Waiting for the Thunder

by Patricia Shaw

Genres: General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

Trouble is brewing in Australia's Northern Territory... Patricia Shaw returns to the austere and beautiful Northern Territory in Waiting for the Thunder, the stunning sequel to The Feather and the Stone. Perfect read for fans of Tricia McGill and Tamara McKinley. 'Rich, compelling, well-balanced, unsentimental, vivid' - Kirkus Reviews The Hamilton and Oatley families, the owners of massive cattle stations in Australia's Northern Territory, rely on the annual monsoons to restore their parched land after the long, exhausting dry season. But this year the ominous storm clouds only serve to remind them of trouble brewing - an Aborgine guerrilla fighter in the district with some of his men is causing havoc indiscriminately and placing both Zack Hamilton and William Oatley in great danger. As the days drag on, the Aborigines' struggle for survival involves them all in a vicious waiting game until men with revenge in their hearts have to face the truth about themselves. What readers are saying about Waiting for the Thunder : ' Vivid descriptions bring the story to life' ' Compulsive! ' 'You are transported to the real Australia of yesteryear '

Release date: October 27, 2011

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 412

Sample

Chapter One

On a map of the Northern Territory, Black Wattle cattle station would hardly have rated a pinpoint. Nor, for that matter, would its far larger neighbour, Victoria River Downs, even though it covered somewhat in the order of eighteen thousand square miles, give or take a dusty red-ochre plain or an ancient crater, or a long-forgotten dent in the overheated landscape where once a proud river had flowed down to the now extinct inland sea; where once dinosaurs might have plodded and paddled, giant serpents stalked, and monstrous birds flapped and swooped. For the Territory, still only a part of the ‘top end’ of Australia, could lay claim to half a million square miles. Pinpoint or not, Victoria River Downs – or the Big Run, as it was known – and its neighbouring stations were staggering in scope, thereby causing the concept of land size, and distance, to swell in proportion for the occupants of these great estates.

To Zack Hamilton, who, as a young man, had inherited the family cattle station called Black Wattle, the size of his huge property was nothing special. He took it for granted that space was needed to support his herds in semi-arid country where ghost gums and high red termite mounds were the only objects capable of rising above the dry, spiky grasslands. It had taken Zack three days to ride over to confer with Charlie Plumb, manager of the Big Run, but that didn’t bother him. Their meeting was important to set in motion co-operative plans between the stations to cope with the floods that were bound to come once the wet season set in. What did concern him, though, was Charlie’s request for assistance.

‘We’re short-handed, Zack. Six of our stockmen took off for the goldfields last week. I’ve sold a thousand head of cattle and I have to get them over to the buyer before the wet sets in. His men will pick them up at Pine Creek.’

‘Left your run a bit late, haven’t you?’

‘Don’t I know it! I had to send for a droving team from Katherine. I got Paddy Milligan and his rig. Only a small team. You met them?’

‘No.’

‘They’ll be fine, but they don’t know this country too well. I just need you to take them to Campbell’s Gorge and see them through it. After that they’ll be right. It’s only a few days out of your way, Zack.’

‘On past my way,’ Zack growled. ‘Seventy miles east. And my wife sitting home with the hat and gloves on, ready to leave for Darwin. Not to mention Lucy; I swear she’s been packed for a month, with the boyfriend coming home. I’ve already put them off for a week.’

‘Ah, the ladies! They won’t mind. Plenty of time yet. How is Sibell anyway? I heard she wasn’t well.’

‘She’s fine,’ Zack said. This was no time to be discussing his wife’s constitution, or, more accurately, her state of mind of late.

‘That’s good to hear. Now you’ll help me out, won’t you, Zack?’

He nodded, grudgingly. They had both known he wouldn’t refuse. Could not. The unwritten rule of the outback, of this wild and isolated country, spelled survival. You gave assistance whenever and wherever it was needed; lives depended on co-operation.

‘Is Milligan ready to go?’

‘Yes, they’re moving the mob out now.’

A few days or so? Zack groaned to himself. With a slow-moving herd of cattle? Four or five more like it.

Lucy Hamilton walked to the end of the high veranda and stared anxiously down the long track that led away from the homestead, disappearing, eventually, among the knobs of treetops, but there was no sign of movement. Nothing stirred. You could almost imagine that the dusty landscape was empty, that this house, perched on a low hill, presided over a realm devoid of constituents or their flocks. Especially now. At noon. The air practically sizzled. There was a musty smell about the station, an ancient, hot smell, as if the land itself was tired, worn out, ragged, and everything was so quiet. Deathly quiet.

