Behind Mt. Baldy Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘They can
navigate,’ he thought. ‘They are better at it than me anyway.’
    The road wound around the lower
slopes of jungle clad ridges, keeping just above the level of the lake. Every
few hundred metres it crossed creeklines emptying into gloomy backwaters. The
day was fine but in under the overhanging trees there were patches of damp
which made the road soft.
    Graham pointed to one of these.
“There must have been rain recently to make it as wet as this,” he observed.
    “How much
further?” Roger asked.
    “About two kilometres,” Graham
replied.
    “Can we stop for a bit?”
    “No.”
    They walked on. Roger began to
feel miserable. Hiking hurt. He wondered why he did it. It wasn’t as if he
didn’t know what it would be like. He’d been on a dozen other hikes. He looked
at the three packs ahead of him and felt a tinge of jealousy. How could Graham
and Peter just wander along looking around them and talking as though they
didn’t have a care in the world? They didn’t seem to even notice the weight of
their gear. At least Stephen seemed to be bent forward a bit, head down. Roger then
rebuked himself for feeling such malicious pleasure.
    ‘It’s all very well for them,’ he
thought gloomily. ‘They have just done their ATA Course and have toughened up.’
He had also been on the exercise but because he was only a ‘Second Year’, and
the ATA Course was for ‘Third Years’, he had not done all the activities.
    They passed through more rain forest . A whole line of four-wheel drive vehicles roared
past; ten of them, each with one or two people in it, some reading maps and
others talking on CB radios. The boys stood in weeds beside the road and
waited. Dust billowed, causing Roger to cough and scowl in annoyance. Then they
continued on.
    Roger suddenly cannoned into
Stephen’s pack. Stephen had stopped suddenly. “Look out Roger! You nearly
knocked me over,” he snapped.
    “Sorry, what? What?”
    Roger’s gaze followed Graham’s
outstretched finger. He and Peter had also stopped.
    A red-bellied black snake had
appeared out of the weeds a few metres in front of them and was sliding across
the road. Roger felt a shiver of fright as he watched it. The snake was at
least two metres long and so thick he couldn’t have put his finger and thumb
around it (not that he would ever want to, even if it was dead!). The reptile
was so black and shiny it looked as though it had been polished and the
underside was a surprisingly bright red. It moved with what was, to Roger’s
eyes, appalling speed.
    “Isn’t it beautiful! ”
Peter cried. “So shiny.”
    “Beautiful be buggered!” Graham
replied. He hated all snakes.
    “We should kill it,” Stephen
added.
    “Against the law, except in
self-defence,” Peter reminded.
    “What with anyway?” added Graham
as the snake slithered into the undergrowth. “We’d better watch where we put
our feet when we step off the road.”
    The boys continued on. Roger now found
his eyes scanning the weeds along the edge of the road. He walked with his head
down, his hands grasping the pack straps to help ease the burden.
    They came to another large
backwater studded with the grey trunks of dead trees and fringed by reeds and
lilies.
    Peter pointed at it. “I’ll bet
you wouldn’t have been so keen to swim out and fish a body out if you saw it in
there Roger,” he called.
    Roger looked at the murky
backwater and went cold. The sunshine seemed to darken as though a filter had
been placed over it. He did not reply.
    “Shut up about bodies!” Stephen
shouted. Peter looked back at him in astonishment. Stephen yelled again, “Shut
up about it! I don’t want to hear anymore. Just forget it can’t you?”
    “Sorry,” Peter replied. He
shrugged, then turned and kept on walking. Roger got a glimpse of Stephen’s
face. He looked very pale.
    They walked in silence up into
another area of rainforest. It was like a gloomy tunnel with the trees meeting
overhead. More cars