Gith (25 page)

'Jesus!' Monty screamed.

I heard the pump of the gun again. The spent shell dropped
on the floor beside me.

'Gith! Don't!' I yelled.

Monty was covered in blood. We both were. Most of it
was Sam's. The dog was pretty much cut in half. Most of its
ribcage and belly were gone, its back legs connected only by
the blown-out bones of its spine. Its head and shoulders were
twitching though, and each twitch seemed to drive its teeth
further into my leg. I grabbed its jaws and started to pull
them apart.

'Christ, girl.' Monty's hands were shaking. He had them
out towards Gith, trying to calm her. She was breathing hard.
She had the gun trained on his chest.

'I'm not going to hurt you,' he said. 'It's me. Your old mate,
Monty.'

I got Sam's jaws open, threw what was left of him aside.
It was then that Peter Kocher stepped into the doorway. The
shot would have warned him but the sight of all that blood
must have freaked him for a second. He steadied himself
against the doorjamb.

I could see it all in slow motion. The barrel of his gun
coming up and around, levelling on Gith. His eyes wide and
crazy. I could feel the yell of warning in my throat but it was
coming out too slow.

She must have felt him there because suddenly she spun
round on him and fired in the same second. He took most of
the blast in his hands and forearms. His scream was drowned
by the roar of her shotgun, and then his own went off. His left
foot took the worst of that. He crumpled over it, hugging his
forearms to him. His right hand was a pulpy mess.

Gith pumped the gun. Another shell dropped, a wisp of
smoke trailing from it, and she was round again, covering
Monty. He was looking shit scared now.

'What have you done, girl? Jesus.'

'He's a fucking killer, Monty,' I said. 'Believe it, for Christ's
sake.'

I pulled off my belt and strapped it round my thigh in a
tourniquet.

'Where's Wyett?' I said to Gith. 'Is he still out there?'

'Gith.'

Kocher started to scream with the pain. He was curled up
in a ball, rocking back and forth. I crawled over to where he
lay and put my foot against his side, pushed him over, away
from his weapon. With the gun in my hands, I eased myself
back into the room.

Monty was still just standing there.

'Get on the phone,' I said. 'Call 111.'

He stared at me for a second and then he started to move,
pulling his mobile from the pocket of his dressing gown.

'Fucking bitch!' Kocher moaned. 'Fucking, fucking bitch!
Look what she did to me. Oh Jesus!'

'Emergency, emergency,' Monty was saying. 'There's
somebody shot here. He might be dying. And . . .'

'Yee-ha!' Wayne Wyett leapt into the doorway, rifle at
the ready. He didn't stand a chance. She took him off at the
knees.

I FINISHED UP in hospital in Palmy. There was an operation
to try and fix the mess Sam had made of my leg, and after that
they kept me in because there was a big risk of infection from
all the bits of dog that had been flying around. Gith stayed
with me the whole time. It felt weird waking up from the
anaesthetic and seeing her there, the opposite of the old days.
Kerry Ryan came in to talk to us and I told him everything:
not just about Stock Road and the package but about how
Gith had been attacked at the show and what I thought about
Anneke Hesse. He listened but he didn't say much. It wasn't
until Hemi came down a couple of days later that I found out
what had happened.

The cops took Wyett's van to look it over and they were
into his house and Kocher's place too. Wyett and Kocher were
both alive and in the same hospital I was. They were in a lot
worse state than me though. Wyett had lost half his leg and
Kocher a bunch of fingers and toes. They were under arrest on
drugs charges. So was Rick Parline. Close to a million dollars
worth of P had been in that package. Parline had gone to
Pakenga Valley and picked it up from Kocher. He still had it
when the cops came calling.

'What about Monty?' I asked.

'Completely changed his tune, bro. Now he's telling
everybody the van was there that day and that Kocher was
driving.'

'Bastard. I thought he was a mate.'

Hemi shrugged. 'Misguided sense of family loyalty. It
happens. I guess he got focused when he found out about the
jail term.'

'Jail?'

'Making a false statement — maximum three years.
Conspiring to defeat justice — seven years.'

'Jesus, will they charge him?'

'Don't know, bro. It's up to the boss. He seems pretty
ropeable, though.'

'Ryan?'

'Yeah. Another thing he's talking about is charging Gith.'

'What?' I couldn't believe it. 'What with?'

'Attempted murder. Or grievous bodily harm.'

Jesus!

'They don't like citizens taking the law into their own
hands,' Hemi said. 'They don't want to encourage vigilantes.'

