Fear Is the Rider (14 page)

‘There's no doubt that's your car?'

‘None,' said Katie.

Shaw crossed to the main bar door. It had a very heavy bolt and Shaw slid it home. The door he'd come through into the bar had an old-fashioned key, but it seemed stout enough. Any door could be knocked down, he realised, but he had one cartridge in the shotgun and plenty of time to fire it at anyone forcing his way slowly through the heavy doors. The windows were all barred.

‘There's only one way he'll get in,' said Shaw to Katie, ‘and that's by chopping one of the bloody doors down. That'll give me plenty of time to shoot him.'

‘But there's no ammunition.'

‘I've got one cartridge. I told you. I found it in the car.' Shaw broke open the shotgun and took out the expended cartridges. He put the live cartridge in the right hand barrel because he knew now that the first trigger fired that barrel. He didn't cock the weapon. There'd be plenty of time for that and he didn't want to take the chance of accidentally losing his last cartridge.

‘You haven't got any shotgun cartridges?' he said urgently to the old couple, who had now become used to the moonlight and were going ahead with their meal.

‘No. No, of course not,' said the old lady. ‘Jimmy might have some. He goes shooting.'

‘Where's his room?'

‘His room?'

‘Yes. His room! His room!' Shaw realised that there was no point in taking a harsh tone with the old lady but he couldn't help himself.

‘What do you mean, his room?'

Shaw breathed deeply then spoke quietly and slowly.

‘Which room in the hotel does Jimmy have?'

‘Jimmy doesn't sleep
in
the hotel,' said the old lady as though the idea were offensive.

‘He's almost here,' said Katie urgently and Shaw turned back to the window. The lights of the Land Cruiser were less than a kilometre away.

The old lady was pouring tea for herself and her husband.

‘Would you like a cup, dear?' she said to Katie.

‘What?' said Katie.

‘Would you like a cup of tea, dear?'

‘No. No,' said Katie wildly. ‘Not just now, thank you.'

The Land Cruiser had slowed down. Its lights were already playing on part of the hotel, slightly changing the texture of the moonlight in the bar.

‘There's no good waiting tonight, dear,' said the old lady, sipping her tea. ‘Really I can't think where you're going to sleep.' Then, her attention caught by the sound of the Land Cruiser, ‘Goodness, is that somebody else coming?' She pattered over to the window but Shaw pulled her away.

‘Keep away from the window!'

‘Really, young man, this is my home you know.'

‘The man in that truck is trying to kill us,' Shaw whispered loudly, almost hissing in his vehemence.

‘Don't be silly,' said the old lady, ‘why should you imagine anything like that?'

‘I tell you…' Shaw recognised the futility of the discussion and fell quiet.

‘I don't see why you don't see who it is, and try to get a lift to Obiri,' the old lady muttered and turned her attention back to her tea.

The lights of the Land Cruiser had drawn abreast with the hotel and Katie and Shaw could see the whole of the vehicle silhouetted against the stars of the southern sky.

Slowly it kept on going west along the track, past the hotel, towards Obiri.

‘He's going past,' whispered Katie.

‘Wait.'

‘He doesn't know we're here. He wasn't following us. He's just getting away.'

‘Wait,' warned Shaw again.

The truck kept moving slowly until it was fifty metres past the hotel then suddenly accelerated. It was as though the driver had been studying the building then made up his mind and decided to press ahead.

‘He's going,' said Katie. ‘He is going, isn't he?'

‘It looks like it,' said Shaw, ‘but…but…'

‘But what?'

‘I'm not sure. Let's just see what happens. We'll stay in this bar all night and keep trying that radio. We'll get through in the morning anyway.'

There was a patch of darkness that had to be scrub about a kilometre west where the track turned and the lights of the Land Cruiser disappeared as the vehicle went into the belt of low trees.

‘Keep trying the radio,' said Shaw.

Katie went over to the bar and lifted the mouthpiece.

‘If you keep playing with that,' said the old woman irritably, ‘you'll run the battery down. I tell you you won't get anybody until tomorrow morning.'

