a small bet with myself. The car drew up before the Intelligence offices and while I washed up the Major had a call put in to Hawk. I picked up the phone when it came through. I won the bet with myself as I said hello and Hawk's voice showed not the slightest hint of surprise.
"Can't you even fake being surprised and excited at the fact that I'm still alive?" I protested.
"I didn't figure you were in that plane," he said blandly. "Entirely too mundane a way to go for you."
I chuckled. "Something is definitely rotten here," I said. "I think I've got the story but not the cast."
"Stay with it," he grunted. "Without the cast, you've got nothing. Keep me posted."
The line clicked off and I turned to Major Rothwell. I knew he deserved a briefing but I decided against it. All I had was what I'd spelled out for myself and that wasn't enough.
"I'll stop at Mona's and get the extra keys for the cottage," I said.
"The car was brought back from Air Force," he said. "It's in the back, waiting for you. Oh, one more thing.
A girl named Judy Henniker has called almost every day to speak to you."
I nodded and went out to get the car. It was dark, and Judy would be at The Ruddy Jug now. I'd get to her later. I drove to Mona's apartment, rang the bell and waited. She opened the door and froze, her mouth dropping open, her eye; blinking in disbelief. I grinned and walked in. It was only when I was inside that she found herself and flew into my arms.
"Damn, but I don't believe it yet," she said, her lips wet and hungry against mine. "Oh, Nick," she said. "You don't know how I felt. I just wanted to run away someplace and hide from everything and everyone."
"I'm a hard man to kill," I said. "I like living too much. Though I most say they came damned dose to it this time."
I palled back from her and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm here for the extra set of keys to the cottage," I said. "I'm going back, to bathe and stretch out. I've got a lot of thinking to do."
She got the keys from a dresser drawer and pressed herself against me again, her breasts a wonderful reminder against my chest But I needed another twenty-four hours of rest before I was ready for Mona. I kissed her hard and quickly realized that maybe I was wrong about the twenty four hours. But I left anyway.
