Gunshot Road (2 page)

Waiting for the man

I THREADED MY WAY
down the sand tracks and reached the outskirts of town. I stopped at Jockey Johnson's house, washed the ochre from my body with his garden hose, feeling a trace of regret: Hazel had painted me herself, and such was the deftness of her touch, even a painted body became a work of art.

I slipped into the khaki cop shirt they'd given me, folded up the bloke-length sleeves and unrolled the pants. Kept unrolling. I held them up: my predecessor must have been Serena Williams. The belt was going to buckle over my sternum. And wide? I could have stashed a bullock in there.

I decided to stick with the denim dress for now; it was short and cool, practical. Tom would understand. I was only a Clayton's cop, and since he'd been promoted to superintendent he had enough uniform for both of us.

I walked through the still-dark streets, gave a couple of dogs the evil eye. Sprung Hooch Miller pissing off his front porch.

‘Bit of decorum, please, Hooch!' I called.

He paused, midstream, peered into the dark. ‘Who's 'at?'

‘Emily.'

‘Tempest?'

‘Yep.'

‘That's orright then,' he said, getting back to the business in hand.

I cut across the lawn of the police station, hesitated, then ran my fingers across the bark of the ancient ghost gum there. Felt its smooth white strength. Wondered if that would be enough to get me through the day.

The Bluebush cop-shop. As a kid I'd been terrified of this place: to me and my mob it was the locus of all fear, the dark tower in a mediaeval legend, the place where little children—and grown men—went in and never came out. Now I was enlisting as one of its foot soldiers.

I knocked on the door, called out. Nobody answered.

Beaten the bastards, I thought with some satisfaction. Where was McGillivray's much-vaunted twenty-four seven community protection? I sat under the tree and waited.

Generators hummed, crickets called. A truck rattled into the loading bay of the supermarket over the road; a fat bloke in singlet and shorts—a member of the lumpy proletariat—emerged from the cabin, whistling magnificently, began hurling trays about.

A red F-250 truck drew into the car park. Two men climbed out, leaned against the tray, folded their arms, waited.

Cops: the body language was eloquent, even if the words were few. Neither of them noticed me.

One was stocky, double-chinned, wore his belly like a weapon; he had an A-frame mustache and a head like a wild pig. The other was stringy, with red hair, blistered lips and an Adam's apple I could spot at twenty feet: a long, thin face, like a blacksmith had laid it on an anvil and taken to it with a hammer.

‘He's late,' grumbled A-frame. A surly timbre, even with his mate.

I held back.

From the car, the rhythm of a radio. ‘Mother and Child Reunion'. The riff shivered my soul. I thought, fleetingly, of my own mother, a Wanyi woman from the Gulf country, dead for more than twenty years. My father mourned her still, had never remarried.

Another copper—muffin-shaped body, shaved head—came shambling down the road. This one was all too familiar: Constable Rex Griffiths, a neighbour of mine when I lived in town. I climbed to my feet. Hesitated.

‘Where's the super?' I heard Griffo enquire.

‘Fucked if we know. Said he'd be here by five-thirty.'

‘Breakfast.' Griffo tossed a couple of greasy packages at them. I recognised the smell: hamburgers from the BP all-nighter. ‘With the lot.'

‘Beetroot?' asked Adam's Apple.

‘Course. Nothin beats a root.'

‘Speakin of which, doesn't our little black bint start today?'

‘That'll be interesting.'

A dig in the ribs. ‘Come on, Griffo, I heard you fancied her.'‘Gimme a break!'

‘But those tits?'

‘Yeah, and that mouth! And the look when you piss her off-like a fuckin blowtorch!'

I gave a little cough, stepped out from under the trees, thumbs in my pockets.

‘Morning boys.' Silence: a row of open mouths, slithering eyes. ‘Slack bastard, that McGillivray.'

I filled the awkward interval that followed by getting out the papers and rolling a smoke. Griffo was busy choking on his burger, but he did manage a round of beetroot-splattered introductions: the pig-man was Senior Constable Darren Harley, the redhead was Bunter Goodwin.

They all looked enormously relieved when McGillivray's Cruiser came rolling down the road. But it wasn't the superintendent at the wheel. The tinted window descended and the driver, a senior sergeant I didn't recognise, leaned over and told us to get in. ‘Not you, Griffiths. McGillivray wants you to man the station.'

My new colleagues hopped to it—without, I noticed, the banter that would have accompanied an order from McGillivray himself. I rated the briefest of acknowledgments as I settled into the back seat.

‘You'll be the new ACPO, then?' Observant. ‘Emily, is it?'

‘Yep.'

‘Bruce Cockburn. No smoking in the car, thanks.'

