TWENTY-SEVEN
Twenty-seven
Lottie rested a hand against the trunk of a nearby tree as she caught her breath. They’d been steadily climbing all morning, making their way through overgrown bush and across open paddocks. Part of the track was on private land and the other was now national park. They’d worked out with a local farmer, Tony, who owned the land bordering on the national park, which would be the best way to get to the homestead location and they’d come up with the route they were now on. There’d been a lot of climbing through rusty barbed-wire fencing and crossing narrow creeks, but they were getting closer.
‘Just up this next ridge,’ Damian said, turning to wait for her. ‘Then we’ll be there. You want to stop for a while and sit?’
Lottie shook her head. ‘If I sit, I might not get back up. I’m okay,’ she said, dragging a tired smile to her face. Maybe she’d been a tad hasty agreeing to come along. She really wasn’t in the best shape … But every time she’d felt like giving up, she’d remember Catherine. This was, quite literally, a walk in the park, compared to what she likely went through.
As they reached the bottom of the ridge, Damian stopped. ‘This should be it,’ he said, looking around to get his bearings.
‘How can you tell?’ she asked, seeing only denser bush, although there was a small clearing with less undergrowth across from them.
‘This is the GPS location.’
Lottie followed gingerly behind Damian as he brushed aside saplings and lifted low-lying branches, coming to a stop with a small sigh.
‘There,’ he said, pointing at a tall column of bricks and stone, sitting like a monument in a small clearing, the only remaining parts of what would have once been a small hut.
‘The chimney,’ Damian said needlessly. It was quite obvious, even to a novice like herself.
‘I haven’t been up here for years,’ Tony said, looking around in a slow circle. ‘It was always pretty overgrown, but it’s a lot thicker than I remember.’
‘Do you remember if there were any other landmarks? Foundations for outbuildings or anything?’ Damian asked.
‘Not really. It was only the chimney and fireplace left behind. We’ve had some pretty big fires go through over the years, and I remember my granddad sayin’ his dad had told him the hut was built out of timber and had been starting to fall down back then. A hundred and fifty-odd years would be a long time for anything to survive out here.’
Damian took some photos of the chimney and the area surrounding it before wandering further away to look around. Lottie could hear the faint sound of a creek and decided to see if she could find it, suddenly longing to splash her face with something cool. She found it not far from the homestead site and tried to picture how it would have looked back then. Quite similar to how it was now, she imagined—secluded and rather isolated. It would have been a long and tiring trek to simply go into town, despite the location being only fifteen or so kilometres away. Roads would have been mere tracks, and the terrain would have made riding a horse quite challenging.
Her hands tingled in the cold water as she scooped it up and took a long sip. She closed her eyes and listened to the calming sounds of water trickling and birds singing, feeling it soothe everything away until she felt the most incredible feeling of peace and solitude.
She opened her eyes and blinked as she found a small tan and black wallaby watching her from the other side of the creek. She hadn’t heard it approach, but with its colouring, it could have easily blended into the bushland surrounds. Which reminded her—if a cute little marsupial could camouflage itself, so could not so cute things, like snakes. She quickly glanced down around her feet, scanning the sticks and leaf matter, grimacing at the thought. Movement from the corner of her eye brought her attention back to the wallaby and she saw that it had inched a little closer to its side of the water.
Lottie smiled and lifted her phone, clicking off a few photos. ‘You are so cute,’ she cooed as one of its little ears twitched at the sound of her voice. It seemed quieter than other wallabies she’d seen in the wild, which had always been rather skittish. The only time she’d ever been this close to one before had been in tourist parks, where they were used to people and got fed. It didn’t seem likely that this particular one would have had much contact with people. ‘Are you lost or something little guy?’ she asked, holding its gaze as it seemed to study her.
The crunch of a stick nearby sounded loud, fracturing the peaceful bubble she’d been enjoying. Lottie jumped and glanced over her shoulder, straightening from the edge of the water and tucking her phone back inside her pocket as she waited for Damian to reach her. She glanced over to find her new little friend was no longer there.
‘Any luck?’ she asked.
‘Unfortunately, no giant, labelled headstones,’ he said with a half-smile.
‘Well, that would have been too easy,’ she said, turning to walk across to a row of tall straight trees. ‘I wonder how old these are? They’re huge.’ She tilted her head back to try to see the tops and stumbled as her foot slid on some small rocks, making her give a small gasp.
‘Careful,’ Damian said, crossing to her side. ‘I’d really rather not have to carry you back to the car with a broken ankle.’
‘So, you’d just leave me up here?’ she asked, rolling her eyes.
‘I’d send someone back to get you … eventually,’ he said, slapping her backside playfully, but then stopped to stare at the ground at her feet.
‘What?’ Lottie asked curiously as she watched him crouch down and run his hands across the pebbles and gravel she’d almost slipped on.
‘I don’t know … but this doesn’t look quite right.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the small creek.