Even though she knew that somewhere out there, stockmen were working, the Aborigines who lived on the property would be going about their business, native animals would be dodging about seeking shelter from the midday heat, the quiet still got on her nerves.

And where was her father? He should have been back yesterday. The dry season was almost over. Any day now, it seemed, this awful heat would have to explode, but of course it wouldn’t; the wet season was due, the rains a relief.

Lucy shuddered. She hated this time of the year, waiting for the thunder, waiting for the monsoonal rains to sweep in, turning the creeks into rivers, the rivers into vast flood plains. Cutting them off if they didn’t get out in time.

So where was Zack? she worried angrily. He had promised them they would be leaving for Darwin today, at the latest, and there was still no sign of him. It was hell hanging about like this. Everyone knew that the climate was trying at this time of the year, that it sent everyone a bit crazy, yearning for a break after the long dry season, yearning for the smell, the sound, the welcome wash of those first rains. Those thick walloping dollops that sent the dust dancing, the animals licking their lips, and people rushing out, arms outstretched, smiles at last. It didn’t seem to help that everyone knew this was a crazy time. Knowing was not a solution. Tempers were short. Fights broke out among the men. People snapped. Sulked. Mistakes were made. Gates left open. Food burned. A loss at cards, a broken plate, any little thing could cause a row. Even the livestock were edgy.

Lucy often wondered if the cattle knew danger lurked but could not define it. They had to be moved well away from the dried-up river flats and placid waterholes to the safety of higher ground before the floods came down, but it was not an easy job. Too many of them became cranky and stubborn, resenting the intrusion, confronting the whips and curses of the whirling horsemen. Thousands of cattle were being rounded up and redirected now and Lucy wished she could be out there helping; anything would be better than moping about the house, but her father had forbidden her to take part in musters at this time of the year.

‘Too dangerous,’ he’d said. ‘No place for a girl.’

Her mother had agreed. But then Sibell Hamilton disapproved of Lucy riding and working with the men at any time, claiming it was not ladylike. Never mind that in the old days she had taken stock work in her stride when extra hands were needed. Even now Zack’s sister-in-law, Maudie, owner of Corella Downs, still preferred the horse to the house and she was fifty. A tough old bird, Lucy grinned, born in the bush and proud to be a ‘pioneering Territorial’, as she called herself.

Lucy’s mother and aunt were like chalk and cheese. English-born, Sibell disapproved of Maudie Hamilton’s rough ways, and they never seemed to agree on anything, though Zack claimed they were good mates underneath the bickering. Now, at the dawn of the twentieth century, there still weren’t very many white women living in the outback, and that, Sibell claimed, was all the more reason for local women to assert themselves. To show by example that their isolated situation was no excuse for graceless living. Sibell was house proud. The Black Wattle homestead was no mansion, rather a sprawling timber house with high ceilings and wide verandas and an iron roof, painted red, that could be seen for miles around, but it was comfortable and neatly furnished. With the help of her Chinese cook and black maids, Sibell liked to entertain their few visitors in style, and that suited Lucy, but she couldn’t accept that her role was to waft about the house learning the duties and social graces expected of young ladies. She hated sewing, could not paint or play the piano, and loved romantic novels, instead of the ‘better’ reading her mother placed on the shelves. But she did love the station itself, and the outdoor life suited her.

Lucy was a tall girl, with long blonde hair, even features and a slim, athletic figure. People said she was good-looking, though Lucy had her doubts about that; she didn’t feel she was actually pretty the way heroines were described in the penny novels, curls and all that. Zack always said she was beautiful, but then he would. He adored her. Proud of her really, she supposed, because she was a fine horsewoman, could ride side-saddle or astride, whatever the occasion required, and had won cups at the annual race meetings and gymkhanas. But where was her dear father now? Had he forgotten them?

Every year at this time they moved into Darwin for the summer, staying at their beach house. There was no escaping the torrential rain, or the humidity, but they could be overlooked in the congenial atmosphere leading up to Christmas, and the annual reunion with old friends from other outback stations. It was a marvellous time for everyone: a well-earned rest for hard-working country men, when they could relax with their mates and pretend it was a chore to escort the women to all the parties and dances that were already being arranged; a chance for the women to enjoy the bustle and fun of female company again; and as for the younger generation … Lucy smiled, feeling a little smug.

