Hope's Road (12 page)

Chapter 19

Travis Hunter was tired. Plum tuckered out. Whoever said sitting around waiting didn't bugger the hell out of you had never sat in a hospital.

He looked across at his son. The boy was sound asleep, head slightly cocked back and tilted to the side, resting on the ute's window. His mouth was open and a delicate snore wheezed from his throat every second or third breath. The boy had done well. Not too many kids would have taken an afternoon and a night sitting around a hospital with such grace, let alone good behaviour.

Trav sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He could see McCauley's Hill. Only a few miles to go, then home and bed.

Old Joe had come out of his operation okay. Groggy, in pain, but still slinging abuse at anyone who came within earshot. Demanding to be allowed to get up and walk out that hospital door. Finally someone had given him a shot of painkiller, which sent him to sleep. Trav never thought he'd be grateful for drugs. But tonight he was. It'd been awful to watch.

A light out to his left caught his eye. It was bouncing a few feet above the ground. A motorbike, perhaps? Trav checked where he was. His mind had gone onto auto-pilot and numbed out all geographical markers a half-hour back. It was a wonder he'd even caught McCauley's Hill. Although the hulking great monstrosity
was
kind of hard to miss. He must be level with Montmorency Downs because just up ahead of him was the section of boundary fencing, replaced after an accident that killed a young girl.

The light bounced some more, then stopped. Hovering. Trav pulled the ute over to the side of the road and turned off the headlights. He checked his watch: nine-forty. Late enough, especially for a dairy farmer. What was going on? Her fool of a soon-to-be-ex-husband causing mischief? Although by the sounds of what Mrs Parker had said, he'd have better things to be doing at this time of the night. Trav shuddered. Joanne Purvis certainly didn't do it for him.

Was the light moving once more? No. Not quite. A light was moving, but it wasn't the same one. This one was dimmer but no less energetic. Bounce, bounce, halt. Swing around. Bounce, bounce, halt. Swinging the other way. It was heading back towards him, moving faster, bobbing across the air like a ball in motion. Then the stronger light was back, zooming across the blackness of the night. Weird. It might pay for him to check it out. Casting another look across at the sleeping Billy, Travis started the ute again and headed towards the gate of Montmorency Downs.

He peeled off the road and up the gravel into Tammy's farm. Cautiously at first, simultaneously watching the light. Suddenly it struck him: the brightness was coming from the headlight of a motorbike that was belting towards the homestead, flat out roaring towards the dairy, which he had in his ute's headlights. He brought the vehicle to a halt outside the milk-room roller-door, the access for the tanker to collect the daily load of white liquid gold.

The motorbike screeched to a halt beside him and Tammy flung herself off it, running towards the air-space between the milk-room and the dairy itself. He was sure she clocked him in her peripheral vision but she didn't stop. ‘What's up?' he called. Silence. He moved into the gloom after her and was suddenly blinded as a brilliant floodlight came on somewhere above his head. A sensor light. Tammy hadn't tripped it off, but something he had done sure had.

She appeared again, helmet still on her head, a cracker of a knife in her hand. Now he understood why she hadn't heard him. The helmet. But to come at him with a knife? And she still kept coming, knife in the air. She was crying. He shot a glance towards the still-running ute. He hadn't wanted to turn it off in case the boy woke up. He calculated his chances of making it inside the cab before she got to him. Not a chance. He'd have to face her down. Like a wild dog.

She was saying something. ‘Travis. Hunter!' And then she was in front of him, the dagger glinting brightly in the glare from the floodlight. His arm was moving to block the blow, knock the knife from her hand. She spoke again, ‘Help me! The cows.'

Cows? ‘They've got through the tapes into the next paddock. Three dead, another just about. Others are staggering. It's bloat.' Then she was gone, back on the bike, roaring out of the yard.

Trav let out a huge sigh. To think he'd thought . . . ? Hell, he must be
really
tired. He slung a glance up towards McCauley's Hill. Visualised his bed. Warm, comfortable. And then he thought of the face of the woman who'd just lit out of the yard like all the demons of hell were on her tail. The tears. The look of devastation. He ran back to his ute – his son was still sleeping – got in and took off after Tammy.

