Dingo & Sister by Nikky Lee

Author:Nikky Lee [Lee, Nikky]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780463067383
Publisher: Nikky Lee

“This last stretch is like the last climb on Everest,” Sheena said once, months ago in the very place I stand now. She’d shown me pictures of it once—in a tattered, old-world magazine, and we’d daydreamed about being adventurers on the other side of the world. “I know you’re tired and hungry, and all that water from Kulgera is heavy, but no matter what, don’t stop.”

Stop and you may never get up again. Her words still haunt me.

I survey the dunes. They rise red out of the land like waves, burying and uncovering the tracks with each one of their strange tides. Today, a stifling northerly breeze pushes them to meet us. The heat of it scorches my cheeks. Sweat clings to my legs, my back, my neck. How can a city survive in this country? A country so far from anywhere with these dunes—these mountains—between them and the dregs of civilisation?

Nerves stab my gut, so hard I almost double over and grunt. What if Alice is gone like all the other old cities?

Ahead, a deserted caravan lies half buried in the sand. Ribs of an inhuman skeleton—horse most likely, maybe camel—peak up from the dirt, dry and sand-blasted white by the sun. There are no other bones. Those lie further on, perverse milestones on this deadly road. This one is known as Caravan. Or so Sheena said.

Caravan, Swagsman, Boots, Lovers, Crates and—

I flinch and pull away from that thought. My mind circles back along its beaten track. What if all that’s left is this dune sea and milestones of bone to nowhere? I suddenly understand what those ancient explorers felt, setting sail from their homeland with no knowledge of where safe harbour was or where to find it. For all they knew, they sailed into an endless sea. What if all that waits us is another drowned city—this one drowned in heat, while the rest sank in water? In the end, not even Sheena knew what lay beyond the first five graves. All she’d had was hope and a rumour.

Dingo’s presses her mind next to mine, folding me into its calm. Are you all right? Are you tired?

I nod, but keep on walking. Just like Sheena said. I shift my scarf of supplies onto my other shoulder. The water bottle sloshes inside; it’s lighter than I’d like. Mason hands me a tin of something from his pack—beans, I think. The label and use-by date wore off years ago.

“Eat,” he says.

We press on, passing the tin between us. I stay his hand as he reaches for his water bottle and shake my head.

“Save it?” he guesses and sighs. We traipse on, sand filling our boots and burning blisters into our heels.

We find the Swagsman that evening, still wrapped in a tattered bedroll. Mason makes to nudge the bones with his boot, to move the skeleton aside so he might hunt through the roll. What he hopes to find I can only guess—the skeleton’s been there at least ten years. Or so Sheena said.

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