SOLOMAN

Bob’s mustache spanned his hard-set mouth like a shinto shrine. His skin was tanned red, with course black whiskers showing through all over his chin and cheeks. He was a man of action who could stand alone, to battle the elements. Unlike the "pale-faced slant-eyes" who had to travel in flocks, jammed into their air-conditioned tourist buses.

Skipper stood with his paws against the dash, lifted his head a bit into the wind which jostled his ears, and barked three times at the smiling faces looking down at him through the glass as though he was, in some inscrutable oriental way, cute.

As soon as they’d left town and the road ahead was clear Bob floored the Tojo to zap past that bus. He raised his middle finger toward the line of faces as he accelerated away down the road as straight and clean as a gun barrel.

Soon Bob and Skipper were in clear air where open space stretched to the horizon in every direction. Bob had installed long-range fuel thanks, extra filters for both fuel and air, an excellent tool kit, and two spare tires. This would be the time of their lives!

All day Bob kept driving west. At dusk they camped by a sluggish yellow river with ancient red gums dotting its tall banks. The dropped branches had made an excellent fire with Skipper laying his jaw on his paws and a small dome of brightness in the center of the spangled universe. Bob felt good. Really out there doing it!

He’d escaped sub-urbanity. He was a separate individual entity. He spat a fleck of tobacco toward the fire and blew smoke into the smoke feeling a cozy contempt for all the commuters and bank tellers back there in the cities.

Next morning it was already hot when Bob awoke the second time. Galahs burst from the higher branches of the gums, insects buzzed around him, and a lone cattle truck rumbled through the crossroads on the dusty road nearby. “Time to move, Skipper”, heard the dog who'd been sniffing around for hours.

The route to wherever was generally straight with some low mountains hovering in the far distance, and every so often a dry creek crossing that looked as though it had forgotten the feeling of water. Sensibly, Bob had brought plenty of water with him, and plenty of fuel. And more important of all, his best mate, Skipper.

They passed an ancient falling-down weather board building surrounded by rusted old cars set back half a mile from the road and Bob was surprised to see tire marks leading out of the driveway. He’d enjoyed the feeling of being the only person for a thousand miles.

Not far down the road Bob crossed a cattle grid made from parallel lengths of railway track. He love the BBRRRRT sound made by the tires and the way the old Tojo flew over the raised grid, but he must have overdone that one because something broke and the mudguard was instantly rubbing on the tire sending out a stretched back cloud of blue/black smoke behind until the tire burst and flapped stacattitically until it had disintegrated.

Bob pulled up as quickly as he could and inspected the damage. The tire was history but the right-rear spring-shackle was the main problem. Bob wasn’t fazed. He walked 100 meters back to the grid and removed a length of fencing wire by bending it back and forth until it got very hot and then snapped. Soon Bob had the Tojo jacked-up using the air bag specially designed for desert conditions, and inflated by the vehicles exhaust. The shackle was jury-rigged and the tire changed so he drove slowly back to the old station house that’d shown signs of life.

Back at the ranch Bob drove quickly down the long driveway and blew his horn a couple of times; but there was no response nor sign of life. There was a diesel generator thumping away somewhere round the back so Bob got out, ordered Skipper to heel, and looked around.

Inside the weatherboard shell of the house one room was still habitable, and three enamel coffee mugs waited on the table. The other rooms contained an accumulation of saddles, pumps, sacks, car parts and boxes, all beneath a thick layer of dust on a floor that had collapsed in several places.

Around the back was a big transportable freezer unit the size of a container. Bob popped the latch and looked inside. It was full of rabbit carcasses all neatly stacked to the ceiling. Ol Skipper went mad at the sight and smell of them. Bob slapped him on the nose. “Come on ya bastard! Ya can’t be that fuckin’ hungry!”

Next, Bob looked into the corro shed close by and spotted an arc welder in amongst the pipes and tools under a big old bench. Just what he needed, although he had never used one, but, Bob was versatile.

He dragged the welder outside and connected it to the generator with an extension lead, found a packet of rods nearby but no mask, not that he was going to let that stop him.

