Langley Longlegs

I didn't tell them we were lost. I was still hoping to recognise a hill or valley.

"It's past lunch, she's dead tired and we don't seem to be anywhere near the falls, I think we should turn back."

Bound for England Falls, we paused from our hike among tapering lacebark trees. I let our daughter down from my shoulders, so she could run among the flowers that stippled the shade.

England Falls was isolated, and rarely visited. We had not been before, but I had the directions of a friend, who assured me it was not a difficult walk for those that know the way. I pondered this as I studied the tall and bedraggled hoop pines, unreadable signposts emerging atop hills bent by low scrub. Wondering at their unfamiliarity, I made a show of reading directions I had long ago abandoned. I wanted time to recover my bearings.

"Just a half hour, ok?"

She gave me a long and sideways look, an earnest expression. Silent, she wrestled the daypack onto her back and resumed hiking, as our daughter ran ahead, stretching her legs.

*

It wasn't long before a quirk of topography brought a sudden sound of cascades, and with little warning, our daughter ran toward it.

"For Christ's sake, grab her!"

But I was already after her, at first it was instinct, but with my mind catching up, I remembered we had taken the ridges and were up high. The falls cut a gulch through these hills.

She fell with gut-wrenching speed; her squeal cut short by the lip of a precipice as I dived after her. Sudden and loud, the rushing water filled my senses as my hand connected with a young shoulder. But it was a clumsy grasp, and I watched her turn head over heel, to be swallowed by deep-moving water far below. When she surfaced downstream, she was unmoving.

"Oh my god, oh my god!" my wife was already running downstream, and I followed.

*

The frantic search, buoyed by unspoken fears, went unanswered. And when the sun took an orange turn, there seemed little hope.

"Hoe there!"

Cloaked with an auburn glow, a stranger emerged from among lissom she-oaks, accompanied by a smaller figure, running ahead.

"Daddy!"

I could not comprehend it until I felt her damp warmth in my arms, my wife stroking her head and spilling her unspoken sufferings.

"Oh my god, I thought she was gone, I thought she was dead. How did you find her? Is she well, oh sweetie, are you ok?"

The stranger answered, "just a little wet and afraid." He was leggy like a pine, but with a broad-brimmed hat. Stepping closer, and shedding his burning cloak, we could see he wore a neatly-pressed brown uniform, with amber sunglasses wide and angled along his brow.

"Thank god, a ranger! We're lost, can you show us back to our car?"

That afternoon, he showed us the way we ought to have come, along a barely discernable trail. But I could see now how easily we had become lost; the path was full of animal runs that led to nothingness. Thumbs in his pockets, and walking with a lanky stride - like a brolga seeking water - we could hardly keep apace with him. And when we lost him in the gathering dark, we would find him waiting for us, to begin his amble again; until finally he knelt on one leg, and smiling to our daughter, pointed through the trees.

"Daddy! The car!"

Brolga. Bird Emblem of Queensland.
Source: Queensland Government.
*

"I just want to go bloody home, just let’s go home.”

From the back seat, our daughter was alert with an improbable energy, and followed the conversation from parent to parent.

"We should pull in to the ranger's head quarters, and pass on our thanks, I mean we didn’t even say thank you, it's the least we could do."

"Where did he go anyway?"

We had rushed to our car, and when we turned to thank him, he had gone. So I shrugged as I pulled into the park office. It was evening, but a door was open, and there were people working. We entered.

"Excuse me, we just wanted to pass on a thankyou to the man who rescued us."

After a lapse of confusion, a young lady took a notebook and approached the counter.

"Rescued? Where did this happen, what time?"

"Aah..." Too tired, and hoping to avoid interrogation, I was succinct. "We were lost looking for England Falls; my daughter fell from a cliff."

She examined our daughter, while still taking notes.

"Injuries?"

"No, it's ok, we're all ok. Look, one of your rangers rescued us, I didn't catch his name, he found her, I think he must have resuscitated her but he didn't say much, wouldn't say much, and then he showed us the way out. He was tall, amber glasses, a wide hat, and wore mission brown."

Her hand halting, she threw an inquiring glance to an older ranger, who, though weathered by the outdoors, and wearied by the office, approached the counter with an assuredness.

"Sir, that uniform has been out of circulation for twenty years."

"Well... this ranger was still wearing it."

"That was no ranger, not anymore. That was John Langley. He loved to walk these hills, and knew them like his right hand. On the morning his wife never woke, he came in early, filed his paperwork and left us a note."

The other rangers began to laugh softly, there seemed to be a punch line. I looked at the man who was waiting for my cue, but his face held no humour.

"What did it say?"

"Said he needed to go for a walk; we never saw him again."

"... are you saying we were rescued by a ghost?"

"Ghost? Who knows, could be a ghost, could be a man. You're not the first to be rescued, and you won't be the last. These hills are protection, they’re Langley's hills."

I gawped while my daughter jumped up and down, cheering.

"Langley Longlegs, Langley Longlegs!"

Lacebark Tree.
Source: Brisbane Rainforest and Action Information Network (BRAIN).