"Hey!" The others put their arms up against the flying grit. Amaya twirled away from them, dancing along the rock wall and narrowly dodging an unstable dribble of sand that drained downward. It was a relief to get away from those two! She came to a corner, laughing giddily as she rounded it, and then stopped as if she'd hit a glass wall.
"Okay, glamour girl!" Daniel called. "Which way now?"
Slowly, Amaya backed up and lifted her arm to point past the corner of the cliff. Her voice was quiet, but it carried clearly in the dryness of the now-still air. "Let's ask him."
The newcomer was as shrouded in dust as they were. He strode along the base of the outcrop in long, skidding strides that sent his tattered range coat flapping. The stranger had fled to the outcrop for shelter as they had, Daniel realized, and was as surprised as they were at this meeting. But not intimidated. Their huddled manner reassured him and he marched ahead, his cracked lips widening in gritty welcome.
"Now look what the wind blew in!" He looked at them with bright dark eyes from beneath a greasy bush hat. "Some of the good ones, I'd venture. G'day to the mud people, then!"
"Do you recognize him?" Daniel asked Ethan quietly.
"No. I don't think he's with the Warden."
The man squinted at Ethan. "I'm not with anybody, mate! Though I'm wondering where the likes of you are coming from, that always wants to be with me! For a long time, nothing. Then people here, people there. I spies on more than ever spy on me. Christ! Bloody crowded, it's getting. I come out here to get away from them all, and still I meet you!"
"We drop out of the sky," Ethan said dryly.
"Well, you brought a lot of dirt with you this time, didn't you!" the man replied, squinting up at an atmosphere still brown from dust.
"Who are you?" Raven asked.
He considered. "Why Oliver, I think. Who are you?"
"My name is Raven."
"Oliver is what I remember. Though to a pretty lady like yourself, just Ollie, I suppose. I'm the proprietor."
"The what?"
"The owner! The inheritor! This land is mine, by right of first possession! So don't get any ideas, now! I don't care how damn many of you there are!"
Daniel glanced at Ethan. This one had been in the sun too long.
Amaya was looking thoughtful. "You didn't come with Outback Adventure, did you… Ollie?"
"Outback what?"
"And you're not a convict, either. Not a moral-impaired."
He straightened himself up. "As straight as a ruler, missy. I believe in the law."
"So, where did you come from?"
He looked impatient. "Now that's what your kind never understands. I didn't come from nowhere. I'm just here. On walkabout, you see."
"Walkabout?"
"The aborigines did it," Raven said quietly. "Sort of like a native American spirit quest. Go out alone into the wilderness to wander and survive and find a spirit. Magic."
"Like the old prophets," said Daniel.
"Like us," said Ethan.
"No, not like you," Oliver objected. "You're no abo, I can tell. Me, I've got some of the blood. I can hear the old ones when the wind blows. Heard 'em just now."
"How long have you been on walkabout, Oliver?" Raven asked.
He shrugged. "All my life."
"Do you remember the time before the Dying? Before the plague? When there were cars? Buildings? Other people?"
He looked troubled. "I dream it, sometimes. That's what I look for, missy. Not that I've ever found it."
"Great God," Ethan whispered. "He's a damned survivor. Somehow, he's immune."
Raven nodded at Oliver encouragingly. "And have you ever looked to the east? Ever looked where the sun comes up?"
He turned to look in that direction, his eyes bright in dark hollows under the dust like the mask of a raccoon, his stubble beard gritty, his body overclothed in the vagrant manner of someone who had no other way of carrying his belongings. "A bit. No different than here."
Their spirits sank.
"Unless you go to the wet part. Hard walking, some of that. Too many trees."
Raven brightened. "You've been there?"
"Oh yes. I've been everywhere. Have to, when you're the only one."
"Could you take us there?" She pointed.
"What? Across the sand? Are you crazy, missy?"
She looked confused.
"This is the bloody desert, right? No water here. We'd die, we go out there." He looked at them as if they were daft.
"Where then?" she asked in despair.
"Up to the mountains, the way I was going," he said impatiently. "Then east. You can find water up there along the ranges."
Their smiles cracked their dust-covered faces in an eruption of hope. "Ollie, we're lost," Raven said carefully. "Can you show us the way to the mountains? Show us how to get east?"
"East!" He considered a moment, scratching his beard. "Why east? Of course, then again, why not? I could go that way I suppose. What's east, I wonder?" He squinted at them. "Eh? What in the devil makes it so important to go that way?"
"Our home, Ollie. We're lost, and we want to get home."
"Home! Ah, well. That's what I'm looking for too."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
They turned north, following the sinuous line of the dunes. The walking was easier now that they could march along the sandy crests, and their guide, however strange, boosted their spirits. Oliver pointed out the occasional track of an insect or lizard across the sand that suggested the dunes were not quite as sterile as they seemed. Still, when the sand gave way to a more familiar hard and arid plain, rocky and thorny and spotted with stunted trees and shrubs, the adventurers greeted the transition with relief. Here, at least, was something green.
A day later they began to cross stony ridges running east to west, a change in topography that broke the Outback's monotonous flatness. They could visually measure progress! As Oliver had promised, springs were easier to find at the base of these outcrops. Finally they came to a more imposing ridge about a thousand feet high. The range was the worn, polished nub of once-great mountains, the surviving sedimentary layers sculpted into battlements so shiny that they seemed to sweat. Touch confirmed the rock was as dry as old enamel, however. The adventurers began following the base of the range, camping in gaps where intermittent floods had cut passageways as direct and level as a highway. These canyons were shaded by gum and acacia trees.
Without quite realizing it, the group fell into a new rhythm. During the first couple of weeks in Australia, Daniel's whole body had been sore from unfamiliar exertion. The ground had been hard and lumpy, his neck had bent at unfamiliar angles in sleep, his feet constantly ached and his muscles had stiffened. Now the miles seemed routine to a body that had become leaner and harder. The adventurers had far less gear than when they'd arrived in Australia and were more comfortable despite that, or perhaps because of it. Their load was lighter and their tasks simpler. The ground had become a familiar bed, and the open sky a familiar roof. Bird calls, a fold of land, the march of insects, or a change in vegetation could all, they'd learned, direct them to water.
Alert and more familiar in their surroundings, they found the daily search for food to be easier as well. Fruit-bearing plants had become recognizable, and their skill as hunters was growing. Oliver proved an apt teacher. Sometimes he would disappear for a day or two and reappear with game, but at other times he would take one of the party with him and patiently point out animal sign, demonstrate a quiet stalking, or bring down prey with a well-aimed throwing stick or rock. He taught his new companions to follow the tracks of the sluggish blue-tongued lizard- an easy kill- and to recognize wild onion, bush cucumber, and pigweed seed. Oliver carried nothing but what he wore, picking up and discarding sticks, rocks, or scrap to use as tools when he needed. He seemed not only to understand animals but to be half animal himself, and his wild, casual freedom struck the others as both enviable and disturbing. Is this what they could become?