Hope's Road (17 page)

Chapter 26

Old Joe was sitting back on his verandah with the boy safely by his side. His heart was slowly returning to its normal rhythm. Christ, Billy had scared him, although he had to give it to the kid – he'd had the presence of mind to haul down on the steering wheel and drive in circles until Joe had reached him. That had taken a while, clumping along on that damnable frame. Then it was just a matter of yelling and gesturing until the child understood what knob to pull out to make the tractor stop.

After a few practice sessions up and down a very
big
paddock, Billy had mastered the art of driving in first gear. All farm buildings – including the house – and fences were still intact and the tractor, while not parked to Joe's normal standards, was
pretty much
in the shed.

They now had Joe's beloved .22 rifle out of the gun-safe and on his lap.

‘Now, boy, you need to be real careful and respectful of guns. These things can kill people . . .' Joe stopped. The two of them shared a look, remembering that terrible day when Joe thought he'd shot Billy and Billy thought Joe was dead.

Joe moved uncomfortably in his chair and instinctively pulled the gun up to his eye. Just taking a look to see what bunnies there were around. Instead, below him, down on the irrigated flats of Montmorency Downs, Joe spotted a man he'd hoped he'd never lay eyes on again. Shon Murphy was coming out the back door of the homestead after Tammy. A meaty fist swinging through the air.

‘Holy
shit
!' yelled Joe.

Billy jumped two foot in the air.

‘Get the ute! Get the truck! Get the fuckin' tractor, boy! Get something and get me
down there
!'

Billy looked at Joe like the old man had finally flipped his lid.

‘
Now,
Billy! Get me to Tammy's! Move, boy,
move
!'

Billy belted down the steps, ran to the small open carport where Joe kept his old banged up Triton ute, got in and started it up. Joe watched him zip through the get-moving procedure – clutch in, gearstick, clutch out – the whole caboose he'd just been practising out on the tractor.

He bunny-hopped out the front of the shed, tumbling some boxes which had been stacked there. Pulled up with a screech of brakes and a stall at the rough ramp which led up to the verandah, where the old man was waiting.

Once Joe was safely on board, and with a decidedly jerky take-off, they headed off in first gear, engine screaming, straight down the hill.

Joe didn't have time to register the fact he was on the property he'd vowed never to set foot on again, didn't even clock the fact he was on a driveway he hadn't seen up close in decades.

He only had eyes for one thing.

The figure of a woman holding what appeared to be a shovel. ‘Stay in the car, Billy.' He wanted the kid safe.

‘
Stop right there, Murphy!
' Joe was yelling before the ute stalled to a stop. He was intent on the man who had a handful of his niece's button-down shirt in one hand, a fist back behind his shoulder, frozen in mid-swing.

‘What the –?' spluttered Shon Murphy. ‘Who the fuck are you?'

Tammy bucked and kicked, struggling to get herself free from her distracted attacker's grasp.

Joe swung his legs out the door and stood up, as proud and as tall as his hip would let him. ‘I'm Joe McCauley. And that there is my niece.'

Shon effortlessly deflected Tammy's desperate struggles and started to laugh. ‘So you've come to watch the show? You couldn't stand her –
or her grandparents –
either!'

Joe shuffled forwards, hands behind his back. ‘Get away from the girl, Murphy.'

‘She's my wife! You can't tell me what to do. Get in that bomb of yours and piss off.' Shon turned to take a better hold on Tammy's shirt. ‘And take that shit of a kid with you.'

‘Let the girl go, Murphy!'

‘You still here?' Shon spun back and took a menacing step towards old Joe, dragging Tammy with him. She kicked out with her boot, missing her attacker by inches. Billy cringed at Shon's seething face.

‘Fuck off, old man.' Shon's voice was rising to a shout. ‘This is nothing to do with
you
.'

‘It has
everything
to do with me. This here is McCauley land, and we don't want no bloody Murphy desecrating it any more. So take that fancy ute of yours and piss off!'

‘And how's a tottery old man, a snot-nosed kid and my useless wife gunna stop me?'

‘She's not your wife! Not any more!' yelled Billy from inside the ute. ‘You don't deserve her, you mean horrible man!'

‘Billy!' gasped Tammy, as Shon took another step towards the Triton, giving her the chance she needed to wrench herself out of the man's grasp.

‘The boy's right.' Joe shuffled forwards a bit more, away from the ute – and brought the .22 rifle out from behind his back. ‘You, Shon Murphy, don't deserve her and you have no right to be here. No right whatsoever.'

He levelled the gun somewhere over Shon's left ear.

