Having arrived on the grassy footpath Tina looked both ways along the quiet street. Not a single vehicle was moving and there were big pools of darkness between the small islands of light. Diagonally off to her right a hundred paces away was a shop and petrol station on the other side of the street and the same distance to her left was the hotel. Across the street was just empty blackness of vacant allotments. Just visible in the darkness across the street was a parked 4WD vehicle with a boat trailer behind it. Further to her left a streetlight lit up the intersection beyond the hotel and a few lights illuminated a ‘heritage’ house diagonally across from the hotel. Not a single vehicle was moving but there were a line of five or six parked outside the hotel.
Seeing no sign of the others Tina turned left and walked along the grass footpath until she came to the hotel. Three doors opened out onto the bitumen sidewalk under the overhanging second story. The first door led into the dining room. The other two led into the public bar which was crowded with rough looking men, mostly miners and stockmen by the look of them.
Knowing it was illegal for an under-age person to enter a public bar Tina went into the dining room and looked around. Three out of six tables had people sitting at them but there was no sign of the others and she was too shy to ask which table to sit at so she turned to study the array of old photographs which lined the walls.
For the next few minutes Tina idly read the captions and studied the photos. From time to time to time she looked around to see if the others had arrived. As she did she casually glanced at the people who were sitting eating. At the closest table was an elderly couple who were obviously tourists. Seated at the next table was a family with young children. At the third table were two men and as she glanced at them Tina experienced something like an electric shock. Seated with his back to her was a man with black curly hair and a short beard who looked vaguely familiar. The man wore a dirty khaki short with the sleeves cut off, shorts and rubber thongs.
But it was his companion who really caught Tina’s attention. ‘I know him,’ she thought. ‘Now, where have I seen him?’ He had a long, narrow face, well-suntanned and had longish brown hair. He wore a grubby dark green shirt with the sleeves rolled up and dirty jeans and boots. Then, with a shock, recognition came to her. ‘That is Danny, the man who shot at us on Lake Koombooloomba!’
CHAPTER 8
INSTANT DECISION
Tina stared in amazement. Then she realized that she must not let the men know she had recognized them. ‘They might hurt me; and I need to tell the police,’ her racing mind told her. To her embarrassment she realized her mouth was hanging agape and she snapped it shut as she turned away. Facing the old photos again she tried to focus her eyes so as to observe the men in the reflection from the glass in the frame of a picture showing a very antique looking railmotor crossing a bridge almost covered by floodwaters.
‘What should I do?’ she wondered, very conscious of her racing heart and rapid breathing. For a few seconds searing flashbacks of Danny shooting at her and of him shooting the Ranger caused her to feel dizzy. ‘Don’t be silly! Keep control of yourself,’ she thought. As her anxiety level shot up she contemplated hurrying out. Then she shook her head. ‘No, don’t turn so they can see your face,’ she told herself. She didn’t think they would recognize her as they had only seen her from 50 metres away and then she had been wearing sunglasses and a cap and lifejacket. But she did not want to take the risk.
At last she managed to focus her eyes and saw that neither man was paying her any attention. They had both finished eating a meal and were drinking beer from bottles and talking. As the seconds ticked into minutes Tina really began to fret. ‘Oh, where are the others? Where is Sarah?’ she wondered. Anxiously she kept glancing sideways towards the front door or another doorway that led through to the public bar.
But there was no sign of her family or friends. Then Tina realized she had been staring at the same old photo for several minutes. ‘If I keep looking at the same picture the men might become suspicious,’ she thought. She found herself faced with a difficult decision. To study the next old photo she had to move further into the corner and away from the door. ‘If they recognize me I will find it harder to escape,’ she thought.
But she decided that was better than moving back to the door and out. So she took a deep breath and sidled along to stand facing the next photo. Another anxious glance showed no sign of any of her family. ‘Oh, where are they? Why don’t they come?’ she wondered.
Tina again moved to focus on the reflection in the glass. She had just done this when both men suddenly pushed back their chairs and stood up. The man with black curly hair and beard said, “Come on Danny. It’s time we moved.”
Danny nodded and lifted a beer bottle to his lips. “OK Marco. Just a sec.” With that he drained the beer and set the bottle down then both men headed for the door. Tina took the opportunity to slip around the angle to face the side wall, placing an empty table between them and her. To her mixed relief and frustration the men did not even glance at her but walked out onto the front footpath.
‘Oh, they are getting away! What should I do?’ Tina asked herself. She was torn between rushing to a telephone, telling someone or waiting for her parents and friends. Then another worrying thought came to her: Were the men staying outside or leaving? And if they were leaving was it on foot or by vehicle? ‘And if it is by vehicle then I need to know what type and what its registration number is. That way the police can more easily track them down,’ she thought.
That meant taking a risk but she decided she must. ‘I can always run into the bar. They won’t hurt me with all those people there,’ she reasoned. So she turned and walked across to the front door and ‘casually’ glanced out.
What she saw at once told her she had made the right decision but immediately presented her with another dilemma. The two men were just visible walking across the street towards the 4WD and boat parked in the shadows across the street. She had expected them to get into one of the vehicles parked immediately in front of the hotel but this gave her a more difficult problem: how to see the vehicle’s number plate without the men seeing her.
