Bereft (29 page)

He began running before he'd even considered the best way to go. It didn't matter; his legs, acting independently of his mind or the rest of his body, took him down hills and across gullies he didn't recall seeing before. He wished now he'd taken Jim Gracie's rifle, but his revolver would have to suffice.

Dotted here and there were the rusted carcasses of mining equipment and the collapsed, mud-packed walls of ponds or houses. Lizards flickered underfoot, and a haughty mob of grey kangaroos bounded away as he passed. He spoke to Sadie under his breath as he ran, assuring her.
Will
soon be there. Not to worry. Don't worry.
He imagined the words streaming from his lips and settling in his wake like petals that would enable them to find their way back once he had saved her. A smile split his face under his beard. He felt alive in a way he had not felt since he was a boy, and the world around him was suffused with a reciprocal energy.
Soon. I'll be
there soon. Just hang on.
The trees crackled with excitement. They urged him onwards, their leaves vibrating. The bush opened before him and he surrendered to its current.

He arrived at Wilson's Point fifteen minutes later. The level of the kidney-shaped reservoir was low. The cabin was three hundred yards from where he emerged from the dense bush. He checked his revolver before wading through the muddy shallows, careful to remain unseen. He was determined not to halt again, despite the heaving of his flayed lungs.
Nearly there.
He felt exhilarated at the prospect of capturing his uncle and of saving Sadie from his clutches. The future materialised before him clearer than anything from his past.
Don't worry.
He would push his way through the reeds by the shore and clamber over the boulders. He would burn with courage.
Almost there.
He would approach the cabin as he should have done all those years ago. He would kick open the door that sagged from its hinge. He would take aim with his revolver.

All of which he did.

27

A
s the door swung wide, Quinn could see in an instant that the cabin was empty. Grief and confusion jolted through him. Not a soul. Indeed, the place looked as though it had not been visited since that dreadful afternoon all those years ago. A pair of cockatoos flapped from their perch, squawked in the half-light and flew through a gaping hole in the roof. There was a pile of rotten wood in one corner. A fern shouldered through the floor. He stood there breathing hard, the revolver in one shaking hand. Unspent adrenaline pulsed through him. The place stank of mouldy wood, spider webs, animal droppings; of rape and murder. If only the darkness would speak.

Embarrassed and exhausted, he sank to his haunches to draw breath. The cuffs of his trousers were heavy with water and drying mud. After a moment, he slumped to the crumbling floor. This, then, was how it would end; as it had begun: at Wilson's Point, wishing he had never been born. First exile, then war. Everything was in ruins. Everything. He lay down and sobbed.

How long he'd been lying there with his eyes closed he didn't know, but after some time he became aware of a distant chorus of voices. The people of Flint were coming for him. He imagined them tramping across the banks of the reservoir, slipping here and there in the mud. His father and uncle would be at their head; then Jack Sully with his rickety gait; Mrs. Porteous in her widow's weeds; old Mrs. Crink with her gauzy eyes, tap-tapping along with a stick; Bluey and McLaverty; the Harvey Brothers; Evelyn Higgins. He opened his eyes as if that might assist his hearing, but he soon lost track of the voices in the wind. No matter. Soon enough they would burst in on him and take him away. They would beat him and fill his pockets with rocks before throwing him into the reservoir, as the miners had done with outlaws in days gone by. And that would be that. He shouldn't have been surprised at the outcome: in any endeavour, the possibilities for failure were almost limitless while happy endings offered but one result. The scabs and scars on his skin stung with sweaty irritation.

On the floor, hundreds of ants scurried about carrying shards of leaf in their pincers. So many of them, and all so inconsequential. As a boy, he had been fascinated by insects and spiders, and spent many happy hours inspecting redback spiders, centipedes and cicadas. Like humans, they inhabited their own universe of beauty and terror, the borders of which they thought they knew. He wondered if this might be the way God saw the human race as it went about its daily business. It must be simple to allow war and pestilence to flourish when the suffering of individuals was so distant, easy to permit them to murder and defile one another. The affairs of men were inconsequential.

He became aware again of voices calling out with some urgency but didn't move. They would find him soon enough. One ant was beneath his nose and stood on its hind legs like a dog. The creature was gesticulating with its tiny pincers. It fell onto all six legs, scurried forward and stood again. He became aware of someone speaking.
She's not here
, the voice was saying. He wiggled a finger in his ear to clear his damned hearing. He stared at the ant, who was by now just an inch from him. The insect was talking in a husky voice, repeating the same phrase over and over.
He took her to the lock-up. To the lock-up.
The ant tossed its head the way a horse might its mane, dropped down and trotted away. He heard the scratch of its claws on the boards and it was only then he understood that the voices were not those of people, but of the ants that swarmed over the cabin's rotten floorboards.

Quinn picked up his revolver and lurched to his feet. His ears crowded with the urging not only of the ants but of the entire bush. As if a great engine were coming to life, the air throbbed with conversation, with currents of insistence and lament. It occurred to Quinn he might be able, should he try, to discern the shy whisper of nearby blades of grass.
He took her to the lock-up, to the lock-up.
Perhaps it was not too late, after all? He burst from the cabin and set off again through the bush, this time towards the police station on the other side of Flint.

