Gunshot Road (16 page)

Devil in the dark

I LEFT LATER THAT
afternoon, reluctant to get back to the office while Cockburn was likely to be lurking. Jojo promised he'd be following in a few days.

It was getting on for dark when I reached the Green Swamp Roadhouse. I had no intention of stopping, but as I cruised past, I glanced at the mirror, caught a glimmer of light in the window of Doc's cabin.

I pulled over, my curiosity and suspicions piqued. Maybe murderers really do return to the scene of the crime. I backed up, took another look: the light had vanished.

I grabbed a fighting stick from the back of the vehicle, stole across the stretch of dirt, came up along the west side of the dwelling, peered in through a window.

The room was in darkness. I pressed against the wall, listening intently, watching in case the intruder made a break for it.

Five minutes crawled by. Nothing.

I crept around to the back, found the door unlocked. Stepped into the shack, flicked on the torch.

Fuck! I gasped in pain as something smashed into my hand. The attack seemed to come from nowhere—but I sensed another one on the way. I threw the fighting stick up, deflected the blow and launched myself in the direction it came from. Made contact with someone—someone who promptly grabbed an arm and flicked me westwards.

Fuck this, my stomach said to my brain as they sailed through the air and landed in a heap on the far side of the room.

I rolled over and swivelled the flashlight into the face of my assailant.

‘My god!'

She was in a fighting stance, foot forward, poker in hand, ready to strike another blow. Wearing a ferocious glare and not much more. What was her name again?

‘Jet?'

She blinked, eased off on the glare. ‘The policeman?'

‘Wish you'd stop calling me a man.'

‘I apologise. Did I bl…break you?'

I climbed to my feet. ‘Only slightly.'

She put the bar down, ran a hand through her hair, loosened up. ‘It is the men.'

‘It is. What men?'

‘All of the men—in this country. They make me crazy,' she exclaimed, waving her arms around to demonstrate how crazy they made her.

‘I see.'

‘All the time, they never stop, these hairy desert monsters, slamming on the door, coming at all hours, sniffing around me like I am a woman dog in the…whatever…'

‘Heat.'

‘The heat, perhaps, yes. Or the dry. Or the alcohol. Or the no-women.' She scowled suspiciously. ‘Have they murdered all the women? Where are they?'

‘White women, there never were. Not many. Just my mob.'

‘Yes, your…
mob
. I learn the expression. Your people from the Stone House Creek, I know them. They were here just yesterday.'

‘The Stonehouse mob?'

‘Yes, Magpie and Meg, Danny and the Crankshafts, the fat lady in running shoes—they come back from a long trip—into the desert.' She turned her head to the west as she spoke, made it sound like the outer reaches of hell.

‘I know; I was with em. They called in here after I left?'

‘Yes—Mister Nipper wished for money.' She moved around the room, lighting lanterns, throwing shadows in every direction. ‘I have even been to their dirty little village.'

‘You've been to Stonehouse Creek?'

‘I went out with Kitty…'

‘Ah, you've met Kitty too.'

‘She is my friend—when she is not asking for money. Then I am her play.'

Kitty and Jet: a fascinating thought. I couldn't imagine either of them being anybody's prey. ‘Jet?'

‘Yes?'

‘Mind telling me what you're doing here? I mean, I could have knocked your block off back there.'

‘My block?' She looked around, puzzled.

‘Head.'

A sardonic smile. ‘Your block was, perhaps, in greater danger than my own.'

I rubbed my wrist, examined it: nothing broken, but it was going to be a dozen shades of blue by morning. ‘Probably right.'

‘I told you, did I not? I must spend some time here, try to comprehend this puzzle of a place.'

‘I suppose you did. Didn't realise you planned to do this much…comprehending.'

‘And I have my job.'

‘Your what?'

‘Come with the house.'

‘At the pub? You're working for Noel Redman?'

‘Yes.'

It beggared the imagination, the thought of this slinky young thing working for the Great Ape over the road. At least she knew how to look after herself.

‘A little cleaning,' she explained. ‘The office work, sometimes I work the bar, pull the beer…'

I could imagine—beers and leers.

‘So how're you enjoying it?'

‘More, I would say, than the poor gentleman who occupied this house before me.'

‘Ah, yes. Doc. He's the reason I'm here.'

