Moonlight Downs (28 page)

‘Jesus!’ I heard him exclaim. ‘Tony!’ Then he got to work.

This is one cool bastard, I thought, as I watched him try to save his mate. Must come from running a show out bush. I looked on with growing admiration as he moved into paramedic mode: grabbing a first-aid kit, applying a pressure bandage, attempting a bit of messy CPR.

I stirred myself and did what I could to help, but it was no use.

‘Lost him,’ he murmured a few minutes later, shaking his head, glancing at Blakie’s body and cursing. ‘Fucking thing’s gone through his heart.’

I sat on the step, my own heart pierced by a raft of black emotions. Dejection, shock, dismay. And not a touch of guilt. What a mess, I brooded. What an A-grade fucking disaster. And I got the poor bastards into it.

‘What was his name?’ I asked.

‘What?’ asked Bernie, looking up at me.

‘Your mate. I didn’t even know his name.’

‘Tony,’ Bernie murmured darkly. ‘Tony D’loia.’

‘He have any family?’

‘Family?’ For a moment he looked as though he didn’t know the meaning of the word, then he shook his head. ‘None that I know of. Just us, I suppose. We were partners. Poor bugger—all he was looking forward to was a quiet drink in the beer garden.’

‘You’re heading in for Bluebush?’

‘We were. Fellers have been working hard for weeks.’

I went over and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I can’t tell you how bad I feel about all this, Bernie. If I’d known I was bringing this maniac down on top of you…’

He glanced at me, then looked away, shaking his head. ‘Wasn’t your fault…’

What was left of his outfit had picked itself up out of the bulldust and staggered in to join us by now. First came Camel, gradually unscrambling his brains after his encounter with Blakie. Then Mal, the front passenger and, I realised, his occasional flatmate. Last time I’d seen the bloke he’d been decorating the couch. On closer inspection he looked like a lot of other miners I’d met over the years: head like a dead leatherjacket above a shapeless bulk; gruff, morose, baggy-bearded and blue singleted.

‘Christ,’ rasped Camel, staring at his murdered workmate. ‘Tony. Is he…?’

Bernie nodded.

Camel glared malevolently at the outstretched Blakie, whose resident flies had begun to resettle after their recent disturbance.

‘Black bastard!’ he spat. I didn’t feel like arguing the point, bit of a black bastard though I might have been myself.

Either Mal wasn’t as close to the dead man or he wasn’t the demonstrative type. Whatever the reason, he didn’t have much to say. He settled against the bull-bar and glowered out into the bush, alone with whatever was oozing through his brain.

For myself, I didn’t care what any of them did or thought. They’d saved my life. At the cost of one of their own. And Bernie Sweet, clearly the head honcho, couldn’t have been more solicitous: he plied me with water and coffee, settled me under a tree, threw a rug across my legs.

‘You sure you’re okay, Emily?’ he enquired, looking over my battered body with an air of deep concern. ‘You’ve had a hell of a shock.’

‘Bit shook up, but I’m fine, thanks. Just amazed to be still in the land of the living.’

‘And you reckon he’s killed someone else back in the camp?’

‘Another couple, looked like. But I wasn’t hanging around for the post-mortem. And there’s a woman missing.’

‘We’ll get you back to town as soon as possible. You ought to see a doctor. But what about this missing woman?’

‘Her name’s Hazel. I reckon I know where she’ll be—if she’s still alive.’

He glanced at his battered workmates, then said, ‘Give me a few minutes to sort things out, then we’ll see what we can do to help. There’s nothing more we can do here.’ It was a generous offer, given the circumstances.

He went back to the truck and fired up a short-wave under the dash. I sat in the shade of a whitewood tree, leaned my back against its rough bark and nursed my coffee. Normally I would have found it vile: a murky conglomeration of UHT, sugar and bore water. Right now it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever tasted. Every sip savoured of salvation. Heaven in a pannikin. Alive alive-o.

I settled back, closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Suddenly exhausted and content to let this competent dude run things. Not my usual modus operandi, but what I’d been through in the last hour would have been enough to make George Orwell turn things over to Big Brother for a bit.

Then I thought,
Hazel.

My peace of mind shattered like a thunder-egg in a fire. Where the hell was she? I scratched the sand with a stick, drew circles and arrows, found myself beginning to shake with fear. Had she gotten away, or was her broken body lying somewhere in the scrub?

What on earth—or out of hell—had possessed Blakie? For a moment I told myself that maybe their absurd affair would be her salvation. Maybe the fact that they slept together would have stayed his hand, inclined him towards mercy?

Christ, I was fooling myself and I knew it. He’d gone right over the edge. From what I’d seen of his rampage today, he’d have killed her as casually as he’d have knocked a goanna on the head.

I pulled myself up.

No, until I knew that she was dead, until I touched her cold body with my own hands, she was still alive. Still out there somewhere.

