Girl in an Empty Cage

by Graham Wilson

  Chapter 29 – The Long Walk

  Dawn of day 31 was cold and cloudy, though the rain had stopped. A big thunderstorm had swept over Vic in the night, and despite his paperbark shelter, which had kept most of the cold rain off his skin, wetness still found ways through. For the last two hours before he arose, in the predawn light, he shivered almost uncontrollably. In that first pale dawn he dug deep in the covered coal bed of the fire and found some still glowing embers. He would not cook now, but wanted to feel some warmth creep into his skin and bones before he set out on another day of walking.

  Then he decided it was not worth the effort. Although it would be comforting to sit by a burning fire and soak it up, he would warm just as fast by walking and, with everything so wet, it would take half an hour to get the fire burning well enough to offer much comfort. Now it was light enough to see he could make his next half kilometre in that half hour.

  A couple of times in the night, when he was most cold, he had thought of getting up to start walking and warm up that way. But with thick cloud the night was very dark and walking with only one good leg was fraught with peril when he could not see. He could not afford another broken leg, or even to badly re-injure the damaged one, that would make walking out of here impossible.

  He reckoned he had made six kilometres yesterday. It was only an educated guess, but it fit with the geography he could read from his map. Six kilometres did not sound like much; hell if he was fit with two good legs he could have done that in an hour. But he could not step on one leg, only lightly touch it to the ground. And that meant that every second step he had to swing his body forward on the walking stick, it taking the place of his bad leg. It was not too bad to go a hundred steps like that, even two or three hundred. But after five hundred his shoulder, which was still tender from the crash, was burning like fire from supporting his body with each alternate step. Five hundred steps was the limit before his body needed to be rested.

  If he pushed it further he started to make mistakes, once he had missed a hole and his stick had gone into it, upending him. Another time, when he flinched from the pain in his shoulder, he had not made the step properly and landed badly. In the attempt to correct he had tried to take full weight on his bad leg. Christ it had hurt, but worse it had seemed to give a little, like he was starting to tear at the weak joining of the bones. So he knew he must be careful. But he could not sit and wait here for another month until his leg was strong enough to take full weight.

  Anyway enough daydreaming huddled around the non-existent fire. He quickly packed embers for a fire around midday when there would be enough dryness for the wood lying around to catch fire and burn properly. He loaded his pack and other items and walked on. Slowly he made his steps and as he went the steps added into tens, hundreds and thousands.

  Each day merged into the next, the routine so similar.

  Walk two hundred steps, rest until he counted to fifty, walk another two hundred, rest, walk, rest, walk rest, until a thousand steps were passed. Then sit down on a flat rock or log for ten or fifteen minutes, chew a honey cake or piece of dried fish and let the muscles get their energy back to do it all again. At four thousand steps he would stop for lunch, reckoning that as four kilometres, a big break.

  He would light a fire, heat his cooking stone and make a soup with whatever was to hand, part drunk, part eaten. Then look for midday food opportunities, a reptile in the sun, a fish in the shallows, perhaps a low flying bird with a stick, or some bush apples or plums. Then walk two more kilometres in the afternoon, before searching out a stopping place, stopping while the sun was still high enough, He would find a place near a creek or waterhole, where frogs and other water creatures promised easy food. Snares were set for a bush rat or other likely meal. Then time was spent digging for yams and roots, lily bulbs or whatever was to hand, fresh cakes for dinner and cold cakes for breakfast. Any excess meat got dried and smoked over the fire.

  He always ate yesterday’s food first unless it was fully dried; it was safer than keeping food for longer and seeing it go mouldy and he did not want to get food poisoning. Sometimes when his evening preparations were done he would allow himself an hour to lie and sleep in the falling sun. It helped give his exhausted body strength to hunt and prepare a proper evening meal and at that time there were less mosquitoes to disturb his sleep than in the night.

  He did not know what was worse, the chronic tiredness or the chronic hunger. Both were always present even when he felt his belly was full or he had just slept for the night. He knew he really needed better nutrition for both his strength and stamina. He craved fat and sugar and fresh fruit and vegetables. But his mind was in a positive place as he was slowly making forward progress and each day his bad leg grew a bit stronger and his body continued to heal its injuries.

  In the late afternoon he would get a good fire going, waiting for the evening meal. Then that hour just on dusk was his hunting hour. He would watch where birds landed, so he could sneak up as they roosted. He would watch for fish movements in the shallows, a chance to use his spear. Sometimes he would stake out a track to a waterhole and wait patiently for an animal to come to drink; twice in his first two weeks he had got a wallaby that way, and spent the next morning smoking and drying all the surplus meat.

