How I Became the Mr. Big of People Smuggling (22 page)

Actually I had thought it might have been something to do with the shooting of Arif. Ever since then Palmenter had been
unapproachable. You stayed out of his way and he only ever spoke to you if he wanted something directly.

‘There's something,' Spanner had said. He had thought for a while before he responded to me and then waited before he added, ‘They don't go to Sydney.'

‘Where to then? Brisbane? Alice? Makes sense to make it a shorter journey.' Funny how we could discuss the business in a third party abstract way, as if it were not the illegal trafficking of people but the legitimate operation of a cattle station, as if the reality of it was nothing to do with us and all the things we knew about: the rip-offs; charging them every last dollar for an old car that we would take back; the bodies buried at the pit; Arif. Arif. Spanner didn't know about Arif. I had never told him, it was too shocking and the way to deal with that was to never think or talk or go there. Pretend it never happened and never think about it and eventually it would go away, sink deep into the thick mud that was the bottom of the mind, the thick ooze that hid all that was Palmenter Station.

‘They were coming back too soon. The vans. I thought it was too quick, the vans coming back after one week. Can't get to Sydney and back in a week. So I thought Brisbane. But something else was wrong. I dunno, it just felt wrong. So I checked. I wrote down the odometers. They only go fifty, hundred klicks. Don't even leave the station.'

‘Where are they going?'

‘Beats me. Something's not right.'

The whole place was wrong and we both knew it and we both, to survive, knew not to talk about it. To do so was to stir the mud and this was the closest we had ever come to saying outright how bad things were.

It was some time after that, maybe a month or so, that Spanner told me something so shocking that at first I didn't believe him. He wouldn't joke about it, but he must be mistaken. Palmenter had told him to fill in the pit and dig a new one.

‘I didn't understand why, I thought there was still plenty of room in the pit, could bury our rubbish there for years and so why bother to dig a new one? When I got out there it was mostly filled in already, roughly, dirt just pushed in from the sides. I started to
tidy it up, scrape the dozer blade over the surface to flatten it so it could all grow over.' He looked at me, assessing me, seeing if he should say something.

‘There's bodies. The dozer blade pushed up something and I got out to look. It was an arm. There was more. Several bodies.'

‘Those five from out on the south track.' I knew it wasn't. We burned them inside their van. It wasn't Arif either. That was long ago.

‘No, more. Recent. Several. Buried, like not properly, just sand pushed over the top.'

‘People die on the boat trips. I guess they have to be buried somewhere.' I sounded more at ease than I was.

‘Why fly them up here? If people die on the boat, just throw the bodies overboard. No, the fucker has been killing them and when he sent me out there to hide the evidence he knew I'd find them. He must have known I'd see them.'

I couldn't speak. I felt sick with the memory of Arif, how in the days after Palmenter shot him someone must have been out there to move the body. Who? Spanner? I was going to ask but the memory was too much. It came back in a flash and I saw Arif's eyes open and wondering, as if his soul looked out through those eyes and questioned. The fading of those eyes still haunted me and merged with the flyblown eyes of those five dead men, and now, added to that, Spanner was telling me there were more. How many? I didn't ask.

‘We have to get outta here.'

Spanner had the vans, the keys to the fuel bowser. We could leave together, late one night when Palmenter was off somewhere. Hide a van off somewhere so the sound of the engine starting would not wake anyone. We could get several days headstart.

‘He's a cunning bastard, letting us know little by little, waiting to see if we object and knowing if we ever left he would just deny it all. We could have left anytime is what he'd say. Cars, keys and fuel, no reason for us to stay. He meant for me to find them and he's challenging me to do something about it.'

Spanner was right, Palmenter was a cunning bastard. But at least now I knew there were two of us. He was doing the same thing to Spanner.

‘We have to leave,' I said.

He took a swig of beer then tipped the rest of the can into the sand.

‘Where to?' he asked. ‘Where can we go from here? He'll track us down. You think you can go start a new life in the city, simple as that?'

It was one morning shortly after that that Palmenter came to me and said he needed someone he could trust. Maybe I was ready to take on more responsibility. He mentioned the job as station manager but I was only half listening because I was worried he had got wind of something, maybe he had seen Spanner getting a van ready for us. It was in the way Palmenter said he needed someone he could trust and sure enough, he then hinted at Arif and the buried bodies, said he knew I had never told anyone and in the same breath he offered me travel and more money.

