“I expect you to keep me warm tonight, that’s what you are here for.” Susan answered cheekily.
As they reached the bottom of the dune, coming alongside the soak, there was a whirring sound in the sky above. They both looked up. Framed in the last rays of the sun was a vast cloud of iridescent budgerigars, tens on tens of thousands, a number far beyond counting. They circled in a tight spiral whorl then settled en mass to drink. With another whir they were away, gone into the sky.
A wealth of wildlife lives here in this remote desert place. Far beyond what I ever imagined, Susan thought.
She and Mark settled into the evening, next to a fire, with sizzling sausages and another pannikin of rum. Of old bullocks there were no signs; like phantoms of the ocean, coming only when not expected or looking another way.
They were both tired and slept soundly, cuddled together for warmth. Lovemaking was forgotten until the call of a bird brought them awake in early dawn light. Then, well refreshed, they pleasured each other and slept again.
Mark got up to stoke the fire. While, Susan thought about joining him, she decided it was too cold out of the swag, and burrowed back, deep under the covers.
Later, hidden in her cocoon of comfort, she heard a noise above her. She poked her nose out. Mark was holding out a steaming mug of tea and a plate of toast, bacon and eggs.
“Something for her ladyship, made while she slumbered. It’s cold out, there is ice at the edge of the soak and the cabin thermometer reads minus six degrees. So I thought you needed breakfast in bed before you emerge to face the day.”
Susan put down the plate and cup and took his hand. “I hope you are coming to have it with me. The breakfast looks and smells fantastic, but what I most want is for you to come in here, sheltered from the desert cold, and warm me against your body.”
Mark began to climb in, food forgotten, maleness aroused. Susan put up her hand, “First we must eat. We’re going to need the energy.”
She made space beside her. Mark laid his body there as she climbed astride. She placed pillows under his head and, taking the plate, fed him alternating mouthfuls.
She could feel his maleness, hard against her belly. Still feeding him, Susan aligned her body and pushed him within her. Sex merged with breakfast. They devoured food; they devoured each other, alternating steps, increasing gusto, until controlled no longer.
After, lying in his arms, she said, “You are the sexiest, most precious man I have met. I am crazed with desire and don’t want this to end. Could we stay in the desert, forever?”
She felt Mark’s arms tighten around her and he pushed his face into her hair. No words were said, but it felt like an emotion that mirrored hers. His body shook slightly; it was almost like he was crying inside but his face was hidden.
She ran her fingers through his hair, and whispered inside her mind, I love you.
Later, Susan would remember this moment as their most perfect place of existence, the place before any shadow had come into their sky.
After breakfast Mark scouted the water edges. “Well, we missed nothing in our sleep; nothing came last night, no tracks. Still, I am glad you came here, very few do.”
Susan nodded, “Amen to that.”
After breakfast they walked for another hour along the soak and amongst the dunes. Sometimes she skipped, her joy outpouring into physical exuberance. Sometimes they held hands, or she hugged herself to him as he walked along. Once she climbed a dune to above his head, and rushing down, flung herself into his arms with total abandon. He caught her and swung her through the air with effortless strength. It was an aimless rambling walk, more about each other and the delight of togetherness than about a place in the desert. But the desert was their playground and the warming sun gave a sense of immortal delight. For a short time she could believe that their life could go on together, forever, just like this.
It was mid-morning when they packed up. They returned the way they had come for the first couple hours, following yesterday’s tracks. Then they took a different road, which travelled further north along the desert edge. The trip rolled along, not unlike yesterday, but with a sense of kinship between them that Susan had not experienced with anyone else. She sensed that Mark was feeling something similar. A couple times they stopped their car on a high desert ridge and gazed away into the endless space. They made occasional aimless conversation, but it was like punctuation marks between empty spaces, spaces without need of filling, as befitted this land of emptiness.