When he found her she was down on her knees, like she was praying. That wasn't going to do her much good, he thought, looking at the mayhem in the paddock. Cows seemed to be suffocating all around him, not to mention the couple on the ground already dead.

Again he left the ute running to keep the boy asleep, climbed through the fence and set off across the paddock towards her. When he got there she was kneeling in the most disgusting mess of fermented green stuff he'd ever seen. The contents of a cow's first stomach – the rumen. She'd used the knife to puncture the cow's side in the centre of a triangle between the last rib and the hip. Tammy had her hand through the slit, inside the cow, and was pulling more and more green muck out of the stomach. ‘Can you do this for me while I do another?' Her tone was urgent, her breath came in short pants. ‘You just need to make sure the air keeps coming out the gash and the hole doesn't get blocked by all the fermenting grass.'

Trav nodded, kneeled down in the muck beside her and took over the job. The stink was putrid, but he'd smelled worse – far, far worse – in his line of work. Tammy had moved quickly to the cow she obviously judged as the next worst. This one was still standing. He watched as, by the light of the torch, she assessed where to stab with her knife. Then a dull
thunk
. A hiss of air, like a football being let down or a deflating car tyre. Almost instantly the cow could breathe again. The gagging mouth seemed to close and the need to belch didn't appear so urgent.

It was a few more minutes before Tammy spoke. ‘I'll have to get them all up to the yards at the dairy and give them a drench of bloat stuff. And then there's these two to sew up. I'll have to call the vet.' Her voice seemed to catch on the end of the word ‘vet'. Trav couldn't imagine what the bill was going to be. ‘Can you help me?' she asked.

And he wondered, as well, how much that particular plea cost her. He could hardly turn his back on her now, could he? ‘What do you want me to do?'

The vet had been and gone. Billy had slept through the lot and was now sitting in Tammy's family room watching late-night telly. Not the best place for an ten-year-old to be at two in the morning but, hey, he couldn't do much about it.

‘So what happened, exactly?' Trav asked, curious.

‘The fence must have a short in it. There are electric tapes in all those paddocks along that side of the farm. It's cheaper and easier than hanging gates. Especially when I've only got a single electrified wire separating one paddock from the next.' Tammy sighed loudly as she set some solid chunks of fruitcake on a plate. ‘I swear cattle have a sixth sense when it comes to knowing there's power down in an electric fence.'

‘But don't you use bloat oil or something? Spray the pad­docks before they're grazed?'

‘Yes, but they have to be sprayed just before the cows go in or it's a waste of time. Jock would've sprayed the paddock they were
supposed
to be in, but not the one next door. And rightly so. It's my own stupid fault. I should have run the volt meter over those fences, damn it.'

Travis thought about that. The woman couldn't be everywhere doing everything. ‘You weren't to know about the fence just like you weren't to know about the cows getting into that clover. You've been a bit busy.' Trav tried his half-smile. He'd been using it a bit lately. He'd found over the years that it worked with most women. Made them smile back at least.

But Tammy was oblivious, intent on pouring boiling water into the cups and splashing in some milk. He felt something kick deep inside his gut, and was shocked to realise he was irked. And disgruntled. And that pissed him off even more. So he sat back in the chair of this grandiose house with its stiff air of formality and tried to make himself feel comfortable. Told himself it didn't matter that this woman hadn't noticed his attempt to make her feel better about herself. They sat and drank their tea in silence. The only sound to disturb the night air, other than the quiet slurps of hot tea, was the TV murmuring to a young boy in another room.

‘We'd better go, it's late.' Trav got up and looked unnecessarily at the clock. He'd been watching the second-hand tick around for the last little while, not sure what to do, what to say. He couldn't make inane comments like, ‘Nice house you've got here.' It wasn't his thing. Plus, her house was a tip. All kinds of shit spilled from drawers everywhere.

‘Right. Yes,' said Tammy, looking uncomfortable. She got up too and stood watching him, her arms folded across her chest.

‘Billy! In the ute,' he called to the boy. Billy jumped up immediately, turned off the TV and scooted on outside.