  He now had several pounds of dried meat and about twenty yam cakes as a food reserve. He decided he would try and walk further each day, increase to eight kilometres or eight thousand steps. His progress on the map seemed to line up with these distances pretty well, maybe a bit less, though it was hard to judge with the ups and downs and detours. The extra two thousand steps was really hard for the next week, then it got easier so he went to nine thousand and then ten.

  He found his need for food increased as he walked further, and he had started to use his reserve. He could also feel the muscles on his body start to fall away further and he realised he was losing strength. He decided he would look for a good place to stop for a couple of rest days, to build up his reserves, and then try to maintain a steady eight to ten thousand steps per day from there.

  He realised now that ten thousand steps was falling short of ten kilometres on his map, perhaps eight kilometres was closer, but if he could do eight or nine thousand that was still around seven kilometres.

  He found a good cave in a low rocky hill near a big waterhole and decided that this was his rest place. Each day now he let himself sleep until the mid-morning, those early cool morning hours gave the best rest. Then he hunted, fished and dug roots for the rest of the day. During his days in the cave, he caught two fat magpie geese, two good sized catfish, speared in the clear water, and one wallaby. Plus he had as many yam cakes as he could carry. His stick now had over fifty notches. He wanted to be out of here before he got to one hundred.

  His leg could now bear the weight for a half shuffling step, though he still used his stick to ensure he did not stumble and do himself damage. Day followed day, sixty days passed then he was at seventy. That meant he had been walking for forty days now, making it early March by his calculations. Mostly he did between eight and ten thousand steps, though there were places were the country grew very rough and he only made five of six thousand, and also places where the hills and gullies forced him to detour from his intended path or even backtrack. He realised he was going as well as possible but also that he was burning out his body and slowly destroying it. He needed more starch and fatty foods, dried meat was good but the chewing now took effort and his vegetable diet was limited and also hard to chew.

  He was now in the very top of the Fitzmaurice catchment and his map showed a place called Wombungi Outstation somewhere near here. He decided he would try and find that, perhaps there would be someone there, perhaps some food. On his seventy second day, his mind was wandering as he walked, ever returning to steak and chips, alternating with pictures of his mother.

  And then there was an image of Susan, always Susan was in his mind or nearby now as he walked. She was the pur
pose, the thing that most strongly drove him on. He had a sharp etched memory of her face that day he last saw her, bold and challenging and yet with a quiet hopeless desperation. Mostly hidden, but there to read for those who looked right in. He knew she really needed him.

  So he kept walking, one step and then a second with part support from his stick, repeated a thousand times before he needed to lie down and rest and often fall asleep. It was all he could manage now. Then he would wake up and make himself repeat it, perhaps two or three times in a day. He realised his body was starting to fail him but he just had to force himself to keep going.

  Suddenly he found his way stopped. He looked down at what was in his path. It was a four barb cattle fence. In the last week he had seen an occasional scrub bull in the distance, or a track, but he and they had kept away from each other. Now a sign of real cattle. And with real cattle maybe food and people.

  He followed the fence now. It was easier than walking blindly through the bush. And it had a graded track along the edge so the walking was easier. Just on dusk he reached a corner with another fence, so he followed this. In the last light he saw some station buildings in the distance. He hoped it was Wombungi, it must be Wombungi.

  He did not know this place or its people. He had a memory that it had been a cattle station but had been sold to the aborigines, though he some vague idea that it had an outside manager and ran cattle, but it was only second hand hearsay.

  Still whether it was a cattle station or an aboriginal camp he hoped there would be people who would know of and help him. He wished he could hear a generator or see some lights but there was nothing.

  He came to the front door and banged but it was closed. He tried the door; it was locked. He walked around outside but there was no easy way in. He wondered if there was a car or some other vehicle he could drive, or maybe something else useful. Maybe even a store of food.

  He checked the outbuildings, not much on offer there; he found a tin which would serve as a billy can and a half packet of biscuits on the shelf of a shed. He ate the packet of biscuits and, exhausted, lay down on the shed floor to sleep. He woke to thunder and lightning in the early morning, then the sound of rain on the tin roof, but rolled over and slept on, pleased to be dry and out of the rain.

