Can you feel anyone now?
Only us.
Nathan didn’t dare move. He held the binoculars in place, staring back as his heartbeat thumped in his ears. Had she seen him? He wasn’t sure, but there was something unfocused in her face that made him think perhaps not. At last Ilse dropped her eyes. She climbed into the car and he heard it start.
Nathan sat watching the dust trail as she drove away, back in the direction she’d come from. He made himself wait until she’d fully disappeared from sight before finally turning on his own engine.
The air came through lukewarm at first but he gasped with relief, gulping in huge lungfuls. He got out and grabbed water bottles from the back, and while both he and Duffy drank deeply, Nathan checked his watch. Ilse had been at the gravesite less than fifteen minutes from start to finish. It felt longer, but it hadn’t been. He frowned. All that way for fifteen minutes. Sophie’s voice popped into his head.We didn’t do anything at the grave. We got out of the car, then we went home again.
Nathan drank another mouthful of water, watched the horizon and listened. No dust, no noise. She was gone. He put the car into gear and slowly made his way down, over the crest and towards the grave. He parked a short distance away and got out. The dust circle around the headstone was long gone, but had been replaced with Ilse’s footprints. He could see the soft dents in the ground where she had knelt. Could she have been praying? he wondered. She had never seemed the type, but death did funny things to people. Nathan touched the headstone, warm in the sun. Something felt wrong, but he couldn’t tell what. Finally, he knelt down himself and all of a sudden, he could see it.
The hole they’d exposed beneath Cameron’s body was disturbed. It had nearly refilled itself the last time he’d been there with Bub and Harry, but now it looked different again. Nathan reached out and touched the ground. The earth was freshly turned. He ran a hand through it, looking to see if Ilse had left anything here, but all he could feel was sandy soil. There were a few small things that could possibly be seeds and Nathan thought of his own dad’s grave. He and his brothers hadn’t even liked the bloke and they’d still planted a tree for him. Had Ilse been doing something like that for Cameron?
The sun was beating down on him and he shifted on his knees until he was in the shadow of the headstone. His movement left a mark in the dust that was familiar in a way that made Nathan feel slightly ill. He stood up so fast he was dizzy.
Back in the safety of his car, Nathan turned up the air conditioner. It was a physical relief to be back in the cool, and he sat back, feeling the fibres in his body respond as his temperature crept back down towards normal.
Cameron would have fought for his life to stay with his car.
The thought came out of nowhere. Nathan reached for his water bottle and took a long sip. Cameron knew what it was like to be out there with no shelter and no supplies. It was a death sentence. If Cam had been forcibly separated from his car, he would have fought. Nathan stared at the grave. He pictured his brother’s body as the tarp slipped away. There had been no injuries to his hands or face.
Nathan took another slow sip of water and thought about that. An hour later, he was still not sure what to think. He knew he should go home. It was Cameron’s funeral tomorrow. Another one for the land. Nathan should drive back and speak to his son. Speak to Ilse. Instead, Nathan sat in his car beside the grave until the sun moved the shadow almost all the way around the base of the headstone.
No-one else came by.
Chapter 26
Nathan left it almost too late to make it home before nightfall and as he pulled up the windows of the house were glowing. He slammed his car door and stopped as his eyes fell on the large gum tree across the yard. Beneath it, hard to see in the growing dark but impossible to miss, was a gaping black hole.
Nathan walked over and stood at the edge. Cameron’s grave lay deep and empty, ready for tomorrow. There were no howls from the dingoes that night and the air felt hot and thick as Nathan turned his back and trudged to the house. The voices coming from the kitchen were muffled but urgent as he closed the screen door behind him.
‘You said – no, don’t give me that bullshit – you said we could try it –’
‘For God’s sake, I know, Bub, but I have a thousand other things to –’
Three faces looked up as Nathan walked in.
‘Great. Here come your reinforcements,’ Bub snapped at Ilse, who was sitting at the kitchen table. She was wearing the same clothes Nathan had seen her in earlier at the stockman’s grave, and was staring firmly into a glass of wine. Bub looked to have been pacing, his face set, while Liz hovered in the no-man’s-land between them.
‘Bub, just calm down. Please.’ Liz shot a glance at Nathan. ‘You’ve been a very long time.’
‘I was checking something at the fence line. What’s going on here?’
‘Nothing,’ Ilse said.
‘It’s not bloody nothing.’ Bub sounded like he’d been drinking. ‘I’m not bloody taking orders –’
‘No-one’s asking you to, Bub!’
Bub looked at Nathan. ‘You tell her. You thought my mustering plan was a good idea, didn’t you?’
‘Wait –’ Nathan felt lost. ‘That’s what this is about?’
‘Tell her.’ Bub’s voice was rising. ‘Tell her that I’m right about this.’
Nathan frowned. ‘I haven’t even had a chance –’
‘No. Of course not. Jesus, I bloody knew it would be like this.’ Bub closed his eyes. ‘This is bullshit.’