As they drove between two large sand dunes, in the mid-afternoon, Mark sighted a big bullock trotting east towards the ridge of sand a couple hundred metres away.
He pulled the car to a halt. “I have been looking for a big fat one, just like this.” He opened a long steel box with a heavy lock. He removed a heavy hunting rifle, with a gleaming polished scope. Mark cracked the bolt open and fed a round into the breach from the magazine, then clicked on the safety. Susan could see from his confident handling that he had used guns before.
He walked away from the car to where a bent tree formed a natural rest at shoulder height. The bullock had stopped in a patch of scrub, at the foot of a big dune, now a good 300 metres away. It was barely visible and its head little more than a black dot as it ate some succulent foliage. She watched Mark ease off the safety catch and steady himself, a pause for maybe two seconds, then crack. The bullock fell down as if pole-axed.
Mark returned to the car and they drove to near where it lay, picking a way over bits of broken ground with care. Susan walked across to the body.
She looked at this massive animal, at least a ton, with rolls of fat flesh bulging around its hips and tail. She tried to see where bullet had hit it; it must have been a head or spine shot to fall like that. She finally located a small red dot in the brown skin, just below and behind the ear. Under this mark she could feel smashed bone. She was a fair shot and her father was good, but Mark had real skill to pull off a shot like that, accurate to the inch over 300 yards.
In half an hour Mark had boned out the carcass, loading the meat into clear plastic bags, which went in to the cooler on the large blocks of ice. She helped carry the smaller cuts and then with cleaning up. The large pieces were very heavy, completely beyond her to lift. Mark carried them with apparent ease. They packed up and headed on again.
It felt like “Out of Africa” or “English Patient” with panorama after panorama opening before their eyes. Over each ridge new rows of dunes emerged. Gradually to the north, blue in the distance, ranges of mountains grew out of the horizon, the East MacDonnell’s, with Arltunga, their evening destination.
Finally, in the late evening, the hillsides glowing intense blue, they arrived at the Arltunga Bush Hotel. A pre-booked cabin with a hot shower awaited them.
Mark carried a large slab of meat to the hotel manager, a good friend. He was back in a minute. “We’re expected for dinner and drinks on them, in return for the meat.”
They showered, dressed and went into the bar. Dinner was homemade bush tomato-flavoured sausages, along with a large piece of roast meat, said to be camel, and vegetables. Their glasses were endlessly full and the cheer flowed.
This was the first place she had been where Mark seemed among friends, these people greeted him as someone they knew. He greeted them back and they laughed and joked. They all made Susan feel welcome.
After dinner a guitar was found and country songs were sung: mining songs, stockman songs, songs about the country and its people. Songs by people called Slim: Slim Whitman, Slim Dusty. “A pub with no beer, Leave him in the long yard – the baldy bay.” Susan sang along with gusto. This was the Australian bush of legend. It pleased her to see Mark in his element, amongst friends.
Finally, sometime after midnight, last drinks then stumps were called. She and Mark walked, arm in arm, back to their cabin. Their lovemaking was perfunctory, both full of drink and soon asleep. She lay cuddled into him and felt even closer than before.
In the morni
ng a cooked breakfast was served in the pub. Then, with backslapping farewells, they were on their way, heading north-west, across some of the biggest mountains she had seen so far.
They stopped for a cup of tea at a little mine that eked out a living from the rocky hills and their minerals. Mark passed another great slab of beef to the grateful miners.
They hung it in a scrawny mulga tree. Mark explained it would hang and dry over several days, up to a week. With a dry outside crust it would keep and not spoil. The flavour and tenderness would improve, day after day, until it would just melt in your mouth.
Mark suggested that a miner take Susan for a tour into the workings, a shaft cut into the side of the hill. A grizzled bull of a man, with calloused hands and little English, accompanied her. He showed her how they propped the walls and chipped into the seams. He brought her to a seam that held possible gemstones. Pointing his torch, to capture glints and reflections, he showed her how to look for the colour.
