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But a shower did sound good.
I took my toiletries and towel and after a thorough inspection of the shower cubicle—before stripping this time—I showered.
There was no hot water. It wasn’t required. The water was lukewarm at room temperature, but it felt good to scrub the sweat and dirt off, and I felt more awake afterwards. I pulled on the same shorts with a fresh T-shirt and hung my towel over the back of a chair.
I was ready to focus now and not get side-tracked by a certain shirtless man who was now lazing on the middle of the bed, reading something on his phone. “The network gods are shining on us. We have one bar.” He turned his phone around to show me the radar on his screen. “From your esteemed colleagues at the Bureau of Meteorology, this afternoon’s storm shall hit around half three. Not much activity where we are, though, unless you wanna head up north a bit. Just for the storm.”
I checked the laptop and, sure enough, the precipitable satellite information relayed similar information. “How’s the road north of here?” I asked.
He rolled onto his side, propped himself up on one elbow, and shot that grin at me that told me the road was hellish.
So I rephrased my question. “Is it worse than the pig track we came down the mountain on?”
“Nah. It’s flat, mostly. About ten k’s from here we meet the South Alligator River.”
“Alligators?”
“There ain’t no alligators here. The folks who made the white man maps way back when couldn’t tell the difference between gators and crocs.”
“But there’s crocs,” I mumbled. Because of course there would be.
“We’ll follow the river along and she winds north, and that’s about as far as we can go. Without a boat.”
I made a face. I wasn’t a fan of boats.
But I did trust Tully. Sure, he was a bit wild, but he’d been coming out here for years. He wouldn’t do anything needlessly reckless.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
He jumped up off the bed and clapped his hands together, that ridiculous smile now a grin.
I was beginning to like his smile again, and if my brain had a weather warning siren like my equipment did, it’d be blaring at full volume, red lights flashing.
Because his smile was contagious, and the spark in his eyes did absurd things to my belly. And the logical part of my brain knew I was heading for trouble, but my heart didn’t seem to care.
* * *
When Tully saidthe road north was mostly flat, he was partly right. Gradationally speaking, yes. But flat as in smooth, no.
The road was another track, and while we didn’t climb anymore hills or ridgelines, it was filled with holes, divots, and gullies—all filled with varying depths of mud and water. He handled them expertly while I bounced around, tethered to the Jeep only by my white-knuckled grip on the oh-shit bar.
We bounced, slid, and sped our way north to the river just as he’d said. It was surprisingly pretty and moving faster than I thought it would be.
“She’s not normally this full,” he said. “In the dry season, we could drive across here. And by the end of the wet season, where we are right now, we’d be two metres under water.”
Jesus.
Then he pointed to the river ahead of us. “See that?”
See what?
I searched the water, not knowing what to even look for. Having a fair idea what he was going to say and dreading it just the same... and then I saw a crocodile slither from the bank into the water, just thirty metres in front of us.
“Oh my god.”
He grinned. “Those are the logs that bite. You don’t wanna go touchin’ those.”
I rolled my eyes and tried to exhale. My hands were now numb from holding on so tight. I wanted to ask what we’d do if we broke down here, but I didn’t trust my voice to speak.
