The River is Down

Cindie had driven away from Baanya Station, out on the dusty ironstone track, and away eastwards for a hundred and fifty miles. She had crossed the billabong just in time, and now had come to the twin avenues of river gums between which a depth of water was racing, *too soon*, to the west. *The river was down already!* Cindie sat in her car, her arms on the steering wheel and her dusty face creased in thought. A few minutes ago she had felt anxiety. Now this was gone because she remembered Jim Vernon's promise, back at Baanya Station. She had dreaded those radio conversations across the outback, but now she felt relief. Jim Vernon would have told the whole world north of Twenty-Six that she, Cindie, in a nineteen-sixty-two model Holden, was somewhere on the track to the breakaway country. Somebody, elsewhere across that air-world, would have passed the news that the river was down. Someone, somewhere, would come looking for her. She had that much faith in the nor'-west. If only it could be Jim Vernon himself.