Mark remained behind, deep in conversation with the mine manager. Glancing back, when almost gone from sight, Susan saw this man open a case and show Mark something. It appeared to interest him greatly. They were both absorbed and unaware, but her companion noted and said. “Maybe they trade.”
Susan found the tour interesting, but she realised what backbreaking work it must be. They had some mechanical equipment. But a lot of it seemed to require a pick and shovel in a dark dusty hole, with strange shadows from the electric bulbs. Still, she could sense the excitement in her tour guide, as he told her how, sometimes, they found fantastic stones hidden amongst all the muck.
When they returned the two men were drinking another cup of tea, having concluded whatever their business transactions were.
They drove on. The roads were rough and stony and the mountains were steep. There were places where the road was little more than wheel tracks over the rocks creeping around the sides of huge hills. The side slope made Susan nervous, knowing where they would end up if they lost control, but Mark was concentrating hard and seemed in his element, fully confident. So she relaxed, trusting him as she left herself in his care.
Sometimes he was in low range creeping over broken ground as the engine chugged, other times they would come across flat valley floors, where he accelerated and went up through the gears. Other times they traversed broken-up sections of washed-out creek crossings, picking their way around rocks, holes and obstacles. It seemed very few people came this way.
Mark was knowledgeable about the country and its geology, giving her a running commentary, explaining as they went. She realised she was gaining a unique view of this country of childhood stories and imagination; it was becoming ever more real and fascinating as they drove.
They saw huge bullocks aplenty, along with scrub bulls. Mark explained that these were owned by the station Mark and Susan were passing through. These cattle were like a piggy bank full of thousand dollar notes. It could be opened when money was needed. Now, when times and seasons were good, these backcountry cattle were left alone to grow big and fat. When the dry times came again this four footed gold would be turned into cash.
There were also lots of brumbies, proud stallions with their necks arched, that herded and harassed their broods of mares, ears laid back. Once they spied two groups meet near a waterhole. The stallions reared up and bared their teeth in threat. One backed away, herding his mares, while the victor galloped behind him for a few seconds biting at his rump. He quickly returned to his own harem, perhaps fearful that another would steal them away.
Around lunchtime they stopped at a place where a soak ran out of the side of a hill. Hoof marks indicated recent cattle and horse use, but now it was theirs, joined by multitudes of the little zebra finches and an occasional iridescent parrot.
Mark lit another fire of dried mulga, which burned fiercely. As it burned down he took a black heavy metal plate, about a foot long, from beside a spare wheel—“My mobile barbeque.” And from yesterday’s bullock meat, he sliced off two, inch thick, slabs and put them on the grill, along with half a kidney.
The scent of the meat was delicious served on a slice of bread with pickles. The meat was rich flavoured and tender, best restaurant quality. Mark said it would improve more if hung for at least three more days.
In the mid-afternoon they finally emerged from the mountains onto a wide, open grass plain to the west.
“Yambah Station, one of the best blocks in the Alice,” Mark said.
Now they were heading for Barrow Creek pub where, that night, a bush band was supposed to be playing. It was over 200 kilometres north. They had a quick drink from the waterbag then went on.
Two and a half hours later, with late afternoon drifting towards dusk, they came round a bend. Alongside low rocky hills was a sign pointing to Barrow Creek Hotel. Rooms were booked out, but many people were camped out on the flat ground nearby, come in from the stations and camps to enjoy the night. Mark and Susan drove to one side and rolled out their swag. Half the population was aboriginal. This was Susan’s first introduction to these people who seemed to know Mark well.
Mark explained he had done a lot of work around here, mining work, station work, work in these aboriginal communities; sinking bores, putting up windmills, fixing houses and anything else needed. These people had become his friends. He called to one older man called Johnnie, a tribal elder. Lifting out a piece of meat he offered it to him.