The summer months in Darwin were known as the ‘meet and match’ months. Romance was in the air, and love. ‘And lust,’ Aunt Maudie always said in her usual crusty manner. But it was exciting, and Lucy wouldn’t miss this Darwin summer for the world because a certain gentleman was coming home at last, returning after nearly two years in London. A very important young gentleman who had written to her, without fail, every single month that he had been away. Lucy Hamilton had no need to join the fray of eligible spinsters in the marriage market; the love of her life was coming home. She and Myles Oatley had been friends since childhood, and before he left for London he’d asked her to wait for him.

As she’d said in her first letter to him, there was no need to ask, she would wait for him; the love they shared was only made fonder by absence.

Her parents were happy about the arrangement – they liked Myles, the only son of old friends – but Maudie, typical of Maudie, had other advice.

‘You shouldn’t be sitting about waiting for him. Play the field, girl. Have a good time, don’t be sitting home like an old maid. Good God, you’re twenty. You should have had other boyfriends by this. And don’t put all your eggs in one basket neither. Like as not he’ll come home from London a different person, bragging about his toffy friends. He won’t be a bushie like us no more, you mark my words.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Sibell argued. ‘His parents went on a world tour for their honeymoon, and when they came home they settled right down to work on the Oatley station as if they’d only been across the road. They never put on airs and graces.’

‘Yes, but they went together. If he was so keen on Lucy, why didn’t he marry her and take her with him?’

The arguments didn’t bother Lucy. They amused her.

‘Tell me, Maudie, why haven’t you remarried?’ she’d asked, to deflect the criticism of Myles. ‘You were young, Wesley was only a baby when Uncle Cliff was killed.’

‘Don’t get smart with me, girl. I looked about, you bet I did. But every suitor that came along had a gleam in his eye for my station. They were after Corella Downs more than me, and I wasn’t having anyone getting their hands on my place and thinking they could boss me around. No, siree. I soon sorted them out. You should keep an eye on the ball too, my girl. You’re a good catch. You’ll own Black Wattle one day. You’ll be worth a bit.’

‘If it comes to that,’ Lucy laughed, ‘so will Wesley. Your son is older than me and still single. Who’s he got in tow?’

That always ended the arguments. Maudie never had a good word for poor Wesley’s girlfriends. Lucy pitied the girl who’d take on a mother-in-law like Maudie.

Now Lucy walked along the veranda past her parents’ bedroom and her mother called to her.

‘Is Zack home yet?’

Lucy pushed past the limp lace curtains in the open doorway. ‘Not yet.’

She stared. Open boxes and trunks were lying about the room.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m packing.’

‘But you already packed. You don’t need any of this stuff in Darwin. And the trunks won’t fit on the wagon!’

‘I know. I’m having them sent on.’

‘Having them sent on? What’s all this?’ She peered into another trunk. ‘This one’s full. We’re only going for a few months, not ten years.’

Sibell emptied a drawer of underclothes on to the bed and sat down beside them. She looked up at her daughter. ‘I’ve been trying to pluck up the courage to tell you, Lucy. I’m leaving.’

‘Leaving? Where?’

‘I’m leaving here and going to live in Perth.’

‘What? When?’

‘After Christmas.’

Lucy strode across the room and opened the large wardrobe, stunned to find it bare.

‘I don’t understand. What are you doing? Going for a holiday?’

‘No. For good,’ her mother said quietly.

‘Rubbish. Zack wouldn’t leave Black Wattle. What is really going on?’

‘Your father isn’t leaving. I am. I can’t live here any more. I’ve decided to live in Perth.’

‘Why? Have you and Daddy had a fight? I thought you were both being rather touchy lately. But you can’t up and leave just because you’ve had a fight. It can’t be that bad.’

‘We haven’t had a fight. Not really. He knows I’m leaving and he’s upset.’

‘I can’t imagine why,’ Lucy snapped. ‘What’s the matter with you? Have you gone off your head or something?’

‘No,’ Sibell said patiently. ‘It has been very hard for me to come to this decision, but I really can’t stand living out here any more. I’m tired of it all.’

‘What all? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

Her mother sighed. ‘Oh, everything, Lucy … the isolation, the dust, the violence, the never-ending crises …’

‘It was the mouse plague, wasn’t it? Now I come to think of it, you’ve been jumpy ever since then. But that’s over, it won’t happen again for years.’

