A New Kind of Dreaming

by Anthony Eaton

  Cameron shrugged. ‘It’s in the wrong direction.’

  ‘Can you see anything else around?’

  Cameron shrugged again and started walking towards where Jamie had gestured.

  Unlike the pinnacle, this feature was closer than it seemed. It wasn’t much – just a few biggish boulders, strewn haphazardly.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It’ll have to do.’ Cameron dropped the pack and the two of them collapsed into the shade of the biggest rocks.

  By ten-thirty what little shelter had been provided by the granite rocks had vanished altogether. For the middle few hours of the day they crouched near the rocks, exposed and vulnerable to the searing rays of the sun.

  The harsh light burned at Jamie’s flesh. He could feel himself absorbing the heat and starting to glow from within. The sand became increasingly uncomfortable, every grain scratching and scraping against skin made delicate from exposure. A little after two, he walked around to the other side of the rocks. Some shade was forming there, a tiny patch of darkness in the lee of the rock, growing as the sun began its slow descent towards the western horizon. He tried to stir Cameron.

  ‘Cam, get up!’

  Cameron mumbled something unintelligible. Grabbing his arm, Jamie tried to haul him to his feet. There was no way he could actually have managed to lift someone Cameron’s size, let alone drag him around the boulder, but the tugging at his arm woke him a little, and Cameron slowly came to.

  ‘I’m roasting.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  Jamie was burnt, but Cameron, with his fair skin, was positively frying. His arms, face and legs glowed an angry red.

  ‘Get around here. There’s a bit of shade.’ He led Cameron to where the patch of shadow stood out a stark black against the red sand. In the glare of the sun, the protected shelter behind the rock appeared as a pool of darkness. In Jamie’s fevered imagination, he almost pictured himself diving headfirst into its cool depths. The moment passed, however, and they settled onto the sand. Despite the shade, it wasn’t much cooler and the ground was hard beneath them.

  ‘You reckon we can spare a sip of water?’

  ‘Just a little.’

  They retrieved a canteen and each took a small mouthful. The water was warm, yet still ran like ice down the back of Jamie’s throat. He could actually feel it sitting thick and heavy in his stomach.

  ‘Want some more?’

  Cameron thought about it.

  ‘Yeah, why not? The highway can’t be too far off now. We’ll probably find it early tonight.’

  He took another mouthful, a long swig this time, from the water bottle. Jamie did the same and suddenly the canteen was empty.

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Look.’ Jamie turned the bottle upside down. Not even a drop fell from the spout.

  ‘I thought we had more than that.’

  Jamie shrugged.

  ‘What’s left then?’

  Jamie took the other canteen and shook it. The water sloshed around inside.

  ‘It’s about half full.’

  ‘Save it for tonight.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The conversation stopped and Cameron fell asleep again. Sheltered now, he rested more comfortably. Jamie tried to nod off, but his mind kept churning over their problems – the change in the landscape, the increasing scarcity of plant life, their lack of water. Gradually, the old worries – Butcher, Lorraine, Archie and Robb – began dominating his thoughts.

  He stared wide-eyed into the brightness of the afternoon, but eventually his chin dropped to his chest and he dozed, drifting into a dreamy, uncomfortable sleep. He was trapped in a circle of flames. The fires raged at his body and the girl stood just outside the circle, beckoning and calling softly to him in strange words. The ring of fire kept shrinking, drawing closer and closer to where he stood, paralysed. Finally, he made a running leap for the outstretched hand of the girl. The temperature scorched his body and he collapsed onto the ground. The girl was nowhere to be seen, but Butcher stood above him, nightstick in hand. ‘I told you to look out for me, son.’ He raised his arm, the club fell towards Jamie’s head . . .

  ‘Jamie!’ Cameron shook him into consciousness. ‘You right, mate?’

  ‘What?’ Jamie was groggy with sleep.

  ‘You were whimpering and moaning something awful. I thought you were having a seizure.’