“This one good bullock, Johnnie. Found him eating parakeelya out on the edge of that desert country. You know, other side Artlunga. How about you take this one for your dinner. Pay back for that kangaroo you gave me last year.”
With a broad smile and some gesticulating thanks Johnnie carried it away.
Over near the pub the band was warming up, playing reels and jigs. A few bare-footed aboriginal girls were dancing in the dust. To the side were several cut down 44-gallon drums, with roaring fires burning inside them to ward of the evening chill. Most people were drinking beer, though a few old-timers could be seen with their rum bottles and pannikins. A barbeque, with steak, sausages and onions, along with piles of buttered bread, coleslaw and tomato sauce, was on offer for a donation to the Flying Doctor.
Groups were mingling, coming and going, warming up for the evening dancing. All at once the band struck up a full jig and the caller told everyone to put down their drinks and come and join in for the first dance. He led them slowly through their moves at first. Then they were on their own. The music got faster and faster and most people joined in and kept up, after a fashion. When the song was over there were cheers and calls of, “More! More!”
Sometimes Susan danced with Mark; sometimes other men sought her out. Eventually a supper break was called, and weary legs rested before the band resumed for their final bracket. It was a great night, carried along by the music, dancing in the dust.
In the late-late night only a few remained, hunched around the fires; Mark, deep in tales with a couple old-timers, over a bottle of rum, sat with them around a fire.
Susan stayed on a while, but finally she signalled to Mark that she was off to bed. She yawned as she walked to their campsite and crawled into the rolled out swag. This was the first time she had gone to bed alone. While part of her missed Mark’s strong, warm body she was content lying out in an incredible star filled night, as the fires slowly guttered and died away. The only noise was a distant hum of a diesel generator and the mutter of soft conversation. A bright shooting star flashed across her vision. Susan felt happy in this remote but amazing place.
When she woke in the early dawn, Mark was lying beside her, fully dressed and snoring quietly. As the dawn lit the eastern sky she made her way to the temporary shower block, and washed herself, shivering in the cold. She returned, gazing at the sky. It was just another desert sunrise, ordinary in its extraordinariness. The light was what captivated her, golden lance shafts spearing from the horizon. Far above, at the outer edges of the world, they lit fine filaments of clouds in endless
hues of shifting pastel pinks, extraordinary light, extraordinary colour, everyday desert ordinariness, she thought.
Mark slept on; she could smell the rum now she was washed. She cuddled into him again in their bed, content to be with him and enjoy their small window together. The sun was just a hand width above the horizon when Mark stirred. As he opened bleary eyes he became aware of her.
“You look so fresh and pretty,” he said sleepily, as he admired her freshly washed face. “Now time to give a man his pleasure.”
“But Mark, I’m all dressed. Plus it’s daylight and all these people will see us.”
He reached out and pulled the canvas swag flap over their heads. “Not now, they won’t.” He directed her hand to his hard maleness.
This lovemaking had an illicit thrill, in a hidden place of pleasure, with the noises of other people waking up and moving around them. They pushed it away, absorbed in each other. This was their cave of delight, under the shelter of the canvass. She knew this strange man was taking over and consuming her life. It was beyond any power she had to stop it.
Chapter 8 – The Big Waterhole – Day 22
An hour later Mark was off to shower and shave. They ate breakfast together, this time steak and eggs at the hotel bar. Mark left her there, saying he was off to top up the fuel tanks and give the vehicle another careful check over. They were cutting though some rough country to the east, where they would camp a night at a big waterhole, before heading up into the Gulf, leaving the desert behind for tropical scenery, weather and fishing. It was now mid-August, the end of Australia’s winter, but it was still cold here; Mark said the weather would warm up as they travelled north.
Susan sat at the bar and looked at the collection of curios spread over the walls. Lots of photos of people, some recent, some decades old—mostly station people and truckies, but some who looked like tourists and also aboriginal people.
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 8