'What about self-defence?'

'It's got to be reasonable force.'

'Christ, what was she meant to do? Look at her. She doesn't
weigh fifty kilos.'

'I know, I know. I just wanted to warn you, eh.'

***

I WAS BACK home after four days. I wasn't sure whether we
were going to be welcome in Te Kohuna or not. It turned out
pretty well. The Old Man changed his mind about us. For one
thing, he could brag about Gith instead of feeling ashamed of
her, and I think, in a way, the fact that she had proved herself
far from weak and defenceless made everybody start to see
her in a new light. Did anyone stop thinking our relationship
was a sick thing? Maybe they did. The family, at least, rallied
round. We went out to the farm for lunch.

'Did you really shoot those guys?' Leece asked.

'Gith.'

'Boy, you're something,' Bill said.

She gave him a big grin.

'And it wasn't Moss Vield that killed that girl?' Ma asked.

'No, but they've got to prove it yet,' I said.

'Christ,' the Old Man chipped in. 'I knew as soon as they
found that body that it wasn't him. No decent sheep farmer's
going to leave an unburied corpse lying around. The blowflies
would have a bloody field day.'

'Why's that?' Rachel asked.

'Because they lay eggs on the body and the maggots hatch
and eat it, sweetheart. And then there gets to be more and
more blowflies and then they go and lay eggs on the live sheep
and the maggots eat them too. Flystrike, that's called.'

'Dad,' Joanne said, 'not while we're eating.'

'Don't be so bloody sensitive,' he told her. 'This is
education.'

'Would the maggots eat me?' Rachel asked.

'If you didn't wash them off they would.'

'Yuk!'

It felt good to be there, with everyone round us. I wasn't
entirely sure that I'd ever walk without a limp but that seemed
a small price to pay for getting away from what we'd been
through.

After we had eaten we went up to Bill and Leece's place to
see the puppies. Gith wanted to hold them all.

'Would you like one?' Bill asked her.

She didn't say anything, just looked at him with her eyes
shining. The puppy she had in her arms was licking her.

'That one?' Bill asked.

'Gith.'

'It's weaned near enough, so why don't you take it?'

***

IN THE END they arrested Wyett and Kocher for murder.
They found a couple of Anneke's fingerprints in Wyett's van
and more in Kocher's house. Then the two of them both
cracked and started ratting on each other. It seemed Kocher
had picked Anneke up and taken her back to his place, where
he'd called Wyett. Then they'd driven her up into the bush at
the top end of the valley. God knows what they did to her
up there. It was Kocher's idea to set up Moss Vield. He'd
planted the hair in his wagon and borrowed Monty's ute to
take the body up to the back of the Vield farm. I guess Monty
really saw the kind of nephew he had when he found out
about that one. To add to his problems, the cops charged him
with making a false statement, and he got a twelve-month
suspended sentence. There was no more talk about charging
Gith. Hemi came over one evening and told us they were
dropping that idea. The three of us sat out on the verandah
and watched the sun go down. Gith had the puppy asleep in
her lap.

'I guess they figure they'd have a major PR disaster on their
hands,' I said.

'Could be, bro. But maybe just, like you said, reasonable
force.'

'Wouldn't look too good arresting somebody who's basically
caught the crims in a major murder case.'

'Right.'

'How about Moss?' I asked.

'Still that thing with his old man, eh.'

'And Billy Cleat?'

'Don't know. He's done a runner. Skipped parole. Kocher
reckons they dumped him on Katawai Road, alive if not
particularly well. Seems they had him out at that old house
down that way. They knocked him round and he came up
with some bullshit story about how you'd asked him to follow
Parline. That's what made them think you were the guy that
had paid a visit to Stock Road. And so . . .' He looked at me.
He was trying to figure out how much of a bullshit story it
really was.

'What about Mattie Barnes?' I asked, changing the
subject.

'Well, that one's still a mystery. Kocher and Wyett both
swear they never touched her.'

'I reckon I know where she is.'

'Where?'

'Up at the lake. In one of the gullies along Maungaiti
Road.'

'How d'you figure this?' He was frowning at me.

'Just a feeling.'

'Ah, well.' He gave a kind of grin. 'A lot of feelings up that
way.'

'You go there much?'

'Not if I can help it, bro. I don't like that taniwha, eh.'

The puppy gave a little squeal and Hemi turned.

'Cute little fella,' he said.

'Gith.'

'Has he got a name?'

'Gith.' A pause.

'Tell him what it is,' I said.

'Ken.' She laughed.