Behind Mt. Baldy

by Christopher Cummings

  Graham nodded. “We walked from Gordonvale along the Mulgrave and then up Robsons Track. That was a great exercise.” The three older boys then exchanged reminiscences about that exercise, leaving Roger feeling quite left out. For once he was glad when they started marching again.

  The road curved around the farm buildings and southwards away from the jungle. It went down to a small bridge and then wound its way over open farmland. It looked very pretty to Roger.

  Within ten minutes he had lost interest in the scenery as he plodded up a kilometre long slope. Several times cars rushed past, forcing them to step into the long grass. There seemed to be no breeze and there was no shade. Roger began to wish they would pass through some rainforest.

  The road curved and dipped down a long slope to a narrow bridge. Roger struggled to keep up. He wished Graham would slow down but he didn’t dare suggest this. A glance at his watch showed it was 1:30. They had been marching for nearly 50 minutes. ‘Perhaps Graham will go by the book and give us the ten minutes in the hour to rest?’ he wondered hopefully.

  No such luck. Up another long hill. Into the sunflowers to avoid a shiny blue car driven at high speed by a young man with a black moustache. ‘Trying to impress his girlfriend!’ Roger thought resentfully. Another narrow bridge and a wait for another car to rush across, also far too fast for safety. Bloody tourists! Up a slope through more open fields, some brown and poorly maintained, others green and dotted with black and white dairy cows. Down to yet another narrow bridge. Past a farm with magnificent flower gardens bordering the road. Past a derelict barn on the right.

  A swarm of tiny finches flashed across the road at their approach. A car came from behind. Why do they all drive so fast? Uphill past a row of pine trees which threw a little shade. Another farm and dogs barking. By this time Roger was just marching mechanically. His legs and feet seemed numb and his hips and shoulders just a general misery. Sweat poured out of him. He began to fall behind and had to battle with himself not to call out asking for a rest.

  The road just seemed to wind uphill between walls of headhigh grass until it reached the crest of a long ridge. Here it passed to the right of a low hill and out to the right there were glimpses of half the Atherton Tablelands.

  Suddenly they stopped. Roger came to a standstill and blinked sweat from his eyes. Graham was dropping his pack!

  “OK. Ten minutes. This is the junction with the Gillies Highway,” Graham said.

  Roger looked around. He was astonished they - he - had walked so far. It was just on two O’clock.

  “How far have we come?” he asked.

  “A bit over seven Ks,” Graham replied with a grin. “That’s good going for an hour and a half.”

  Roger dropped his pack and webbing and felt as though he would float away. He flexed his arms and rubbed his sore shoulders. A slight breeze sent a pleasant cooling sensation down his sweat soaked back. He sat on his pack and had a long drink.

  At that moment a car, a white sedan, arrived at high speed from along the highway and pulled up with a scatter of loose bitumen. Two men in it peered out, the closest one pointing to the road sign with his left hand and waving a map in the driver’s face with his right.

  Roger looked up out of curiosity and felt a thrill of fear run through him. Both men were dressed in black!

  The pointing man suddenly saw the cadets sitting beside the road. His face went hard and he clenched his teeth. He turned to look at them. Then he and the driver exchanged words and bent to the map. Roger couldn’t help staring. The nearest man was in his forties with big shoulders, a large squarish head and a roll of fat on the back of his neck.

  The car suddenly leapt into motion and sped off down the Danbulla Road. Roger pulled out his notebook and began to write.

  “What you doing Roger?” Peter asked.

  “Writing down that car’s make and number.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Didn’t you see? Those men were both dressed in black.”

  “Oh come off it Roger!” Graham snorted. “You’ve got Iron Claws on the brain. Give it a rest. The cops have arrested the murderers.”

  To Roger’s surprise Stephen spoke up. “I think Roger’s right. The Inspector did warn us about strangers, and he did say the KSS used to be organized in groups of nine.”

  Graham had no answer to this. Instead he looked sulky, then took out his water bottle and had a drink. Then he hoisted on his webbing. “Let’s keep moving before our muscles stiffen up,” he said.