Shon moved backwards, his hands up defensively. ‘You can't threaten me, McCauley! I'll report you to the coppers. Pointing a gun at a man is an offence.'

Joe laughed, which made him stagger sideways slightly, gun swinging a little away from Shon. ‘Pointing a gun at you?' The old man levelled the rifle again. ‘Wouldn't waste a bullet on a piece of shit like you. But . . .' He looked contemplative, flipped the safety catch, pulled the trigger.

Bang!

‘
Joe!
' yelled Tammy.

‘
Fuck!
'
shouted Shon.

‘. . . that duck over yonder looks mighty tasty,' finished Joe, peering at a spot beyond Shon's ear. A wicked grin lit up his face as he ejected the case and quickly reloaded. Aimed it again.

‘
Fuck
! You're mad! You're all fucking mad!'

‘Possibly,' said Joe mildly.

Bang!

Shon took off running, across the lawn towards his ute. He leaped the fence like a SWAT member and scrambled in the passenger-side door of the twin-cab. They could see him through the window, wrestling with the gear stick as he clambered his way across to the driver's side. He gunned the engine and swung the ute around in a wide circle, winding the window down as he went.

‘I'll get you, you bitch!' he yelled to Tammy through the window.

Bang!

‘
Fuck!
Stop shootin', you crazy old bastard!'

‘You talkin' to me?' Joe called.

Bang!

‘I'm calling the police!'

‘Geez! The ducks are fat around these parts,' roared Joe, as he ejected the spent cartridge again. ‘And lazy and slow.' He reloaded. ‘Real slow in fact.'

Bang!

Shon scrambled to do up the window and sped down the drive.

Joe's laughing hiccupped to a stop. He dropped the gun and began to fall sideways, the effort of holding himself erect suddenly too much.

Immediately Tammy was right there beside him, propping him up. Billy leaped from the ute onto the ground and gently picked up the gun, handling it with extreme care, just like Joe had told him earlier.

‘Are you all right?' Tammy asked quietly, bearing most of the old man's weight.

‘Yep, fit as a fiddle,' mumbled Joe, blinking back tears, resting against the girl who looked and sounded so much like Mae.

‘Geez, Mr McCauley! That was
awesome
!' said Billy.

‘Argh, don't know about awesome, boy, but he sure turned tail and ran, didn't he?' Joe stopped and gazed up into Tammy's brown eyes. The girl might look like her grandmother but she was a McCauley through and through. Tough, strong and determined. ‘I reckon he'll think twice before he comes sniffin' around here again.' He pulled himself upright. ‘Get me back in that there ute, girl.' Joe cleared his throat. ‘That's if you don't mind . . .'

‘Mind? I don't mind at all,' said Tammy, allowing the old man to use her hands and arm like a crutch. The pair limped the few steps to the ute. Joe slowly swung around and sat down with a sigh. Getting rid of Murphy had sure taken the stuffing out of him. As had Billy's antics with the tractor this morning.
Where had his quiet, solitary life gone?

‘Righto. C'mon, Billy. Let's head home. We've got some shootin' to be doing. Bunnies to be having.'

‘How about I drive you both back?' suggested Tammy. ‘Billy's not supposed to be driving on the road.'

Joe was about to agree, until he glanced across and saw Billy's downcast face. He bit back a sigh. ‘The lad did a good job of getting us here. I guess he should be able to drive home.'

Billy's face lit up and he scrambled for the driver's seat.

Tammy shook her head and moved to help the old man shut the door. She leaned through the open window, elbows resting on the sill.

Joe could see her struggling to say something and thought he'd beat her to it. ‘The place still looks good.' He smiled as he took in the old house, his former home, which was sprawled out before him as solid as when it was built more than a century back. ‘Real good.'

‘Thanks, Joe.' She leaned in further and placed a warm and dry kiss on his wrinkled cheek. It felt lovely.

She pulled back, a small grin on her face. ‘I'd best be going to gather up those dead ducks. Find a nice recipe to cook them.'

The grin became wider and she lifted a hand in salute. Billy started the ute and muttered to himself. ‘Clutch in, engage gear, handbrake off, clutch out and . . .' The ute jumped forwards.

‘Back, boy.
Back
!' yelled Joe, as the rear end of Tammy's vehicle loomed large in the front windscreen.

Billy slammed on the brakes. The old Triton stalled and stopped.

Joe let out the breath he'd been holding. Tried to make his voice sound smooth and reassuring. ‘Right now, boy. Try again. Engage reverse gear, back away from Tammy's vehicle and
then
go forwards.'

