The bodies were lying on hard sun-baked earth and disguised by a blanket of branches. Mark lifted the pigs up, one by one, each around thirty or forty pounds, and laid them in the cooler.
Mark then took Susan her by the hand and led her down the pig track to the river below. In his free hand he carried the intestines of one pig. They passed through about fifty yards of swamp grass, and came to where the track reached a clear, still pool of water, tucked into the far bank.
Not a breath of air stirred the still surface, not a single bird-call disturbed the silence. She was about to talk but Mark signalled silence. He waved her to stop five steps back from the edge. Then, slowly and carefully, he went forward until he could reach the water. He threw down the pig guts, deliberately causing the water to splash as he placed them at the very edge of the pool.
Mark stepped back to join her and signalled to wait quietly. Five minutes passed and nothing, the stillness was absolute, the silence broken only by the sound of a blowfly buzzing at the water’s edge. Then, two small bubbles came to the surface, as far out as they stood from the edge. Stillness again, another minute passed.
Now a small knobbly stick lay on the water where none had been, two slits at the ends of the stick opened. Then two eyes appeared, two feet behind the stick. The eyes watched her with absolute impassivity. She stared back. Somehow, the knowledge that she was staring at a huge crocodile had passed into her brain, without any conscious realisation. The eyes moved forward.
There was a huge wave as the enormous creature rose out of the water. The crocodile opened its jaws, as if to display peg after peg of yellow teeth. It swivelled sideways, almost delicately, picking up the pig intestine. With a flick of its head, its jaws opened wide and snapped shut, the pig remains now gone. Gracefully it turned its ponderous body and slid back underneath the pond surface, giving barely a ripple. All was still as before.
Susan’s heart was still pounding five minutes later, after they had returned to the car. She had known that crocodiles were huge, silent, and dangerous, but nothing imagined could have prepared her to see up close their incredible and silent power, first hidden, seen briefly, then gone as if never there. When she thought of those remorseless eyes watching her, as just another potential meal, she felt the hair rise on her arms.
Chapter 12 – Borroloola – Day 25
Susan was sitting in the Borroloola Hotel. Mark had left her to do some more business. He said it would take an hour. He seemed to have connections everywhere; there was always a little deal on the side.
For now she enjoyed the solitude.
The morning had continued to be wonderful. Her image of the crazy abductor just did not line up with the man she knew.
But now she had to decide. Should she try and find the truth or just let it go? If she didn’t care about him the choice would have be easy, she would have just continued to enjoy the trip and maybe followed it up back in England, in safety, far away. But Susan did care, and she thought Mark cared about her too, she was almost certain of it. Commitment, in whatever form, meant honesty and truth. That meant finding where these threads led. With only five days until her plane departed, she needed to have an answer before she left.
Susan was now starting to understand NT geography and get a sense of where they were heading. Today, they were in the Gulf, at the bottom of what he called the Top End, to the east; tomorrow they would head up further, but cross over the western side, something about a big crocodile river, yet more crocodiles, almost a part of what made him. Then they would spend a day in Kakadu, right at the top, back east, before they would spend their final night in Darwin.
There were not many towns until Darwin and the end of their trip, where it looked like she could communicate with the world. There was one called Timber Creek, in a day or two, and perhaps Katherine, which they would pass through on the way to Kakadu. So, if she wanted to find out more, Susan needed to do something now.
She was enjoying sitting in the cool soft light after the harsh sun and growing heat of the day. It was getting warmer and warmer each day as they headed north. She would happily have sat there and sipped her lemon, lime and bitters, while she daydreamed about a future with Mark. Could she return and try living in the Aussie outback? Was she prepared to forgo her career in medical technology? But perhaps she could get a job in a hospital lab. Alice, Katherine, and Darwin were the main towns and they all seemed to want skilled staff. Then Mark and Susan could just see how it went without the pressure of forcing themselves together all the time.
Shaking her head to rid the daydreams, Susan reluctantly pulled her phone out of her backpack. She turned it on, only a quarter of its charge remained. She plugged it in to charge and found Anne’s number.
She would keep this simple and just follow up on the Scottish and American girls. They would be easier to track down. Had they been reported as missing—was there anything suspicious, when did it happen? If she gave each name, current age and town or city from the passport address, it should be enough for Mr Google or other search engines to see if there was anything of note—a newspaper article, missing persons notice or other similar. Once she knew that she could decide on whether to go any further.
The text was to the point:
Anne,
Can you check out two names below?
Saw notice saying missing in a place I stayed.
? Whether home now and OK. Text back soonest.
Will check next town, where phone works.
Having a great time in Oz.
Love and see you soon
Suz
Then she listed the names Fiona Rodgers and Amanda Sullivan, along with age and origin locality for both girls. She pushed send and then checked the sent box. The message had gone. It was too late to pull back now.
Feeling she had done her duty she turned the phone off and put it away. She had thought about ringing her Mum to say hello, but when she had worked out the time difference (3am in London) it wasn’t a good time. Susan would try to remember one night, when it was morning in England, if she was in a place with reception.
