Nate

Maggie sits lost in thought. She arrived about an hour ago, much later than usual, delayed by an appointment in Horsham. When I asked her about it, all she said was, ‘Tune up,’ though Maggie hasn’t driven since she had her stroke.

‘On the house,’ I say, pouring her a ginger ale.

‘Thanks, Nate.’

I set the glass before her, the only ale she’ll abide. Maggie’s father spent so long outdoors he struggled to stay inside long enough to down a meal, and slept most nights in the three-sided shed that stood open to his wheatfields. His sentences were scarce and seldom stretched to an abstract noun. The loneliness got to Maggie’s mother and, with a skinful, she reached for the nearest body to mark her pain. Poetry saved me, Maggie once told me, it showed me other dimensions. A body is not just flesh and bone. And at the heart of it all was John Shaw Neilson. The day she met him, the sight of his work-ravaged hands from a lifetime of supporting his writing with farm labour had shocked then encouraged her – that such beauty could flow from damage. The fact that he was a man of the land also meant a lot to her. For Maggie, the Wimmera is the beginning and end of all things. She told me all this one afternoon about six months after I bought this place, no one else around for once. Ever since that day it’s been a kind of bond between us. Like many, Maggie assumes that the bar is as sacred as a confessional box, despite the fact that secrets are an important form of currency in towns like Gatyekarr.

‘Been thinking about those Harvesters,’ she says, sipping her ginger ale.

‘You mean that desert cult Jake was talking about?’

‘I don’t buy his theory about them having something to do with the girl.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘Can’t quite put my finger on it, but I’m sure I’m right. Remember that exorcism in the nineties?’

‘I’ve heard various versions of the story,’ I say, remembering a guy who came in here wanting to make a short film about it, kind of Wolf Creek meets The Exorcist. ‘Happened on a pig farm, out near the old mission.’

‘That’s right. The man believed his poor wife was possessed. Claimed she’d take on the form of different animals, speak in diabolical voices. They killed her, you know. Tied her to a chair, wrapped the house in cling wrap. Religion gone mad. From what I’ve heard, those Harvesters are part of an old way of thinking too. One we’d be better off forgetting. Guilt and perversion. That stuff will eat you alive.’

As she frowns into her ginger ale, my mobile rings. It’s Beth.

‘Sorry, Maggie, I should take this.’

‘All good, my boy.’

I move round to the back bar, Beth’s words tumbling over themselves.

‘Sorry, I missed the beginning. What’s happened?’

‘She’s gone, Nate.’

‘Gone?’

‘A couple of hours ago. I’ve been looking everywhere, all over the property, the sheds, the dam, up by the water tank, but she’s not here, not that I can see. I’ve been going crazy. Nate …’

I picture the dam to the east of Beth’s house. Its dense perimeter of reeds. The white heron that sometimes visits it from the river.

‘I’ll be right there.’

‘What about the pub?’

‘Fuck that. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.’

‘Nate?’

‘Just hang tight, okay? It’ll be all right.’

As I grab my keys from the hook, Amy comes through from the kitchen carrying two steaks.

‘Sorry to do this to you,’ I say to her, ‘but I have to leave. You know where the spare set is. You’ll need to lock up.’

Amy leans in. ‘What’s the emergency? Is it to do with that girl?’

‘I’ll tell you once I know.’

She shakes her head. ‘Go on, piss off, then. You owe me.’

I grab my jacket, Maggie’s gravelly voice trailing behind me – ‘The world is awake and unsober’ – as I head into the dark.

Beth’s waiting in the driveway when I get there. Squinting at my headlights, she holds up a hand to halt me and drops below the bonnet. I walk around to the front of the truck and find her squatting on the ground, her long black hair caught in the hood of her jacket.

‘Beth?’

‘I didn’t notice before,’ she says, pointing down. ‘Look.’

Among the shadows picked out by my lights are footprints, child-sized ones, their edges sandpapered by the wind. They lead down the driveway.

‘Of course, how fucking stupid of me. She’s gone back to the desert. It’s George’s fault, or Pearl’s. She said something to Freya that scared her.’ Beth places her hand over one of the prints. ‘Damn it. I should’ve taken better care of her.’

Her voice is harsh, her body agitated. She needs to move.

‘We could try following these tracks,’ I suggest.

‘Don’t know about you, but that’s a bit beyond my skill set.’

She rises to her feet. A moth butts manically against a headlight.

‘Where would you go if you had to spend the night in the desert?’ I ask her.

‘Don’t know. Probably somewhere near the river. Maybe where that old River Red-gum straddles the narrowest part. I’ve always liked that spot.’

‘Come on, then. It’s as good a place as any, and it’s not helping much hanging around here.’

‘But what if she comes back?’

‘Then she’s back and everything’s fine.’

