Gunshot Road (17 page)

Landslide

IT BEGAN INNOCUOUSLY ENOUGH:
a muffled thump from above, a puff of dust, an echo recoiling out over the plains.

We jumped up in time to see the skull-shaped boulder—the one Jet had been sitting on the first time I laid eyes on her—come tumbling down the slope. It gathered momentum, took to the air in a ballistic trajectory, slammed into the back of the shack.

We stood there, stunned.

There was a faint shudder in the fault line that ran across the bottom of the overhang, then it suddenly seemed the crest of the hill was reconfiguring itself, mid-air.

Jet spat some words. From the tone, a rough translation might have been ‘Holy fuck!'

I set off running.

She was a better judge of landslides than me: she was Tibetan, after all. I felt her grab my arm.

‘No!' she screamed.

She began to run towards the approaching rock storm. A black boulder was leading the charge, advancing in mighty leaps and bounds. One of the leaps took it over our heads.

Had Jet taken leave of her senses?

Then I realised she was weaving her way to the only conceivable shelter we had time to reach: Doc's iron carport.

We dived inside, rolled into the lee of the Cruiser, clutched each other in terror as the full force of the barrage struck with a roar to wake the dead. It smashed into the roof, bombarded walls and beams, scythed out over the ground I'd have been caught cold on if she hadn't drawn me here.

The building shuddered and shook—and seemed to hold.

The roar died down almost as quickly as it had come.

I peered out through a blanket of blinding dust. ‘Is it over?'

‘Maybe.'

She lay beside me, her face aglitter with crushed mica, her sharp nose dusty.

Suddenly she leaned forward, kissed me.

I raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh?'

She smiled. ‘A celebration.'

‘Of…?'

‘Survival.'

We climbed out from under Cockburn's car. I was relieved to see that it hadn't sustained any further damage. I looked up at the groaning roof.

‘Is that going to hold?'

She followed my gaze. ‘Maybe…'

A trickle of dust fell into her face.

‘Maybe not.' She dived out into the open air.

Just as I followed suit the centre post snapped and a mass of jumbled rocks and blocks fell through the roof and crushed the vehicle.

We picked ourselves out of the dirt, dusted off, gazed at the chaos, dismayed: cabin and carport were gone, reduced to rubble. We were pretty well reduced to rubble ourselves. Doc's rock formation had disappeared, Jet's sculpture along with it, buried under god knows how many tons of rock—as we would have been, if not for our solid steel carapace.

The mob from the pub—June, Sandy the barman, a few early customers—came running over to lend a hand. Noel Redman, not so big on the hand-lending thing, lagged suspiciously behind.

‘Are you all right?' asked June.

‘We're fine,' I replied. ‘Bloody lucky,' I added, nodding at the obliterated buildings.

But we weren't all fine, and we hadn't all been lucky. The publican, poking about the wreckage, emerged with the body of his dog, whose yapping days were done. Stiff no more—well, maybe for a wee bit more; then it would be all wriggling worms for Stiffy.

Redman shot a hostile glare in my direction, went off to bury his little mate.

Don't blame me, I said to myself. I didn't squash the mongrel; and it would have been justifiable canicide if I had.

June took us over to the pub, administered heavy doses of hot tea and cold beer—the outback panacea—each of which I willingly accepted. Jet opted for the packet of tea she kept in the Transit van, brewed up, joined me on the veranda. She sat and stared at the carnage of the cabin, her gaze growing sharper by the second.

‘Cunt-faced fucking dingoes,' she said at last.

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Nice to see you picking up the vernacular. Who are you talking about?'

She hawked, spat viciously.

‘They change their faces and colours from time to time, rearrange the disguise, but underneath, they are the same, no?'

‘Maybe.'

‘You heard it?'

‘Ye-es,' I replied, reluctant to admit, even to myself, what I'd heard: the muffled explosion before the rock fall.

I sighed quietly.

Why was everything so complicated?

Landslides happen all the time in this steep, rocky country; they're a natural phenomenon.

This one wasn't.

I took a look at the car park: I hadn't noticed any red-bearded bastard who looked like he'd answer to the name ‘Blent' among our rescuers, but the Pig's Head had disappeared.

‘Sound like you're speaking from personal experience there, Jet.'

She took a noisy swig of tea, stared ahead, glowering.

‘Met a few dingoes in your time?'

She said nothing.

‘Jet?'

I gave up, rolled a smoke. She seemed mesmerised by the movement of my fingers, the tobacco twist, the crackling paper.

‘Dirty custom,' she commented.

‘This from a woman who works with mud?'

‘My father habit as well.'

‘Mud?'

‘Smoke.'

‘I see.'