Quinn passed the small dam and the perimeter of Sparrowhawk Mine at Flint's eastern edge. After ten minutes he staggered from the bush like a crazed saint. He had lost his jacket somewhere, and scattered all over his filthy white shirt were the bloodied imprints of the crosses and other hieroglyphs scratched into his body. He crossed the river and skirted the Flats, where he paused under the shade of a lone birch tree. From the Anglican church came the swelling and falling tide of voices in hymn. It must be Sunday. He could see the police station fifty yards away over Gully Road.

A grey horse was tethered to the wooden fence and a sheep grazed in the deep shade of the garden's elm tree. The police bicycle leaned against the station's sandstone wall. Quinn's heart was swollen with fear, but there was no room for hesitation. He crossed the road and entered the cool, dark station. This time. This time he would have his way.

28

H
is uncle was snoozing in his chair when Quinn entered. He roused himself, but Quinn was able to stride across the room and stick the revolver in his uncle's face before the constable realised what was happening. Quinn considered shooting his uncle straight away but hesitated. He wanted Dalton to know why he was to be killed; that was the very essence of justice.

Dalton uttered something—
Whoa
or
No
—shielded his face with both hands and slid down in his wooden chair. His left hand was still bandaged.

“Where is she?” Quinn demanded.

“You again!”

“Where is the girl?”

“What are you talking about? Put the gun down at once. I'm the constable here. Don't
threaten
me, man, or I'll—”

Quinn gestured with the revolver. “Tell me where she is or I'll shoot you.”

Dalton had managed to get to his feet, but he cowered anew at Quinn's threat. The desk was a mess of papers and books, a tin plate with the glutinous carcass of a roast chicken. The station smelled queerly of smoky stone, like a church. “No,” he said weakly.

Quinn paused. “You still don't recognise me, do you?”

“What? Yes, you're that fellow from the graveyard the other da—Wackfield? Wakefield? I should have taken you in right then and there.”

“Try again. Closer. Stand up straight and look at my face, Robert.”

Dalton did as he was told. Then his gaze fell to take in the bloody patterns across Quinn's shirt.

“Well?” Quinn asked.

Sweat glistened on Dalton's pink forehead and there was a fresh scratch on his neck below his ear. His trousers were undone and his generous belly swooned over his belt. He motioned with his hands. “Put that revolver down, sir.”

“You really don't recognise me?”

“Well, I don't know. Tell me, then, if it's so bloody important.”

“I'm your nephew.”

Dalton stepped back. His mouth curled into a sneer and then he craned forward like a pale, dumbstruck turtle. “William? Not little Quinn? It can't be. They said you were dead. I saw the telegram myself.”

“The one that said I had been killed in the war?”

His uncle was taken aback. He inspected him again. “Don't be ridiculous. You don't look anything like him.”

“A lot has happened.”

“Indeed it has.” Dalton ran a hand across his brow. “Prove to me who you are, then.”

“I have no papers.”

“Then why should I believe you?”

Quinn thought for a moment. “I was born in 1893. I was named after my mother's father, Quinn Dalton—your father, too —who died when a ship sank between Shanghai and Hong Kong. Sarah was born in '97. You came here from London in”—he pondered for a few seconds—“1894, I believe. Or maybe '95. Some said you had been forced to leave England.”

Whether Dalton believed Quinn or not, revealing his identity now felt like a miscalculation; his uncle looked less afraid, not more. Dalton hitched his trousers and straightened his disordered jacket. His eyes darted around, perhaps seeking his own revolver. “You are a lunatic, man. Anyone can learn dates. Leave now and I won't take you in. Go on, clear off.”

But Quinn waved Dalton back against one of the stone walls and located the police revolver among the papers on the desk. He jammed it into his trouser pocket. “Where is Sadie Fox?”

Dalton examined him. It seemed he prepared to answer, then thought better of it. He belched.

“Well?”

The constable wiped his brow again and ventured a dry laugh. “You're disgusting. Why did you come back here, eh? You animal. You know you
destroyed
your mother by what you did. You're lucky you got away.”

“No such thing as luck.”

“Well, they would have hanged you, no worries. I would have hanged you from a tree myself if I got my hands on you. That poor girl. I saw you, Quinn. I saw you with that knife in your hand. You can't fool me. Your father saw you, as well. Everyone knows you are guilty. They used to laugh about you and your sister. You know what they used to call you around here, eh? Do you know?”

“And I saw what you did to her. You and that fellow Gracie. Through a hole in the wall. I heard what you said that day, after you'd … finished with her.” Quinn gagged, hardly able to repeat those words yet again. “You said,
Good day's hunting, after all.
I saw everything. I saw what you did to my sister. How you bickered with Jim Gracie afterwards. You're the animal, not me.”

Dalton shifted from one bare foot to the other. His gaze flickered about the room. “You don't know what you're on about, you should be ashamed of yourself.”

“Oh, I am. Now. Where's the girl?”

“There's no one here but you and me.” Dalton eyed Quinn's revolver. “Is that really you? Quinn? You've changed a lot. Why don't we sit and have a drink, eh? Let's relax a minute. You look dog-tired, you know that?”