She eyed me sharply, put a thumbnail in her mouth.

‘Can I offer you a cup of tea?'

‘What's that—compensation for the arm?'

She glanced at it curtly and said, ‘It will repair.' Not a model of compassion.

She rummaged through a backpack by the bed, threw on a few scraps of clothing. Made her way to the fireplace, threw on a few scraps of wood.

Soon afterwards we were out on the veranda, cradling cups of yellow butter-laced tea and taking in the sights of Green Swamp—i.e. the pub across the road, where the lights were glowing and the volume rising. It was coming up to peak period, with ringers and Rabble furiously drinking themselves into an hour or two of respite from the oblivion of their lives.

Jet didn't beat about the bush. ‘This man who died. Mister Ozolins. Doc, they call him, I know. What are your questions?'

‘You know he was a geologist?'

‘I have seen his rocks. Used some of them in my work.'

‘What is your work?'

‘I make things.'

‘Things?'

‘Objects.' That was helpful. ‘Art, when I am fortunate.'

‘Out of rocks?'

She sliced the air with a dismissive hand. ‘Out of whatever works.' Well, that answered that. ‘But this…
quest
of yours. It has to do with his death?'

‘Probably not, but I like to be sure.'

‘I told you, did I not? You should look at the rock formation he was building. That is what I have been doing.'

I paused, studied her severe features in the moonlight. My curiosity was piqued.

‘So what have you made of it?'

‘As yet I have made—nothing. The beginnings of a beginning, no more.' She put her teacup down, did the hand-waving thing again. ‘It is labyrinth, mandala. But where I come from, we spend our lives looking into mandala. After a time—perhaps a lifetime—you begin to see meaning.'

‘I think that's what Doc was doing. He was investigating the geology of a site out west—place called Dingo Springs.'

She went quiet. ‘Dingo Spring?'

‘Yes.'

‘The Dingo—it is the wild dog, no?'

‘Yep.'

She took a noisy slurp of tea. ‘My employer…'

‘Noel?'

‘He has the land out there.'

‘I don't think so. It's crown land. Nobody owns it, not in the whitefeller way.'

‘He has a government paper for the looking of gold.'

‘A mineral exploration lease?'

She shrugged.

Not so unusual, I supposed. A lot of people on the fringes of the mining industry like to try their hand; there were MELs dotted all round the countryside. But then she added, ‘He owned it in company with your Mister Ozolins, I believe. The Doc.'

‘How the hell do you know that?'

‘I have been doing a bookkeeping for Mr Ledman.' She frowned, pursed her lips. ‘Red!'

‘Doesn't matter—wasn't far off the mark. So you do Noel's books? You are multi-skilled.'

‘I am not good. In truth, I am hopeless. But I am Chinese—they make the assumption, I bury the mistake. Sometimes I open the mail. The other day was letter from—the Department of the Mining, no?'

‘More or less.'

‘Inside was a renewing notice for a mineral exploring lease. The place was the same—this Dingo Springs. And the names were two together: Ozolins and Redman.'

I gave that a moment's consideration. If Redman had a lease out there, in partnership with Doc it complicated things enormously. With Doc out of the way, Redman would have first crack at anything of value.

No choice now: I had to question the publican, see what he had to say for himself.

There was a sudden ruckus from the pub. A jumbled figure flew out the door, picked itself up and dusted off, rejoined the party, skull first. A raucous chorus from within: pool balls, pinballs, cannonading laughter.

Happy hour at the Green Swamp. I sure as hell didn't fancy trying to tackle Redman in the middle of that. Cockburn was going to have to wait another day to get his Toyota back. Somewhere inside, I was grateful for the delay.

I leaned back against a post, wondered about the sharp-eyed woman before me.

‘Where are you from, Jet?'

‘You said before: China.'

‘I've met a few Chinese immigrants. They tend to be accountants.'

‘I also: for Mister Redman.'

‘Your conversation is full of mandalas and labyrinths. I don't think you're an accountant. Which part of China?'

‘The north-west.'

‘Gansu? Xinjiang?'

She scrutinised me suspiciously. ‘You have been?'

‘China? Few years ago now.'

‘You know Qinghai?'

‘Sure.'

‘My people: the Tibetan. Minority.'

‘I see.'