Sibell shuddered. ‘Don’t remind me. Those damn things, I feel sick every time I think of them, in the house, in the bed, layers of them. But they weren’t the real cause, just the last straw. I want to live normally, in a normal climate, walk down a street, go to the shops when I feel like it, things like that. I’m nearly fifty. If I don’t make the move now, I never will.’

‘And what about us? Daddy and me? You’re just going to walk out on us?’

‘I’ll be in Perth. You can visit.’

‘But this is your home. You can’t do this. Is Daddy just going to stand by and do nothing?’

‘Not exactly, I have to admit. He’s taking it very hard. I hoped you might have a word with him. Explain to him how I feel.’

‘Explain to him? That his wife is leaving him? I’ll do no such thing! I can’t believe you’re being so selfish. Put all that stuff back! I don’t want to hear any more about it.’

Lucy slammed out of the room and Sibell shook her head sadly. She loved them both but they were not children. They’d have to understand that people could change, could need change. In her case, desperately. But she would not go so far as to admit that.

She’d tried to tell Zack that she’d felt her life had come to a standstill, that she needed a new outlook, but that had been met with derision.

‘Fresh pastures, eh? Anyone in particular in mind?’

‘You don’t mean that, Zack. A remark like that is unworthy of you. I’ll always love you but—’

‘So you show it by leaving me?’

She felt sorry for him. He simply could not grasp her reasoning. The whole idea seemed to be beyond his comprehension.

‘Is it the house then? We could renovate, make it bigger if you like. Whatever you want.’

‘No. The house is very comfortable. Can’t you see I need change?’

‘Then take a bloody holiday if you want to get away from me. Get it out of your system.’

Why was it so hard to explain? Maybe because she couldn’t put a finger on it herself. Sometimes, in a less positive mood, Sibell thought she might be searching for something that didn’t exist, but she was determined to find out. Or maybe she was reverting to her earlier years, to that young girl who had been brought up in the serenity of an English village.

She sighed. That lifestyle had come to an end with a jolt when her parents made the ill-fated decision to migrate to Australia. She’d only been nineteen.

Shipwrecked. Lost both of her beloved parents. Cast ashore on a deserted beach north of Perth, only a strange man for company. Rescued, they’d thought, by a mob of Aborigines only to find their chief a vicious fellow, more interested in ransoming them than in caring for them. It was only through the intervention of a young Aborigine farm boy called Jimmy Moon that they had been able to escape from that filthy camp.

Jimmy Moon, she thought sadly. He’d been a friend. He too had come north, some years later, to escape his own troubles down there. It still hurt to think of him.

Sibell herself had ended up in Perth, living with awful people, until she met Zack’s mother, a wonderful woman. Mrs Hamilton had been in the town to see a specialist who broke the news to her that her eyes were failing. Needing a bookkeeper to help her manage her large cattle station, Black Wattle, she’d offered Sibell the job.

Sibell found herself smiling. I had no idea what I was getting myself into, she recalled. What a shock that was. It took about a week to get here from Darwin. Riding! No trains in those days. I thought I’d reached the end of the earth.

But then Mrs Hamilton could have had an ulterior motive inviting a young Englishwoman to her station. About a year later I married her son.

She had no regrets though. It had been a battle at times, with the terrible loss of their little son, the elements, the distances, the fight to protect and nurture the great herds of cattle. So many things, but she’d coped, and come to like the station. But now it was time to go.

When she went in to lunch, Lucy was still angry.

‘Have you come to your senses yet?’

‘Can’t we talk this out without rudeness?’

‘Very well. Tell me this. What violence? I know my uncle was killed by blacks before I was born, but we rarely have that trouble now. And we have accidents with the men and horses, but they can happen anywhere. How can you say there’s violence here, at Black Wattle?’

‘I’m sorry. It was the wrong word. Forget it.’

Born here, Lucy wouldn’t understand that, to Sibell, of late, distance was violence. So was the weather. The temperature, the storms. The dried-up, baking creek beds. The isolation – the nearest neighbour was three days’ ride from here. Longer by wagon.

‘It’s more what’s not here,’ she tried. ‘Suburbia. I’ll settle for suburbia.’

‘Rot. You’d be bored stiff in a week.’

‘I don’t think so. I feel lost here now. I don’t know why, but being here depresses me.’