‘He's a good boy,' said Tammy, watching him go.

‘I know,' said Trav.

‘Do you? Do you
reall
y?' She was giving him a weird look.

It was late, he was knackered, and clearly so was she. ‘I'll see myself out,' he said, finally.

At the car he helped his son into the passenger seat.

‘Thank you,' a voice said behind him. Trav spun round. Tammy stood in the shadows of the big old house. ‘Thanks for your help,' she said again. God, that voice was a doozy. So sweet and sexy, playing around his ears like a song of seduction. And it seemed she had no idea of its power. Her brow was slightly scrunched in a look of despair. Her vulnerability made his toes curl with the desperate need to soothe. His hand went up, without him even knowing it was in the air, like he was going to tuck a piece of Tammy's hair back behind her ear. The silky strands were weaving around crazily in the breeze. But he realised what he was doing before he made contact and his hand fell.

He glanced at Tammy to see if she'd noticed. Her face was still sad. From nowhere came the urge to kiss her. To wipe all the misery away. Make her forget the past few hours, in fact the whole day. Unconsciously he felt his body lean forwards towards hers. But then he pulled back. What was he thinking? She was hell on wheels normally. A fiery piece
who was still married
.

Abruptly he got into his ute, gunned the engine, tipped a hand to an imaginary hat and took off, leaving Tammy standing alone in the moonlight, still rocking back and forth, arms crossed. As he made his way down her drive towards Hope's Road, Trav wondered just what it was with this woman, why she made him feel so protective. He watched her in the rear-vision mirror as he drove away, until she became a dark shadow that blended with those of the old homestead.

Chapter 20

‘
I'm not having no fucking grab bars and what-not in my shack. What do you think I am, a bloody cripple?'

It was a week or so after the operation and why in the heck Tammy had agreed to help organise Joe's return home, she would never know. The nursing home option was looking mighty good at the moment. The old man was in full flight.

‘And as for having other people on me place, you can bloody f­orget it!'

‘But Mr McCauley, as I have been trying to inform you,' Susan, the aged care coordinator, insisted, ‘you are entitled to a post acute-care package for six weeks that includes home help, visits from the district nurse and Meals on Wheels.'

‘But I don't want it!' Joe slumped back on the hospital pillows, exhausted from all the yelling.

‘Maybe you'd better rest, Uncle Joe, while Susan and I sort things out.' Tammy was rewarded with an icy glare. She wasn't sure if that was for calling him uncle or all the other stuff Susan was trying to force down his throat. A
care
package
? It sounded like they were talking about a holiday, or a home loan. But at least he'd stopped yelling. That had to be a bonus.

Tammy shuffled the aged care coordinator out the door, and into the passage. ‘You'll have to excuse my uncle, Susan. He's having trouble adjusting to the fact he needs assistance.'

Susan patted Tammy's arm. ‘No worries. We get this all the time. It's a terrible shock to lose your independence. Makes the oldies lash out at everyone they love.'

And Tammy suddenly realised Susan thought that she, Tammy, needed comforting. ‘Oh, no! You've got it wrong.
I
 get this all the time. He doesn't love me. He hates me, actually.'

Susan smiled. ‘Now where did you get that idea from, love?'

‘What idea?' Travis Hunter loomed up beside Tammy, making her jump. How on earth did the man approach so silently? He was like an apparition.

Susan looked at Trav questioningly and he stuck out his hand. ‘I'm Travis. Joe's next-door neighbour. Soon to be part-time carer.'

Tammy glanced up at him in shock. The man was volunteering information? Then she noticed he was smiling that half-grin and Susan was melting like ice-cream. Oh, good Lord.
Please
.

Tammy pushed Trav towards Joe's room. ‘Go talk man-to-man stuff with the old bugger. He doesn't want anyone helping him, no bars in the bathroom, no aids, no home help, no district nurse and definitely
no
Meals on Wheels.'

‘I can understand that. Mum had them once. Those meals are terrible.'

Trav disappeared through the door and Tammy found herself apologising once again to Susan.

