Blood & Dust (23 page)

Kevin drank again and again, until Taipan rubbed a handful of dirt into the wound and let the
steer go. The steer wandered off a little way before folding down to rest. Taipan drank from the
other, not as much. The second steer walked over to its mate and licked its nose before settling
beside it.

'So, how do you do it?' Kevin asked.

'Jus' do,' Taipan said.

'I can't.'

'Ever tried?'

'No,' Kevin conceded. 'I never thought to. I've seen, you know, in movies, rats and bats and
stuff.'

'You'd rather eat a rat?' Taipan shook his head.

'I've got a lot to learn.'

'Yeah, you ain't wrong 'bout that.' And then he relented. 'C'mon, time to go home.'

They sped through the night, hour after hour, meeting only a few road trains. The
long double-decked trailers reeked of cow shit and diesel. People out west tended to avoid driving
at night, and when they did, they liked to have a tonne of bullbar and serious spotlight wattage out
front. The roadsides were littered with dead kangaroos, the occasional bullock and even one emu, and
more modern road kill - vehicles, burned out or stripped, victims of distance and too little
maintenance. Signposts urged drivers to beware of livestock and other silhouetted animals, to
'revive and survive', and warned of fatigue zones and accident black spots, but Taipan was having
none of that. Kevin found the drive nerve-wracking, and he was glad of some small reprieve when
Taipan pulled up at a service station.

'Keep an eye out, I gotta make a call,' Taipan said as he dismounted. 'Then we'll fuel up and be
on our way, eh.'

'You got a mobile? Can I call home?'

'You can't use this one. Wait over there.' He waved toward a wall. 'And keep ya face covered if
you go near them bowsers.' He pointed to a security camera.

Kevin swore under his breath, but went. He watched, increasingly dumbfounded, as Taipan sat at a
picnic table, rested his head on his forearms and, apparently, took a nap.

'Fuck this,' Kevin muttered and went to the loo, pissed a pathetic, pinkish dribble and washed
his face. A rank urinal was one of those times he wished he could dial down his sense of smell. He
hobbled out in his new sneakers. They'd found a reasonable fit among Taipan's stash of spare
clothing; he could imagine that fleshy jelly filling out inside the shoe like a mould. He hoped his
body knew how to make toes.

A young man in a service station uniform approached Taipan, still slumped at the table.

'Shit.' Kevin limped over.

The attendant gingerly reached out to shake Taipan's shoulder. The biker didn't stir.

'Hey,' Kevin shouted.

The attendant looked around. 'Is he pissed? I could report him, you know.'

'He's just tired. Long drive.'

'You his mate, are ya?'

'Yeah, I guess.'

He snorted. 'Well, he can't sleep here.'

'Haven't you ever heard of a driver reviver?'

Taipan sat up, wiped his face, blinked. 'Problem?'

The young man stared at him, opened his mouth to say something. Taipan stared back. The attendant
closed his mouth, mumbled 'Fine' and slouched away.

'You got the bike filled?' Taipan asked.

'You said to watch your back.'

'Good job you did'a that. Pull up a pew, Hoppy. I'll look after it, eh.'

Kevin was too frustrated to sit down. He hadn't seen Taipan use a phone at all - had the biker
waited for him to take a leak? What kind of bullshit was this? He walked over to where he could see
inside the servo. There was a pay phone just inside the door. It struck him that he'd lost a chance;
he could've reverse charged. Damn Taipan, keeping him rattled. The biker went in - he was actually
going to pay. Probably wanted to put the wind up the attendant again. Kevin turned away as money
changed hands. He didn't want Taipan to think he was spying.

When Taipan returned, Kevin was studying a faded road map painted on a signboard. Peeling pink
lines stretched out from the arrow saying, 'You are here'. West to Longreach, east back to
Rockhampton, Barlow's Siding unmarked but far to the south-west.

'Find yourself yet, fella?' Taipan asked, and Kevin wasn't entirely sure he meant geographically.

'Why did you do it, really? Why did you do this to me if it's all so dangerous?'

Taipan started to roll a cigarette. 'I told you, didn't I?'

'Tell me again.'

'I cut a deal with ya old man.'

'And you really don't know who killed him.'

'Not even in me blood. You shoulda seen that much.'

'I see all sorts of stuff, but I've got no control over it. It just hits me-' he slammed a fist
into his hand. 'Christ, I can hardly tell who's who; whether I'm them or they're me.'