‘It’s your home. What’s to be depressed about? Mother, I really think you are just bored. You’ll feel better once we get to Darwin. I know you. After the summer months in town, you’re always pleased to get home.’

‘Maybe,’ Sibell said, to close down the subject. ‘We’ll see.’

Tears were smarting in her eyes and she turned quickly to hide them but too late. Instantly Lucy was at her side.

‘Heavens, Mother, what is it? Aren’t you feeling well? Is that the trouble?’

Sibell wished she could say, ‘Yes. I am ill. Pass me the medicine. I’ll be better in the morning.’ That would be preferable to the bouts of misery that assailed her, but she was not ill. Physically, she was in the best of health.

‘I’m quite all right,’ she said, ‘really I am. Just a bit tired. I’m probably just run down of late.’ She dabbed at her eyes, forcing a smile.

‘Yes, you ought to have a lie down. I hate to see you unhappy, Mother. Maybe it’s the beastly weather … the heat is almost unbearable today. It must be some sort of a record, well over the century I’d say. It will do you good to take a nap. Sleep away the worst of it.’

Sibell nodded. ‘Yes. I’ll do that. Thanks, Lucy.’

Safe in her bedroom, behind closed doors, she dissolved into tears. What was the use of trying to explain the problem to anyone, when she herself had no idea what was wrong. It shamed her to think that Sibell Hamilton who had a loving family, a good home … so much to be thankful for … could be so ungrateful as to be talking about leaving. To be leaving. Her mind was made up. These miseries had been stalking her for about two years now, getting gradually worse. She was poor company these days, a cheerless person, and that made her impatient with everyone.

Zack, in his kindly way, had tried to talk to her about this, asking her if perhaps she could be a little less difficult with people, especially the staff.

He wanted her to regain her sense of humour, to learn to laugh at little setbacks again, not to take everything so seriously, and of course, it was inevitable, she’d ended up in tears, her husband mystified, upset too. Several times he had tried to discover why she was so unhappy, asking what he could do, or say, to please her, gradually becoming irritated by what he called her ‘moods’.

It wasn’t the weather. Sibell knew that. She’d survived years of drought without falling apart, and she already knew that the holiday in Darwin was no solution. Last year she’d hoped the sea breezes would blow away this despondency but they did not, and it was then that she’d realised she dreaded returning to the station. Now she’d had a year to think about this, to try to understand why she had this awful weakness, an embarrassment, since she really was a strong person, and it had come down to one answer. There was no reason at all for her to be so depressed, none at all, therefore she felt she was losing her reason. There seemed no other explanation.

But this was not something she would dream of mentioning to anyone. Tell them she thought she was going mad? Never! She would put a stop to it, she would find the cure, and that meant the move to Perth. Sibell was certain she would feel better there, happier, more relaxed in a city atmosphere, and now she was even looking forward to the move, despite the opposition from Zack and now Lucy.

She poured water from the jug on the washstand into its basin and taking a face cloth swabbed her face and throat for a little temporary coolness, and then lay on the bed with the wet cloth over her eyes, hoping, as usual, for a miracle. That she would rise from this bed a happy sensible person again and all would be set right in her world.

After lunch, Lucy returned to the veranda and ran down the outer steps, heading for the stables, still worrying about her mother’s crazy idea to leave. On the way, she met Casey, the station overseer.

‘Ah, Lucy, I was coming up to see you. Your dad has been held up.’

‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing much. He had to help move some cattle from the Big Run over to Campbell’s Gorge.’

‘Oh no! How do you know this?’

‘He met up with a couple of our blacks on the stock route and sent them back to let us know. In case we were worried.’

Lucy was furious. ‘Worried? I’ll strangle him. What the hell is he doing? Does he want us to be stranded here?’

Casey grinned. ‘Plenty of time. Rains are a whiles off yet.’

‘Oh really?’ Lucy twisted around and pointed to a furl of grey cloud far in the distance. ‘Then what’s that? Smoke?’

‘No, that there cloud’s just for openers. Be a while before the weather hits and a good while after that for the rivers to get a go on. You’ll be on your way soon.’ He went to walk away and then turned back with a wink. ‘I heard young Myles Oatley is due home. Is that what all this fuss is about?’

‘Of course not,’ she snapped, marching away. Damn. Damn. Damn! It would be days now before they could get away, depending on how close to the gorge the drovers were, and there was nothing much to do around here any more. Except to try to talk some sense into her mother.