‘Right,' muttered the child. ‘Reverse first . . .'

And they were off. Backwards. Stalling to a stop. Then forwards, in first gear, down the drive and out the gate. They turned left, heading up Hope's Road for the hill. McCauley's Hill.

Suddenly the ute lurched to a near halt, engine still roaring, then the vehicle leaped forwards again. Tammy heard a faint ‘
Yahooo!'
on the breeze as the motor moved up a gear. Billy had finally hit second.

Tammy watched them, a hand in the air, a whisper on her lips.

‘Thanks, Uncle
Joe
.
'

Chapter 27

The week passed fast. Tammy was flat out milking cows, doing farm work, checking on old Joe – making sure he was getting the right food to eat, the correct treatment to ensure his hip healed well.

The cows due to calve in late autumn had started to drop their babies, adding to her workload. She was checking on them both day and night, which wasn't helping with her mood either. She'd never been one to handle broken sleep without getting grumpy.

And for the past week, as predicted by those bloody currawongs, it had rained and rained. The farm was so goddamned wet. The ground was pugging and her paddocks were a boggy mess. The Lake Grace Weir was close to capacity, which made her keep a wary eye on the weather. With Montmorency Downs sitting so close to the river, she didn't need a flood on top of it all.

A barrage of phone calls kept coming from Shon, each one more urgent and abusive than the one before. He wanted his money and he wanted it
now
. Apparently Joanne and he were going halves in another hotel, or so Lucy had heard. Not that Tammy cared. She was too busy trying to run the farm and worrying about how in the heck she was going to buy him out to concern herself with where he was going to spend the damned money when he got it.

If
he got it.

She'd been to see a solicitor in town. He'd told her to just sell up and distribute the money as decreed by the court. He didn't seem to understand.
Sell her farm
? A fifth-generation property handed down through the McCauley family? No way, not if she could help it. She just had to find the money, courage and energy to fight it. Somehow. Shon's anger and abuse had worn her down. He was determined one way or another to ruin her.

In an attempt to stay sane she'd given in and gone pole dancing with Lucy.

‘Shon still bugging you?' Lucy said one night while they were hanging upside down from a stainless steel pole. Her friend was looking more drawn and ragged every day.

‘Yep,' came Tammy's reply from underneath a curtain of hair.

‘So what are you going to do about it?'

Tammy flipped herself back against the rod and slid downwards to the floor. ‘Nothing at the moment. Too busy on the farm.'

‘Tammy! You can't do nothing! He'll take it
all
! And then where'll you be?'

Tammy looked across at Lucy who'd landed heavily beside her. ‘Well, he's already taken the last of the inheritance I got from my grandmother.'

‘
What?
'

‘I went to the bank yesterday. The third print in that set I bought after Shon left is due to arrive soon. Thought I'd better be prepared. Plus I needed to top up my operating account for the farm.'

‘And?'

‘He's buggered off with all the money. A week or so before he left I asked him to take a withdrawal form into the bank to get Mae's money so I could reinvest it elsewhere. I forgot about it with all that was going on and now it's gone.'

‘The bastard!'

‘I know.' Tammy sighed, and pulled at her hair in exasperation. ‘And now I'm so tired. I'm over the whole lot. I need to run away to an island and forget it all!'

Lucy snorted. ‘What you
need
is a good solicitor! A woman who doesn't mind getting her hands dirty. Someone who'll fight the battle with Shon for you while you manage the farm.'

‘Any suggestions would be gratefully received at this stage, believe me. Shon and his solicitor are pushing really hard for settlement.' Tammy snatched a drink from her water bottle and squirted some water into her face. Damn it, this pole dancing sure made you sweat.

‘Leave it in my capable hands. I'll find you someone even if I've got to go to Melbourne to get them,' said Lucy looking fierce. ‘But why can't you pay him out and just get on with it? Surely you've got enough collateral with the farm and the run-off block?'

Tammy sighed. ‘To buy the block we had to mortgage Montmorency Downs. To keep Montmorency, I have to sell the block. If I sell the block I don't have anywhere for Jock and Barb to live. The deal was that they'd have a place of their own. I offered for them to move in with me, into the old part of the house, but they won't. And I can't afford to pay them wages if they live off-farm. So I lose both the block and my workers.'

‘But you could cut back, reduce your cow numbers and still trundle along on your own, couldn't you?'

‘Nup,' said Tammy, shaking her head. ‘The farm's in too deep. Shon took some of the money we borrowed when we bought the block and had a play on the stock market as well. The shares didn't do so well . . .'

‘The man's an idiot. What does Joanne see in –' Lucy stopped short.

