Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (45 page)

In the cool shadows of the homestead cellar, Dad talked until his jaw muscles softened and his mouth began to gape. Rot got him in the end, as it gets everything. When he could no longer talk, Mum and I carried him out of the cellar on the tarp and propped him against a tree on a far corner of the property, where he indicated he wanted to stay.

My last glimpse of him is graven forever in my mind. He looked like a rag doll abandoned by a child—by the world—with his legs splayed and his arms hanging limply at his sides. Only his eyes, sunken though they were, showed any sign of life. In them I saw a sadness that I hoped never to feel.

Mum and I returned to the homestead in the ute without him—a widow and her only son. As she drove, she told me that we were going to have to leave. Years later, when I analyzed her reaction to Dad’s death in hindsight, I realized that she hadn’t known either. Dad’s talking corpse had unsettled her terribly, and I could understand her wanting to cut free from everything that reminded her of him. At the time, though, it hurt to leave my home, and my father’s remains.

Two weeks after he died we sold up and packed everything into crates. Whoever bought the land got it at a small fraction of its true value. Mum didn’t care about money, as long as we had enough to survive. She just wanted to get away.

From everything. To Sydney: the largest city in Australia, home to three and a half million living, breathing people of a hundred different cultures and national origins. Japanese punks, English stoics, German artists, New Zealand body-builders, South African Catholics, Vietnamese toy-boys, American drug-dealers, Dutch prostitutes ... The list is endless. There is nothing, it seems sometimes, that Sydney will not hide, or at least drown into insignificance.

But that still wasn’t enough. Mum worked until I was sixteen and old enough to fend for myself, then she left me to live in Melbourne. I guess I was just something else that reminded her of Dad. Except for cards, and a cheque every Christmas, I’ve never heard from her since. Understanding her misgivings, I’ve left her in peace.

And although I’ve been tempted to many times, I’ve never gone back to look for Dad’s bones. His explanation of the family ‘curse’, brief and simple though it was, was haunting enough.

Owen males die young, and generally through violence. Old Max got in the way of a cattle stampede; my grandfather was run over by a tractor; Dad bled to death after shooting himself in the shoulder; I have smashed my skull on a rock. The curse—if curse it is, not freak of nature—usually takes effect before we turn thirty, robbing us of our middle years and old age that perhaps we have every right to expect.

But it doesn’t end there. Old Max was the grandson of Gerald, the first Owen to flee England and live in Australia, one hundred and fifty years ago. He moved outback to avoid the rumours that followed him, met a young native girl and settled down, hoping that a little dilution might end the family troubles.

Sadly, indigenous blood did nothing to water down his legacy. All it gave us was a predilection for dark hair and round features. Subsequent generations—isolated on the family property in the vast outback of Australia—have continued the tradition.

And now, just as Dad said it would be—twenty-three years ago, through the mouth of his own rotting corpse—it’s my turn. I may not understand it, but that’s not my problem.

My problem is simple, if I don’t think about it too much: I have to reach Sydney in time to warn Kerry. That’s not the most important thing, but it’s enough to keep me focused. Hatred burns much more brightly at the moment than grief, although I feel that too. It isn’t easy being dead and knowing that time is running out.

At least I, unlike so many ‘normal’ people, have the chance to avenge an unjust death.

Whether the blow to my head failed to kill me and the fall finished me off, or I was already dead before I hit the bottom of the shaft, it doesn’t matter. The next thing I remember is opening my eyes and seeing stars.

Real stars, shining down the throat of the shaft.

I wondered if I was dreaming.

You’re not,
said a voice.
Get up, Billy.

I looked around for the source of the voice, but could find no one. I was alone.

Around your neck, boy.

I looked down. The only thing around my neck, beneath my clothes, was Old Max.

That’s right,
said the voice in a silent whisper.
Your guardian angel, if you like. The fall killed you, and I’m here to make sure you finish the job.

What job?

Stephen, of course. You never told him, did you?

I hesitated, momentarily thrown off balance. Was it really Old Max talking or just that part of me had come off the rails after the fall? The latter seemed more likely, yet Dad’s warning was fresh in my mind. I couldn’t afford to ignore the possibility that my time had come.

Despite the patent absurdity of this conversation with my ancestor’s thumb, I found myself feeling guilty.

Of course I didn’t tell him. How could I?

That’s beside the point. You have to now.
Old Max’s voice was warm in my head, not crotchety at all. I suddenly realized that he must have been about my age when he died.
Time’s ticking away, Billy. Best you get moving.

My watch had broken in the fall, but I guessed that only an hour or two had passed. My body felt numb as I staggered to my feet, as though I had the flu. The back of my head was a mass of splintered bone and brains. Dirt had got into the wound, but that didn’t bother me: infection was the least of my concerns. More worrying was the stiffness already spreading through my muscles. I had to get out of the hole before rigor turned my limbs to stone.

A rope ladder eventually took me to the surface, where I rolled onto my back to rest. I wasn’t out of breath—I no longer needed to breathe except out of habit—but I still had some catching up to do. Despite having had most of my life to think about it, my death still came as a shock.

The truth of it only really hit home when I saw that Graeme’s van was gone, and that the blood had been carefully scuffed from the lip of the shaft. Whatever had struck me—a crow-bar, probably— was also gone. No evidence remained, in other words, to indicate that foul play had occurred. If anyone found my body, the obvious assumption would be that I had fallen to my death unassisted.

I suppressed a bitter smile at that thought, wondering how many other business partners had met fates like mine in the opal fields. Coober Pedy is the perfect place for such treachery. Not only do the opals provide a motive, and the countless old shafts a convenient means of disposing of a body, but the town itself—where people live underground in order to hide from the heat of the day—has all the charm of a graveyard. I’d always hated it, and couldn’t imagine what had led me to try to get rich there.