‘Congratulations, Son,' he said, ‘You deserve it. I know you know how to keep quiet about what doesn't concern you. You are smart and we need that around here. A good honest worker will go far with me. It will mean more money. Some trips to the city. Might even see about adding Perth to our list. We'll talk about the details tomorrow.'

I managed to keep calm. More money? He never paid anyone. An honest worker who could keep quiet about the cold-blooded shooting of Arif? And, as I now knew, many more out at the pit. What he was really doing was threatening me. Why all of a sudden Perth? Spanner and I had agreed we would leave one night when no one was around, drive south-west to Perth where no one knew us and Palmenter might not have any influence.

I agreed to the promotion. That was in the morning. To get him off my back I had no choice but to agree. That night I would get Spanner and we'd leave. We couldn't delay any longer.

Palmenter had driven into the station in his flash 4WD and a muster was coming. Usually at muster he would fly in with the first lot on the chopper so I was expecting that he would leave by car during the night and reappear by chopper in a day or so. Spanner and I would bolt as soon as Palmenter drove out. With a day or two headstart even the chopper couldn't catch us.

I waited up all night for Palmenter to leave but he didn't. And
in the morning he said he had a special job for me. A job only for someone he could trust.

We came to a rocky slope. At the bottom a muddy tidal creek flowed, the tide was nearly out and shiny mud banks lined each side of the creek. Away to the left we could make out the sea, sparkling blue. Spanner didn't hesitate and I was happy to follow. We turned and ran down the slope and then left along the hard rocks and sand above the mud at the edge of the water. When we got to the ocean we stopped. I was exhausted. I sat on a flat-topped rock and looked at the empty horizon in front of us.

We had a choice. Head back to the main camp along the coastline to our left or cross the mouth of the creek on the right. It was about two hundred metres wide at this point. In the middle was a conical scrub rock island. On the far side were broken red rock cliffs and a rocky slope rising behind.

‘We should cross,' said Spanner between breaths. ‘One of the camps is just beyond that ridge. About five kilometres. People there, clients. A bunch of lawyers and judges from Melbourne.'

He sat down next to me.

‘What did you mean, this is sport?' I asked. ‘Those who could run?' The sun was baking hot and my feet were bloody and sore, but it was nothing to my sense of dread.

‘They won't ever give up. They'll come after us.'

‘Why?'

‘Because. The pit was only ever for those who couldn't run. The rest, they were sport. Hunting. Palmenter would give them a van, set them off. This lot, maybe more, Palmenter and a whole lot of others from all over, I dunno, they would hunt them. Give them a headstart then hunt them down. Soon as the van got bogged and
they got out to walk, they didn't stand a chance. No one was ever going to miss them and if they got away, well, they would perish in the desert. No food or water. That's what this is about. Sport. And now they are coming after us.'

The sun went dark and the sky blackened and I needed not water for my thirst, but oxygen, air, life. I was suddenly at once both totally alive and aware and alert and at the same time not of this world. This world was dark and distant with the bright sky and the water and rocks and trees and birdcall retreating to reveal a parallel place that filled with the clues. Each of the obvious fell into place. Vans fuelled up as if for a long trip and given to hopeful refugees who had no idea. Newman asking, ‘What about the hunters?' on that first day after and me saying, ‘Tell them no hunting this season,' not knowing what he was talking about because I thought it was just one of the many extra things that went on, shooting for camel or bullock or buffalo or kangaroo. Humans. The look in the man's eye when he said, ‘Just like the old days.' Gunshots at the homestead that I had thought was them shooting bottles. Cookie. Judy and her little boy. Simms. Charles.

‘C'mon,' said Spanner. ‘We need to get to this camp before they do.'

The tide was out. Thick leg-sucking mud pulled at us as we tried to wade to the water. I was there first and struck out, swam to the island and then splashed and dragged myself up the mud on my belly until I found the harder sand above the tideline. I stood waiting for him, scanning the ridgeline we had just stumbled down, looking for signs of the men following. I had seen them and their rifles. They could easily pick us off from up on the ridge. We had moved pretty quickly and Spanner knew where he was going, so I thought it unlikely they would be too close behind. That was when I saw it. Not the men. A crocodile. It slid noiselessly into the water not five metres from where we had been sitting on the flat-topped rock, slid into the water and disappeared except for two stone eyes that moved like floating rocks. Spanner was not a strong swimmer and was only about halfway across. I yelled. There was a flurry of white water, a small cut-off yell, a half gasp, a splash that in the time it took to turn and look, if you hadn't been looking right there, would have come and gone and then the world was bright
and sunny again as if nothing had happened.

