Sandstone, October 2020 - part 3

Barry Hutler In The Wild

“Bungarra. Traveling east to west,” said Mal pointing at a series of marks in the gravel.

“Rightyo then, Barry Hutler,” I replied, studying the marks to try and understand his conclusion. Mal had already moved on westward. I wondered if he was hunting it down.

Mal was a walking nature program when we were kids. While I was dreaming up my first works of fiction, his favourite books were the Harry Butler In The Wild series, and Mr See-more Says Look Down. Ray was the mechanical type, always building or inventing some sort of instrument to eliminate his own world hunger. The two of them were thick as thieves in their formative years. Ray needed someone to accompany him on his hunting expeditions, and Mal was more than happy to oblige because it inevitably involved the great outdoors. When Ray and Jennie got together, that bond was broken.

In the years prior, when both Ray and Mal and their respective families were all living in Beverley town, I’d occasionally visit and feel like the third wheel. In hindsight, I’d have to admit that I would use sarcasm and ill-formed wit to attempt to elevate my ranking. Rightyo then, Barry Hutler echoing through my mind.

From my perspective, Ray was always selfish when it came to the family. It is easy to find excuses why. Ray and his first wife, Liz were just children themselves when they were married. Ray invariably treated his own needs before anyone else. He always had his hobbies, moving on from radio stations as a kid, to cars as a young man, then motorbikes and rifles. The house they lived in would have made a forensic investigator squeamish, with a car yard of Ray’s broken dreams out the back, one whole room dedicated to his guns and ammunition, and the kangaroo butchering kill room the first thing that hit you in the face when you walked in the back door.

When Ray met Jennie, he seemed to walk out the front door of his home and family, and slam it in their face. They soon did the same to Mal. I hated Ray for the way he went about rebranding himself, which resulted in a fight and we thereafter lost contact too. Now, here was Mal and I, fifteen years later, searching this scorched, hostile earth for some semblance of peace. For Jennie. For Ray. For their family that he left us all for.

“This country will fuck’n kill you,” I said to Mal as we climbed the last breakaway to return to the Landie. We had completed a full search of every cave, boulder or crevice found along that section. What had seemed like an insurmountable effort earlier that morning was complete. A total of three dead kangaroos, a goat, and not one single human body was found. 

Mr See-more Says Look Down

It was hotter than hell. It must be mid afternoon, I thought to myself. I wasn’t wearing a watch. “What time is it, Mal?” I asked.

“Ten thirty.”

“You’re kidding?”

“Nope, ten-thirty,” he confirmed.

Hours, weeks, and months had somehow turned into minutes. The day had barely begun. We walked past an area that had been camped in recently. A flat section with all sharp rocks removed and a ring of larger stones assembled for a campfire. “What the hell would make someone want to camp out here?” I posed.

“Kangaroo shooting,” said Mal without a moment’s hesitation, perhaps fondly recalling his expeditions with Ray all those years ago. 

We reached the Landie and headed to our next search destination. We drove to a surveyor’s track to the west of the Payne’s Find to Sandstone road; another possibility conjured up in envisioning where a psychopath might dispose of a body—these regions abandoned by the surveyors and drillers who found the locations to be of little benefit for modern mining. We were soon a good thirty or more kilometres inland on a rough track. 

The heat and effort was starting to wear on me. I couldn’t stop playing those scenes from years ago in my mind. Ray always left first, and always left a mess for us to clean up, I thought. I shouted to Mal above the engine roar: “You know, I’ve had a few guys say to me over these past few years, ‘if that were my brother, you know what I’d do’.”

Mal looked at me confused. “What do they mean?”

“I assume they mean they’d pour their testosterone onto the bloke responsible and light a match. Not sure…”

“No one has said that to me, and they better not,” said Mal returning his gaze out the passenger window at the passing landscape.

We soon reached the end of the track and the diggings. Again, we searched all possible places a body might be found, keeping in mind the distance it would be possible to manhandle. Nearby, a hill of quartz rock rose above the flat landscape. We walked to the top, from where you could see for miles in every direction. Heat refractions weaved through the air rising from the sun-baked quartz, contributing a mystical aura to the view.

“She could be anywhere,” I said despondent, scanning the horizon a gazillion miles from our elevated position.

“Yep,” confirmed Mal.

We climbed back down and moved on. In total that day, we covered every location I had pinned from my research of the local tenement maps and satellite images. Hundreds of square kilometres. Abandoned diggings. Breakaway caves. Bores. Gravel Pits. Now, other than blindly rambling through the bush, I had no further possibilities to try.

It was late afternoon. “Shall we just head back to the kangaroo-shooters camp for the night and work out what to do tomorrow?” I said.

“Sounds like a good plan,” said Mal.

We reached the camp and unrolled our swags, unfolded our chairs, and opened the esky. Mal started a fire. “Guess what’s for dinner, Mal,” I joked.

“Chicken?” he said.

“Nope!” I said, pulling out four whole potatoes, two cans of beans, and a sheet of alfoil, holding the ingredients up to Mal. I assumed he would be disappointed. I was wrong.

“Woo, hoo, hoo boy!” he exclaimed. “Campfire baked potatoes—you bloody ripper!”

Mal spent the evening perfecting his fire, and carefully moving the potatoes in and around the embers. I had not seen Mal happier in years. We ate, drank the remainder of the bush chooks, then fell into the swags under a cloudless sky full of stars.

I lied there for hours staring up at those stars, thinking of all we had achieved that day, and not achieved. I felt dispirited. This country had defeated me. Mal was snoring away happily in his swag nearby. I recalled him tending the fire earlier that night. This country has revitalised him, I thought. I smiled. A meteor shot through the night sky. My final thought before passing out that night was a homage to wise words spoken to me many years ago: We may not have found her, but it is just as important to know where the enemy isn’t.

Continue to Part 4: A Crystal Cave and one of the Seven Dwarfs - a modern day fairytale.

In The Wild with Barry Hutler

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On an offbeat note, I’d like to pose a question to anyone reading this. As stated in this piece, I have had a few people over the years say: “If that were my brother, you know what I’d do…” then pause for dramatic effect as their testosterone simmers. So, let me ask you, dear reader, what would you do in our situation, knowing what we now know following the Inquest Findings, to attain some peace? How would you go about achieving that goal? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? Or, would you perhaps instead use the fabled weapon mightier than the sword? Or, any other suggestions?