I’m forever making wagers with myself, and I made one now. If she was alive we’d be okay. The lot of us—me, Hazel, what was left of the Moonlight mob. We’d work our way out of these horrors and we’d flourish. If she wasn’t…

No. I shook my head. It was too awful to contemplate.

I’d never felt so dependent on anybody in my life.

Bernie came back, squatted beside me. I found his presence— not just his bulk but his burly self-confidence, his fluidity, his ease of command—immeasurably reassuring. With him around, at least we had a chance. ‘Police are on their way, but it’ll be a few hours. I told them we’re heading out to find this friend of yours. She may be injured.’

‘From what I’ve seen today that’s not very likely. Blakie doesn’t injure, he slaughters. But thanks.’

‘My God, you don’t have to thank me. If we don’t look out for each other out here, who else will?’ I smiled gratefully. ‘Where do you think she’d be?’

‘Place we used to hang out as kids,’ I told him. ‘Especially when there was trouble.’

‘So where is it, this hideaway?’ he asked.

‘Maybe fifteen, twenty k’s to the north. An old police station.’

‘Police station?’ He gave me a peculiar look, then smiled. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any old policemen out there?’

‘Think they’re long gone.’

I could see myself getting to like this bloke. So calm in a pressure-cooker situation, so measured, and yet thoughtful. Capable of humour, even, at a time like this.

‘Camel’s going to stay back here, with the…with the bodies. He’ll wait for the police. Frankly, he’s still a little too shaken up to be of much use. What did you say your friend’s name was?’

‘Hazel.’

‘Hazel. Okay, if she’s out there we’ll find her. But we’d better check the camp first. If you’re up to it.’

Which we did. And which I wasn’t. Bernie went into the shack alone, while Mal and I sat in the Hino.

The roaring swarm of flies told me that Bernie was checking the bodies. He came out a minute or two later, shaking his head.

‘Unbelievable!’ he muttered. ‘He did a good job. Poor old buggers. I covered them up; least we can do is give them a little dignity.’

I nodded my appreciation. Not everyone out here would have been so sensitive.

‘Let’s see if there’s anyone alive around here.’

A quick search of the camp revealed neither dead nor living. A slower search, this time out as far as the horse yards, told us that Hazel’s little bay was missing. The maze of hoof prints around the yard made it impossible to track. But if Hazel had managed to get away, I was sure she’d head for the gaol.

When I said this to Bernie, he glanced at Mal, who nodded his agreement, then we climbed back aboard the Hino.

‘Okay,’ said Bernie, ‘let’s go!’

Ghost roads

I TOOK them cross country, and we hit the track not far from where we’d had our disastrous encounter with Blakie. I caught a glimpse of poor Camel in the distance, crouching forlornly by a small fire. Sweet drove up and filled him in on our plans. After the vaguest of acknowledgments from the battered, bearded one we set off to find Hazel.

I took them via the Long Yard shortcut, but the track faded into a faint set of wheel marks, then disappeared altogether in a patch of whippet grass. I decided to give directions from the back of the truck, just as the late Tony D’loia had done, and it was as I was changing places that I spotted the first hoof prints in the sand.

Her horse? I wondered. Maybe.

A little further on, at the northern gate, I picked out a foot print. Not just a foot print,
the
foot print, the only one in the world I knew at a glance. The crack in the heel, the long, skating arch.

‘She’s been here!’ I cried. ‘We’re on the right track.’

Bernie gave me a cheery thumbs up.

I climbed aboard, grinning with relief, confident that she was still alive.

My confidence took a downward spiral a few kilometres later when we found the horse itself, lame and alone. We doubled back, searching for the spot where she’d abandoned it. We dismounted, fanned out. We did eventually pick up her tracks, but it took us a good hour to do so, and even then it was only because I’d guessed where she was going. She was heading for the gaolhouse, but taking the longest, toughest route, covering her tracks and cutting across country.

I was puzzled. What was the point? Me she could fool easily enough. But Blakie? Blakie could have tracked a bird through the air.

We pushed on, Mal taking a turn at the wheel now. I took them up through the foothills, over the jump-up, then round the western side of the ranges. From time to time, when something caught my attention, I’d pull him up with a thump on the roof.

Once it was a set of scuff marks, where she’d fallen to the ground. Another time, at the Ngurulu soakage, we came across the remains of a dried-out camel, its teeth little tombstones, its skin rotting away like a carpet left out in the rain.

In the soak itself were fresh holes, but no water.

She was getting thirsty.

Then we found hand prints, stretching for thirty or forty metres. Hand prints! I thought. She’s on her knees. Christ, she must be getting desperate. Was she injured? Or worse, driven out of her mind by the horrors she’d witnessed back at the camp?

The anxiety gnawed at my insides. I could feel her fear. Sometimes, touching her hand prints or studying an acacia bush under which she’d rested, I could almost smell it.