I found myself sitting on the beach, looking up as if Spanner would appear from the water any moment. I half expected him to emerge Tarzan-like dragging the conquered crocodile by the tail, to drag it up the beach then we would light a fire and roast its meat. But Spanner was gone.

I climbed up the small hill on the island and lay in the shade under a rocky overhang. Small shrubs hid me from view but I could see the beach and the water where I had last seen Spanner. There was no sign of the croc. I thought crocs didn't venture too far from the water and I thought I would be safe. I was suddenly so tired, so thirsty. A headache began and washed over me like a wave and left throbbing temples, all my sores spoke to me, my lips were parched, throat dry, feet and hands and legs scratched and raw and all of me covered in dried mud. I didn't know what to do.

Maybe I slept. The tide was halfway in when I next looked. I saw the glint of something across the water. Maybe a sound. I lay completely still. Nothing. Still I lay. Slowly I could make out the outline of a man, two men, sitting on the opposite side watching the water. Three men. The other two must be waiting back at camp for Palmenter if they still believed he was around, or maybe they were in some other lookout I hadn't spotted. Could they see me? It didn't seem so. I'd be dead if they could. I didn't move. Spanner was gone. Perhaps they were waiting for the tide to fall. I hoped for the crocodile to return. A whole family of crocs. What should I do if they decided to cross? Perhaps they could cross and go right by me and not see me, continue on to the camp. What then? Then where would I go?

I lay watching them for an eternity. Far off I heard the drone of a boat. Maybe the other two had gone back to get one of the fishing runabouts and were coming here.

The sound drifted off. It was probably one of the fishing boats from the next camp, full of lawyers from the city, judges unshaven and smelly with fish blood and salt and dirt and oh please come around here and see me, rescue me. The men didn't move. They had tracked us this far and knew we had crossed. How long would they wait?

By midafternoon the tide was right in. Clear water was now only a few metres from me, inviting me to dive in, to cool off and drink great long gulps of it. I saw a crocodile: the same one? Two stony eyes and a bit of a snout. That was the only time I saw the men move, one shifted his hand and pointed. They had seen it too. A little later they left, walked back the way they had come and then I was suddenly alone. The world was peaceful. Water flowed in and out and clouds came and went across the arching sky and birds and fish and insects flew and splashed and buzzed in the heat, and yet I was not of this world, I did not belong, or rather, this world did not care if I belonged or lived or died or breathed. I was irrelevant. A visitor. I was being ignored and it was funny how those men hunting me down were in some way comforting, to think that at least something, someone, wanted me.

I lay without moving for an even longer time. I was cocooned in a case of dried mud and I might not have been able to move before I did. That long time was essential, not for the care I was taking to be sure they had certainly left, but for every little thing inside me to rest, to regroup. To move up over that small hill to the other side and look out upon a crocodile-infested hundred metres of wilderness that stretched forever and ever and ever – that took everything. At every moment I expected the sharp ring of a gunshot. That noise I had never heard until the time when Palmenter shot Arif, and the noise I did not hear when I shot Palmenter. The noise you feel but don't hear, the noise that is over before you have time to know what it is. I heard it in a bird whistle, a fish splash, wind in trees, an insect silent call. The crack of dried mud falling off me was a bullet wound and the aches and pains and cuts and salt-stung scratches were punctures that got me before the sound of the shot that started them arrived. But there was nothing. I was utterly alone.

Once I was on the other side of the island and away from where the men might return, I sat in the shade of a small tree and considered what to do. I could swim, take a risk, try my luck with the crocodiles. Low tide, fifty metres, bit of mud. A minute. Two long minutes. Too long. And too weak, too tired. But only getting weaker. No water to drink. I waited. Trying to think.

I slept. I must have, because I woke with a start, like when Palmenter had shot Arif and afterwards I thought I couldn't sleep
but I'd wake suddenly aware of something I could not name. This time I knew what it was. Jason. His cheerful smile came to me. ‘I'm getting out of here,' he said.

Jason was the student who arrived the day after I did all those years ago. I had nearly forgotten about him. It was after the first muster that he came to Spanner and I one day when we were working at the gene pool. We were trying to get a starter motor from one of the wrecks so Spanner could install it in Bitsy and it was while we were doing this that Jason came up to us and announced he was leaving. I was standing by the bonnet and Spanner was underneath so all you could see of him were his lower legs and feet.

