Free Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller Page A

said, ‘It’ll have to be done before the summer. She’s not a good place to get into after rain.’
    ‘Well I can’t do it,’ Susan said. ‘He’s asking the impossible.’ She said accusingly, ‘You’ve known about this for ages, haven’t you?’
    ‘Well, I think everyone’s known for years that the government’s been planning a dam on the Ranna,’ Dougald said.
    ‘It’s not fair!’ Susan looked at Bo. ‘Say something Bo.’
    Bo said evenly, ‘Les Marra’s a smart feller. He’s doin it for the young people. But I never seen no good come of the way him and Steve operates.’ He turned away and stepped into the kitchen area and opened the refrigerator. ‘We’d better have a feed, old mate, before we all die of hunger.’
    Dougald gazed across the table at Susan. ‘I’ve got no food here,’ he said.
    Bo made an annoyed clucking sound and shut the refrigerator door. ‘I’ll go down the shop and get something. You all want fish and chips?’
    Annabelle said, ‘I’ll come with you.’
    Dougald looked at them. ‘You fellers camping here tonight?’
    Bo shook his head. ‘We’ll get going. Susan’s gotta be back in Townsville.’
    Bo and Dougald looked at each other. Neither spoke.
    After some little while Dougald said, ‘Plenty of feed out there in that Isaac River country I’ll bet?’
    ‘Oh yes.’
    The two men evidently found something of themselves in what they saw in the other. Their years together on the Isaac harboured within them.
    Bo said, ‘That boxforest country’s all been poisoned.’
    Dougald looked down at his hands. He touched Susan’s report as if he proposed examining it. ‘That was all sweet winter country through there. Them dead trees would let in the frosts and dry it up.’
    ‘She’s all African buffel grass and Brahmans. There’s not a blade of native pick left, except on the ridges.’
    Dougald narrowed his eyes, considering the planes of his palms as if he considered the fine cattle country of his youth. ‘On Picardy too?’
    ‘Oh yes, Picardy, all that downs country been poisoned,’ Bo said.
    There was a silence.
    Bo said, ‘Me and Annabelle’ll go and get us something to eat.’
    No one moved.
    The sound came up on the teevee. They turned and looked. It was a rugby game. Arner switched channels. They looked away.
    ‘It would have been easier finding them scarred trees of the old people with the timber dead,’ Dougald said and laughed softly. It was a mirthless laugh, however, a listless resignation in his voice, almost self-mocking, as if he wished them to understand it was the least of his duties to inquire after the progress of the mine survey. ‘Find many scarred trees?’
    ‘No,’ Bo said. ‘We didn’t find much of anything. Just campsites.’
    Annabelle said, ‘I found an interesting stone.’
    They all turned and looked at her.
    She said, ‘I’ll get it.’ She went out to the Pajero and opened the back door. The stone was in the grocery bin. She had wrapped it in a tea towel. As she lifted the heavy stone cylinder from the bin it came to her that she would leave it with Dougald Gnapun and be rid of it.
    Inside the house the three of them waited for her. Something uncomfortable in their apprehension of her return. While they waited they watched the teevee. A car blew its horn out in the road. Trace came out of her room and ran out of the house. There was the sound of a door slamming and the car driving off, the bass thumping.
    Susan said, ‘You got down to Brisbane all right yourself then, Dougald?’
    ‘Yeah. I come back yesterday.’
    ‘What did the doctors say?’
    Dougald straightened, pressing his hand to his left side above the waistband of his trousers. ‘They’re doing some tests.’ He looked down at his large hand, covering his side like a wound-dressing. ‘I’ve got this monitor thing taped to me.’ He tugged his shirt aside to let them see.
    They both looked at the black box taped to his yellow skin with a silvery