‘Can't you charge the battery?' said Shaw.

‘If we want to go to the trouble of starting the generator,' said the old lady, ‘but frankly, young man, we don't. We just wish you'd go away and let us go to bed.'

‘I'm afraid that's not possible,' said Shaw. ‘Just try it for a few minutes, Katie.'

Katie manipulated the switches and the machine began its rustling sound.

‘Hullo. Hullo. Can anybody hear me? This is an emergency call.'

The room was filled with the sharp burst of static but no human voice came across the empty wastelands.

‘Ask for help just in case someone can hear us and we can't hear them.'

‘This is an emergency call,' said Katie clearly into the mouthpiece. ‘This is an emergency call. We are at the hotel halfway between Yogabilla and Obiri. We have been attacked by a man who has tried to kill us. Would anybody hearing this call please tell the police at Obiri. Or Yogabilla. We need help urgently.'

The old man had risen from the table and made his way to the rear door of the bar.

‘What the hell is he doing?' said Shaw sharply.

‘Really, young man, I don't see that that's any of your business,' said the old lady. The old man had the door open.

‘For God's sake, don't you understand? That man who just went past is trying to kill us. Tell the old fool to stay in here with us.'

‘Don't you dare speak about my husband in that tone of voice.'

Shaw turned to Katie.

‘Try to make her understand.'

The old man had disappeared into the corridor. Shaw made to go after him. The old woman held up a restraining hand.

‘He's going to the toilet, if you must know. He has a bad bladder. He has to go. There, I hope you're satisfied.' She sat down at the table as though that was obviously the end of the conversation.

Shaw shook his head at the hopeless absurdity of the situation.

‘Then he'll come back here when he's…?'

‘Of course he'll come back here. He hasn't had his pudding yet.'

‘Leave it alone,' said Katie, ‘he won't be long and we can lock ourselves in again.'

Shaw shrugged helplessly.

‘Try sending that message once more,' he said and went back to stare out the window along the track to Obiri. The wind had risen again and there were a few swirls of dust forming blurred patches like fog along the track and in the desert.

Soon movement to his left caught Shaw's eye and he turned. There was a shape moving across the grounds of the hotel. Someone walking.

‘There's someone out there!'

Katie dropped the mouthpiece of the radio and ran across to the window.

Small swirls of dust obscured the figure in the grounds, but it was obviously a man, walking away from the hotel.

Shaw raised the gun.

‘What are you doing!' shouted the old lady.

‘There's a man out there,' said Shaw.

‘Of course there's a man out there, that's Father. Don't you dare shoot Father!'

‘What the hell's he doing out there?'

‘He's going to the toilet. You know that.'

‘You mean the toilet's outside?'

‘Of course the toilet's outside. Where do you think this is, Brisbane or somewhere?'

‘Go and get him in!' shouted Shaw.

‘He has to go to the toilet.'

‘He can go to the bloody toilet in the hallway or under the bloody table if he must, but get him back in here.'

Katie took Shaw's arm.

‘The Land Cruiser's gone past,' she said, ‘he'll be back in a few minutes.'

Shaw shook her arm off and made for the door.

‘We don't know where the bloody truck is,' he said. ‘You can hardly see along the track now. He'd only have to turn the lights off and drive back.'

‘We'd have heard him.'

‘We've been making enough noise to cover a bloody army. I'm going to haul that stupid old bastard in here and lock him up.'

He went out into the hallway.

The old lady came after him and grabbed his arm.

‘You'll do nothing of the sort, young man. You touch my husband and I'll have the police on you.'

Shaw turned on her in the semi-darkness of the hall.

‘Go and get him,' he said savagely, ‘go and get him now and bring him back here or I'll do it myself if I have to stun him.'

Subdued by his fierceness the old lady turned and went to a door at the far end of the corridor, flung it open and stamped out into the moonlight of the yard.

Shaw followed her and Katie followed Shaw.

‘You're making too much of this,' said Katie.