I’d been
murdered.
The thought sent a shiver of anger through my stiffening flesh. I
trusted
him ...

Graeme may have taken his van, but the Commodore was still there, with the keys in the ignition. Convenient, but only to be expected. He’d want it to look like I’d arrived late, had a couple of drinks at the bar, then come out to the claim to see what we’d found. Slightly pissed, I’d lost my footing, fallen in and cracked my skull open. All too plausible.

Only I knew better. And the last thing he’d expect would be my undead body to climb out of the pit, like some zombie from an open grave. Which is what, in almost every sense, I truly was.

And what I
am.

A corpse by another name still smells, Billy,
says Old Max, as he did then.

Remembering the gore-flicks I’d watched as a teenager, always with a tinge of uncertainty—dread of what I knew even then was going to happen to me—I asked Old Max: I thought being undead was all about getting revenge?

It’s not. Not for you, anyway.

So Graeme’s going to get away scot-free?

Why not? What business is it of yours now? You’re dead, remember
?

Exactly! It doesn’t seem fair ...

You do what you want then,
whispered Old Max into my head.
Just don’t take too long.

The first place I went after stumbling from the pit was Graeme’s hotel. He had checked out that morning and chartered a light plane. Or so he’d told the clerk to give himself an alibi. When I drove out to the airfield, I did indeed find his rust-bucket parked near the tiny terminal, awaiting his return. I guessed that he’d flown to Alice Springs or another outpost—anywhere but here, where my body lay.

Had lain. Being mobile in death gave me an edge, if I wanted to take advantage of it: I had plenty of time to report his actions to the police. But I could imagine how it would look when the victim presented himself at the local station to report his own murder. I would be detained for days, maybe refrigerated or frozen, possibly even autopsied. Not pretty—and not truly necessary either, as Old Max said.

I absently pat my thigh for reassurance. The thumb-bone is still in my pocket, but I can’t feel it any longer. My legs have gone numb. Gas is building up in my stomach cavity, and I fight the need to burp. God knows, the interior of the wagon must stink enough as it is. To give me something to clench, I take the bone whistle and put it between my lips. Despite my lack of respiration, its whispering voice seems oddly louder as a result, and more personable.

Back in my day, this sort of thing would have been impossible,
Old Max says.
You’d need a week or two just to get from Coober Pedy to Adelaide. Then another month to reach Sydney ... You don’t realize how lucky you are, Billy.

Yeah, right. I’m dead.

But you still have time to put things right. Remember that.

I do. For once, I understand him completely. The hatred is fading with time, as accepting my fate becomes less of an effort and more habitual. Only gradually does the inevitable alternative come to take its place.

On the great, endless freeways of this empty continent my Commodore is just a toy. Road trains roar past with a whoosh of air and dust, shaking me from my meditations for an instant then disappearing around a bend. I wonder sometimes if the drivers of these massive, metal dinosaurs are dead, too. That might explain a lot.

I wonder if they are lonely.

I refuel in Renmark, just shy of the Victorian border, keeping my jacket on as always and ignoring the curious stare of another young attendant as I pay. Back in the Commodore, I feel blood squelch in my buttocks where it has settled. My face in the rear vision mirror is pasty and beginning to puff. Gross.

I leave South Australia. An hour or so later I cross the Murray River at Mildura and enter New South Wales. The minutes and kilometres are passing quickly now: over half-way. Choosing the northern approach through Hay, I stop to refuel again, and for a quick walk to shift some of the gunk congealing in my lower extremities. I look like someone’s filled my calves and thighs with jelly.

Still, there is no pain. There’s only a sense of urgency, mounting steadily as my long, lonely drive continues. I have to warn Kerry. And Stephen ...

At that moment, the sorrow hits—so deep that I am unable to do anything but pound the steering wheel in frustration. I stop the Commodore again as my vision clouds. I am crying, which surprises me even through the grief. I didn’t know that corpses could cry.

When I raise my dead fingers to touch my cheeks, they come away dark and sticky. The burp I’ve been fighting for hours finally comes out.
That
hurts. I try to get a grip on myself, but fail; the despair is too strong.

Don’t fall apart now
, I hear old Max whisper, and the joke— intended or not—almost makes me smile. For an imaginary old soul, his sense of humour is awful.

Well
,
what do you expect
? he shoots back.
I’m a
bone,
for Christ’s sake. The only brains I have are yours, grand-son of my grand-son’s son. At least I’m trying to do something—not sitting in a car sobbing about how unfair life is.

And it isn’t?

Maybe, but that doesn’t mean you have to take it lying down. They’ll find you out here in a couple of days, and what good will that have done anyone? You’ll just be another mystery body in the middle of nowhere. Make your death
mean
something, boy, like I have. Leave something behind. Make it easier for those who follow. Do your bit for future generations—and all that crap.

It’s not crap ...

Then get off your fat arse and get on with it!

I shrug my failing body into action and start the wagon. The sun is setting behind me as I do so, and the sky is grey ahead. The world is losing its colour drop by drop, sucked out by the vampire moon. It’s already hard to tell where the Western Highway stops and the countryside starts.

I flick on the lights and accelerate.

Good man
, says Old Max.
Not far now ...

Sure. Only six hundred kilometres.

Whatever you say, it’s still not far. Not for you.

I grip the wheel and plunge onward, Old Max’s thumb clenched tight between my teeth. Dad gave me the whistle when Mum and I laid him to rest. I could see how much it meant to him then, as his eyes followed us back to the ute. He was alone at the end, which is enough to make even a very brave man sad. And I feel for him more than ever now.