‘So what do you want to do?' Susan was now looking down at her clipboard, a little rosy flush on her cheeks. ‘Shall I give him
everything
he's entitled to? Only some? Or nothing? But if you're going to say nothing I urge you to reconsider.'

Tammy didn't even have to think about it. ‘We'll take all of it. Even the meals. We can always cancel if we find we don't need something.'

Susan ticked all her boxes and scrawled some notes down the bottom of the page. Tammy wondered if they included
Abusive old man and dysfunctional family situation – BEWARE
.

Finally Susan snapped her pen into a holder hanging around her neck and rammed the clipboard under her arm. ‘The occupational therapy people will sort out what aids he requires – a toilet chair, walker, et cetera. They'll also need to measure up for grab bars. We'll give you a ring to sort out a time. They're pretty busy.'

‘That's okay. We might be able to fit them ourselves.'

‘Right,' said Susan. ‘Here's my card if you want to call me. I'll be his care coordinator from now on. Ring if you need anything.' But before she stepped away, Susan seemed to take a deep breath. Was she going to tell her they were all wasting their time and he should be in a nursing home after all? ‘Love?' said Susan.

Tammy couldn't stand it when people called her love or darling. They had to earn the right to use those words.

Susan put her hand on Tammy's arm. ‘He does care about you, you know. I can see it in his face.'

Tammy ducked her head. Mmmm . . . If only she could believe that.

At the sight of Boots and Digger running excitedly in circles, tears welled up in Old Joe's eyes. I should have smuggled one of the dogs into the hospital, Tammy thought. Maybe that would have made it easier to manage the bloke.

As the old man carefully climbed out of Trav's ute, Boots threw himself at his master, causing him to totter on his walking frame. On the advice of the occupational therapists at the hospital, Trav had hurriedly brought in a few bucketloads of dirt and gravel with the tractor and made a rough-looking ramp next to the steps up to the verandah. They put the old man into a wheelchair and pushed him up to his usual spot, looking out over the eucalypt bush, blue-grey mountains and verdant green flats. Joe breathed in the fresh late afternoon air and sighed. A deep, gentle, happy sigh. ‘Ah, this is the life.' After a week of pain, anger, confusion and frustration, his face finally relaxed, making him look ten years younger.

‘Can I get anyone some dinner?' Travis was calling from the back of the house, where he'd disappeared with Joe's bag.

Beside Tammy, Old Joe grunted. She'd made the casserole and left it in Joe's fridge while Jock had been doing overtime, trying to make up for the bloat incident. She didn't even want to think about that night. She'd lost nearly six thousand dollars' worth of cows in one go. But then again, it could have been a whole lot worse – and would have been without the help of the man now in the kitchen. ‘I'll have some tea. What about you, Joe?' The old man waved his hand in the air, a negative response.

‘Joe'll have some too,' she called out to Trav.

The old man frowned at her but to Tammy's surprise didn't say anything. There seemed to have been a truce drawn somewhere in the last week or so. The last big argument she and Joe had was when she was unpacking his clothes at the hospital. ‘I don't need no fancy new pyjamas! What's wrong with the ones I had?'

Billy had weighed into that argument, thank goodness. ‘Mr McCauley,' the young boy's voice had quavered first up but then gained strength, ‘you can't be in hospitable with those awful PJs you had. People'd laugh at you for being different.'

‘It's “hospital” not “hospitable”,' Joe's voice was gruff. ‘And I don't care if people laugh at me for being different. I've been different all my life. Nothing wrong with that, boy.' But the old man's tone was softer than Tammy had ever heard before.

Under Billy's earnest gaze, Joe finally took the proffered blue-and-brown striped pyjamas, mumbling, ‘Fucking stripes. Always hated stripes.' He then glared at Tammy. ‘And different, he says. These pyjamas is bloody different. What happened to plain old blue
or
brown, I ask you?' But there had been a tear in his eye that he'd swiftly dashed away. Maybe he realised they were only trying to help because since then he hadn't been anywhere near as frosty or horrible to her.

Beside Tammy, Joe leaned down, searching for Boots's ears to ruffle. He breathed in the damp mountain air that was starting to waft across from the slopes. ‘Going to be rain in the next few days,' he said, sniffing hard.