'Ghosts,' Taipan said. 'We all get 'em. They live in the blood, eh. Not alla them. Most don't
stick. But some, because you took a lot, because there's some connection maybe, they stay.'

'How do you deal with it? These other lives, popping up all the time.'

'My mob are kinda used to that. Time don't always work the same way for them.'

'Huh?'

He tapped his nose.

'So if I've got your blood, I should have that power, too.'

'Maybe. I don't have no country. No people, either.' The words fell, bitter, like juice gone off.
'I thought this, that bein' like this would open that to me. Would reveal it outta me blood. But it
didn't work like that. That bitch flooded me. There's more'a her in me than there is'a me.'

'Big gamble.'

'She made me sister. Only way I could save Willa was to become like them.'

'
Big
gamble,' Kevin repeated.

'Never been much of a gambler.' He rubbed his chest, that reflex drawing his hand - but now Kevin
wondered if it was the recent stab wound Taipan still felt, or if it was something deeper, the type
of wound to the heart that not all the vampire blood in the world could heal. Not without leaving a
scar, anyway. 'Mother'll help you deal with alla that. She knows about this stuff, eh.'

'So, this Mother - is she the one who, you know, the one who turned you into - you know?'

Taipan laughed. 'Nah. You woulda seen the bitch that did.' He put a finger to his forehead.
'Jasmine Turner, her name is. I'll be seein' her 'bout that one day.

'Mother, she ain't like that. She's plenny old, older than Jasmine even. Mother is jus' what we
call her, eh. When I seen her for the first time, I was plenny fucked up. As fucked up as a
bloodsucker can get. But she set me right. Helped me control me anger. Helped me make up for alla
bad shit I done.' He exhaled a cloud of smoke. 'Well, maybe not alla it.'

'So how much longer until we get there?'

Taipan shrugged. 'Can't tell you that till we get there. If that VS mob finds out where she is,
they'll come after her with all guns blazin'. I ain't gonna let that happen.'

'Wouldn't Mira have sucked that info out of Nigel?'

'Nah, that surfie didn't know shit. Never did trust him.'

'And Kala doesn't know either?'

Taipan studied his cigarette. 'Prob'ly not. Still, another reason for us to get where we're
goin'.'

'Jesus,' Kevin said, leaning against the sign and looking out where the road vanished into night.
'Don't you get tired of never trusting anyone, of always looking over your shoulder?'

'Sometimes. You get used to it, eh. Best idea is to keep movin', I reckon.'

'So that's your home, is it? The road.'

Taipan gestured toward the bitumen. 'Yep, that's me: always happiest on walkabout.' He grinned.

'You're full of shit, aren't ya.'

'You figured that out, eh?'

'How long have you been doing this - been, y'know?'

Taipan shrugged again. 'You lose count, after a bit. It's all just one day after another.'

'How do you keep going then? Every day, just more of the same?'

Taipan laughed. 'Tell me this, fella - who don't? Who don't just live every day, more'a the
same?'

'Where's the point?' Kevin hit the map, making the tin wobble.

'All I know is somethin' me father told me when I was a young fella, before they came and took me
to the mission school. Me old man said to me, you can't go back, you gotta look ahead. If you're
lookin' over ya shoulder, you're bound to run into somethin' in front of you.'

Taipan chuckled and took a drag, making the cigarette glow all the way down almost to his lips.
'He was talkin' 'bout drivin', but it still makes plenny good sense, eh.'

'Yeah, I spose it does. Where is he now?'

'Died in a car smash,' Taipan said, tossing his cigarette. 'C'mon, we're burnin' night time.'

They were a few kilometres down the track before Kevin realised that Taipan had never known his
father. He really was full of shit.

Taipan pulled up opposite the airport on the eastern side of Longreach. They were
facing the tail end of a jumbo, part of the Qantas museum. The facility seemed to be throwing up as
much light as the rest of the town combined. It was about nine o'clock; there was barely any
traffic. The airport's car park appeared empty, though at that distance it was hard to tell due to
intervening trees.

'Whaddya think?' Taipan asked.

'They still got flights this time of night?'