I found myself drumming the roof of the Hino in frustration. I longed to speak to her, to touch her, to reassure her that help was at hand. Christ! I thought, what a godawful nightmare the last few weeks have been for her. First her father, then the rest of her family. Thank God Winnie and the kids were in town when Blakie struck.

We hit the plains and the miles flew by, the wind rattled my eardrums.

The two miners sat in front, neither of them making more than the odd comment. I stood on the tray, clutching the bar and yelling out any change of directions, but our course was usually obvious. Bernie flashed a reassuring smile through the rear window now and again, but for the most part they just stared at the horizon, focusing on the job at hand.

Occasionally they consulted a map. I knew the country better than either of them, of course—I’d grown up among its sun-scoured hills and hollows—and didn’t need a map. I wasn’t looking for landmarks, I was looking for variations. Things out of place. It was something I’d learned from Lincoln. Visitors to the desert sometimes remark upon the amazing long-range vision of those old blackfellers, but it’s not their eyes. Half the poor buggers are just about blind. It’s their minds. So well do they know the lie of the land that they’re quick to spot anything up and running.

And that was how it happened: a dead branch beside the track suddenly sprouted wings and burst into a mopoke. As I followed its line of flight I spotted a tiny blur, out on the far side of the burnt scoria that stretched out under the stern gaze of the Brothers Grim.

‘Over there!’ I yelled, bashing on the roof so hard I put a dent in it. ‘Something moving!’

The truck pulled up. ‘Which way?’ yelled Bernie, his head half out the window as he shaded his eyes and peered into the afternoon glare.

‘Bit more to the left!’

He tried to follow the line of my outstretched arm, then climbed up beside me. ‘You’ve got better eyes than me, Emily.’

‘Follow the line of desert oaks until you come to the gap in the cliffs.’ The cliffs, coincidentally, that I’d been standing upon earlier this morning as I sat and peered out over the plains over which I now found myself travelling. Jalyukurru.

‘She’s just below it, see? Near the rocks.’

They were, in fact, a damn sight more than rocks. They were the Tom Bowlers. Karlujurru. Diamond Dove. An appropriate place to find her, given her dreaming, but explaining their significance to my rescuers was the least of my concerns right now.

Bernie Sweet shaded his eyes, scrutinised the horizon. ‘Right!’ he said, suddenly excited. ‘Got her! Got her!’

He yelled some directions at Mal, then stood beside me as we bounced out over the rough terrain.

‘What a relief,’ he said, and relieved he certainly looked. He was almost buoyant, the wind whipping his smooth, handsome face and working his lips into a smile. He relaxed, leaned against a fuel drum tied to the railing. ‘We’ll get her into town,’ he said. ‘She’ll need medical attention.’

‘She’s alive, Bernie. That’s enough for me. And I’m going to make sure she stays that way.’

Not that there was danger of anything to the contrary, given the way she was moving. She looked to be in a damn sight better nick than I was. The blur gradually crystallised into a running woman: pumping arms and flowing legs, blue dress, the sun gleaming off her ragged hair. It was my precious Nungarayi all right.

‘Hazel!’ I yelled.

She kept going. Must have been still out of range.

We closed. I called again, and was surprised when she didn’t hear me that time. ‘Give her a blast of the horn!’ I yelled to Mal, who grinned blearily at me—about the closest thing to an emotion I’d seen from him—and obliged with a chorus of enthusiastic blarps that rang around the red hills.

If anything the horn seemed to stir her into a new burst of energy. She left the track and began heading up the incline, up in the direction of the rocks of Karlujurru.

‘Hazel!’ I screamed so loudly I strained my vocal cords. ‘It’s Emily.’

She kept moving. I leapt into the air, gesticulating wildly.

I was in mid-air when it struck me: something doesn’t tally here.

Such was the force with which the intuition hit that I momentarily lost my balance, slipped and skidded in the gravel bouncing about the Hino’s floor.

Gravel? Not exactly. I’d grazed my hand in the fall, and took a closer look at the minute fragments embedded in my palm.

Splinters of blue light shot away from the raw skin.

I picked up a handful of crushed rock from the floor.

It was sprinkled with blue fragments, fractured and faceted on one side, smooth, round and gleaming on the other. It was only my seeing it in the context of a mining truck that made me recognise the stone for what it was: crushed core samples.

Awfully fucking familiar core samples. I felt an icy wind blow through my heart.

The pieces of the puzzle flew together of their own accord, and oh! the picture they made. At last I understood what was going on. God knows, it had taken me long enough, but I knew who had killed Lincoln. And Jangala. And Maggie. I even knew who’d killed Marsh’s bloody cattle. I knew why they’d been killed. And how.

I knew everything about the string of deaths except how to prevent Hazel’s and my own from being added to their number.