That explained a lot of things: her comfort with the vertiginous incline, her mandalas, her terrible greasy tea.

‘How long have you been in Australia?'

‘Five years now.'

‘And you live in Sydney?'

‘For now I live in this cabin.'

‘What brought you to Central Australia?'

She tipped her head back. ‘Aaiee—I see why you are police.'‘Just curious.'

‘Curious!' she said dismissively, then seemed to resign herself to the fact that I was a nosey little bastard. ‘I have colleague in Sydney. Countryman, many years in Australia. Also artist. When I am miss my country, crying for things I have left behind, he tells me to come to this out back. Says I may find here some of the things.'

‘Like what?'

‘My god, this Emily Tempest!' Her bevelled face shivered in the half-light. ‘Things in common? Where to begin! Hawks and stars. Men on horseback. Ghosts and ropes of air. Gods who live in songs and make mountains. Pushy women! Dreams!' She rose to her feet. ‘For which it is time, no?'

She threw the remnants of her noxious brew into the darkness, went inside. Presumably that was goodnight.

Pushy women? She could talk! The past was clearly a no-go area.

I unleashed the bedroll, climbed aboard, lay staring into the fiery sky and thinking about landscapes and the people they gave birth to.

Running with the wonder dog

I WENT OVER EARLY
the next morning, came across June mopping a slop of god-knows-what off the lounge floor.

She raised a wet hand and a weary brow, drawled my name.

‘Morning, June. Boy up and about?'

‘Meat shed.' She flicked a thumb in its direction.

‘What's that, his home away from home?'

She rolled her eyes: ‘Got his little chores he likes to attend.'

I eyed the menu. ‘What's a girl gotta do to get a feed round here?'

‘Sandy's still recovering from last night, but I can knock you up some bacon and eggs.'

‘The perfect antidote.'

‘To what?'

I grimaced. ‘Jet's rice gruel.'

‘You had breakfast with Jet?'

‘Got in late last night. You looked a little hectic—she was the closest thing to a B&B. B1 was okay, but the breakfast was crap.'

June smiled. ‘Did you try the greasy tea?'

‘The gruel's worse. Never was quite sure what the word gruel meant—now I know. It's a combination of glue and cruel.'

‘Maybe we ought to put it on the menu, number of Asians we're getting through.'

‘Just don't let it contaminate the food.'

I went off in search of her husband.

Stiffy the hyperactive hound was on guard at the meat shed door, and put on the usual hysterical display.

Redman was laying into a slab of something that had been mooching around a paddock not long before. This was obviously the high point of his day: he was a man who loved the heft of a weapon, the crackle and crunch of frozen bone. He turned round, seemed—if the energy he put into the next blow was any indication—as happy to see me as the dog was.

‘Miss Tempest.'

He laid the cleaver aside, stretched his back, rearranged the contents of his Y-fronts. He was charmingly attired today in off-white slacks—a mile or two off—matching singlet and an overhanging roll of blubber. The combination of heat, cold and sweat was doing alarming things to the scribbly veins in his nose. He gave vent to the wheezy exhalation of the seriously out-of-condition man.

‘What brings you out this way?' he enquired.

‘Just come in from the Gunshot Road.'

‘Goldfields?'

‘Further west.'

‘Chip off the old block, eh? Prospecting?'

‘Maybe, but not for gold. I'm on duty—had a few questions I wanted to ask.'

A slight crimping at the temples. ‘Fire away.'

‘I understand you've got a mineral lease out west.'

He looked as cagey as a camp dog—and as itchy; either that or he was trying to invigorate a frost-bitten nostril. ‘And if I have?'

‘In partnership with Doc, is it?'

He gave me a malignant stare. Stiffy caught the mood, resumed yapping.

‘Bugger me breathless,' said Redman, ‘is this never going to end?'

‘You could get a labrador.'

‘I mean the trouble that old fool is causing me, even after he's kicked the bucket. First I have to put up with his lunatic ravings and his hopeless work ethic, and now I get some smartarse little midget copper coming in here looking like she thinks I shanked him.'

I nodded at the cleaver. ‘Well you do seem to know your way around a sharp implement.'

The stare intensified.

‘Look, all I want's a few straight answers, and I'll leave you and Stiffy in peace. Tell me about the lease.'