  Roger just wanted to lie down but he made the effort to stand up. “Ouch! Too late. I’m stiff already,” he groaned. All his muscles seemed to be tense, like hard rubber. With an effort that made him groan he swung on his webbing and pack.

  Graham was already on the move. He began striding down the right hand side of the two lane highway. At least it was downhill for a half a kilometre but Roger could see the road went up over another long, open hill. Once again it took a few minutes for the stiffness to ease out of his aching muscles. By then they were at the bottom of the slope and all their muscles had to painfully ‘change gears’ to begin the upward slog.

  It wasn’t very pleasant. Cars and trucks raced past at high speed, often too close for comfort. Some vehicles tooted their horn and people in a few yelled derisory taunts and obscenities which made Roger feel very self-conscious and embarrassed.

  As they plodded up the slope the four strung out until Roger was a good two hundred paces behind Graham but only fifty behind Stephen. He kept grimly on, trying to think of something nice, rather than of his chafing and sore knees.

  What his mind kept returning to were the events of the last two days. Try as he might, he could not shake the horrifying visions of the sodden corpse, or of the men in black lurking in the jungle.

  The cadets reached the crest of the ridge. A secondary road lead off on the right. The highway curved left along the crest. Away down to the right sunlight glinted on an arm of Lake Tinaroo. Beyond it was the dark jungle covered mass of Python Ridge where they had spent the night. Beyond it was the mass of the Lamb Range where he had endured his terrifying airship ride. He looked away. ‘I’ve had enough of this place for a while,’ he thought.

  Instead he looked left to where, twenty kilometres away, Mt Bartle-Frere, Queensland’s highest mountain, heaved its jungle covered bulk above the rolling pastures to cover half the distant horizon. That got his mind going back to the January a year and a half before when he and the others had spent two weeks searching the jungle there for a gold mine. That had culminated in them being rescued from the rain sodden jungle by helicopter.

  ‘I must have rocks in the head to keep coming on expeditions with this lot,’ he mused, remembering the fear he had felt as the cyclone had lashed their jungle camp.

  As they got closer to a belt of trees ahead they developed into a wall of solid jungle. Roger pulled out his map to confirm his memory. Yes. It was the patch of jungle around Lake Barrine. The boys passed a farmhouse. A gravel road went off on the left. They passed another farm house and then the jungle was right beside them on the left. Traffic whizzed past. Roger felt he was in a sort of nightmare.

  As they passed the turnoff to Lake Barrine Graham stopped and waited for the others to catch up. “Anyone want to go to the shop?” he asked.

  “Where?” Peter asked.

  “At the kiosk down at the Lake.”

  “Fair go!” Stephen replied. “That’s a couple of hundred metres, and downhill all the way - which means uphill coming back. It will add half a kilometre to the walk.”

  Roger said nothing. He just stood bent over to ease the weight of his pack, while trying to recover his breath.

  “You go if you like,” Peter said. “Leave your pack and I’ll wait here.”

  “OK. Do you want anything? Steve? Roger?” Graham asked as he dropped his pack.

  “No thanks,” Stephen replied. “I’ll keep walking. This is ridiculous. You keep talking about doing this hike but you are fo
rever stopping for every silly little reason.”

  “It’s OK. I’ll catch up,” Graham replied. “Anyway, it’s nearly time for another rest.”

  “How far have we come from the Danbulla turnoff?” Stephen asked.

  “About four Ks,” Graham replied. “Do you want anything?”

  “Get me a softdrink,” Peter said.

  “Roger?”

  “Yes please,” Roger replied. He was debating dropping his pack or sitting down but knew that was weakness. He dug out some money and passed it to Graham. “I’ll just keep going.”

  It took an effort to make that first step but he pushed himself. Stephen started walking too, following a few steps behind. Roger didn’t look back. He just put his head down and gripped his pack straps with both hands to ease the weight.

  The main road ran through jungle with a mowed verge a few metres wide. The traffic raced past. Roger found it most unpleasant. As he plodded along he saw the back half of a large brown snake slide into the weeds just ahead of him but he did not change his pace. Some instinct told him it wasn’t going to attack and he was too tired to get excited. He just warned Stephen. The snake slid along near them for half a minute before vanishing into the weeds.