Chapter Two

The walls of the gorge seemed to leap from the earth too fast for the eye to assimilate at one glance, massive red-streaked twin towers, reaching up and up, on and on far into the heights until the narrow band of blue above the cleavage that was this gorge became not sky, but a roof, clamped on by a hand as powerful as the great structure itself.

Down in the depths, along the two-mile sandy base of the cavern, tall palms hung loftily above a string of waterholes, lending grace and a wisp of exotica to the harsh surrounds, seemingly unaware that they were dwarfed by the sheer size of this gorge.

Yorkey stared at the trees, wondering how they could survive here. There was heat and water aplenty but little nourishment, and in the wet season they’d be battling to cling to the earth. Many of them were young trees though, skinny, grasping for the light as soon as they claimed a foothold, reinventing their little oasis, season after season. A wonder. But the gorge itself was a wonder. Awesome. This was strength, this place. Power. Bold and uncompromising. He felt like cheering, just to be here. To have found it after all.

His mother had told him about this place, famous in Dreaming legends, where the spirits had become annoyed with two tribes warring over the land, and so had cleaved the earth in two, settling the matter. But in doing so they had also separated two lovers forever, and the young man, despairing, had leapt to his death from the heights. He had been of Yorkey’s mother’s people, Waray, so they had claimed the gorge as their own. That was the story as far as he could recall. She’d only told him this stuff at rare times, when she was in the mood, and she’d said the gorge had several people names, being such an important landmark, all of which were lost to Yorkey by this, if he’d ever thought to hang on to them in the first place. He’d grown up in the white man’s world …

Wistfully now, as he studied the great walls with their jutting cliffs and buttresses, he wished he had taken more notice. It would be interesting to know about that story. What spirits? Who were they? More likely, going back into the mists of time, it had probably been a battle between powerful spirits rather than a couple of tribes. He believed in the Aborigine spirits, no different from the white men’s gods, who could also strike with lightning force, but he doubted many of them would take sides in wars.

His mother had told him that this place was now known as Campbell’s Gorge, after the white man who discovered it, so Yorkey had remembered that name. But she had considered it an insult. Discovered! Like as if no one had ever seen it before. Like as if a thousand generations of the people hadn’t known every inch of it.

Yorkey grinned. She had a point. But nothing he could do about it. All that mattered was that she’d been right about this gorge. It was spectacular. It was awesome. Dim though her memory of it had been, she hadn’t exaggerated. Yorkey loved the place and he wished he could tell her. Put a smile on her poor worn face.

He sighed. Led his horse to drink at a waterhole and waded in himself, not a little shocked by the chill of the water on a warm day.

But he was here on white man’s business and he’d better get on with it.

Yorkey was a drover with Paddy Milligan’s team and they had a herd of cattle to bring through this gorge. A big herd, now two days’ ride back there. Paddy was an experienced drover, one of the best. He had a rule when travelling through country strange to them, like this Northern Territory job, further west than they’d ever ventured before …

‘You get the lie of the land from locals, when you can find any, then you go ahead and check it out, like you would an Irishman’s directions. A yard could be a mile and a wet patch a bloody swamp.’ Paddy prided himself on delivering all of his charges intact.

It was hard, though, to concentrate on the job in Campbell’s Gorge. The bloody place was incredible. Though Yorkey had never seen a cathedral, he imagined they must be something like this. Only smaller. Tinier. But full of spirits. Ghosts.

Squelching about flat rocks and boulders in his wet boots he felt a tingling in his spine at that thought. It was a bloody lonely place. Eerie. A lost world. Rock wallabies clambered about the burgeoning heights, soundlessly, making no mark. An eagle soared gracefully to a safe nest on a craggy point. A large lizard slithered to a rock on the sunny side and remained still, very still, like the water in the pools.

‘Hello!’ Yorkey shouted suddenly, listening to the echo bouncing off the solid walls, but as his call reverberated, he thought he heard an answering sound, discordant, another voice. He looked up sharply, shading his eyes, tracking ledges, outcrops, massive shafts of rock and all the discoloration of seams that marked the ages, but saw nothing. No one.

He tried again. The bush call. ‘Coo-ee!’ The practised call was guaranteed to travel and was rewarded by a cacophony of echo and, to his keen ears, another distant call that seemed to clash and yet mesh with his echo.

It wasn’t an animal sound. It was a voice. Someone was there. But where in this great cauldron of sound?

‘Where are you?’ he yelled. That echo banged a