Razorhurst (27 page)

“You stay still, Miss Campbell.”

That didn’t mean Kelpie. She took a step back to the sly grog shop, keeping her eyes low, willing them not to see her. The door was still open. She could escape out the back. She didn’t slip her hand into the coat pocket to feel the knife—Kelpie didn’t want to draw any attention—but she was glad it was there.

Further down the lane, a woman opened her front door and peered out.

“Get back inside, Missus,” the copper yelled, his authority undermined by his voice going up half an octave.

The woman retreated. But her front window went up an inch. Kelpie noticed other open windows. She wondered how many were staring from behind curtains. She backed up half a step.

A few more and she’d be inside.

Two houses up from the one with the flowerpots, on the narrow path between two houses, Kelpie saw someone tall move. She couldn’t make out the face, but it had to be Snowy.

“It’s not a fight, Constable,” Dymphna said. “They were mucking about. Bluey, close your razor.”

Bluey closed his razor but didn’t put it away and didn’t take his eyes off the cop. He stepped towards him, almost standing on Darcy’s feet as if he didn’t see him there. Darcy dropped the flowerpot shard, scrambling from Bluey on his hands and heels.

“Stop right there. Both of youse!” The copper’s voice shook.

Darcy stopped. Bluey took another step.

“I will fire.” The copper sounded uncertain. Air moved against Kelpie’s back as the grog-shop door slammed loud behind her.

The gun and closed razor were now pointing at her and Dymphna. Kelpie heard a tiny squeak for half a second. She didn’t realise she’d made the sound. Dymphna held her palms out, smiled. “Really, Constable, there’s no need—”

Bluey took another step towards the cop. Darcy scrambled out of the way.

The copper swung his gun back at Bluey.

“Don’t!” Dymphna yelled.

Bluey took another step.

There was smoke and then a loud bang. Kelpie didn’t quite connect them. Except that the copper staggered backward and the hand holding the gun dangled by his thigh.

Kelpie tried to figure out how Bluey could have hurt the copper without touching him when it was the copper who had the gun.

Bluey grunted, took several steps backward, clutched at his left shoulder. Darcy retrieved the shard and stood up.

The cop stared at his gun in disbelief.

Shearing Shed

Neal Darcy was fourteen when he went shearing. Legged it away from school with his youngest uncle and went bush to learn a trade. He sent back almost every penny he earned. Six months he was at it until the letter begging him to come home arrived from his ma.

The old man had abandoned her again. But not before losing most of their money on the trots. Most of it the money Darcy had sent back seeing as how, his ma wrote him, the old man lost his job for getting stuck into the boss to his face. She and the kids were near starving and they would lose the house if he didn’t do something.
That house is all we have
.

Darcy went back as soon as he could. Was lucky enough that Father O’Brian found him a job at the brewery. He’d been looking after his ma and the littlies ever since.

But he’d loved the shearing life. He’d even loved it when he was a mere roustie picking up the wool as it fell from the shearer’s blades, sweeping the floors. He loved the feel of the fleece in his fingers. The swag on his back. Bathing in a billabong. Sleeping under the stars. Not having to worry about his family. He knew that made him a bad son. He worried it made him as bad as his father.

Every night he wrote down what had happened. He wrote about his first lesson from one of the big guns, a bloke who could shear more than two hundred sheep a day. His notebook was so small he had to cramp his writing and fill it all the way to the edges and write in between the lines.

He wrote about his first fight. How his knuckles had turned blue and had swollen so much that holding the shears the next day was agony.

He learned that he loved writing more than anything in the world. Back in the city, it had been something he was good at, not something he couldn’t live without.

Darcy even loved the sheep, though they were the stupidest animals he had ever come across. Too stupid to know what was in their own interest. Driven by fear but without the brains to survive. He figured they’d have gone extinct long ago if they hadn’t been useful to humans.

He loved the camaraderie. Old, young, didn’t matter. They were all blokes working together to bring in the most wool they could and getting full as a tick at the pub afterward. Telling stories by the fire. Singing together. Ogling the same girls.

At first he was the worst shearer who ever drew breath. Cut the sheep to pieces. Nearly took his own fingers besides. The more experienced guns laughed till they fell down. Turned out they’d given him the most obstreperous sheep they could find. That rare cussed, angry sheep with a will to kill. They did things like that to all the newies.

Before the first week was done, you wouldn’t know Neal hadn’t always been shearing sheep. The ones who didn’t learn as fast as him were out quick smart on their backsides.