‘Sorry.' I killed it.

‘Government vehicle,' he expanded.

‘Right.'

He frowned, popped a stick of spearmint into his mouth with a vigour that made me suspect he was a recovering smoker himself. He had a deep-tanned face, blond hair, pepper-flecked, crisp cut. Smooth, regular features you might have called handsome if it weren't for the hint of a sneer curdling his upper lip. His forehead gleamed in the streetlight, as if he worked saddle cream into it before going to bed.

He examined me with harsh blue eyes. ‘Thought they gave you a uniform?'

I gestured at the shoulder tabs of my flash new shirt.

‘Where are the pants?'

‘They came up to my neck.'

He looked at my neck, didn't seem to like what he saw.

‘Where's the super?' asked Griffo, still malingering on the footpath.

‘Up in Emergency.'

‘What happened?'

‘One of our'—the flicker of a glance in my direction—‘indigenous brothers gave him a smack in the face.'

I read the glance. Shrugged to myself. Not my brother's keeper.

‘What's the damage?'

‘Broken nose. Maybe a skull fracture.'

‘Shit.'

‘Waiting for the X-rays when I left.'

He pulled away, left Griffo gawping on the pavement. He slowed down when we reached the hospital.

‘We paying a visit?' I asked. ‘I would have bought flowers.'

‘Not we,' said Cockburn. ‘You.'

‘Oh?'

‘Superintendent said he wants a word before we go down to Green Swamp.'

The man with the ice-cream face

I WALKED INTO EMERGENCY
. Nobody home. A woman somewhere behind a curtain sounded pissed off with the service: ‘But Doc, I got a lump on me arse the size of a tennis ball!'

‘I have told you—it is a cyst.' A sharp, slightly accented voice. ‘It will go away of its own accord.'

The Bluebush Hospital bragged about its open-door policy, so I thought I'd give it a work-out. I pushed in through the swinging doors.

A doctor—harried, hard-nosed, wearing her coat like a kevlar vest—sprang out of a cubicle and snapped at me, ‘Who are you? What do you want?'

‘Tom McGillivray.'

‘No you're not.'

‘He's what I want. Emily Tempest's who I am. He's my boss.' Somewhat belatedly, she noticed the uniform. Fair enough; it wasn't much of a uniform. I wouldn't have noticed it myself if I hadn't been wearing it. She nodded at a cubicle. ‘He's in there.'

I drew back the curtain.

McGillivray was stretched out on a hospital trolley, and a more miserable sight I'd never laid eyes on. He was draped in a blood-stained hospital gown, knobbly knees spread left and right. A glimpse of something more horribly knobbly in between. His eyes were shut, his mouth would have looked better if it was too. There seemed to be fewer teeth than I remembered. His head was partially eclipsed by a massive bandage through which his fat nose protruded: the general effect was of a man who'd had an ice-cream cone rammed into his face.

On his chest, folded open, face down, was a book. I walked over, looked at the title.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

‘Where you want us to bury the rest of you?'

The bruised eyes crept open. Slowly, painfully, he tilted his head in my direction, groaned. ‘Town tip'd do nicely.'

‘Hate to tell you this Tom, but your donger's on display.'

He glanced down, delicately rearranged the covers.

I examined his face. ‘What's the damage?'

‘Nose in two places. Cheekbone in three.'

‘Pride?'

‘Multiple.'

‘So who was it? The Sandhill Gang?'

A painful silence.

‘Come on, Tom. I'm here to avenge you. The Westside Boys? Dick Pennyfeather?'

‘It was dark.'

‘Tom…'

He sighed, dropped his head back down onto the pillow. Mumbled, ‘Aaangsaf…'

‘Sorry?'

A deep breath. ‘Googangzaf…'

‘Not the Crankshafts?'

The ghost of a nod.

‘You poor bastard.' The Crankshafts were the most ferocious family in the district, and had been carrying on a running battle with the cops since the day of the horse and saddle. ‘Which one? Spider?'

No response.

‘Bernie?'

Nothing.

‘Godsake Tom—not all of them?' En masse, they were a sight to make the blood run cold and the feet run hot.

He mumbled into the bandages. ‘Goo-gee'.

‘Sorry, almost sounded like you said “Cookie”.'

‘I did.'

I tried and failed to keep a straight face.

Cookie Crankshaft, the grandfather of the clan, was one of my favourite countrymen, if for no other reason than that he was about the only one I could stand up and look straight in the eye. Neither Cookie nor I, in the unimaginable event of our wanting to, would have come up to Tom's nipples.

And then there was the minor matter of a walking frame.

