Albert of Adelaide by Howard Anderson

Author:Howard Anderson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction / Action & Adventure
ISBN: 9781455509607
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2012-07-10T04:00:00+00:00

15

On Brown Snakes and Bandicoots

Albert stood at the top of the trail that led up from the flats to the entrance of the opening in the cliff. He had taken to coming here each evening to look at the sun setting on the desert below. He would stand there while the shadows lengthened across the flats, then watch them slowly disappear as the sun reached the horizon.

The play of light fascinated Albert. Every day the sun shifted position in the sky ever so slightly, and the movement of the light on the desert changed with it. The change from one day to the next was too subtle to see, but Albert could feel it. He would stand there until the top of the distant mountain faded into an outline in the dusk surrounded by the first few stars of the coming night.

Albert had made the mistake of staying too long one evening. The stars had kept him on top of the trail until nightfall. When he looked down from the sky he saw the campfires of the dingoes on the desert floor.

He didn’t like being reminded of what he had seen that night in the stand of gum trees. There was always the chance that the same thing could happen to him or to his friends. Albert knew that the end of the Fusiliers had resulted from their own folly, but that wasn’t to say that bad luck wouldn’t have worked just as well, and bad luck could happen to anyone.

It had taken them another day and night to get back to the water hole from the Fusilier encampment. There had been only a few hours of darkness left the night of the massacre, and they had gone to ground before dawn the following morning. They waited on a brush-covered rise in the heat of a long day. Albert or TJ would keep watch while the other rested in what little shade was provided by the brush. The bandicoots were quiet and spent most of their time under a stunted desert oak on the back side of the rise.

Roger had started taking nips from a pint bottle he had in his bag the minute the sun came up, and if TJ hadn’t taken the bottle away from him, he would have been drunk by noon. Roger gave up the gin without a murmur. After watching what had happened to the dingo that had attacked them the night before, neither Alvin nor Roger were inclined to argue with TJ.

Albert really didn’t know what to do with the bandicoots. There hadn’t been time to sort things out on the road to Barton Springs. One minute Alvin and Roger had been fighting with TJ and the next minute they had been running for their lives. If he’d had time to think about it, he probably wouldn’t have taken them along. The bandicoots were just looking for someone to drink with. The idea of being bushrangers had probably been appealing in a barroom somewhere,

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