Tammy smiled. ‘Yes, I know. What did
I
 see in him? But he wasn't always like that.'

‘You want to make a bet?' muttered Lucy as she swung back upwards on her pole.

Tammy gave her friend a sharp look but chose to ignore the last comment. ‘Anyway, I need to keep the cow numbers up to get enough milk to pay the bills. I need the extra land to sustain the cows and Jock and Barb to help me. So there you have it. I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.'

‘Not if I've got anything to do with it,' said Lucy. ‘I'm finding you a bitch of a solicitor – and fast.'

A few days later Tammy found herself sitting in front of a female solicitor, a practitioner from Melbourne who visited Narree once a month. Hilary Stratton was a silver-haired woman who looked and acted like a frumpy middle-aged shark. Obviously her parents hadn't believed in dental work, if the row of huge teeth protruding from a squared-off jaw was anything to go by.

But she knew her stuff. My word she did.

‘And so, Ms McCauley, how long had you been married?' Her eyes focused on a pad of paper, placed perfectly in front of her, rather than on her client.

‘Ten years.'

‘Any children from the union?'

‘No . . . no . . . there weren't. We would have liked them but –'

‘What did you both bring to the marriage in the beginning?'

‘Well, just ourselves really.' Tammy stopped. The woman opposite her was frowning at the piece of green legal paper sitting on the big desk between them. Her pen wasn't moving. She was probably wondering what Tammy was doing here if they didn't have anything to fight over. Tammy took a deep breath and went on, ‘But then my grandparents died soon after we married and I inherited the family property – Montmorency Downs. We bought a run-off block two years ago, after taking a mortgage out on the farm.'

The pen started moving once more. ‘So what contribution did you both make in the last decade to the accumulated wealth of the marriage?'

‘What contribution?' Tammy paused again. ‘Well, he worked on the farm since we married and then after my grandparents died . . .'

And so it went on, until there was nothing more to tell and Tammy felt like a wrung-out sponge. She sat back in the chair.

‘Well, Ms McCauley, on consideration of what you have told me today, my advice to you is simple.' Hilary Stratton put down her pen and looked up at Tammy for the first time, peering over her bifocal glasses.

‘Yes?' said Tammy, leaning forwards.

‘Do a property settlement and put everything on the market . . . That's unless you can afford to buy out your husband's interests in the marriage some other way?'

Tammy reeled back. ‘Sell Montmorency Downs? But –'

‘My dear, even though Mr Murphy will most likely only be awarded no more than twenty per cent of the value of both properties, due to the fact you can't afford to pay him out, you will have to liquidate the assets.' The woman peeled off her glasses, seemingly unaware of the blow she'd just struck. ‘If a party in a property settlement in dissolution of the marriage is awarded a cash settlement he or she can force the sale of the properties in question in order to liquidate the assets.'

Tammy sat stunned. Is that what a hundred and fifty years of history was labelled? Just assets?

‘Of course you will get the bulk of the proceeds of the sale.'

She didn't want the money. She just wanted the land. Her land. Her family's heritage, her heart, her soul. Home.

‘
My aunt's fanny
!
' shrieked Lucy. ‘She said sell
up
? Get outta here! She was supposed to be a total bitch.'

‘She was. And apparently it's all “very simple” seeing there are no children,' said Tammy taking another bite out of her chicken and avocado sandwich. It tasted awful. She spat it out into her napkin and pushed the plate away. ‘If I can't raise the cash another way, it's liquidate the assets, pay him out and move on.'

‘So, what are you going to do? I mean, I wish I had the money to give you,' Lucy held her hands out towards Tammy. ‘I really do, but I'm doing overtime just to pay off my little house, let alone a whole farm!'

Tammy took Lucy's chubby fingers and gave them a squeeze – a silent thank-you. She shrugged, determined not to give in to the tears that had been threatening since she left the solicitor's office. ‘Hilary's also going to try and find out what he's done with my inheritance money, but that's only a drop in the ocean compared to what I need. I can't see a way out of this one, Luce. Last time, when the creditors came sniffing around after Grandpa Tom and Mae died, I didn't have as much debt and I had Shon to help me pay the money that was owing. This time . . .' Tammy broke off, unable to continue.

‘If only you hadn't bought that other place!'

‘Shon really needed it. Wanted his name on a title.'

‘And look where that's got you!' Luce stopped.

Tammy was well aware of where Shon had got her.

‘Here's your medication, Joe,' called Tammy, stomping up the verandah steps a while later.

‘And a mighty fine day to you too,' said Joe. ‘What's got your gander?'