  Jamie sat up slowly and tried to throw off the lingering images of the dream.

  ‘Nah. I’m right. Just a bad dream.’

  ‘Here.’ Cameron held the remaining canteen to Jamie’s lips and without thinking Jamie took a couple of big mouthfuls.

  ‘Hang on!’

  ‘Shit! I’m sorry, Cam. I forgot, really. I . . .’

  Cameron shook the bottle. The splash of liquid inside sounded different now – more hollow, higher pitched.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. There’s still a bit left.’

  Jamie felt terrible. He’d been so disoriented that it hadn’t occurred to him that he was drinking so much.

  ‘You have it mate, I . . .’

  ‘We’ll save it for later.’ Cameron screwed the lid back on and slung the canteen around his neck. ‘You ready? We’d better get moving.’

  It was almost dark. They had slept much later than they’d intended. Jamie looked around.

  ‘Which way?’

  ‘This way, I think.’ The last stain of the sunset coloured the horizon ninety degrees from the direction Cameron indicated.

  Cameron started but suddenly Jamie stopped. ‘You okay?’

  Jamie pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, squeezing at the corners of his eyes. His head spun. The girl’s voice was suddenly loud and insistent.

  ‘We’re goin’ the wrong way.’

  ‘Eh?’ Cameron looked at him strangely.

  ‘We’re heading in the wrong direction. I reckon we should be more over there.’

  ‘That’s too far west. We’ll end up going back the way we came.’

  ‘Nah. This way’s takin’ us further and further into the desert, mate. Look at the bushes.’

  ‘What about them?’

  ‘There’s barely any around now. Back at the mine there was scrub all over the place. I reckon we’re headin’ too far east.’

  A perplexed expression formed on Cameron’s face, and he turned a couple of slow circles, examining the landscape carefully, before staring closely at Jamie. In the twilight Jamie could see the doubt in the other boy’s face.

  ‘You really think?’

  So far Cameron had done all of the navigating, and his plan was a sound one, but it was impossible for Jamie to fight down the feeling that they needed to head more towards the sunset.

  ‘It’s just a feelin’. I’m probably wrong.’

  Cameron looked for a long time in both directions. ‘Let’s give it a try anyway. Nothing to lose.’

  They walked towards the sunset.

  twenty-seven

  The water ran out just before dawn. Through the long night’s hike they’d taken only the tiniest of sips, enough to simply wet their lips, but even so the last drops fell into Cameron’s mouth as the glow of sunrise started to lighten the sky behind them.

  ‘At least we’ve been going in a straight line.’

  Jamie didn’t answer. They were following a wide, sandy trail through scrubland. The hard rocky ground had petered out a little after three o’clock, and they’d returned to slogging through the soft, deep sand. Both knew that without water this would be their last day of walking. Already they were badly dehydrated – another day like yesterday would finish them.

  ‘We oughta look around for somewhere to rest up.’

>   Jamie nodded, too tired to speak.

  ‘At least there’s more bushes and stuff now.’

  As the sky above them grew steadily lighter, an endless carpet of spinifex, scrub and sand was revealed. Ahead of them, somewhere in the distance, Jamie thought he heard birds calling, but put it down to imagination.

  ‘Over there, eh?’ Jamie followed the direction of Cameron’s finger. A few hundred metres away stood a row of trees. They looked like a line of grotesque, twisted figures – ancient spirits beckoning to them, calling them to what both knew would be their final stop.

  Side by side the boys wandered around clusters of thorny desert bushes, meandering towards the trees. Jamie’s head was bowed and he watched his feet dragging through the sand. It was a pity for it all to be ending like this. He hoped that Eddie wouldn’t search for him for too long.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Cameron had stopped dead. Jamie looked up.

  The ground on the other side of the trees sloped away gently for about a hundred metres or so, then plunged into an enormous ravine, a gorge in the desert. Wordlessly the two boys made their way towards the lip of the canyon, both drawing on some new and unexpected energy source.