The flakes of ice on his brow rearranged themselves, like iron filings on a magnet. ‘Lease? Which one?'

‘The one out west.'

‘Yeah, but which one out west?'

‘You got more than one?'

‘Had half a dozen of em over the years. Each time it's the same bullshit story: Doc worked out there years ago, prospecting for Copperhead. Reckoned he'd sussed out the mother of all lodes, the other half of Broken Hill, Lasseter's fuckin Reef, whatever—all he needed was a bit of help to find it. So I bankrolled him, paid for the leases and fitted him out, even fed the crazy bastard. And it wasn't until I actually went out there…'

‘You went bush with Doc?'

‘Mostly I just forked out the money and signed the leases. Didn't head out west with him till early this year. Wanted to see what he was actually doing with my money.'

Looked like Doc had been conning every able-bodied man in the region into chauffeuring for him.

‘Where'd you go?'

‘Where didn't we go? All over the del Fuego, far as I could figure out: a great long scraggly expedition to hell and back, roughest country you could imagine, scorpions and snakes, broken axles, punctures. Took me a week of bloody misery to work it out.'

‘To work what out?'

His mouth narrowed into a tight circle. ‘That it was crap, the whole thing! Doc couldn't have cared less about gold—what he was trying to do was figure the geology. Measuring faults and fracture lines, testing the water. He'd only taken out the leases so no other bugger'd come along and rough it up before he'd had a proper look at it. Oh, he could spruik, all right—raving about rainforests, glaciers…'

‘And snowballs?'

‘Yeah, he told me about the snowballs. Ice across the desert sixty million years ago'—out by an order of ten, but never mind—‘but gold? Minerals? Anything that's gonna put dinner on the table? Nada!'

‘Breakfast, Emily!' June's voice came drizzling out of the dining room.

I turned back to her husband, was mildly alarmed to see him running a fat finger along the length of the cleaver. I instinctively backed off.

‘Been back there since?'

‘Flat out runnin this place.'

‘But your name's still on the exploration licences…'

‘Well I did pay for the bloody things.'

‘And you'll reap whatever benefits there are.'

‘Oh for Christ's sake!' He slammed the cleaver into the side of beef. ‘This is harassment.'

‘Noel?' June appeared in the doorway. She studied him anxiously, then turned to me.

‘Maybe you better come and have breakfast, Emily. Noel's been under a lot of pressure lately.' She looked back at her husband, who was still shaking. ‘Have you had your tablets, darl?'

‘Tablets!' Anger chopping holes in his diction. ‘Like to find her a fuckin tablet—made of marble.'

‘Now Noel, that's not going to…'

‘Little bitch barges in here, virtually saying I killed the old…'

‘I'm sure that's not what she meant.'

Maybe it wasn't, I said to myself as I walked away. But I'm sure as hell thinking about it now.

I sat down to breakfast. I suppose it was bacon and eggs, but it could have been grilled gruel for all I noticed, so furiously was my mind swarming with questions.

How far could I believe Redman? He'd sounded convincing, I had to admit; if he could fake that amount of aggro he was up there with Robert De Niro. But I wasn't ready to dismiss the possibility Doc had stumbled across something of value and been killed for it.

Then again, what about Mr Pig's Head? He'd been growing something out there, and it wasn't cauliflowers. Could Doc have sprung him, threatened to turn him in? He'd been a cantankerous old bastard at the best of times.

And where did Wishy Ozolins fit into all of this? For some reason I couldn't shake the suspicion—the fear, almost, because I liked the man—that he did.

I paid my bill, drove back to the shack, parked in the shade of Doc's carport. Noticed, for the first time, a little row of faded flags on the side of the veranda.

Jet was on her knees, chisel in one hand, hammer in the other, ferociously laying into a slab of granite. The flare of her shoulder blades, the ripple down the spine: she was oblivious to everything but the job at hand.

I stood back, studied her creation.

The patch of dirt beside the shack was covered in a strangely magnetic web of rocks and wood. Quartz crystals were positioned about the installation in a way that sent their reflected light sheering like water down corridors of stone.

A series of sketches lay against the edge of the rocks. I saw they were interpretations of Doc's original formation, made from every conceivable perspective and covered in diagrams and dotted lines, circles and arrows, mathematical equations.