Observing that the men had their backs to her Tina stepped outside onto the footpath. The footpath was brightly lit but there were several people seated there drinking and a couple of men were leaning on the tray of one of the vehicles. Tina decided to take the chance and turned right and walked quickly to the last vehicle in the line and around to its side where she was in the shadows. As she did she glanced both ways along the footpath, still hoping to see Sarah or the adults.
But they were nowhere in sight and by then the men had reached their vehicle. They opened doors and climbed in, Marco in the driver’s eat and Danny in the passenger’s. The fear that the vehicle would immediately start up and drive off sent Tina into a lather of anxiety and she dithered for a few seconds over what to do next.
Then she made a decision she knew was very risky. ‘I must see the number plate,’ she told herself. Afraid that if she dithered she might change her mind she set off walking quickly across the street, thankful that she wore rubber soled trainers. As she did she angled towards the rear of the vehicle. ‘Maybe they won’t look in the rear vision mirrors,’ she thought. She reasoned that if anyone did it would be the driver so she kept on walking across the street to the grass footpath behind the boat trailer.
Having reached that position she paused, partly to get her breath back because she was almost gasping for air she was so anxious. Another glance showed her that her parents had not yet appeared over at the hotel. There was still no sign of them so she took a deep breath and began walking slowly towards the left rear of the vehicle. She knew that she must be silhouetted against the street lights behind her but still hoped the men weren’t looking.
A few seconds later she reached the boat and ducked down to crouch beside the trailer. ‘I can always run back to the hotel,’ she thought, hoping she could get way faster than the men cou
ld get out of the vehicle to chase her. By now her mouth had gone dry from fear and her hands were sweaty. Her heart was pounding so hard it seemed to make a booming, swashing noise. Even her eyes seemed to be hard to focus.
But despite being really scared Tina made herself creep forward past the trailer wheel at a low crouch. As she did she heard Marco’s voice. Very clearly he said, “Roger that Grey. We will be there. See you in ten. Over.”
‘He is talking on a radio,’ Tina thought. That did not really surprise her as many vehicles in that part of the world carried CB radios and large antennae were quite common. Another man’s voice answered amid the electronic crackle of static. “Roger, Out,” was all it said.
‘They are going to meet someone,’ Tina thought. ‘I must hurry.’ So she crouched in under the bow of the boat, a typical fisherman’s ‘tinnie’, so that she could see the back number plate on the vehicle. But it was dark and the plate was smeared with mud, forcing her to bend right down. Still finding it difficult she reached forward and rubbed at the number plate and tried to make out the letters and numbers. ‘F.. I.. Q.. 5.. Oh drat, is that a 3 or an 8?’ she puzzled.
Suddenly the small light above the number plate came on and she could read it. It gave her such a fright she flinched back, banging her head on the bow of the boat. Even as she wondered if the men had heard the noise the vehicle’s engine burst into life. ‘I must get out of here,’ Tina thought. But there was no time. Before she could reach behind her to hold the side of the boat to steady herself the vehicle’s motor roared and it lurched forward.
‘I’ll be run over!’ she thought in panic. Unable from her crouching position to jump aside Tina grabbed the upright on the trailer. She was instantly jerked off her feet and began to drag on the gravel. A wave of fear engulfed Tina, almost paralysing her. Part of her mind told her to let go while she still safely could but she could see the trailer’s wheels and feared she would get caught under the trailer and be dragged along. She realized that whatever she did it would hurt. Stung by desperation she twitched her whole body up and got her feet onto the trailer frame just under the bow of the boat.
By then the vehicle had pulled out onto the bitumen road and had begun to accelerate. By the time Tina had recovered her grip and shifted her left buttock up onto the trailer frame the vehicle was going much too fast to safely jump off. ‘If I do I could be badly injured or killed,’ she thought.
Then the enormity of her predicament sank in. ‘Oh no! I am trapped!’ she told herself.
Now fear changed to terror as she began to wonder what the men would do to her when they reached their destination. ‘That is if I don’t fall off first,’ Tina thought grimly. Once again she contemplated jumping off but by then the vehicle was going really fast. She clung on tightly and moved so as to get a better look around. She noted that they had left the lights of the town and that there was only dark bush on either side.
Then the vehicle turned abruptly right onto a gravel side road and Tina’s fears all returned. ‘I will never be able to hold on long if they hit potholes or corrugations,’ she thought. Ghastly images of being mangled under the trailer and being dragged and torn to bits under it while the vehicle raced on unheeding at 100kph made her cringe. When the trailer bounced over a pothole she cried out in fright.
That first bump nearly did unseat her and she found she was crying and that her hands had become sweaty. To her horror she found it very hard to keep a grip on the smooth metal and her feet kept bouncing off, despite her attempts to brace them. All she could do was jam her boots in between the boat and its trailer but then a bump allowed the boat to move and that jammed the foot even harder and pinched. ‘I could get caught or have my foot broken,’ she thought. But what to do? ‘How long can I hang on?’ she wondered fearfully.