'Like we was gonna fly. We might play it safe and take the scenic route, eh. Don't wanna fuck it
up when we're this close.' He turned off the headlight and took a left off the main drag. They
passed the hangar-shaped roofs of the Stockman's Hall of Fame, the oversized jackeroo sculpture out
front the only witness to their passing, and then ran out of road, but Taipan didn't stop, just
slowed down as they steered onto a gravel track that became little more than wheel ruts in a
paddock. They crossed a gully and followed a westerly track till they reconnected with the main road
running south out of Longreach. Once out of sight of the town's feeble glow, Taipan turned on the
lights and gunned the bike.

An hour and a half later, just when Kevin thought his arse had been permanently spot welded to
the bike seat, a faded, flaking sign loomed near a turn-off and Taipan slowed. The sign's metal
surface was peppered with bullet holes. Stonehenge, it announced, population a hundred and a bit. A
dangling piece of timber advertised last year's annual rodeo, back in November, and another
mentioned the township's other claim to fame - home to a piece of Australia's famed Jindalee
over-the-horizon radar. Some disgruntled wag had sprayed the words 'fly in fuck off' over it.

'Livin' under the radar,' Taipan said with a laugh, and he drove farther south a short way before
again slowing, to turn onto a dirt track.

A timber sign at the fork, the crossbar askew like a rotting gallows, bore the words 'emu farm'
in barely legible black paint. They nosed past bare paddocks, the bike bouncing over corrugation,
sliding in bulldust. They topped a rise and slowed some more as they approached a farm. The old
homestead, with a peaked iron roof that curved over the veranda, sat inside a perimeter of mesh
fencing twice as tall as Kevin. Sheds dotted the compound. There was no sign of emus.

They pulled up outside a wire gate. Two squat dogs trailed dust and sharp yaps as they charged
across the yard, stopping only to avoid hitting the fence. Taipan waved a hand and the dogs went
quiet.

Bit of heeler in them, Kevin thought, heeler or kelpie, one a speckled grey and the other black,
and both of them all teeth and curiosity. Their eyes glinted blood-red as they switched their
attention between Kevin to Taipan, alternately yipping and whining, caught between the want of a pat
on the head and the need to rip the stranger's throat out.

Two guards appeared from a nearby feed shed - a couple of sheets of tin nailed to a simple timber
frame - and walked over, guns held loosely by their sides, their eyes flashing crystal green in the
bike headlight's dusty glare.

'It's me,' Taipan said. 'Tell Mother we're here.'

The men greeted him. 'She's takin' the rays down at the rock pools but shouldn't be too long,'
one volunteered. He wore a maroon and gold football T-shirt with a lion on it. His mate sported a
Mohawk, possibly dyed in the same team's colours. Both wore loose leather vests. Kevin didn't need
to see the logo to know they were Night Riders.

Mohawk spoke into a two-way radio. 'Taipan's here with a whitefella. I'm openin' up.'

He grabbed a pole that leaned against the gatepost, and for the first time Kevin noticed the
grisly additions - the pole and each fence post was topped by a skull. Cows, dogs, a sheep with
curved horns. Mohawk lowered the skull - a bullock with horns draped in feathers, a smear of what
had to be old blood on its forehead between the vacant eye sockets. As soon as the skull touched the
earth, Kevin felt something in the air - some kind of current or vibration - break. The guy in the
Lions jersey unlocked the gate and ushered them through. As he relocked the chain, Mohawk sliced his
hand on a knife and swiped blood onto the skull, then lifted it once more.

'Good to have you back, cuz,' the Lions supporter said, more obviously relaxed, his rifle slung
over one shoulder. He clasped hands with Taipan, a kind of high-five with thumbs on top. 'Mother
said you had some trouble, eh.'

'Plenny.' Taipan paused. When he continued, his voice was low. 'Any of me mob make it back?'

'That Acacia, she came in a coupla nights ago. Surprised you didn't hear Cassie squealing from
wherever you were. Kept the rest of us up, that's for sure.'

'Too right,' Mohawk said. 'So who's that fella there?'

'A fella I ran into. A mechanic. One of us mob, now.'

The guards exchanged a glance. 'Go on down, she'll know you're here,' said Mohawk.

Kevin felt their stares like laser sights on his back as Taipan steered down the slight slope to
the main building. The dogs, tails wagging, yapping intermittently, ran beside the bike.

Acacia, in jeans and singlet, appeared in the doorway of one of the largest sheds. Her face
caught between a relieved smile and a mighty yawn, she gestured Taipan over and shooed the dogs
away.