Hope's Road (8 page)

It was that dratted kid again. Surely he'd seen all there was to see in them sheds. What was the little shit doin' here? All an old man wanted was a bit of peace and privacy.

‘Get outta there, you little bastard! Get outta me sheds before I come tan your measly little hide black an' blue!'

The scrap of colour didn't move, but stayed crouched down near the ground, drawing something in the dirt with his fingers.

The old man rocked forwards with the rifle and kept the kid in his sights until a flash of grey out to his right caught the attention of both man and dog. Boots took off running from the verandah, barking, eyes set on his quarry, a bobbing white tail.

‘Stay behind. Stay behind!' the old man roared again. The dog halted.

‘Get behind I say!' The dog took one last look then skulked back under the rickety verandah steps. Not happy.

The old man sat back into his chair. ‘You're not destroying me afternoon's entertainment in one go. We'll have a bit of fun first.' He brought the rifle back to his eye, wishing he'd already put that rail up on the verandah.

The scrap had moved again, skirting around behind the decaying pig sheds. ‘Comin' round to see what's set you off, I'll bet,' he muttered to the sulking dog.

He moved the gun, keeping his sight on the blue and red moving towards him. ‘Whaddaya want? A fuckin' invitation ta piss off?' he yelled. The kid couldn't miss hearing that one. But the blue and red kept sliding towards him. Towards the old verandah. Darting behind any structure that was close.

Suddenly the wisp of grey fur popped back up from the grass and took off, tail bobbing. The dog moved fast, darting out from behind the steps. The kid came in low and hard from the opposite direction. The bunny sat up and assessed his diminishing options.

The gun boomed.

The bunny danced.

The scrap was more red than blue.

The gun report rolled around the valley, hitting trees and scrub, rumbling across the paddocks and hills until it was gone. Long gone.

Until it was nothing.

And the old man was falling. Down and down.

His last coherent thought: What the fuck've I done?

Chapter 12

Where was Billy? The kid should have been here helping him; instead he'd run off somewhere a couple of hours ago and Travis hadn't seen him since. He held the spirit level up against the corner post he was putting into the ground. It needed to be a bit more to the left. Shit. Would he never get the darn thing straight? He swiped at his brow with his arm. He was sweating enough from digging the hole, now he was soaked from trying to get the fence in line. He pulled his shirt from out of the waistband of his jeans and hauled it over his head. He flung it at the ute and missed. Bugger it! Where was that bloody kid?

He knew Billy wasn't at Tammy's 'cause he'd just seen her marching up and over the hill, ramrod straight, steaming along like an express train. Something obviously had her gander up again today.

Trav couldn't say when he'd learned to read people's body language so well. Maybe it came from a childhood trying to gauge the mood and temperament of his old man. Knowing when to dodge a blow, or a sideswipe of a hand. Or maybe it was all the time he'd spent on his own in the scrub, reading the trees, the tracks, the sign, the moods of animals and the bush itself.

It hadn't helped him read Katrina though. Trav's shoulders slumped. Right from the start he'd been attracted to her free spirit, the way she flitted like a beautiful butterfly to this and that, drawing people to her like a welcoming light on a dark wintry night. She'd been so different to him. What did they say? Opposites attract? That sure had been the case with him and his former wife. She'd brought out a part of his personality he hadn't known existed. Fostered a more lighthearted side that had helped him realise there was bright colour in the world, not just grey and white.

Funny how you could read people who didn't matter so much, but not the ones you loved. Could he have done something if he had known what was running through Kat's head? Oh, he could have tried, bent himself in all directions, prostrated himself even in an effort to make her stay when she realised that babies meant responsibility. But it wouldn't have worked. She would still have left. It just might have taken a little longer. More time for Billy to grow up and realise what was missing from his life when she finally did piss off.

Trav pushed at the big stringybark post. All this surmising was getting him nowhere. He'd hopefully have a load of cattle coming next week, that's if he got this bloody post and stay-set fixed up before the Lake Grace mountain cattle sales.

In reality, he could have put any new stock he bought up the back. He had five hundred acres after all, but he wanted to eat out the paddocks around the house first. Make the place a bit more firesafe. And he needed the weaners to keep things ticking over. Buying in and growing out beef cattle made his share of the funds that kept his mother in her nursing home. She was comfortable there and it also meant his wage was then free to support himself and Billy.

Belaren was formally his mother Diane's property. A place she and his father had tried to farm when Trav was little. They'd eked out a living but his old man had worked up the bush as a dog trapper to make ends meet. Then his dad had inherited his own family's property, north of Yunta. So they'd all upped and moved to South Australia, putting Belaren in the hands of a caretaker. All he could remember of that time was his mother crying, forever crying, as she moved from her beloved mountains of blue and grey bush to an outback flatland of red dirt. From lush green improved pastures to silver bindi-eye saltbush. From purple chocolate orchids to pink onion weed. From a twenty-six inch average annual rainfall to just eight reluctant inches. From pure and fresh underground water thirty feet below the surface to seventy feet and saline.

He and his older brother, on the other hand, had loved it. An old square functional house built of local stone, outbuildings to match, devoid of all mod cons like mains power and a washing machine, plonked in the middle of eighty-two thousand acres. Sheer bliss for two bush boys and, in appreciation, they went feral, fleeing at the slightest excuse from their School of the Air lessons.

And his father? Well, after the euphoria of being back where he belonged wore off, he slowly drank himself into a stupor. Wasn't much else to do, except make sure the livestock had enough water and feed, which the two boys did for him, and then muster a couple of times a year. Oh, and slaughter the odd sheep. He could still picture the old man on one particular occasion, bottle in one hand, knife in the other, a wether hung from the back of the ute, blood pouring from a slit throat. He and his brother had thought it hilarious, watching their father trying to drunkenly butcher the carcass. His mother, silently observing from the desolate and bare verandah, had just turned and walked back inside.