We drive with the windows down, Beth leaning out her side of the truck, keeping an eye on the fringes. The night is still warm, the burnt pitch of bushfire present in the air. We follow the road till it veers west and breaks through the boundary of the desert. The gravel is mixed with sand here, the shadows deceptive. I pull up near the straddled gum and get out.

‘I’ll head north up the riverbank.’

‘And I’ll go that way,’ says Beth, pointing to a track that leads into the bush.

We fan out, torches in hand. I hear Beth calling Freya’s name, her voice dampened by vegetation till it only comes in bursts. The river is quiet. The rustle of dry reeds intermittent. Chatty. Unnerving. The girl is out here somewhere in the dark, which is so huge and all-encompassing that it’s hard to imagine why she’d enter it alone. Is it possible she feels safer here, or was Maggie right? It was never going to end well.

A splash disturbs the thin night air.

I thread the torch’s beam through the tangle of tree roots that lead down to the river, not sure I’m ready for what I might find. This night is different – calmer, the moon less full – but each step closer to the water recalls details of that other night. The search party clad in hi-vis. Dogs yanking at the leash. Lil’s favourite T-shirt waved in front of their muzzles. Torch beams strobing along the riverbank. Lil rendered in every shadow. Every leaf crunch. The way I tempered my reactions as hope, hour by hour, began its slow withdrawal.

My legs suddenly lethargic, I halt before the river and run the torch beam over the dark surface of the water. Towards the centre, a branch bobs. It looks like an elbow caught mid-stroke, the branch thin and angular, bracing against the current, the rest submerged. I want to look away, but can’t.

Reeds swish. I hear the search party collectively draw its breath as it goes to call out Lil. And I wait for her name to fill the night. To silence everything else.

But it’s Beth’s voice I hear – ‘Frey-ya!’

I tear my eyes from the branch. Place my hands on my knees and breathe out.

That night they yelled Lil’s name over and over till it sounded like bird call, a strange species never before heard. For a long time afterwards, I’d hear her name – in the murmur of insects, in the treetops yanked by wind – and though it hurt, there was consolation in it too. Lil translated into the land where she’d lived her short life.

Above me, the canopy tilts. A cloud covers the moon, then releases it again, both tinged green briefly as they part ways.

I point my torch back towards the track, towards Beth.

Leave the river behind.

In the distance, Beth’s torch beam changes direction and her voice increases in volume. She’s circling back towards the truck, and I join her. A storm of insects are in the headlights we left on so we’d be certain to see our way back.

‘Find anything?’ she asks, switching off her torch.

‘Nah.’

‘Needle in a haystack.’

‘Worth a shot.’

Beth nods, then looks towards the river, her attention drawn by a frogmouth’s pulsing hoot.

‘Shit, Nate, I don’t even know if she can swim. I know nothing about her, really. I’ve been kidding myself.’

‘Easy now,’ I say, my system sparking, still in the river’s thrall.

Leaning against the bonnet, she looks close to collapse. A bat swoops so near to us that I feel its slipstream.

‘Can I tell you something?’ she asks, squinting.

‘Sure.’

‘The fact that she arrived at my place – I thought it was a sign.’

‘Doesn’t sound like you.’

‘I know. My first thought was to help her – this thing blown in from the desert – then it got kind of confused.’ She steps away from the truck, her body rallying around a thought. ‘It seemed plausible that this girl who’s survived god knows what had come to me as some kind of messenger and all I had to do was work out what the message was. Because I’ve been thinking lately that what I’m doing is not enough. The seeds, regenerating – it’s like I’m missing something. It keeps me awake at night.’

She taps the bonnet with the rim of her torch. The sound is unnatural against the backdrop of blurred desert sounds. ‘Ah, that poor kid. She probably sensed that I’m no better than the rest of them – Pearl, George, all those dickheads at the pub – projecting my story onto her.’

‘Come on, Beth.’

‘I don’t know, Nate …’

I step across the space between us, and for the first time ever I put my arms around her and pull her into a hug. She rests her head against my shoulder and I feel how tired she is, maybe from these last few days, or the five years she’s spent working to make the land into something she can thrive alongside. As she pulls away, I can’t help calculating how long it must’ve been since she was last held.

‘Tell me something untrue,’ she says.

‘Everything turns out all right in the end.’

Beth rolls her eyes. ‘You can do better than that.’

Standing in the twin beams of the headlights, she looks so solitary, and I imagine her, all those hours collecting seeds, drying them, measuring into sachets, long walks across her land regardless of the weather, always on the lookout for a species that’s jumped the fence or emerged from a dormant state, sometimes in contact with others doing similar work – online or the occasional workshop – mostly on her own. And all this time plagued by doubt, when she had seemed so sure.

‘You have to work out all the answers by yourself,’ I say.

Over by the river, the frogmouth hoots in solidarity.