Off to the left she noted the lights of a couple of houses but the vehicle was still travelling much too fast to safely jump off so Tina had no choice but to cling on and hope.
Then another problem arose. Dust was billowing up off the dirt road and was being sucked in behind the vehicle to engulf her. She began to cough and blink and it became hard to breathe. Unable to stop herself she began to cough. ‘The men will hear me!’ she thought fearfully.
But they obviously didn’t as the vehicle did not slow down. Instead it hammered over the potholes and corrugations, the trailer jerking and bouncing along behind with a terrified Tina clinging on for dear life. To try to keep the dust out she closed her eyes and tucked her nose into her shirt to try to muffle the worst of the dust. But it still got in everywhere and she continued to sneeze and cough.
Worse still the dust mingled with her sweat to make her hands slippery and she had to repeatedly take one hand away at a time to wipe it dry on her clothes. ‘Oh how much longer?’ she wondered, knowing that she was rapidly tiring. ‘The man said ten minutes,’ she remembered but she had no idea how long they had been driving.
To add to her fears the road began to cross dry creeks and low ridges and it became rougher. The driver at last slowed down a bit but only after Tina had been slammed and banged hard against the boat and upright several times. But at least the dust eased as they came onto a different gravel surface.
Then the moment that Tina had been fearing arrived. The vehicle began to slow and then came to a stop. The vehicle’s lights were turned off. That left Tina clinging to the boat trailer in a state of rising panic. She knew she must be found if she stayed but feared to move lest the men hear her. ‘But I can at least try to run if I have to,’ she reasoned. So, rather than do nothing except hope, she eased her shoes down onto the gravel and began to twist her body around.
As she did the passenger’s door was opened and she heard Danny step out. As his boots crunched on the gravel near her she experienced a spasm of terror. She had no doubt that if she was discovered the men would kill her. As he moved so did she, slipping into a crouch in against the back of the vehicle. In her fluster she tensed to run.
Just as she was about to spring out she heard Danny speak. He said, “Just wait till I have a look Marco. The plane might be here already.”
With that Danny walked away past the front of the vehicle. For a few seconds Tina’s mind grappled with what was going on and what to do. ‘Plane?’ she wondered. Then she understood. The crooks had used a floatplane at Koombooloomba. Hoping that the noise of Danny’s boots and the noise of the vehicle engine would mask her own movements she acted.
Very carefully she crept out from behind the vehicle, moving at a crouch. As she did she looked to her right and noted that Danny was now standing twenty paces in front of the vehicle and was on the edge of a lake. Seeing the water did not surprise her and she even guessed which lake it was. ‘We are at that gravel boat ramp across the lake from the picnic area we were at this afternoon,’ she thought.
But she also noted that the vehicle was stopped in the middle of a large open area and there was enough moonlight to make things clearly visible. ‘If I try to move they might still spot me,’ she thought. So she paused, then regretted it as Danny turned and came walking back. Once again a spasm of panic gripped her and she felt bile rise into the back of her throat, causing her to gag. Sweat and shivering became dominant.
However Danny went to the driver’s side of the vehicle and said, “Turn this thing around Marco and we will get this boat in the water.”
Marco grunted a reply and the engine revved as he engaged the gears. Tina gulped and knew she had to move now. ‘I can’t stay with the trailer and my cover is about to drive off,’ she thought. So she edged further out and as soon as the vehicle began to move she went the other way, keeping low and glancing anxiously back. Twenty metres away was a wall of bushes at the base of a scrub covered hill and that became her objective.
As she scurried across the open ground she glanced back and saw that Danny was watching the vehicle and not her and that he had turned so that his back was towards her. But it also meant that the driver’s side swung around to be on the sa
me side as her. Knowing she had to be hidden before the vehicle was round she took a risk and scuttled across the bare gravel.
A couple of seconds later she pushed into the bushes, just as the vehicle swung to a stop on the other side of the clearing. For a few seconds she crouched, her heart beating so hard that she could not hear properly. Again she tensed ready for flight. But no sounds indicated that the men had heard her so she waited. Then she heard the men talking and the vehicle began to reverse.
A wave of intense relief swept through Tina and she broke into a fit of trembling. Almost sobbing with the release of tension she used the sound of the vehicle’s tyres crunching on the gravel to cover the rustling of the leaves as she pushed further back into the bushes. She found there was a ridge of soil half a metre high, obviously pushed up by the grader that had made the clearing and she was able to crouch behind that and peek through the wall of bushes to watch.
Behind her were more bushes and then the dark shape of the scrub covered hill. ‘They might hear me if I try to move up that,’ she thought. For a few seconds she knelt in safety to get her breath back and to recover from a fit of shivering. Then she thought hard and wondered what to do. ‘Now is the time to sneak away,’ she thought. But then it came to her that the men obviously had no idea she was there. ‘I might be able to see what they do,’ she thought.
With that in mind she edged forward to get a better view and then half lay, half crouched on the earth mound. She was aware that her clothes were getting filthy but it was of so little importance that she just shrugged the thought off. Then she settled as comfortably as she could and watched.
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