‘This is how you…investigate, then?'

She turned around, her eyes mercurial. Downed tools, stood up, ran her hands across her face, her tongue across her lips. She was wearing blue shorts, a black singlet, dirty boots and a river of sweat.

‘This creation of the Doc's—it fascinates. I try to—to copy? Yes. But more. To complete. To give that man the silence for which he would search.'

‘When you find it, let me know what it looks like, will you?'

She flashed sharp little fox teeth. ‘It begins, perhaps, with a cup of tea?'

‘Maybe a quick one before I hit the road. But please—I'll be mother.'

I ignored her puzzled expression, went inside, scoured the cupboards, found some of Doc's old Bushells. Made two teas, one black, the other yellow, joined her on the veranda. She had her boots off, her beautifully shaped feet exposed to the morning sun.

I sat there, my gaze drawn irresistibly to her creation.

‘Where'd you learn to do that sort of work, Jet?'

‘In nunnery.'

I sprayed a mouthful of tea across my knees. ‘You're a nun?'

‘In Qinghai—many make nun. When young woman, I make the—how you say? Promise?'

‘Vow?'

‘Vow. Our work restoring the sculpture destroyed in Culture Revolution.'

‘Lot of things destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, I know.'

She tossed her head, spat. ‘Is karma. But I find the figures I make—the carving and the hammers—they overwhelm. Rise up inside, will not lie down. For me, I understand, it is the art that is my path. My fate.'

‘So you threw away the beads and took up the hammer?'

A wry movement of the lips. ‘Some of the beads. Sometimes the hammer.'

We sat there quietly, soaked up the serenity. Enjoy it while you can, I told myself—serenity will be a scarce commodity once Cockburn gets his hooks into you. You shouldn't be doing this, you should be getting back to town, facing the music. I closed my eyes, came close to drifting off. Jet lay a foot against mine.

Yap! Yap! Yap! I sprang up and spilled my tea.

There was a demented toilet brush dancing frantically at the foot of the stairs: Stiffy the Wonder Dog—the wonder being that no bastard had put him out of our misery yet—had tracked me down.

He bounced about, tail bristling, lower teeth taking up most of his face. I wondered whether he'd been trained to hate Asians as much as he hated blacks, whether he was an equal opportunity bigot.

I found a lump of wood, waved it at him. ‘Gworn ya little mongrel, piss off!'

Stiffy went apeshit. Dogshit, in fact. He just about came in mid-air, such was his excitement. He had a go at my leg, so I kicked him into a spiralling backward somersault.

Fuck, that was an annoying animal. I rose to go inside.

‘Desist,' snapped Jet.

I turned around.

Stiffy was gone.

‘Shit—you learn that in the nunnery?'

‘I surprise myself. The dog has perhaps found something more interesting.'

She walked to the edge of the veranda, stood with her hands on her hips. ‘It ascends the slope.'

I glanced across at the pub. Speaking of interesting, the first customers had arrived.

One of them was a beige pickup with a pig's head on the bull-bar.

‘You know that Toyota, Jet?'

She peered across at it. ‘I see the people more than what they drive.'

‘Bit hard to ignore that one: it's got a pig's head on it.'

‘Ah yes—a man with a lead beard.'

‘Lead?'

She frowned. ‘Red.'

‘He gotta name?'

‘You do not talk to that one. He has wall around him—invisible bricks, no? But I have heard him called—Blent, perhaps?'

Blent. ‘He a regular, this Blent?'

‘Perhaps not. Sometimes on a weekend, a fly…Friday night.'

‘Maybe the name's Brent.'

‘That is what I said. I believe he is a man from Bluebush.'

I nodded, pleased to have saved myself a bit of running around. Like I'd guessed, the feller was a townie.

‘Might have a word with him before I go.'

She was studying my face with interest. ‘Do you ever take a moment to look around, meditate upon the silence?'

‘Course I do. Sometimes.' I scratched my chin, wondering when the hell I ever did anything that could be remotely described as ‘meditating upon silence'.

‘Ah, I think not.' She stretched her legs, closed her eyes, let the morning sun wash over her face. ‘For me, it is the silence that defines this country. The peace.'

The words were barely out of her mouth when the cliff overhanging the cabin fell on top of us.