‘What do you mean?’
‘All these pebbles and rocks,’ he said, looking up at her. ‘They’re probably from the creek … but it looks like they’ve been put here, just in this clearing. See?’ He walked further away, kicking the leaf matter with his boot. ‘There aren’t any rocks here, or on the other side. Just in this area.’
‘What does that mean?’ she asked, confused.
‘I’m not sure exactly,’ he said frowning. ‘Might be nothing. But it’s strange.’
The three of them sat down and had something to eat before retracing their steps back to Tony’s place. By the time they reached the car, it was almost dark. When Lottie got home she realised she’d never been so glad to see her bathtub and promptly decided to soak for at least an hour.
The days following the hike up to Kate’s hut signalled a change in Damian. The playfulness and almost indulgence of their time together so far seemed to shift as Damian’s historian mode kicked in, and he became more focused and determined. He spent a lot of time on his computer, emailing back and forth to various people, and on the phone, discussing what his next step should be.
Lottie was careful not to get in the way. She realised this was a big break for him, and something important was unfolding before them, yet, part of her was a little annoyed that it was interfering in their personal life. There were no more lazy nights on the lounge, holding hands and talking till all hours of the morning. No getting out of town on the bike, just to enjoy a ride together; now, it was all work— his work.
This version of Damian was not one that she’d seen before. However, there was something that had been weighing on her mind over the last few days, and after work one day she decided to finally bring it up—the job at Armidale.
‘So, about the job,’ Lottie said, placing a coffee beside Damian as he studied the map on the table.
‘Hmm?’ he murmured, without looking up. ‘Job?’
‘The Armidale job. Have you heard anything back yet?’ she prompted.
He glanced up briefly. ‘Oh, yeah. I turned it down.’
For a moment, she wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. ‘You turned the job down. And you didn’t tell me?’
‘I meant to, but it kind of slipped my mind, you know, with all this going on. Besides, I’m not sure it’s the best time to accept a new job, not with all this suddenly looking so promising.’
She was still trying to wrap her head around the fact he’d turned down the job. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I called Mike the other day.’
‘Who?’ She frowned.
‘Michael Gearsley.’
‘The TV presenter?’ she asked, surprised.
‘Yeah, I’ve known him for years. Anyway, I wanted to get his advice and gave him a run-down of what I had, and he agrees that the next move should be investigating if those rocks were part of an old family cemetery. We can work out who was likely to have been buried there, using the church records to account for family buried in the town cemetery and anyone earlier who would have been buried at the homestead.’ He stopped to slurp his coffee. ‘It’s just not the right time to start a new job.’
‘I see.’ Her stomach dropped as disappointment flooded her. Not the right time? Suddenly, after all the plans they’d talked about and all the hopes she’d gotten up, he had just unilaterally decided it wasn’t the right time?
Don’t get ahead of yourself , a little voice cautioned.
His phone rang and he reached out to pick it up. ‘Speak of the devil,’ he said, looking up. ‘Sorry, I have to take this,’ he added, leaning across to kiss her briefly before standing up and walking out of the room.
He hadn’t said he wasn’t taking the job at all, she tried to reassure herself. It made sense, with all this going on that it wasn’t the right time. She sipped her own coffee, trying not to feel dejected.
‘Great news!’ Damian announced with great excitement as he walked back into the kitchen. ‘Mike’s got some keen interest in the story. He reckons we can get an archaeological dig organised, if we can turn up enough supporting evidence for our theory. I have to head back to Sydney to brief his backers.’
‘What?’ Back to Sydney. ‘How long will you be away for?’
‘It shouldn’t be more than a day or two. I’m going to throw a bag together and have a shower. If I get on the road now, it’ll save time travelling tomorrow.’
‘Now?’ she almost yelped.
‘Sorry, I know it’s all a bit sudden, but if we want to find answers, the only real way is to find evidence,’ he said in a rush. ‘We need a body to prove our theory, and I need Mike and his connections to make that happen. I’ll be back before you know it.’
It was all happening so fast. Lottie had barely gotten her head around the fact he was no longer intending to take the job that would keep him here in town, and now he was leaving for a few days?
She sat on the end of the bed and listened as he hurriedly threw in clothes and went over a list of things he’d need to do once he reached Sydney. All the while, Lottie found herself desperately trying not to cry.
‘Okay, that’s everything, I think,’ he said glancing around to check he hadn’t forgotten anything. ‘I’ll call you when I get settled.’ He tugged her to her feet and circled his arms around her waist, kissing her deeply. For a moment, Lottie felt her concern ease. Nothing had changed, it was the same as always … but then it stopped abruptly as his phone rang. Damian stepped back, picking up the phone and mouthing only a ‘Sorry, gotta go’ before he answered and was once more invested in whoever was on the other end of the call.
Suddenly, everything she’d been so certain about was feeling a lot more unsure.