The White Earth by Andrew McGahan Page A

floor below was layered with feathers and droppings, and William felt a sudden itch in his scalp, thinking about lice.
    And yet there were clear signs that people had been here. Empty beer bottles. Soft drink cans. Cigarette butts. Bits of newspaper and magazines, and even what looked like a mouldering toilet roll. In one corner was a crude barbecue made out of bricks and a sheet of tin, with a pile of ashes beneath it. In another corner lay an old mattress, filthy and flattened and stained. Near it were a pair of crumpled track-suit pants, and a single sandal. And here and there around the walls, jagged graffiti had been carved into the wood, initials and names and dates and dirty words. It all reminded William of an empty shed near his school in Powell, where the bigger kids had gone after classes to smoke and have fights. Maybe the children from Kuran village had once done the same thing up here at the church. But everything, the cans, the bottles, the mattress, was layered with dust and bird droppings. Even trespassers had long abandoned the place.
    At the far end of the church the floor had fallen in, grass had grown through the hole, and in the middle of it, leaning against the rear wall, was a tree. The limbs had reached up and unseated the sheets of the roof, so that a mottled green daylight was visible through a fringe of leaves. But within the church itself the tree looked dead, a leafless tangle of branches that had sought its way across the wall in search of light. Again, some creature scuttled momentarily in the roof. A bird, perhaps, or a possum. Or a rat. A tremor ran through William. This was worse than the cemetery. Would everything on his uncle’s property be the same, defaced and decayed and torn apart by the slow creep of branches and roots? If so, then what was the point of exploring any of it?
    He backed away, out of the church and into the daylight again, leaving the door open. But the afternoon no longer seemed bright and welcoming. He gazed around, apprehensive, and eager now to get back home. He could follow the gravel track, but that would be the longer way, and meanwhile there was the knot of gum trees up on the hill, his landmark. He set off through the grass. But when he reached the trees, confusion rose. The land fell away into another shallow valley, and he couldn’t see the House. Looking about, he realised that there were several groups of trees, and his landmark could have been any one of them.
    He considered going back down to the track, but then decided that the House simply had to lie to the west. He walked towards the sun for a few minutes, but there was only more grass and trees. Finally, to his bafflement, he found himself on a hillside that faced north, gazing out over rolling country which was completely foreign to him. On the maps in his uncle’s office the property had looked only a few miles wide — why was it proving so difficult to find his way? He set off again, and descended into a gully, the bottom of which was dense with scrub and already in shadow from the westering sun. He stopped, seriously worried now. Surely he couldn’t be lost? He had walked barely fifteen minutes to reach the church in the first place. He turned around again and aimed towards the highest land in sight. But when he reached the spot, he saw no sign of the House or the church. Tears started in William’s eyes. What if he was still out here when it got dark?
    He thought about wild dogs again, and other things his uncle had said about the hills, how parts of them were still unexplored. The dark gully behind him, was that one of those places? He plunged off in the opposite direction. Should he yell for help? Was he close enough to the House for anyone to hear? Or was he heading further away all the time. Then he tripped over something in the grass. He fell, the rough blades scratching at his face, and glimpsed something white. Scrambling to his feet, he saw a bone, a long, curved rib, sticking up from