‘My father is quiet man, you understand? Peace.' The words came out of her slowly. ‘Carpenter in a fox-fur hat.'

Was I about to get some blood out of the stone?

‘Work with hands: the long saw, the strip of wood. Doesn't want nun for daughter—but accept. Artist less. But accept. After nunnery, I go home, work in family house—by lake near city. Lake of souls, you know?'

‘Souls?'

‘You should understand. Lake is…voice of deity.'

‘Sort of a sacred site?'

‘Perhaps. In my country, like yours, many such place. But also army, riding in hard cars and carrying guns. Bring their weapons and poisons: test bombs, radiation, rubbish. Chinese.' She leaned forward, hawked and spat again, across the railing. ‘Invisible sickness and death spread through lake to fish, then to the hunters of fish; nuns protest. Governor—Mister Xing—answer with gun: many nuns beaten, or jail, or run away.'

An acid smile cut into the contours of her face.

‘In city square statue of Chairman Mao Zedong; symbol of harmony between our great peoples. One night I ride into town, carry my tools. In morning, crowds gather and laugh so hard they split the sides: chairman's arse transform to face of Governor Xing.'

She stared into her teacup, savouring the memory. ‘I watch from the hills, hiding, no find. But they recognise my hand, I am known. So my father they take to labour camp. In one month, is dead. Two months, mother as well. From the grief—perhaps from shame for troublesome daughter.'

I stared at her. Didn't know what to say.

‘I take horse and
chupa
, ride off into the wind. Cross plains. Mountains. Travel in truck, bus, whatever; walk through snow to my breast. Move with deadness in my heart, with pictures and memories burning in my brain. Make way across Tibet, Nepal. With time—here.'

I looked out at the wreckage of the cabin. In its broken walls and beams I saw an echo of the story I'd just been told.

‘I see.'

She nodded to herself, studied the western plains, sniffed suspiciously. ‘There seems to be no army here…'

‘We're not very big on armies.'

‘Public security?'

‘Just me.'

‘Puh!' She wasn't impressed. ‘Atomic bomb?'

‘Not lately. Few back in the fifties.'

She swirled her tea, stared into it.

‘You have something,' she growled. ‘Something they want.'

‘They?'

‘The dingoes.' She threw away the dregs, rose to her feet. ‘Beware.'

She stomped across to the wreckage. I trailed after.

She picked her way back into the shack, salvaged her boots and a set of chisels from the rubble. Fossicked around some more, dragged aside a pulverised table, came across a dust-covered folio. She brushed and blew away the debris, found a few of her sketches, lined them up against the rocks. Scrutinised them with a fierce eye.

Then she began picking up pieces of rubble, examining them, fitting them together, laying them out in front of the shack.

‘What are you doing, Jet?'

She paused, a big rock in her little hands, the biceps in her skinny arms surprisingly curved: ‘I finish what I begin.'

What Doc began too, I thought.

I worked alongside her for a couple of hours, gathering up rocks and rubble, laying them out in a rough approximation of Doc's original. Jet did the arranging, issued orders, worked quickly and efficiently.

Finally the heat drove us up onto the pub veranda. We were sitting there, feet on the railing, drinks in hand, when a police vehicle came rolling down the road, pulled up in front of us.

First Griffo emerged, then Cockburn sprang out of the driver's seat, hands on hips, gum in mouth, customary sniff hovering about the nose. His gaze zeroed in on me.

‘Emily.'

‘Sir.'

He lowered his shades at Jet but managed to keep his suspicions to himself. ‘Got a report of a rock fall.'

‘That's right.'

‘Road still open?'

‘Pretty much.'

‘Any damage?'

‘Er…some.'

‘More specific?' His brow furrowed; he took a step back, scanned the parking lot. ‘Where's my car?'

‘Ah, yes—your car…'

He followed my gaze, lit on the remnants of Doc's dwelling, among which could be glimpsed a glimmer of mangled metal, a buckled bumper, a shattered blue light.

‘Fuck me gently.'

The acting superintendent said not a word on the way back in; he didn't have to—his radioactive ears said it all. But as we walked into the station, he leaned back at me and snapped, ‘Graveyard shift. Tomorrow. Tell her about it Griffo.'

He took a few more steps, then added, ‘And get yourself a proper bloody uniform.'

Graveyard

GRIFFO PAUSED WHEN WE
came to the Black Dog, checked his watch, licked his lips. ‘Might just nip in for a bit of cool air.'

I caught the glance between him and Bunter. They'd be nipping more than air, but hell, I couldn't blame them. How could it be this hot at one o'clock in the morning? My body was closing in on me. I swept a length of sweaty hair from my face, dragged the daggy new uniform trousers out of my crack.