Letting her thoughts drift, Susan thought of Mark and the morning she had spent with him. It was, it was—well not something she would tell her grandmother. But it blew her mind the way they connected with each other, and all the intimate things they had done.
That huge crocodile, so silent and so very freaky; one minute, nothing, then the next a ton of saurian scales surging from the water; such power and almost weightless explosive movement. Then the delicate way it had picked up and swallowed its pig treat, with an almost quaint relish. Then it just faded away to nothing again, a silent place. She had barely breathed as she watched it unfold. She shivered now at the thought.
Then there was their funny morning tea at the place called Seven Emus. Not the grand cattle station she had imagined, not much there at all really; skinny cattle, broken yards, a range of pets and chickens wandering here and there. It was an extension of the Shadforth clan who had lived in this country for more than 100 years.
But there was something incredibly dynamic about them, their mixed ancestry, multi-coloured kids running free. It was a place with a mixture of old and new; parts of the house and yard looked like they had come out of the Ark. Alongside the piles of junk and broken down cars scattered around were much newer objects: a TV, microwave, satellite phone, books, and electronic games. There were also modern cars and boats, even a helicopter that sat to one side—bought to take the tourists on scenic flights.
They had passed a flash resort, the Seven Emu’s fishing camp, and turned down a little sidetrack to come to this place by the creek, it was not clear which part of the clan lived here. Mark said there were too many details to explain.
The people who lived here were lovely. Susan felt they really belonged to this place and had successfully managed to straddle the race and class divide, a son who was studying law at the university in Queensland, a daughter training to be a nurse in Darwin, another who w
as a police trainee in Borroloola. The parents were so obviously proud of their children and their achievements; the way they spoke reminded her of the way her Mum talked about her and Tim.
Then there was the cousin with a brood of small children, running everywhere, almost naked, snotty nosed, one carrying a pet chook. Their mother screaming at them and waving a stick, but rushing to hug one who had fallen and hurt his knee, while at the same time she scolded another for eating a piece of bread with filthy hands.
There was a grizzled old man, perhaps a grandfather, who still had his aboriginal heritage running strong. He told Susan a story of the early spirits of this land, the Emu spirits of his totem. He had walked with her to the creek, carrying a fish spear, and showed her where he could spear fish. He had told her of going in a small boat into the rough Gulf waters to catch dugong and turtle with a harpoon; he told her of being a little boy when a white man beat his father. The man had accused him of stealing a cow with no brand on their own land, said he knew this cow by sight and it he had made it run away.
The old Chinese cook, relationship unknown, was like a second grandfather; he made Chinese dumplings for their morning tea. He had received the pig offered, on behalf of the whole family, with gratitude. He had immediately hung it from a beam under the verandah. Later he would “smoke-im, real good,” but for now, dumplings.
Almost as an afterthought, he had sliced off a portion of cheek meat, to add to his menu. When it was ready, the dumplings and steamed pork were served steaming in a spicy sauce. The food was delicious, and Susan had eaten with uninhibited gusto.
It was such a hotchpotch, and yet it was so real and alive. Susan had always had an image of aboriginal culture, which she realised now was a stereotype—the noble savage with the spear, living out and alone, totally at one with the land. Instead, here was a culture that was a living and dynamic fusion, the old and the new all living and drawing off each other; a chaotic harmony, as if blessed by the spirit of this land.
Susan sensed this was a new aboriginal and Australian culture and, in maybe fifty years, the culture would evolve again, its people changing beyond recognition. Only the landscape would remain the same.
She was roused from her reverie by Mark’s hand on her shoulder, “You look like you were having such a lovely dream.” He said, “Let’s walk round the town, and down to the river, I’ll show you the sights for a bit, before we come back for lunch and travel on.”
She slipped her arm around his waist and they walked into the bright sunshine of a Borroloola dry season day. Susan soaked up the sun’s rays as a warm and gentle breeze caressed her skin. She felt good. Today was a day to be enjoyed while she waited for the chips to fall. She would not think any more about her message to Anne until there was something to know.
Chapter 13 – Heartbreak Hotel to VRD – Day 26
Later that night, Susan and Mark lay side by side in their bed in the little box unit room at the Heartbreak Hotel. It was the middle of the night, or more accurately the early morning. Mark seemed to be sleeping soundly, his breathing regular.
She felt overcome with warmth and tenderness for the man that slept beside her. Susan saw clearly now that she had fallen in love with him. She was in way over her head, she could not conceive of her life without him. Sure he had his odd quirks: he was secretive, defensive, and he didn’t like questions. But then, he had hardly had the best start: an abusive father, a mother who had given him little before vanishing. She felt sure this was at the root of his emotional wall.
Susan was in the mood to forgive all. Part of her regretted the text yesterday, digging into the girls’ identities. She was sure there was a reasonable explanation. After all the passports were out of date, or at least the Scottish one was. And the name didn’t seem familiar. She was almost sure that the name she remembered from the paper was Catherine or Katherine—not Fiona—maybe the surname was the same, but then she wasn’t really sure. And it wasn’t like Rodgers was an uncommon name.