That was the life. Going to bed each night weary with a bone-deep ache. A good ache, not the soul-sucking ache of the city. Not the ache throughout his body and mind and heart and soul each evening as he returned from the brewery stinking of hops and yeast and wanting never to drink a drop of beer ever again.

Going back to the city—to his ma and brothers and sisters and to that stinking fucking brewery—had been the worst time of his life.

The only thing that kept him going was knowing they had no one else.

That and his stories.

DYMPHNA

Dymphna watched Bluey steady himself against the wall, wiping his right hand, sticky with blood from where the bullet hit his left shoulder, on the bricks. He pushed off, flicked open his cut-throat again, then took a heavy step towards Neal.

Why hadn’t Neal run while he could? She couldn’t stand to watch Bluey slash up his beautiful face.

But Bluey wasn’t looking at Neal, who weaved gracefully out of his way. Bluey’s eyes were on the copper. Dymphna reminded herself that that was worse. A dead copper was far more of a worry for Glory than a dead Neal Darcy.

“Stop that,” the copper mumbled. “Don’t come closer.”

Dymphna wished he’d shoot Bluey again, wished she could tell him to, but the boy didn’t raise his gun.

Bluey’s razor was held high.

“Get back,” the copper said. He tried to lift his hand, but it dropped back to his thigh. The recoil must have hurt it. Dymphna knew a bloke who’d broken his shoulder that way. But that had been a shotgun. She prayed that he’d pull himself together and take another shot. Instead the boy took a step backward, stumbling on something underfoot.

Dymphna grabbed Kelpie’s hand. Time to get far away from this mess. To Circular Quay even.

“This way,” she hissed, dragging Kelpie away from Bluey and the cop.

Neal smiled at her and followed. Dymphna tried to shrug off the way his slow smile made her feel. There was no time for any of that. For this brief moment, they were allies, but as soon as the three of them were away, he had to go back to his family. Neal had no idea what he’d walked into. Bluey could have killed him; Bluey still could kill him.

Kelpie dragged her feet, craning her neck to watch as Bluey slashed at the copper, his left arm still dangling. The razor sliced through the copper’s hands brought up to protect his throat. He screamed and dropped the gun. Blood ran down his chin onto his arms.

Dymphna kept moving, dragging Kelpie behind her, but the little girl kept turning to look. Bluey slashed again, diagonally across the copper’s face and then back across his throat.

“Jesus,” Dymphna whispered.

Blood squirted across the lane. The copper pressed his hands to his neck, trying to hold the blood in. His screams wound down. He dropped to his knees.

Someone yelled. More than one person it sounded like. The news would be out soon. Glory would know. The coppers. Davidson.

“We’ve got to move,” Neal said.

Dymphna stepped around a large pile of bricks; Kelpie stumbled on them. Dymphna righted her. Neal was just behind them.

Bluey roared.

Kelpie twisted around and shook off Dymphna’s grip. “It’s Snowy.”

Dymphna turned.

Snowy was standing between them and Bluey. He had to have a full foot on Bluey—who lurched another half step towards them, waving the razor at waist height. Blood dripped steadily from his left sleeve.

“Put it down,” Snowy said quietly.

Bluey kept moving.

Snowy brought his fists down hard on Bluey’s head.

Bluey swayed, his eyes rolled up so they were mostly whites, but he did not fall. His right arm with the razor staccatoed through the air.

“Bloody, bloody …”

Dymphna couldn’t hear the rest of what Bluey was saying. She held on to Kelpie with both hands.

Snowy picked up the copper’s gun and hit Bluey hard on the head with it. Bluey went face first into the dirt, razor still in hand, and tried to push himself up.

“Bloody, bloody …”

Snowy belted him over the head again. This time Bluey stayed down. Snowy pocketed the gun.

Jimmy Palmer appeared beside Kelpie. “He’s not dead yet. More’s the pity.”

“Oh, Christ,” Dymphna said. “Glory’s going to kill us. Bluey’s not dead, is he?”

Snowy shook his head. Bluey’s chest was moving.

“But the cop is,” Snowy said. “Are you all right, Kelpie?”

Kelpie squeezed Dymphna’s hand. Snowy patted her head.

Bluey groaned.

“Help me,” Dymphna said, stepping closer. “Got to get him to the doctor.”

“Better off scarpering,” Neal said.

“Boy’s right,” Snowy said.

Dymphna ignored them and took one of Bluey’s arms. If she carried Bluey to the doctor, it would look better with Glory. She still had a chance to stay in good with her, to not have to flee to another country. It would give her time to think.

Neal hesitated, then took the other arm; Snowy grabbed Bluey’s legs.