‘How do you do that?'

‘What?'

‘Know about the rain.'

She could tell he was about to shut her down with some smart-arse comment. Then he stopped, shrugged. ‘Don't rightly know how. I just know.'

‘But what did you take into account to make that observation?'

‘The smell on the breeze; studying them hills. See how they look like they've picked themselves up and moved in closer to us? Like they need protection from something? And they've turned a real dark blue.'

Tammy took a closer look at the mountains. He was right. They did seem like they were scared.

‘And the birds are flying low rather than up high like they do in fine weather,' Joe's voice rumbled on beside her. ‘Then I take in the paddocks on Montmorency Downs. You've just irrigated, am I right?'

Tammy nodded. ‘Yes. I finished yesterday.'

‘And it usually rains within a day or two of you finishing.'

She glanced down at the old man and saw two twinkling cornflower-blue eyes staring right back at her. ‘Holy hell,' she said in wonder. ‘You're making fun of me, aren't you?'

They were all seated around Joe's table. Tammy and Billy had the only two chairs, having dragged another one in from the front lounge. Trav was sitting on an upturned twenty-litre drum he'd rooted out of the shed and Joe was perched on his new wheelie walker. If anyone had been peeping through the window it would have looked like any regular family sitting down to dinner. Mum, dad, son and maybe granddad. Very congenial. It was anything but. The tension in the air was palpable.

Billy was on edge as if he was trying to second guess what he was supposed to do. Joe was shooting dagger looks at all of them, like it was him against the rest of the world. He obviously just wanted them to leave him alone. And Travis? He was silent and brooding. As if he was finally realising what a big job it was going to be to look after this irascible old man.

Their next big problem was how to get the patient to bed. He couldn't sleep on the camp stretcher in his swag any more. It was too low, and he'd never be able to get into it, let alone out of it. Tonight they had to install Joe in the bedroom where he should have been sleeping in the first place, and somehow fix the gaping hole in the ceiling to stop the possum shit from falling through.

Then there was the problem of bathing. How were they going to get Joe into that shower? It was the size of a dog kennel. His walking frame barely fitted between the walls.

Suddenly a car door banged shut and they all jumped out of their skin. ‘Who the fuck is that?' the old man muttered.

‘Hi all!' yelled Lucy from the verandah, where she was obviously kicking off her shoes. She bounced inside, and down the passage to the kitchen doorway. ‘I've brought your groceries, Joe. Thought I may as well bring them on up rather than leave them by the gate. It's not like you can drive or anything –' Lucy stopped and took in the four pairs of astonished eyes staring at her. ‘What? What have I done?'

She looked puzzled for a moment then flung a hand to her head. ‘Haven't you seen anyone with coloured hair before?'

Tammy was the first to recover. ‘Luce. Oh, Luce . . . what
have
you done?'

Lucy grinned wickedly and spun in a circle. ‘Like it?'

‘Ummm . . .' Trav went next. ‘Well . . . it's colourful.'

‘I couldn't decide.' Lucy patted at the halo of pink, blue, red and brassy yellow streaks. ‘As long as I don't look like a chook. Couldn't bear to look like something that shoots bumnuts.'

‘No, not a chook,' said Billy. ‘Maybe a clown?'

Lucy laughed. ‘Clown I can deal with! Anyway, it makes a statement. And the oldies at work love it. They figure they're not the only ones going slightly senile.'

Outside, another car door banged shut. ‘Fuck! What is it with this place lately?' growled Joe. ‘As if I haven't got enough to deal with here with you mangey bastards.' He looked at Lucy before adding, ‘And clowns.'

A woman's voice rang out on the verandah. ‘Oooo, Dean! You are a sweetie! I couldn't have done that without you coming to my rescue.' A low male voice murmured back. ‘Oh no! I'm sure my little red car would never have made it up that hill without you.' Tammy heard Trav's groan. ‘Who the fuck is
that
?' Joe yelled towards the outside.

‘Ah,
that
would be me, Mr McCauley.' Dean Gibson clumped through the door before holding it open for another person.