The job went slowly because it was hard to look between his fingers at the bright flashes but finally the shackle was welded up. He chipped away the slag and it looked strong so he unplugged everything and put it back where he’d found it. All part of the ‘shut the gate’ ethos.

“Let’s go, Skipper!" Bob sang as he hit the starter. "We’ve got some country to cover!”, but uunfortunately for Bob within a few miles his eyes began to really hurt and water profusely. Within a few more minutes he couldn’t bear to keep them open at all and by the time he’d stopped his machine he was completely blind.

Skipper couldn’t understand what was going wrong with his master. Bob was increasingly incruled, “Fuckinhell! What’s goin’ on here?” he growled.
He held his temples, pushed on his shut eyes, rolled his eyeballs in his head, but nothing helped. The pain was intense and increasing every moment. He stumbled around, spinning as a somatic reaction, and began cursing the darkness as though it was external and malicious. Until he really panicked. Realizing that if he lost touch with the car he might never find it again. Aware that it contained everything he required for survival!
On cue, Skipper barked. “Love that dog!”, thought Bob as she shuffled his way back toward the car until bending back a finger bumping into the open door which he then held onto. His finger hurt and he needed a drink so he felt around in the back for the four liter water container but there was so much stuff packed in there he couldn’t immediately locate it. “What should I do?” he asked himself, and answered, “Sit down, stay calm”.

Bob sat back in the drivers seat and lit a smoke, feeling more in control as he sucked on the filter of a Marlboro, “Fuck this pain!” he shouted at nothing, and then remembered his Mum had put some digesics and other medicines in for him. “Good ol Mum! She’d wanted to put in an entire first aid kit!” chuckled Bob, as he started digging around in the back again.

He felt his pack, his shovel, the lamp, the esky, the jerry can, the tent, but no bag containing painkillers. Although he knew it was down there somewhere and he needed to find it in the darkness. The pain was intense.

Bob could hear Skipper’s tail slapping against the windscreen and his dog breath close to his face, “Always trying to help”, he acknowledged, but when the stupid mutt's snout knocked the cigarette out of Bob’s mouth he suddenly let fly his frustration at the animal and backhanded him across the head. “Outovit Skipper! Ya stupid mongrel.”

“Shit!” He poked around amongst the gear trying to find the cigarette, pulling things out as he did, which made for mess and more confusion. He couldn’t find where the cigarette had gone although he thought he could still smell something burning. He fingered his way between the bags and sundry items but didn’t do any good. He stamped around with his fist to try to be sure, but how could he be, so he stood up on the front seat and pissed all over in the general direction of where the cigarette had gone.

So then he was sure. But was he sure? Of course he was sure. Sure that he was blind. He couldn’t see. He'd just pissed all over his own belongings. He was in the middle of nowhere and would be lucky to have another car come by inside a week. It was 48 degrees without a drop of shade, except under the Tojo where Skipper had crawled. So Bob joined him.

He tried to ignore the pain but nothing else existed. He pushed against the gravel beneath his back but couldn't hardly feel it, “just wait!” he thought, “just wait. If I’ve burned my eyeballs then maybe they will heal, like other burns do.” And then he tried to sleep as Skipper slid his muzzle into Bob’s open hand.

Is seemed as though things couldn’t get much worse for our rugged individual but that cigarette Bob had been so sure he’d extinguished. He hadn’t!

His attempt to put things right by pissing onto his gear had been the last resort of a desperate man but it hadn’t worked and once the wick had been lit there wasn’t much anyone could have done. Canvas, plastic, and styrothene foam are hard materials to extinguish once they begin to burn but even harder when you are blind because locating the source requires you to get your hands burnt.

It almost broke Bob’s heart as he ran away from the blazing vehicle he loved so much, aware that it contained over thirty gallons of fuel. His escape machine was about to escape him, although it’s pieces would rust where they landed.

Bob figured he was far enough away down the road but when the Toyota blew apart one small hot fragment still hit him on the left ear lobe. Bob was pissed! As they used to say in his favorite TV show.
The poor bastard didn’t know what to do. Thank God he had Skipper!

“Skipper! Here boy!” Whistle, whistle. That mutt had a bottomless pit for a stomach, a memory like an elephant, and a nose like radar, and with those thoughts Bob whipped off his belt and tied it to the dog’s collar. “Skipper hasn’t forgotten those rabbits back there, and I figure anytime now he’ll be wanting to head that way.”