‘Come across him staggering round the bottom of Stealer's Wheel, marinated as per usual. The crowd's coming out of the Speedway any tick, so I try to get him off the road.' He touched his face, gingerly, flinched. ‘Pitch black, didn't see a thing, but I think he smacked me with the frame. Either that or he had a star picket in his pants. When I woke up my head felt like it had gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson's teeth.'

‘Serves you right for hassling defenceless old drunks.'

He rolled his eyes, an action that appeared to give him grief. ‘About this job. When you agreed to take it on…'

‘You mean when I gave in to your blackmail?'

‘I figured I'd be around to keep an eye on you.'

‘Well I'll be in Sergeant Cockburn's capable hands now.'

‘Ugh…Cockburn…' He flopped back into the pillows.

‘Come on Tom, spit it out.'

‘Hear he's a top squash player.'

‘Ah.' That was a worry.

‘Only been over here a couple of months. Transfer from Queensland. You and him…'

‘Yes?'

‘He seems like a competent operator—plays it by the book. It's just…'

I helped him out. ‘Nobody's told him the book hasn't been written yet?'

He gave a weary half-smile. ‘Take a fuckin Shakespeare on speed to write the book for Bluebush.' He tried to get comfortable. Failed. ‘Look, I dunno who shoved a burr up his arse, but—don't you rub it the wrong way.'

‘I see.' The horrible image of me rubbing anything at all in the vicinity of Cockburn's arse defied elaboration.

I jumped to my feet. No point in hanging round. ‘Don't you worry about me, Tom. Me and him, maybe we'll write the book between us.'

That wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. Either that or the painkillers were wearing off.

Hit the road running

IT HADN'T TAKEN ME
long to make McGillivray's day; the sky was just starting to lighten. The police Toyota was loitering in the ambulance bay, motor running, lights low. I climbed aboard. My fellow passengers said nothing. Cockburn reversed, gunned her out onto the highway: the Toyota was on cruise control, and so was he.

The streetlights and houses thinned out, then fell away, their places taken by the saltbush and spinifex which dominate the Bluebush environs. Termite mounds loomed in the gathering light like an army of terracotta warriors.

Harley and Bunter struck up a desultory conversation about dog obedience training. Evidently Harley's bouncy young mongrel had been playing it fast and loose with the chickens; Bunter was dubious about the tactical response.

‘Mate, I could understand you bashing its head in with a hammer, but did you have to do it in front of the
kids
?'

Harley shrugged. ‘They're the ones wanted a dog.'

‘At a
barbeque
?'

‘What's it matter where? They gotta learn.'

Jesus wept. I turned for relief to the scenery, the objects rushing by: white plastic posts, red echoing reflectors, livid pinks and blues rippling in the east.

I gazed at the horizon and there, just for a moment, felt a shivering intimation of something loping along beyond it. Something quicksilver bright, ominous. Pulsating with animal heat.

What was that?

I was unaccountably shaken. The reflection of my own discomfort at the job I was doing? A premonition of the threatened heatwave?

I thought of Gypsy. Kandiyi karlujana. The song is broken.

A violent orange blob wobbled onto the horizon. Golden rays came levelling in through skeletal branches, flooded the inside of the cabin, copper-plating the coppers and gilding chrome. Cockburn's ears glowed like radioactive apricots.

As we climbed into the hills south of town, we pulled past an abandoned wreck on the side of the road. A green HQ Holden—battered about, not much in the way of window glass but four tyres. More paint than rust. A blackfeller car.

Abandoned?

There was something familiar about it. I scrolled through the database of community vehicles I kept inside my head. Maybe Magpie Jangala, a Kantulyu man from Stonehouse Creek.

I took a closer look. Something was out of place. There was a slight turbulence in the air. Ribbons of red dust—more dust than Magpie's old wagon should have stirred—trembled on shafts of light.

‘Mind pulling over for a moment, sarge?' I said quietly.

‘What?' said Cockburn.

‘Something I want to check out.'

The shoulder blades went into defensive mode. ‘We only just left town.'

‘The blackfeller car,' said Bunter, who must have followed my gaze.

‘For Christ's sake!' Cockburn spat. ‘This isn't a breakdown service. We're on our way to a homicide.'

‘Just for a second? There's…'

‘No.'

‘Stop the bloody car!' I heard myself yell, and Cockburn seemed as surprised as I was to find it slamming to a halt.

I was out the door before the wheels stopped rolling. As I sprinted I began to take in other signs of disturbance: scorched bitumen, slewing skid marks in the gravel. Flattened bushes, partially concealed by the Holden.

I broke through the scrub, and there was the chaos I'd expected.

A Range Rover on its back, down in the gully. A bloke lying alongside it, a trio of Aboriginal people around him.

‘Ambulance!' I bellowed at my partners, then dashed down the slope.