All three of them were in the open in time to see the old man disappearing into an outbuilding about thirty metres from the hotel. As he did, a set of car headlights snapped on from the track in front of the hotel and the Land Cruiser, engine roaring in first gear, came plunging across the open ground.

Shaw raised the shotgun, but the Land Cruiser was not coming towards the trio. It was heading for the outhouse.

It reached the building in seconds as Katie, Shaw and the old lady stood dazedly watching it.

The bull bars of the truck hit the outhouse at about forty kilometres an hour and the old building disintegrated in a flurry of splintered timber and dust. The truck went through the wreckage without pausing, drove on a few metres, then started to turn in a narrow circle, disappearing in its own dust cloud.

The old lady screamed and began running towards the wreckage of the outhouse. Shaw and Katie went after her, passed her, reached the outhouse and found the old man dead, horribly dead. The truck was charging at them. The old lady was clutching at her husband's body trying to drag him out of the wreckage.

The truck was almost on them. Shaw raised the gun and fired, fired aiming somewhere just above the headlights. One of the headlights went out and it swerved, crashing again through the debris of the outhouse.

Shaw dropped the gun, grabbed the old lady and began dragging her, screaming, towards the hotel. Katie took one of her arms and together they stumbled across the stony grounds almost at a running pace. The motor of the truck was roaring somewhere just a few metres from them but they could see nothing but dust writhing in the moonlight.

The old lady suddenly found her feet and began pulling away from them, trying to get back to her husband. The one headlight of the truck came glowing through the dust, then the Land Cruiser itself, huge, malign, black in the moonlight. The old lady broke free of Shaw and Katie and both of them stumbled and nearly fell. Both reached for the woman again, but the truck was on them. The left-hand side of the bull bar hit the old lady and smashed her to the ground to be crushed into a bloody mess by the wheels. The truck went on a few metres then began its sharp hard spinning turn. Katie and Shaw, the old lady transparently dead, sprinted for the hotel.

They made it to the doorway into the corridor four or five metres ahead of the Land Cruiser. But it didn't stop. It came battering into the hotel walls as it had the outhouse. The wall splintered and collapsed around it.

Katie and Shaw in the corridor were transfixed by the incongruous spectacle of the Land Cruiser, two or three metres into the corridor before it stopped, covered with the litter and dust of the broken wall.

Then it went into reverse and back out, taking half the wall with it.

‘Into the bar!' shouted Shaw. He didn't know why. It seemed the safest part of the hotel. He slammed home the bolt of the door behind them, and they stood listening to the engine as the vehicle manoeuvred in the grounds.

‘We've got to get out of here,' Katie sounded impossibly calm.

‘The car's down the end of the corridor, it's…'

They heard the Land Cruiser's engine roar and then the whole hotel shuddered and there was a tremendous crash somewhere in the rear. They actually heard the crash of gears as the driver went into reverse, then the crackle of torn timber as the vehicle pulled clear of the shattered wall it had driven into.

‘He's going to knock the whole building down.' Shaw was desperately seeking something to use as a weapon—a bottle, a chair? Against an axe? A truck?

‘Where's the car?'

‘At the end of the corridor.'

‘Come on.'

It was Katie who opened the door and went into the corridor. Shaw followed because there was nothing else to do but in the corridor he took the lead because he knew where the car was.

The building shook again as the truck hit the front veranda and they could hear the awning tearing away. The truck seemed stuck for a moment, then there was a strident screech of metal as it pulled back, dragging the whole awning with it.

It was dark in the stable where Shaw had left the Honda, and they had to grope their way into the vehicle. The keys, thought Shaw, fumbling in his pocket, but then remembered they were still in the ignition.

‘You start it,' he said to Katie, ‘I'll open the door.'

There was another shuddering crash at the far end of the hotel as he lifted the beam out of the catch and swung the doors open. Then more dragging and splintering sounds as the truck reversed. With the doors open Shaw could see, and he clambered into the passenger seat.

‘Out!' he shouted. ‘The truck must be somewhere at the other end of the building.'