Susan felt she was breaking Mark’s trust by going looking for dirty secrets. Especially when Mark was always so kind and gentle, well most of the time.
It had only been once or twice that she had seen a look in his face that scared her, but everyone has a dark side. Susan was sure she was just jumping at shadows. She just had respond to his affection with trust.
Mark had been true to his promise to make it a night to remember. On leaving Borroloola, they had driven up the road for an hour and stopped at a little town called Cape Crawford, ‘town’ was perhaps too large a word, as the town was really just a roadhouse called Heartbreak Hotel.
There was no mobile reception here.
The pub was not much to look at; the room Mark had rented for them was really basic, not much more than a box with a double bed and an air conditioner. There was a small TV, running from the satellite dish perched on the roof of the hotel. It gave a range of channels, mostly American, but some local. In the early evening she had feasted her desire to be connected with the outside world with an hour of news watching and channel surfing.
They had arrived mid-afternoon, and had checked in to the room immediately. Coming into their room, they sated their desire for slow and gentle sex.
Mark had looked at her with such tenderness, his low voice telling her how much she meant to him. He never quite said love, but from him it felt almost the same. This was the first time he had talked to her in an emotional way and it moved her far beyond anything else she had known with any other man.
It had been lovely to be here with daylight to spare. After their time in bed they had gone for a drink in the bar and it was still only just after three, they had a long afternoon yet. Susan ordered lemonade, and mixed it with a dash of Mark’s beer.
After they’d emptied their glasses, Mark said he had something he wanted to show her, just a short drive away. It was less than half an hour before they turned onto a track with a small sign reading, Bessy Springs - Falls.
The waterfall wasn’t huge, less than a hundred feet high, but it had a steady flow that fell over ochre cliffs into a crystal clear pool. The pool was fringed by a prickly palm, which Mark called, ‘Pandanus.’
They first swam in the pool below, then climbed to the top of the waterfall and followed the creek back to a series of deep rock pools. On the way they passed through what, to Susan, appeared to be a city made of stones; Mark called it a lost city.
Over millennia the weather had eroded the rock in the creek valley into hundreds of stone columns. Seen together they looked like stone skyscrapers poking up through the trees, the layers in the stone the building floors. Susan could almost see the inhabitants of these strange buildings in her mind; she pictured them all sleeping in the daylight, but coming out at dusk, carrying little lights, like fairies, bustling as they came and went.
They came to a hollowed out rock pool. It was an almost perfect circle, scoured neat and clean by the thunderous water flow of the wet season. Now just a gentle trickle ran into this clear water pool, buried deep in the stone, with sand and pebbles at the edges. Susan had waded in and discovered that, in the centre, the water was deep and cold. It went well over her head when she tried to touch the bottom with her toes.
Mark had taken off her clothes and held her body against his. He did not seek sex, he just caressed and held her, and she held him in return. They gently touched and explored each other’s bodies and faces; she touched the big scar on his back that ran across his shoulder. Susan said she would imagine it was a gunshot wound, sustained in a wild-west gunfight.
Mark laughed, “More likely barbed wire from when a horse threw me over a fence.”
They returned to the Heartbreak Hotel just as dusk was falling. The sky was lit by a red sunset in the western sky, the sun turning from yellow, to orange, to red, to almost purple as it descended through the final layers of a distant smoky sky.
Dinner was “Surf and Turf” in the roadhouse: a juicy slab of Barkly steak, complemented by delicious Carpen
taria Prawns and fresh Barramundi—so the menu read. It was incredibly delicious for roadhouse food. They washed their meal down with beer, poured into glasses from huge longneck bottles of NT Draught.
Someone struck up a fiddle, and next minute there were Irish set dances and jigs. The roadhouse patrons all joined in; instructions were easy and little was expected. There were around thirty or forty people in the bar but, surprisingly, for once there seemed to be no one Mark knew. Mark explained that it was just a tourist crowd; the locals were all busy with mustering and other dry season work. They wouldn’t be in until the weekend.
Susan didn’t mind, it meant that she had Mark all to herself; he seemed to like this too.
The night drifted by, the pleasant feeling of them being together, sitting side by side, sometimes facing and looking at each other, sometimes little touches of hands and thighs. She knew there would be more loving before they went to sleep, but the now was about enjoying each other’s company.
The evening drifted on, and Susan started yawning. Mark took her by the hand, pulled her to her feet and led her back to their room. He sat her on the edge of the bed, while he opened the small bag that held his things.
Susan got the feeling that something significant was about to happen.
Mark took something out of his bag and zipped it back up. He turned and padded softly to sit beside her on the bed. Almost shyly he took her hand and put an object in it.
Nestled in the palm of her hand was a blue felt box, the type that held rings and small jewellery.
Susan felt a flutter of excitement and looked to Mark, curious.
“Open it,” he said. Susan opened the lid. Inside was a ring, set with a beautiful milky blue stone the size of her thumbnail. Sitting delicately beside the ring was an almost identical stone, set into a pendant on a necklace of gold links.
Crocodile Spirit Dreaming - Possession - Books 1 - 3 Page 14