  In the morning light he better explored his surroundings. It was clear that the station was used, at least in the dry season. But it appeared to have been abandoned over the wet. There were no cattle in the close in yards though he had seen some fresh tracks in the big paddock he had walked around. The house was locked up tight. He knew that he could break in if he made an effort and would probably find some food. But unless there was a phone, which was uncertain, it was of limited use. The one thing he found which was useful was a big map hanging on the wall of the shed. It showed the paddocks and roads.

  There was a road to Dorisvale Station, which looked like it was thirty of forty kilometres, and there was a road to Innesvale Station which looked like it was seventy or eighty kilometres.

  Dorsivale Station was closer but he did not know the people there. He was far from sure it would have people there in the wet season, and if not it was a long way to walk to Pine Creek or the Darwin road.

  Innesvale he knew, another now aboriginal owned station, but with a manager. He had not done work there but had met the manager and his family in Katherine at the Show. He was almost sure there would at least be someone there over the wet, and it was not too far from the Katherine Timber Creek road should he be wrong.

  So he decided to walk to Innesvale. He decided he stop finding food, now he would just eat the remaining food that he carried and walk as far and fast and he could each day.

  He abandoned his pack and other possessions except for the walking stick and billycan, which he filled with his food. He found an old piece of canvas which he wrapped around his shoulders to replace the paperbark. If he was fit he knew he could have walked it in two days, he hoped he could do it in three days.

  It was an hour after dawn on the fourth day when he stumbled up to the station house to find a caretaker eating his breakfast.

  The man did not know him but took one look at him and pulled out an extra chair. “Reckon you could do with a feed he said, you look a bit hollowed out.”

  The kettle was hot, a cup of tea was poured and loaded with sugar and in few minutes there was a plate of toast and eggs in front of him. As he took in the food he could feel the sugar give him strength and his mind begin to clear. The caretaker did not seem to know about him and the helicopter crash, he realised that some people lived in their own world and left the outside world behind.

  But the caretaker had a car and could drive him to Katherine. And there was a phone so he could ring ahead. He tried the number for the police and for while went around in circles trying to talk to someone who could help. When asked who he was he said he was Mr Campbell but that did not mean anything at the other end of the phone. Then he recalled the name he needed, Sergeant Alan Richards. It took three calls to track him down. He happened to be working that day in Katherine and at first he sounded impatient when he got put on the line.

  Vic suspected he had no idea who a Mr Campbell was.

  But Sergeant Richards put on his polite voice and said, “Yes, Mr Campbell how can I help you?”

  Vic tried to find his own polished voice and said, “I understand you are the detective who led the investigation into Susan McDonald, the lady charged with Mark Bennet’s murder. I have some important evidence in relation to this. I thought you should know about it. I hope it is important enough to change what happens in her trial.

  Silence came from the other end of the line. Then, “What did you say your name was?”

  “Vic Campbell, you and your partner, Sandy, met me at the Paraway Hotel last December.”

  Now he could hear the penny drop. “Vic, the helicopter pilot. But you are supposed to be dead, they told me your helicopter crashed out west, somewhere near the mouth of the Victoria River, they found wreckage floating in the water. Where are you, and what is going on?”

  Vic replied. “Well, best I can tell I am not dead, bit skinny and hungry looking. I had a long walk to get here, took me upwards of 75 days, or at least I have 76 notches on my walking stick without one for today.

  I have just arrived at Innesvale station which, as I am told is a couple hours’ drive west of Katherine. The caretaker has offered to drive me to Katherine. Thought maybe we could meet and I could fill you in.

  Sergeant Richards then said. “I imagine you have not heard any news for a bit. I can fill you in as we drive. But you need to know that Susan has been found guilty of Mark’s murder at a trial two weeks ago. She will be sentenced today.

  “I have been frantically working my butt off, right here in Katherine, looking for information that might change the outcome of that. Within two hours I hope to have all that I need. Then I was going to hop in the car and drive non-stop to Darwin to ask the judge to take it into consideration before he makes his sentencing decision this afternoon, soon after two o’clock. That is why I sounded a bit rushed.

  “If you could get to Katherine no later than ten thirty this morning then you could come with me to Darwin and we can talk on the way. What I have now will certainly help her but anything you add will make it better. I know she doesn’t want my help but I am determined to give it anyway, and you are the one person who I think she will listen to.”

  So they were on their way. Vic decided to skip the shower in the interests of time but found a clean pair of shorts and tee shirt even if a couple sizes too large. He also put clean socks on his feet and returned them to his battered boots. With that they left.