Bart woke up to the sound of his own snores, and the feeling someone had just spoken to him. What was it the man had said in his dreams?

Rain’s coming.

The sense of urgency he now felt was something he could not ignore. He lurched to his feet just as a stiff breeze came down the track. The sound of the creek had become louder and he could feel something grumbling under his feet. As the breeze hit, his floppy hat blew off his head and then there was the sound of a very large splash.

‘What the fuck?’

This time he could hear the voice quite clearly.

You should probably get moving, it said conversationally. She’s here.

The creek, which had been happily gurgling the last time he’d gone down there, now seemed to have a, although still happy, very loud humming sound. An extreeeeemely loud, giggling, humming sound. It was possibly the strangest, oddest, newest, oldest sound he had ever heard in his life. Above Bart’s head, the air had begun to shimmer slightly, and as he went to pick up the, once again, fallen over camp chair, it picked itself up, folded itself neatly, and deposited itself in the back of the four-wheel-drive.

I’m obviously still asleep.

No you’re not.

‘Huh?’

A very tall man stood beside him, deep brown eyes filled with mirth. He wore a very shiny blue suit with black lapels, his long thin legs seemed to reach into the sand of the track, and he didn’t appear to have feet.

You’re not dreaming, he said, although his mouth didn’t move. And, you’re not having a panic attack, just in case you were wondering. We should probably get all your gear into the, he drifted over to the Discovery. What do you call this thing?

Bart felt decidedly out-of-sorts. He seemed to have sat down, but he couldn’t remember doing it. He knew he had though, because there was a twig sticking into his arse.

‘A fourby? A four-wheel-drive? An offroad vehicle? Who the hell are you?’

Today, the man said as he picked up the kettle. I’m your best mate. How do we make your “fourby” move?

‘We can’t make it move,’ he said, and his voice sounded distant, and oddly calm. ‘It’s got a flat tyre.’

Never stopped me before. The man smiled, large white teeth stretching the skin of his face into a happy-go-lucky grin. Somehow, he’d seemed to pick information out of Bart’s head and applied it to himself. He rubbed his hands, then laced the long, knobbly fingers together as he stretched his arms over his head. You should probably get up now, he said, his deep voice making Bart’s mind quiver. I’m not doing this all by myself.

What the fuck is happening? Bart was on his feet again, and seemed to be helping the man shove the folding table into the back of the Landy.

How many names do you have for this thing/fourby/off-road vehicle?

‘Not that many,’ Bart replied, feeling strangely peaceful. ‘Enough to make it a little more interesting, and not so repetitive, I suppose.’

Interesting? Hmfph. Sounds confusing though, don’t you think?

‘Not really.’ This was the strangest conversation he’d ever had with an imaginary person in his life. He knew the man wasn’t actually real. Nobody wore a suit in the middle of the bush, and nobody talked with their mouths closed. He shut the rear of the four-wheel-drive and looked at his companion.

Fair enough. The man was moving his lips now, but it was definitely not in time to his words. I suppose there’s a lot of names for water too, if I think about it. Like, still water, waterhole, rain water, small river, big river and … Yeah. I don’t think she’ll wash you out. Not today. She seems to like you.

‘Who seems to like me?’ Bart glanced around. There wasn’t anyone else here.

The lizard. The man picked up Bart’s backpack. Okay, maybe not exactly a lizard. He flicked his wrist and one of the side doors opened. More of a snake. He paused and pursed his lips then grinned at Bart again.  Well, not exactly a snake. Sort of like a great big snake, but with little tiny legs that don’t move.

‘A legless lizard?’ He didn’t understand why this seemed to be interesting information, but apparently it was.

The man clapped his hands and laughed. Just like that. She’s kind of big though, for a legless lizard.

‘Big?’ Bart seemed to have relaxed into some sort of nightmare. He didn’t know why, but this bloke, whoever he was, seemed friendly, and very helpful. He certainly wasn’t teasing, not like Solway did, and he didn’t seem to be mean or nasty. He just … He just was.