  ‘Unbelievable.’

  The walls dropped away for what seemed like hundreds of metres but was probably only sixty or seventy. They weren’t sheer, but fell in a series of narrow terraces, giant steps down into the lush canopy of trees that lined the bottom of the gorge. Bird calls floated up to where they stood, gazing in wonderment. In the morning light the granite glowed in livid shades of red and ochre. Jagged, uneven ridges and scars ran along the sides of the valley as far as they could see. What caught their attention, though, was the trickle of deep green running between the thick forest on the valley floor. It glinted silver between the outspread branches.

  ‘You reckon we can get down there?’

  ‘We should give it a try, that’s for sure.’

  The climb was perilous. They made their way along the top lip of the cliffs until they found a fracture cutting in at right angles to the valley itself.

  ‘What do you think?’

  Jamie shrugged. ‘Let’s have a go.’

  Cameron led the way, testing for hand and footholds, and Jamie followed carrying the bag. The fissure took them onto a narrow terrace about a third of the way down the face of the cliff. They moved along it cautiously, occasionally dislodging loose stones or patches of red gravel, and listening to them plummeting to the valley floor below. Soon another fracture in the rock appeared ahead of them and they continued down to the next terrace.

  It took an hour of careful climbing to reach the valley floor. Twice they found themselves trapped in dead ends, and had to ascend back to the level above. When they finally stepped from the shadow of the final fault into the bottom of the gorge, they looked around in wonder.

  The floor of the valley was a total contrast to the desert plain above them. Birds called in the branches of the eucalypts that formed a canopy of leaves and coloured the world green. A small creek, just a trickle of water, bubbled along only a few steps away.

  ‘Amazing.’ Cameron’s voice was barely a whisper.

  ‘Yeah.’

  There seemed nothing more to say. They sprawled on a rock and slurped greedily at the seemingly endless supply of water. After he’d drunk his fill Cameron removed his shirt and soaked it in the water. He was just about to put it back on when he suddenly hurled it at Jamie, catching him in the chest. Jamie’s look of surprise changed to one of mock determination and soon there was water flying back and forth until the two of them were soaked.

  ‘Incredible.’ Cameron lay on his back, staring at the small patches of sky that showed through the leaves.

  ‘Pretty cool.’ Jamie agreed.

  twenty-eight

  ‘You know what I can’t wait for?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I can’t wait to see the look on Butcher’s face when he finds out that we’re alive and we’ve brought the girl back with us.’

  They had slept the entire afternoon and right through the night. Jamie had woken first and he lay on the flat rocks by the watercourse and listened to the sound of birds calling. When Cameron surfaced they breakfasted on dehydrated noodles.

  ‘We’ll have to keep moving, you know. Otherwise we’ll starve.’

  ‘Yeah.’ The nagging hunger was still there, even with a belly full of cold noodles.

  ‘We should walk as far as we can along the bottom of this valley today. It seems more or less parallel to our heading from yesterday.’

  ‘When’ll we climb up?’ The thought of walking back into the desert, away from the cool protection of the gorge, didn’t appeal to Jamie one bit.

  ‘Late this afternoon. We can get up there for sunset, and take a bearing for our walk tonight.’

  The night’s rest had revived Cameron’s natural optimism and he had eased back into the leadership role.

  They picked their way along the valley floor for two hours, clambering over rocks and fallen trees and skirting around steep outcrops that jutted into the undergrowth. In places where the scrub was too think to penetrate they waded into the creek and walked on the pebbly bottom. They discussed all sorts of things. Cameron talked about his old girlfriend back in the city, how he still kept in touch with her, and about his plans to go to uni there the following year. Unexpectedly, Jamie found himself telling Cameron all about Eddie.

  ‘Eddie’s cool, you know? It’s just been pretty hard for him to get his life together, having to look out for me and all.’