Sure enough, within the hour Skipper had drawn a bead on the old farmhouse and he was pulling Bob along in the blazing heat and personal darkness. Obviously they were going directly overland and Bob was holding up his pants, tripping over unseen objects, and stepping in holes but he clung to Skipper’s collar like a man overboard clings to a life raft. A combination of Lassie-style heroics and pure dog-greed kept them moving across the saltpans toward the rabbit-trapper’s old house. Bob remembered that except for one sweeping curve they’d been traveling west most of the time as he imagined the third side of the isosceles triangle that he was now shuffling out.

Bobby was getting a badly sunburnt nose since his hat had been blown off, and he regretted the time and the much needed energy he had wasted in trying to locate it, but he was almost happy, despite that, because although he placed a lot of emphasis on being the independent man, this time he really needed some help, and although his trusty offsider was saving his skin no-one need to know about that. It was just between him and Skipper.

Skipper towed him for miles over stones that strained his ankles, past thorn bushes that scratched his bare legs, over banks that skinned his knees, and through washouts that filled his boots with sand; while the sun beat down relentlessly. Bob knew he could only cover eight or ten k’s in that heat, but he calculated that it wasn’t any further than that, anyway, so he just had to persist.

Skipper veered off his otherwise direct course and stopped for a minute. “C’mon mate. What are you doing?” If only Bobby knew. Ol’ Skip was snacking en route. A dingo-bait wasn’t the ideal hors-d’oeirve but Skipper was a mongrel, he hadn’t learnt that, and within a few hundred metres Bob was being dragged down by a convulsing dog trying to run on its side with blood coming out of his nose, although when Bob felt it he thought that it was just ‘wet’.

Bob let go of the belt, talked to Skipper, and encouraged him to get up and keep going. He was not sure of the exact problem but he was guessing what had happened, although guessing or knowing meant nothing cause neither changed the dog's shuddering and labored breathing. Skipper was almost a dead dog and Bob was confused, and for all intents and purposes, alone. Bob wasn’t holding up as well as he should have. At first he panicked and ran and fell and cut his knees on the stony ground. Next he prayed to God, he cursed Toyota and all the Nipponese, and then he regained control of himself by reciting some of his Uncle’s always good advice.

“Tough times are when a man shows his truth worth.” He said to himself. “Seemingly impossible situations can be overcome with self-confidence and determination. There will be a light at the end of this tunnel.”

“Yes, it must pass. My eyes will come good!” Bob decided. “And I’ll get out of here Skip 'ol boy.” He spoke aloud to his dying dog.

Bob knew that he must find shade; to cut moisture loss; to give himself a chance to survive. He stumbled along the edge of the shallow gully with his arms outstretched and within a minute felt the cooling shade, and then the trunk of the tree that threw it. That shade was like a spray of cool water on his scorched body. He felt relatively refreshed and his whole body relaxed as he sat down and bathed in the cool air. But then his attention returned to Skipper, he thought about him lying there in the sun suffering, and just then he heard a weak whimpering yelp that immediately located him in his consciousness. Without hesitation Bob strode out of the shade to where Skipper lay, lifted him into his arms and carried him back to the shade. With a bit of luck, Bob thought, Skipper may recover yet. 
He pictured Skipper as a puppy, and all of the good times they'd shared flowed through his mind. They lay there in the shade, Bob feeling so relieved that he fell asleep, but Skipper hadn’t gone to sleep and the meat ants were already running up his nostrils before he drew his last breath. They were also checking out Bob’s lowest sphincter when he woke in a panic with ants all over him and went spinning and slapping and prancing across the dry ground rubbing his arms and legs and neck.

Poor Bob was making a weird half-crying half-shrieking sound as he tried to rid himself of ants but it changed to full on sobbing, blubbering, and much wasted tears when he trod into a rabbit hole and almost broke his ankle. It seemed like the end for Bob but he still knew in his brain’s foundations that he had to simply control his pain, fear, hunger, and fatigue, and get used to having dust and sand in every orifice, if he was to have any chance of survival, and as Uncle Billy had said, “Never Say Die!”