This was my third night on the graveyard shift—so called not because it was quiet but because, if you did it long enough, that was where you'd end up.

The shift itself wasn't a Cockburn initiative. His innovation was that you did it on foot. ‘Keeping in step with the community' he called it, which probably sounded impressive in the press releases and memos to Darwin.

For the poor bastards who had to actually do it, it meant wading through a sea of blood without a vehicle to retreat to.

I looked up and down the main street, wondering whether I should follow the boys in.

Megahead O'Loughlin, owner of Bluebush's leading laundromat, came staggering down the road with a box of chocolates in his hands. Despite the sobriquet, his most prominent feature was his belly: he had the silhouette of a camel on its hind legs. He stumbled, spilled the chocolates, watched in despair as they rolled across the footpath. I helped him to his feet, sent him on his way.

There was a crowd milling about the vacant lot across the road, a woman with a rusty-ball-bearing voice ripping into somebody, but there wasn't an actual riot going on. That would come later, when the pubs threw out the refuse.

In the gutter sat Benny Springer, rubber eyed and tearing at a rag of meat. He took a pull of his beer and vomited onto his own boots. That decided it for me. I followed my colleagues into the pub.

I glanced at a poster on the door.
Strip 'n Prawn Night
. So much for Random Andy's cream de la cream. The star turn was one Miss Lickety Split, who may or may not have been the woman on stage when I entered the crowded, cavernous bar.

I naively assumed, from the fact that she was stark naked, covered in white foam—maybe that was the cream?—and whipping her arse around like a blimp in a blizzard, that the show had reached its climax. But no, there was more to come: a buck-toothed meatworker, who couldn't believe his luck when she dragged him up onto the stage. She dropped his pants, whipped on a condom, threw him to the floor and straddled him on the spot.

The crowd went nuts.

‘My god.' I elbowed Bunter. ‘Is that legal?'

He shrugged and grinned. ‘If it isn't, I'll let you be the one to break it to em.' He nodded at the baying mob. They were meatworkers in the main, and even those who weren't would be working the meat tonight. A gelled fellow in a purple shirt three sizes too small leapt onto the table, hooted and thrust his hips forward. The bouncers adjusted their knuckles and moved in.

Bunter and Griffo settled against the bar, enjoying the show.

I elbowed again. ‘Think I'll take my chances outside.'

As I came out onto the footpath, I spotted a disturbance among the crowd in the vacant lot. There was an angry bellow, then came the unmistakable thud of a fist thumping into thick flesh, a female moan. Sounded like Ms Rusty Bearings was copping the comeback.

I called into my collar mic for back-up, hitched up the pants, ran across the road, came upon a burly feller kneeling on a woman and punching her into the gravel.

I kept going at full pelt, knocked him off balance, managed to get him cuffed before he knew what hit him. Which would have been a satisfactory conclusion to the incident had not the victim found her feet and turned out to be Cindy Mellow. A fighting stick materialised in her right hand.

The first blow hit my prisoner in the head and he went down. The second hit me in the head and I joined him. The third crashed across my back and I wondered how I was going to get out of this in one piece. The fourth was heading in my direction when Rosie Brambles, clearly intent on picking up where she'd left off last time I saw her, came out of nowhere and launched herself at Cindy.

The rest of the mob automatically aligned themselves according to their family or drinking affiliations. By the time the police vans arrived, there was a full-scale brawl raging, with one traumatised ACPO attached to 110 kilos of comatose blubber huddling under a bench in the middle of it.

When it was all over and the offenders were scattered or canned, I prodded my lumpy skin, found myself surprisingly intact. I hitched a ride back to the station in one of the vans.

‘Town's fallin apart,' grumbled Flam, shaking his head and kissing a split knuckle.

Bunter grunted his concurrence. ‘Was it ever together?'

‘Was before you buggers arrived,' I threw in, a comment to which they reacted with surprisingly good grace.

‘It's the economy.' Griffo went all big-picture on us. ‘Town's dying in the arse; no jobs, no hope, nothing to do all day but sit around and suck piss.'

He had a point; Bluebush had never been so depressed. The cattle stations were being hit by the worst drought in living memory, things were looking lean out at the meatworks. Even Copperhead Mines, the bedrock on which the town was built, had been laying off workers.

There'd been high hopes and a lot of talk around the reopening of Green Saturn, the Copperhead offshoot down on the Gunshot Road, but it had turned out to be no more than that: talk, spin, bullshit. Probably designed to lever up the share price. The deep-shaft gold mine was apparently bringing in excellent dividends for somebody and pumping out press releases full of phrases like ‘high-tech' and ‘cutting-edge'. But for your battling Bluebush business that translated to a handful of contractors working on a fly-in, fly-out basis. Precious little of their cash found its way into local pockets.