  ‘So when will he be released?’

  ‘Dunno. Depends on the parole board.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Jamie shrugged. Eddie and home seemed so far away.

  ‘I’d like him to come out here.’

  ‘Eddie?’

  ‘Yeah. I reckon he’d like it.’

  A large pile of loose rocks and boulders blocked their path. It took up the whole width of the valley and the stream disappeared beneath it.

  Jamie glanced at Cameron. ‘Up and over?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  The slope of the pile wasn’t steep, but some of the larger stones were unstable, and it took a few minutes to scramble carefully to the top. They were unprepared for the scene that lay in front of them.

  They had reached the end of the gorge. On three sides red cliffs towered into the air. Perched on the very edge, high above them, the twisted shape of a lone boab tree clung to the lip of the rocky precipice. And there, nestling at the base of the cliffs, was a deep-green pool of water, almost a perfect circle.

  ‘Fancy a swim?’

  Without answering, Jamie began to peel off his dusty clothes.

  The water was freezing against their sunburned skin. Cameron began swimming across the pool in a powerful freestyle. Not as confident in the water, Jamie settled for a slow dog paddle up and down near where they’d climbed in.

  Cameron came powering back. ‘This is so good.’

  ‘Bloody cold though.’

  ‘You’ll get used to it.’

  Cameron floated on his back, surveying the cliffs above.

  ‘There’s only one problem.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No way we’ll get up those walls. We’ll have to head back the way we came.’

  ‘Guess we’ve got enough food to last till tomorrow.’

  ‘We’ll have to make it last. Or else we can try and catch . . .’ Cameron stopped mid-sentence. ‘You hear something?’

  Jamie went still, stunned.

  There were voices coming up the valley.

  ‘Get out, quick.’

  They dragged themselves up onto the rocks in a mad scramble. Cameron slipped and barked his shin.

  ‘Shit!’


  ‘You right?’

  ‘Yeah. Get dressed, quickly.’

  By the time they’d hauled themselves into their clothes, the voices on the other side of the rock pile were clear, ringing against the valley walls.

  ‘Who do you reckon it is?’ Jamie’s question went unanswered. ‘We oughta hide.’

  ‘You see anywhere?’

  Jamie looked around. The large pile of rocks and boulders offered little concealment and behind them the pool and cliffs trapped them in a cul-de-sac.

  ‘Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.’ Cameron almost grinned at the cliché. He didn’t get a chance to say anything more because at that moment two people appeared at the top of the rock pile. A guy and a girl, probably in their mid-twenties both wearing hiking boots and shorts and carrying light backpacks.

  For a few seconds they stood at the top of the rocks, awestruck by the sight of the pool, much as Jamie and Cameron had been. It wasn’t until they started to climb down towards the water that they realised they were not alone.

  ‘Hi.’ The guy had a British accent. He seemed a little offhand, even disappointed.

  ‘Hi . . .’ Cameron’s voice trailed off. Jamie said nothing.

  The couple reached the edge of the pool, made themselves comfortable on some rocks and, ignoring Jamie and Cameron, drank from water canteens on their backpacks. The girl started to unlace her boots and the guy took off his shirt, revealing a tanned back and chest.

  ‘We didn’t expect to see anyone down here.’ It was a second before Jamie realised that the man was speaking to them. ‘The guidebook said that this is a difficult gorge to get in to, and we thought we’d have it all to ourselves. Where are you from?’

  ‘Port Barren.’ Cameron’s voice sounded tired.

  ‘Really?’ The guy stopped rummaging in his bag and threw them a curious glance. ‘We came through there a couple of days ago. All sorts of . . .’ The man stopped and looked at them properly for the first time. ‘What are you doing out here, then?’

  ‘We’re just . . .’ Cameron searched for an explanation. The young woman suddenly turned to them. ‘You’re not those two boys everyone was searching for, are you? Back in Port Barren?’