‘I came to say goodbye. I'm leaving tomorrow. Palmenter's giving me a ride out to the highway in the morning.'

‘You sure?' said Spanner from under the car.

‘He said he'd drive me out in time to catch the bus.'

Spanner came out from under the car holding the starter motor. He put the starter down and began wiping his hands on a rag, but this merely smeared the dirt and oil over his hands.

‘Bus? What bus?'

‘In the morning.'

‘Oh. Well, I can't shake your hand.' He held his palm flat to show how dirty it was. ‘We'll have a beer for you tonight? You're buying.'

I wasn't paying attention because I was thinking about how I would like to be leaving too. I had only been there a couple of weeks and I thought it was derision in Spanner's voice. What would Spanner think of me if I also said I wanted to leave?

We didn't end up having a beer with him because we saw Palmenter and Jason drive out later that afternoon. It was quite late, and I remember wondering why he would want to wait all night in the darkness and cold before catching the bus in the morning. Of course I now know that Spanner was right, there was no bus along that road, the closest would be all the way up at Julia Creek and even then it ran only once a week, and now I woke sweating with the realisation that Palmenter drove back to the homestead a short while later and he had had only the time to drive to the pit. And that was before Arif. Long before.

Next morning I woke and the tide was out. I was parched, my mouth so dry, cardboard. Dried mud fell off me in sheets or dusted into my eyes. My head throbbed. Down near the water's edge I found some shellfish on the rocks and smashed these open, drank the salty brine and fishy mush. I remembered reading about how you could collect water to drink like this. But it wasn't good, it didn't help my thirst and then I remembered long ago, at school, reading about Burke and Wills and how they died because they got less energy from collecting food than they spent digging for it, they'd have been better off to rest in the shade and anyway, maybe it wasn't shellfish but fish blood. I couldn't remember. I could remember stuff, random stuff that was no use to me now, stuff that popped into my head but as soon as I tried to direct my thoughts, to think of something particular, my brain would disappear. My arms were so heavy I could hardly lift the rock to smash the shells. I could hardly walk. Perhaps if I waited in the shade I would get some strength back. The tide was out, for how long? It was only a short swim, but how long before the tide came in? The numbers were there in my head but I couldn't organise them. A day was how long? Two tides, twelve hours, did that make six hours or twelve hours between lows? I could not do the maths. Every time I'd get close something would distract me. I'd sit still and scratch with a stick to help but then find another shellfish. Forget them, I'm not wasting energy on them. Here is an old camp, where some people must have had a picnic or barbecue. Remains of a fire, some beer cans, fish bones. Think. The tide is twelve hours and the moon was full last night. Do crocodiles sleep at night? Dolphins don't sleep. At least I wouldn't see them coming. I could rest longer and get more strength, wait until evening. Swim across then, walk to the next camp. What time? What point? I didn't have a watch. I lay down to rest.

At some point, the obvious hit me. Maybe it was the sound of an outboard or maybe that was too far away and it was the ringing in my ears getting louder. I woke and could see far off the dot of a boat moving across the shimmering sea, heading around the point towards where Spanner had said the fishing camp was. I smashed open a beer can and used the shiny inner surface to flash in their direction. Was I dreaming? No, but it was like someone else doing
all the stuff because I was watching the whole thing as if it were a movie. I saw the dot change direction towards me and grow until it was a fishing runabout. It pulled up to the mudflats and people came to me and talked and crowded around. I was too delirious to care. They took me in their boat to the camp and I ranted and rambled and they listened. They washed and fed and watered me, and put me to bed but I was so exhausted I could not sleep. The mud of the mangroves had dried and it fell away in sheets and then the rest washed away, but the quagmire at the bottom of my mind was also being drained and all and all and all came back, came out, flowed out in one big mix. Spanner, Arif, gunshots, the burial pit. I ranted and raved and they listened, and because they were lawyers and not doctors they gave me beers and not tranquilisers and didn't insist that I rest. We drank beer and they listened while I talked and there was only one thing I wanted to talk about.

Palmenter came to me early on that afternoon and invited me to sit with him at the table on the verandah. He had hinted at something the day before and again that morning but you never sat at a table with him. Spanner had told me about the bodies out in the pit and I had waited up all night for Palmenter to drive out but he hadn't.