‘A woman, Artie? That it? Not Mrs McKinnon I take it?’
Artie blushed a deep red and stammered something unintelligible.
‘Sorry, Sarge,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t say nothin’, will ya?’
‘Bloody bleeding hell! You’d better hope those boys are all right, that’s all I can say. Astonishing!’
He spun round and headed back into the station house. Grace was just emerging from her room as he stormed past on his way to the station proper.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked him.
‘Follow me and I’ll tell you,’ he said, grim-faced.
He was on the phone for three-quarters of an hour getting together the search party. Some of those he rang rang others and by the time everyone had gathered out at the crossroads just before eleven he had a couple of dozen men. He heard one man grumble about losing his Sunday afternoon over some silly lads and Pop shook his head and told him no one had twisted his arm and he was free to go. The man, shamed, stayed put.
Henry stood by his truck staring at the ground and smoking a cigarette. He looked calm but his hand shook as he smoked. He and Artie had already checked every likely place they could think of that morning without any success. Ah well, Pop thought, it’s out of his hands now.
He walked into the middle of the road, whistled for everyone’s attention and when he had it he asked for their opinions and he listened to where they thought they should start looking for the boys. Most of what they said tallied with where he wanted them so he divided them up into four parties of six each and tried to make sure that there was at least one in each party with a little bit of sense. As he was about to get everyone going the Pope brothers, who lived out along the road to the dam, drove up in their dusty Phantom, the old thing looking like a hearse from another age, a conveyance for some puffed-up dignitary, not a runabout for two old cattlemen. They’d bought the car when they were flush, nearly forty years ago, and had never parted with it. They drove into Angel Rock for church every Sunday. Pop waved them down and they pulled up. Heat was coming off the peaked hood of the Rolls as if there were a fire parked there underneath it.
‘You should go a bit faster, get some more air past that radiator,’ Pop said, leaning in at the window.
‘Won’t go too fast up the damn hill, you fool, only down, and we’re not going down, are we, we’re going up!’ said Reg, the cranky one, who was driving.
‘Thank you, Sergeant, we’ll keep that in mind,’ said the other brother, Robert, who’d had polio as a child and could barely walk and had more cause to be disagreeable than most but never was. ‘What can we do for you?’ he continued. ‘What’s all the commotion?’
‘We’re looking for some missing boys.’
Pop leant his hip against the side of the car and looked in at them. Both were wearing their hats and threadbare suits. He knew Reg wasn’t licensed and his eyes were none too good any more. One day he’d have to take away the keys and he wasn’t looking forward to that day at all.
‘You didn’t see anyone on your way down this morning?’
‘No, sir. You see any boys this morning, Reg?’
‘No, no boys,’ Reg muttered.
‘What boys are these that are lost?’
‘Ellie Gunn’s boys.’
‘Ah. How’d they lose themselves then?’
‘Walking home from the crossroads, some time yesterday evening.’
‘Well, what kind of mug could get lost doing that?’ said Reg slowly, his voice scornful.
‘All right, Reg, steady on,’ said Pop quietly. ‘Their father’s just here.’
Reg peered past Pop at Henry and screwed up his face.
‘Ah, well, his father was a silly coot as well,’ muttered Reg. ‘Maybe it’s in the blood. Whole family never had no common senses.’
‘Yes. All right then. Thank you, gentlemen. Steady as she goes and you might make it back in one piece. If you do see any boys on your travels you be sure and let me know.’
He rapped on the door of the Roller and turned away before Reg could fire a parting shot. As he did he saw Grace sitting on the step of Artie’s truck. She was watching him intently. He sighed to himself. He’d almost forgotten about her. She’d insisted on coming and against his better judgement he had given in. He found it hard to argue with her when she had her mind set on something.
‘Come on, you,’ he said. She came to him, all elbows and knees. He held the door of the car open for her and then they drove down the road a distance to where his party would begin their search. When they arrived he had the four men – Harry Clough, Percy Meaney, Ezra Steele and Artie McKinnon – spread out to within calling distance of each other before setting off across the paddock. Grace stayed close by him and, as he had predicted back home, the jeans she had insisted on wearing were too tight and consequently too hot. Soon her T-shirt was soaked through with perspiration and strands of her hair were plastered to the sides of her ever-reddening face. He went to her side.
‘You all right, love?’
‘Yep. I’m all right.’
‘Drink plenty of water,’ he said to her, and refilled her water bottle from the waterbag slung across his back.
‘Thanks.’
They soon left the river-flat paddocks behind and started along a track that wound up into the hills. Pop reckoned that if the boys had taken a wrong turn they might have ended up along there somewhere, but there was no answer to their calls and cooees and no one saw any sign that they had been that way. They continued along the track for another hour before Pop signalled a rest. He refilled Grace’s water bottle and then he climbed up onto a little rise, took out his binoculars, and scanned the valley. Away across the river he could see one of the other search parties and further still, down to the south, the sun twinkling off car windscreens in Angel Rock’s main street. He put down the glasses and rubbed his eyes and muttered a quick invocation to St Anthony and any of his mates who were handy and had nothing better to be going on with.
By mid-afternoon Grace was nearly spent, but she hid it from her father as a matter of honour. She followed him wearily in under a stand of tall gums. It was cooler in their shade and she immediately felt less faint. She glanced behind her to see if there was any time for a rest before the other men caught up. They were fairly close behind and she sighed inwardly. The six of them were walking in single file across the spur because the bush on each side was too thick. The man immediately behind her, Mr Meaney, a stocky farmer with very crooked teeth, gave her a shy smile but it was the man following him whose eyes she saw flick from her bottom, up to her eyes, back to her bottom again. She turned and stared at her father’s back. Two words sprang into her head and jigged around like butterflies. He’s looking. He’s looking at me. Darcy’s father. Mr Steele.
Her bottom suddenly felt enormously big and round and she tried to walk like a boy, keeping her buttocks clenched and her hips as straight as possible. A red flush of indignation lit up her cheeks, neck, and the tips of her ears. She wanted to spin round and tell him to stop but she knew she wouldn’t.
They crossed the spur and the bush opened out again and the track ended at a gate in a fence. A creek continued along the flat and three of the men crossed it and spread out along the opposite bank. Pop walked along the near bank and Grace saw with a start that Mr Steele was now between her and him. She tried to count the men she could see but they kept appearing and disappearing behind trees and then she saw Pop direct her a little further out. She was about to protest, but then marched away when Mr Steele began drawing closer. She could hear the others calling the boys’ names and she kept her head forward, watching the ground in front of her. She could just see Mr