Lady luck and the cash

Angela had been living the dream, the rural nightmare of snakes in the house, pythons with their heads down the loo and drapped across the cistern, bats flying through and roosting in her bedroom when she thought a couple of days in the city would help. A week of concrete and exhaust fumes, trains, buses, people pushing against each other as they make their way from their home boxes to work boxes to exchange labor for money to sit and sleep in concrete boxes always refreshed her and rebooted her love for nature and her peaceful and productive life as an artist.

Being somewhat broke after not having any supply teaching over the long summer holiday Angela decided to hitch hike down the coast to Brisvagas where her brother lived and she always got a warm welcome and a bed on the sleep out. The hardest part was saying goodbye to her friends and dogs and getting dropped off on the Bruce highway. Not too worried about her safety hitching she had her paring knife attached to her leg just above her hard Rossi boot. She had packed in her shoulder bag some basic art materials and her Moleskin Watercolour book to do sketches and write poems when she got bored.Her life's history was recorded in her bookshelf full of these lovely little black books.

After waving good bye at the T junction Angela started walking south down the highway.It was early morning and not yet scorchingly hot. Cars and semi trailers raced past her, ignoring her thumb stuck out. As she approached a dry seasonal creek about 10 km from the turn off she thought about using the opprtunity to get off the highway and have a wee.

Paperbarks and poplar gums lined the dry creek bed and she walked over the rocks . Unlike blokes she thought as she squattered down with her jeans pulled down this is more vulnerable if a snake approaches.

Looking around her she noticed a scar in a poplar gum on the bank of the dry creek. Some blue colour was showing in the scar. It was the angle of her head as she was down low that allowed her to see the thing.

Giving a bit of a shake she pulled up her jeans and walked over to the tree. Inside the scar was a small biscuit tin. Angela pulled it out and noticed it had a lovely picture of Queen Elisabeth and Prince Phillip just like the one her nanna had in Hughenden. Her fingernails hurt as she forced the slightly rusty lid off . Inside the tin were bundles of one hundred dollar notes. The elastic bands had perished in the heat and as she took out a bundle to count the rubber fell onto the creek bed. Counting one bundle had given her two thousand dollars and there were ten bundles. Holy Moly she thought. $20 000 . Putting the money back in the tin and then into her back pack and she walked back onto the road. After about ten minutes of walking a large red car pulled up and she took a photo on her phone and messaged her friends with it. The middle aged man asked her where she was heading and she told him Brisbane.

- aren't you scared of hitch hiking on your own, a beautiful woman like you he asked. No- she said, - I alway take a photo of your car , licence plate, and time and place and message my family and friends in a group so I always feel safe she said with a smile.

His face changed and he looked a bit uncomfortable. Angela didn't mention the paring knife in its scabbard she had attached to her right shin either. Being some what chatty she asked him where he was going and where he was from.

- Well I have just come down from Mareeba and heading back to Brisbane he said.

- What took you to Mareeba ? she asked pleasantly

- Bit of a long story if you want to hear it ,he replied.

- Yes please , I really love stories.

-Well I am a Vet, fought in desert storm and was discharged due to injury.Have shit loads of schrapnell in my legs. My missus ran off with my best friend last year , he was a mate that went to high school with me and was really good when I came home injured. Anyway I found out from his mum that they were in Mareeba in a caravan park , they are going around Australia in a campervan, pretty stupid idea if you ask me, and so I drove up in my Charger to shoot them both. I had to go to a couple of caravan parks before I found them but when I did and saw them having a good fight , it made me happy as and I thought well they deserve each other and decided not to shoot them and am now going home. Angela pondered this story not sure if he had done the deed or not but as he told her the story he probably hadn't.

Pulling up in the big cow meat city of Rockhampton at night she asked him if she could shout him a night in a motel to say thank you for the ride. He said it was ok as he had enough money and was glad of the company. They stopped at a large well lit motel that had a big cowboy light on the front and a steak house. Angela asked to go to the toilet before they booked in.She opened the tin and took out a hundred dollars. Paying for her room she put the change in her purse and walked down the concrete walkway to the ugly besser block self contained motel room that smelled of disinfectant and ciggarette smoke.

Angela opened her back pack again, took out the biscuit tin and put the rolls of notes into the bottom of her shoulder bag under her black moleskin sketch book. Making her way over to the steak house resturant she knew it was going to be a tough call for a vegan. Chips and salad was what she usually ate at these places. She did not mention she was a vegan either as the waiter's eye roll was aways irratating. Red car man was already seated, he had changed his clothes and had a shower. She hung her shoulder bag over the back of her seat, ordered an orange juice , salad and chips while he ordered a large T- bone steak and chips. He asked for it very rare. As he cut large chunks of bleeding meat into bite size pieces and shovelled them into his mouth she thought of lions ripping up a gazelle in a nature program she had watched.The lions ended up with bloody fur around their mouths. He had bloody juice on his chin which he noticed her looking at and he then wiped with a paper napkin.

After dinner they said goodnight and wandered over to their rooms that were side by side. She had photographed the front of the motel and sent it to her friends, rang her mum and told her about her lift and the story. Please check if there were any murders in Mareeba before I get a lift tomorrow with him-she asked.

Her mum rang back and said there was nothing on the news. With that Angela fell into a deep sleep and was woken by the sound of knocking on the cheap wooden door. Give me ten minutes she called through the door. It was morning so she showered and met him at the car. They took off and after an hour stopped by a road house for coffee and breakfast. Angela told him about her life, off grid living and heading to the city as a break from paradise. When they finally arrived in Brisbane late that night he dropped her in West End in Boundary street.She did not give him her brother's address . Pulling her back pack out the boot she thanked him for the best ride ever and said her hitch hiking days were now over and his had been the best ride. He shook her hand and wished her well.

As she walked up towards Queensberry street where her brother lived her phone rang and her mother said- you have been out of reach all day, I have been trying to phone you.There was a double homicide in Mareeba and they found a couple shot dead in a campervan in a National Park. How lucky have I been lately she thought as she knocked on her brother's door.