  As the road curved slowly left they came into an area of shade which went on for over a kilometre. Roger just plodded on, feeling more like a zombie every minute. He was just coming to open country again when Peter and Graham caught them up.

  Graham called, “Pull up you two and have a drink. It’s time for a break,” He was grinning and striding along as though he didn’t have a care in the world. That nettled Roger and he shook his head in annoyance. He looked at his watch; nearly twenty past three.

  “How much further to go?” he asked, taking the cold can of softdrink from Graham. He opened it and poured it down his throat. “Aaah! That’s good!”

  Graham consulted his map. “About seven Ks I reckon. Another hour and a half.”

  ‘Seven Ks,’ Roger thought. His gloom must have showed on his face.

  Stephen clapped him on the shoulder. “Cheer up Roger. We’ve walked about fourteen since lunchtime. You are going well,” he said.

  This unexpected statement made Roger look at Stephen. He didn’t know what to say and wasn’t sure if Stephen was giving him a compliment or teasing him. In reply he gave a weak smile and nodded, then quaffed some more softdrink before holding the can out.

  “This is good. Want some Steve?”

  “Thanks. Yes.” Stephen took the can and drank a mouthful, then handed it back. Roger drained the last few drops and felt a pleasant glow inside.

  After a few minutes they set off again, the empty cans crushed and placed in basic pouches. It was a long downhill slope through open farmland for the next kilometre. As they trudged along Roger looked out over the rolling country. On the next rise was another dark belt of rainforest, the Lake Eacham National Park. In the middle distance the bulk of Mt Quincan, and the Seven Sisters, a line of ancient volcanic scoria cones, stood in a line across their front. In the far distance a low lava dome topped by a microwave tower marked the site of Atherton, largest town on the Tablelands. Beyond it, barring the western horizon, was a line of jumbled and rugged mountains, the Herberton Range.

  ‘One of them is Mt Baldy,’ Roger thought. He could not identify exactly which mountain peak it was but it cheered him up to be walking directly towards it as he was sure that was the end of the hike.

  Near the bottom of the hill Roger remembered his packet of jelly beans. He put a hand into his damp pocket and fumbled around until he extracted two. They were all sticky but he didn’t care. He glanced at them. ‘Just my luck - two black ones!’

  Then it was uphill for nearly a kilometre. They were now marching straight into the afternoon sun and the stench of diesel fumes from several big trucks made him feel a bit queasy.

  At length they reached the road junction on the crest and got glimpses of sunlight glittering on water off to their right. It was another arm of Lake Tinaroo. The boys halted for a minute for a drink.

  “We’ve come a fair way,” Peter said, indicating the lake. They all looked out and in the middle distance to the north was the dark mass of Python Ridge and beyond it, blue with distance, the mass of the Lamb Range. They couldn’t see the actual town or dam at Tinaroo but could work out where it was. Roger was amazed at how far it did look and felt a sudden surge of accomplishment.

  “Let’s go,” Graham said. “Still five or six kilometres to go and it’s nearly four O’clock.”

  Roger lumbered into painful motion. Now he didn’t care how much it hurt. ‘I’m going to walk this if it kills me!’ he told himself.

  CHAPTER 17

  MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

  The sun was now low in the west, just above the mountains beyond Atherton. Roger was up with the others but the effort had cost him and he knew he was near the end of his strength. At ten past five the four sweat-soaked boys rounded the bend on the edge of the small town of Yungaburra.

  As they walked past the State School Peter asked: “Where will we go? Will we wait here for the police?”

  “Let’s go to the shop,” Graham suggested.

  “The Inspector said to wait beside the road,” Stephen reminded.

  “What’s the difference? It’s not a very big town. The cops will find us,” Graham replied.

  “Where are we sleeping?” Roger asked. He felt so tired he just wanted to lie down.

  “There’s a Caravan Park down by the lake,” Stephen said.

  “That will do. Oh! Here come the police,” Roger replied.

  The Police Landcruiser turned into view from a side-street. Sergeant Grey was driving. He pulled up and grinned at them. “Right on time. Did you walk all that way?” He looked at Roger.