After a couple of hours of fitful sleep beneath a second tree Bob realized that it must be dark. He felt the cool night air as a gentle breeze on his right cheek, and heard all around him the insects nightlife. Bob pulled himself together and realised he could make out shapes in the darkness  and by listening to the countless insect sounds they gave him a background to orient himself spatially.

Already he'd been amazed by the way his mind’s eye had improved its vision. When he’d been dropping off to sleep he’d realized that he could imagine members of his family and ‘see’ them as though they were standing right there in front of him. So now with his new powers of second sight Bob began to draw a fairly detailed map in his mind, beginning with the old house, the road, the curve, an approximation of the track taken by Skipper, he guessed that if he walked consistently north he would meet the road within two or three kilometers and even if he was way off course to the east he must still walk into the fence that would take him back to the grid. 
Having a plan was a relief, although Bob figured, using his knowledge of the prevailing wind direction and putting the whole picture together several times in his head he could choose an almost perpendicular path to the road; and if there was a car! Geronimo!

Bob set off, growing more confident with each step. He was limping badly from his ankle injury but he had recovered his belt from Skipper’s collar and felt better already. Using the chart of insect noises, the orientation on the sand drifts, and the constant breeze against his cheek Bob made as much ground as possible in precisely the right direction. His priority was to reach the road before sunrise so that he would have enough time to find some shade before the sun resumed its merciless throne above. Bob calculated he was covering at least one kilometer per hour so he should be okay. He spirits lifted once more, and he felt a bit like those polynesian seafarers who had navigated their canoes across the boundless ocean to discover new island homes.

Four hours later Bob was almost exhausted, as well as bruised, sore, and flayed from falling over rocks and through bristly bushes. And then he began to feel the change that morning brang. At first it was a delicious coolness as a light dew settled but then the insects simultaneously ceased their shrill sounds. Bob felt golden light on his face as the sun began to show so he pushed on with the last bit of energy and enthusiasm he could muster, wishing with all his heart to feel the gravel and bitumen beneath his boots very soon; and then he smelt something dead. 
To Bob it meant road-kill so he aimed straight for it, only to find himself feeling the collar of Skipper again, and having a million meat ants running up his arms.

Bob literally collapsed from the shock but he knew he couldn’t stay there in the shade with Skipper, he’d never be able to get rid of the ants, so he relocated and huddled in the shade of a spindly gum nearby, listening to the crows fighting over Skipper’s eyes. He knew that things were now extremely tenuous so he sat very still with the palms of his hands shielding his forehead. He breathed through his nose. His life swam in the heat haze as every bit of good advice flowed through his mind, but by afternoon even the basic message, “keep trying, stick with it, don’t give up” was not enough to keep him shifting his ass to stay in the two square meters of dappled shade, and he finally just switched off. Death seemed sweet compared to being cooked by the sun and eaten by the ants. What was the point in struggling on, “we only die anyway,” he thought, “I’m ready to go, I’m melting for you Satan. An apprentice for hell.”

Finally the night sky slid down like hardening tar and  brought with it a coolness that bathed him as the darkness tucked in his final fears. Bob was ready for oblivion, at peace with himself, and fell into a resigned sleep until woken by a feeling about three a.m. The pain was gone and although it was pitch black without a moon, he soon realized that he could see stars in the pitch black sky.

“Phew!” Why had a panicked? Where did my self-assurance go? 
Within seconds of waking Bob was on his feet and scanning the horizon for any indications of life, and there it was. A vehicle travelling east to west about three kilometres away and the new morning rising. Bob limped off in that direction with renewed hope and vigor and arrived at the road just as dawn was breaking. It wasn’t long before the big square windscreen of a purpose built 4WD bus appeared in the distance and very soon stopped right in front of him. The Japanese tourists all crammed around the drivert to have a look and snap a photo of the ragged and dehydrated man who could barely stand on his own two feet. The driver opened the door and Mr Mutsi gave Bob some water while several men helped him into the bus and made him comfortable in the front seat.

“Fabulous tourists,” thought Bob, as he relaxed in the air-conditioned comfort, surrounded by video cameras and exposed teeth.