These thoughts were interrupted by an emergency radio call: somebody was being assaulted down at the retirement village.

‘See what I mean?' Bunter spun the wheel. ‘Even the pensioners are getting into it.'

‘Surprised they got the energy,' commented Griffo.

Somebody had the energy, if the blood-curdling moan we heard from Fanny Bolt's flat as we pulled into the drive was anything to go by. I prayed it wasn't Fanny. Widow of the last mayor but one, record-breaking president of the Country Women's Association, she'd been a livewire in her prime. Nowadays she weighed in at twenty-eight stone. I didn't fancy trying to arrest or resuscitate that.

Griffo burst from the car and led the way. I followed, moving quickly at first, then slowing as I hit the veranda and heard a tobacco-cracked basso profundo that could only be Fanny's growling through the screen door: ‘Ah, why do you always wanta fuck like a dog!'

Because any other position would be fatal, I thought to myself as Griffo burst through the door. He flicked a switch and found himself gazing on the deeply disturbing image of the former First Lady kneeling on the bed, butt-naked and taking it in the rear from Jimmy Windschuttle.

I ducked for cover as Griffo backed out of the room, scraping and bowing and flinching in the face of the blizzard of abuse he was copping from Fanny.

He was still banging his head against the wheel when we got back to the station.

‘Get over it,' grunted Harley when he heard the story in the staff kitchen. ‘Attention-seeking behaviour, I call it.'

‘You had to see it,' groaned Griffo. ‘I might need counselling.'

‘Like stubbing a cigarette in a blancmange,' I threw in.

Harley smirked. ‘Wish I had seen it.'

‘You sick bastard,' grinned Bunter as he and Griffo went off to do their paperwork.

I fossicked around the fridge, came up with some Weetbix and bananas. Harley nuked a pie, made a murky coffee, sat opposite.

‘So, young Emily, how you enjoying the graveyard?'

‘Not dull.'

‘Shouldn't oughter go wrecking the super's Cruiser. By the way,' he buried his face in the pie, came up with a gob-full, gravy dribbling, ‘that Toyota you were asking about…'

‘The pig's head?'

I'd shared my theory that the driver of the pickup had an illicit crop out on the Gunshot Road, could have had a motive for killing Doc. Cockburn, still in mourning for his Tojo, paid scant attention. The others had shown even less interest, and I was surprised when Harley came up with a name.

‘Brent Paisley.'

Jet's ‘Blent'.

‘You know him?' I asked.

‘Not that many Toyotas cruising around with a boar on the bar. Yeah, we know him. Owns the welding workshop out on Hammer Avenue.'

‘Terry Greenleaf's?'

‘Paisley's now. And you're right about him being out west. Spoke to a mate at Crown Lands—he's got an exploration lease out on the Gunshot Road. Had a word with Jerker—gonna check it out.'

‘I might just…'

‘Reason I'm telling you this,' Harley interrupted, ‘is cause Paisley's an animal. Plus, he hates cops. Couldn't help but notice you tend to lead with your chin: thought I better warn you to steer clear, case you spot him round town, get more than you bargained for.'

Not what I expected: was I becoming part of the team? God help me.

‘Cockie might not know him'—the first time I'd heard the acting super called that; I bet they didn't say it to his face. ‘The rest of us sure as hell do.'

‘He got a record?'

‘Long as yer arm. Longer,' he added, glancing at my arm.

‘Been inside?'

‘More in than out.'

‘What for?'

He polished off the pie, pulled out a bag of iced donuts. ‘Longest? Ten-year stretch in Long Bay—aggravated rape.'

‘How do you aggravate a rape?'

‘Bit off an ear.' He rummaged through the donut bag. Selected his victim, took a massive chunk out of it.

‘Picked up for a hot car boost when he was thirteen, and it's all been downhill from there. Assault, armed rob, dealing…Working his way through the book.'

‘Anything local?'

He waved a half-eaten donut at me. ‘Not yet. Only been in the Territory for a couple of years. Worked underground at the Burning Angel, then he bought out Terry Greenleaf. Fuck knows where he got the brass for that, but you can bet it wasn't anything honest.'

‘You're well informed.'

‘This town, ya gotta be.' He popped the last of the donut into his gob. ‘Save yer neck some day.'

I touched his elbow. ‘Thanks for that, Darren.'

A flash of gold among the gums, mustache curling up through the popping pores and blackheads: surely not a Harley smile? ‘No worries.' My god—it was. ‘Long-term, we'll nail the bastard; short-term, you just stay out of his way.'

I really was grateful.

Not that I had any intention of staying out of anyone's way, but at least I knew now to tread warily. Long term?

Bugger that.