  Roger nodded, too tired to speak.

  Sergeant Grey nodded approval. “Bloody well done young Roger. Chuck your gear in the back. Some of you will have to get in there. Just pretend you’re a bunch of crims. You look like a mob of ne’er do wells anyway.”

  Roger took off his gear with a sigh of relief and climbed into the rear of the vehicle. Stephen hopped in the cab. Sergeant Grey started up and did a U-turn.

  Stephen took off his glasses to polish them. “Where we going Sarge?” he asked.

  “Dorkoffsky’s place.”

  Graham leaned forward. “We need to find somewhere to camp for the night,” he said.

  “You can doss down there, or, if the Inspector doesn’t like that, at the station.”

  “Can we have a hot shower?” Peter asked.

  “Sure. We’ve done our search in the house. We are searching the garage and garden shed now.”

  “Doesn’t anyone else live there?” Stephen asked.

  “Apparently not. It’s a four bedroom house, almost new. Dorkoffsky lived on his own, only moved into it a few weeks ago.”

  A couple of minutes later they pulled up in the drive-way beside a modern house down near the edge of the lake. The house was built on a slope so that the front door was also the entrance to the upper level of the two story building. Roger climbed out and stretched. He had stiffened up and could hardly walk. Even so he was struck by the beauty of the setting. The back lawn ran down to the lake, which was like a mirror. The afternoon sun lit up rainforest on a hill across the water. A line of ducks sent a ripple of Vs in their wake.

  The detectives were searching a shed at the back of the house. Inspector Sharpe was there. He looked up and gave a wave but went on probing a garden bed.

  Sergeant Grey spoke to them, “Grab your gear and dump it in this room.”

  He led the way down past the side of the house and around to the back of the house. Here there was a concrete patio. A sliding glass door opened into a bedroom. The room was carpeted and the bed made but was otherwise bare. The lights were already on and it was all so clean and civilised Roger hesitated to walk in while wearing his muddy boots and filthy clothes. He dropped his gear on the patio an
d so did the others, before following Sergeant Grey in.

  Sergeant Grey pointed. “There’s a shower just there. Keep yourselves in this area for the moment except to use the phone. The Inspector wants you to call your captain and also your parents. But he doesn’t want you to say much. Just tell them you are OK and safe then give the phone to me. So far the news media haven’t got wind of any of this and the Inspector wants it kept quiet for the moment.”

  “Why’s that Sir?” Graham asked.

  “I’d rather not say.”

  Stephen frowned. “Are there more of them and he wants to catch them too?” he suggested.

  “He has his reasons. Now, who’s first on the phone?”

  Graham put his hand up. “I’d better call Captain Conkey first.”

  Sergeant Grey led him through an internal door and up a flight of stairs. This led to the lounge, dining room and kitchen which were level with the front lawn.

  Roger turned to the others. “I’m first in the shower.”

  Peter wrinkled his nose. “Good idea.”

  Roger flushed, unsure just how badly he smelt. He went out onto the patio and dug into his pack for his soap, towel and clean underwear. The first thing he saw when he opened the top was the black jacket he’d found. He pulled it out and looked around for the Inspector. None of the police were in sight. He shrugged and put it down and kept unpacking. His muscles hurt so much he could hardly bend his legs. He also extracted his other uniform and looked at it. It was already dirty from two days walking. ‘I’ll have to wear it,’ he thought unhappily, knowing he had nothing else. With a sigh of relief he sat on the concrete and began to unlace his boots.

  Stephen came out and began to rummage in his pack. “There’s a washing machine and tumble dryer in the next room. I’m going to wash my uniforms,” he said.

  “Do you think we should?”

  “Why not? The police want us here, so it’s only fair,” Stephen replied.

  Roger decided he would definitely wash both uniforms. He had a spare T-shirt and could wear his first pair of trousers. Taking his clothes and toilet gear Roger went through to the bathroom. Peter had gone upstairs to the phone. It was all very modern and clean and made Roger feel even dirtier. The tiles felt smooth and cold under his bare feet.