Big, the man repeated. And small, sometimes I suppose. Kind of like a rainbow. She’s a legless lizard though, not a rainbow. She just looks like a rainbow.

‘I’m sorry?’

It’s the sun, you see. Reflects off her, or something. Well sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t. Today, here, it doesn’t. He smiled and shrugged his broad shoulders. Possibly because you’re standing in it. Anyway, it doesn’t matter much. She’s here, and that’s all there is to it.

‘So, what do we do?’ Somehow, Bart found himself in the driver’s seat of the four-wheel-drive and the man was sitting beside him. He did not remember how they got there.

Well, just in case she changes her mind, which she does quite a lot, let me tell ya, we should probably go backwards. Forwards, the track you’re on stays reasonably  flat for a really long time. Backwards, it goes up that hill. Remember that hill? The man looked at him inquiringly.

‘Yes.’ Bart shuddered. Listening to this made him think about all the times Solway had narrowly avoided those eucalyptus trees the previous night. It really had been touch and go there for a while.

Ah. You remember how that feels. The man threw the gear stick in reverse, then slapped his bright blue knees, a happy grin on his face. He glanced at Bart expectantly. That’s good. This is going to be a lot worse.

As if of its own accord, the Landy started going backwards.

~~~~~~,~’~~~~~.~’~~80>

The cloud Solway had seen earlier had come in fairly quickly. It began to spit. The rain seemed light for now, but it  also seemed like it would get pretty heavy, pretty quickly.

The track was holding up. It had probably not rained here since the previous spring over six months ago, and there didn’t seem to be any clay in this soil. The ground had become slightly gravelly underfoot – the rocks under her feet were very small, almost pea-like. With the incline Solway was currently scaling, she felt more concerned about turning an ankle than slipping in clay. There wouldn’t be any reptiles out in the open now, not with the way the temp had dropped so rapidly. It would probably be better and slightly more relaxing to walk in the centre between the wheel ruts.

Still no T junction in sight. Surely it couldn’t be that far away. This track had really not seemed that long on the map – only a few k’s max. Why did it feel like she’d been walking for hours?

‘Because I have been walking for hours.’ She took off her cap, shook it,  put it back on again over her smoothed back hair and turned to look back. The slope she’d been walking up felt more obvious from here. Off in the distance she could see the bend she’d come around, and the slight wiggles in the track that had not been so obvious on the aerial map. 

‘What that means is this T junction I’ve been waiting for is coming up.’ She began ticking her fingers. ‘There’s only one track. That’s one thing. There’s a tributary to my left. That’s two.  Oh.’

She hadn’t exactly seen this tributary. Even with the rain, which had been getting distinctly heavier, she couldn’t hear it. That didn’t mean too much, not really. It just meant the water wasn’t moving. But, surely, she’d hear the rain on the water?

‘And what does that sound like,’ she admonished herself. ‘If the water isn’t moving, how am I going to hear it over all this rain, anyway? I’m not. If I really want to know if I’m going in the right direction, I should make sure the tributary is there, right? It’s either that, or keep walking. If I keep walking I’ll hit this T junction, and if I factor in this track is a bastard to walk on, that would have added extra time, so…’ She began stomping along the trail again. ‘I’ll get there soon enough, and I should stop being so impatient.’

Solway jerked her dripping cap back down over her forehead and tried to ignore her soaked long-sleeved shirt. If she stopped for too long, her body temp would drop very quickly and she’d begin to get cold. What she needed to remember was that she was on a rescue mission, and not the one in need of saving.

‘I’m going to have to put on extra clothing soon which means I’ll need to find some kind of shelter so nothing gets too wet.’ 

The bushes in the surrounding landscape were still knee height. She thought back to the map. On the other side of the T junction, it looked like there might be some kind of forest. Maybe when she got there, she’d cross over the road and take a break. The lightweight, silver emergency blanket in her backpack would warm her up, she could change socks, and possibly throw on a windcheater.

‘Not going to do that yet, though. It can wait until I get there.’

For the first time, Solway Endersans wondered if she had bitten off more than she could chew. It was not a comfortable feeling. 

She kept walking.