His old man wasn't interested in newfangled ways of farming, of improving the land and its capacity to run stock. He wasn't interested in anything beyond the bottom of the bottle. And his mother had worn the whole job like a martyr, until he, Travis, was twelve. Danny, his brother, six years older, had finished with school early and was bumming around the station, trying to keep the place ticking over and showing a liking for alcohol too.

Then his mother walked. Towing Travis along, she piled luggage into the old Holden Kingswood and drove out the front gate. Before leaving she'd given Danny an ultimatum: stay or go, his choice. He chose to remain with their father.

Diane never returned to a mangy life of marital abuse. She'd moved to Burra, rented a house and put Trav into school. Worked her butt off to provide a living for the two of them. And later on she'd taken in Billy for him . . .

Thank goodness he'd finally been able to bring her back to where she belonged, the place she had always called home. The sanctity of Lake Grace.

He lined up the level against the side of the post again. The bubble centred dead true to the middle. Gotcha, ya bastard. Trav smiled in grim satisfaction. Now for the stay-set.

He was just straining up some wires when a small pair of hands appeared out of thin air to pass him a pair of pliers.

‘Thought you might need some help,' said a female voice.

He was so shocked he didn't even say thanks, struck dumb to see her standing there, all liquid brown eyes, looking so fragile and small but holding the pliers with a hand that was tanned, muscled and used to work.

Tamara McCauley used the pliers to pull the wire he'd been straining through and tie it off. ‘Next one?' she asked, her head quirked to one side.

‘Umm . . . yeah. Right.' He mentally kicked himself up the bum. Move it, Hunter. Stop acting like a gawky teenager. She's a woman. The lower half of his body responded, I'm well aware of that! It was that goddamned voice. It was low and sweet, and then husky when you least expected it. Seductive and inviting. He could listen to it forever.

‘How about I run the wire and you can strain and tie it off?'

Yes, that sounded good. Get her away and stop him making a fool of himself.

‘No worries.' His voice sounded false and he knew his half-grin probably wasn't much better. She walked off down the slope out of his personal space, which Trav was well aware was a great deal bigger than most people's – he spent so much time alone.

She ran the wire, reeling it off the wire spinner as she went, making his job one hell of a lot easier. He should just thank his lucky stars she came along when she did. Forget that she was a female who made his long dormant male bits perk up. Just get on with the job at hand.

But he couldn't stop his eyes following her, checking out the neat butt that gently swayed from side to side as it went.

‘Pull yourself together,' he muttered.

‘You say something?' she called.

‘No, umm, yes. Just wondering if you've got better things to be doing?'

‘Well . . .' A shadow crossed her face but she chased it away with a determined smile. ‘Can't say I have. You going to lounge around all day and yak or are we going to finish what you've started?'

‘Right.' You've just been told, Hunter.

They worked silently and well together, like a neatly rehearsed concerto comprising wire, hands and pliers. It took a little while to get the fence looking like a real one that would do a decent job and Trav was surprised by how he could work with this woman without feeling he had to say anything at all.

Then she was beside him again and he was back having trouble keeping his mind on the job. Her perfume was wafting around his nostrils. He could hear the small gasps she made as she tied off a particularly tricky knot.

They were just finishing when the gun went off.

Bang!

‘Bloody old Joe.'

‘Bloody old Joe.'

Their voices competed. ‘Jinx,' said Tammy automatically. She grinned up at him and then slightly ducked her head.

Trav got the feeling that grin was in spite of herself. She lapsed back into silence as she worked to tie off the final wire. ‘There. Done. Nice working with you, Trav.' She handed over the pliers and went to walk away.

‘Hang on,' he spluttered, annoyed for some reason by her abruptness. ‘Can I offer you a drink? Or at least some thanks for helping me out here. You can't just walk off!'

‘Can't I?' she said, swinging back around to face him.

‘No, you can't.' He wondered why he was now being so short with
her
. ‘But then again, I suppose you can. It's your life.' He reached a hand up in agitation to ruffle his buzz cut. And caught her checking out his belly, his chest, his body.

Aha. So calm and collected on the surface. But what was underneath that smooth exterior? Perversely, he had a mind to find out. ‘Look. Let me start over.' His brain started screaming a siren-like warning: She's
married
, you
bloody idiot
!

Then again maybe that was actually a
real
siren he was hearing.

An ambulance siren. Coming up
their
road.

Both Trav and Tammy swung and took in the white van with its flashing blue and red lights belting along Hope's Road. It flew past the gateway of Montmorency Downs, still coming towards McCauley's Hill, barely buttoning off the throttle as it swung right at the T intersection, at the base of the mountain. There was one property down the end of that road. And unless there'd been a car accident on the dozy little lane lying peacefully in the afternoon sun, it was the only place the ambo could be headed to.

Old Joe's.

Chapter 13

‘
Jump in the ute!' Trav took off at a run, Tammy hard on his heels. He had the LandCruiser in reverse and was already backing up as she made it to the passenger-side door. She swung aboard and he floored the accelerator. ‘We'll take the shortcut across the paddocks,' he yelled. Swinging wide around the new corner post he hit the top of the driveway sideways and Tammy couldn't help but wonder if
they
were the ones who were going to need the ambulance.

‘Settle, Trav,' she said, instinctively reaching out to place her hand on the big one which was working the gearstick. He pulled away like she'd jabbed him with a needle. The ute, in mid gearshift, clunked into neutral, sending the vehicle running full pelt down the hill.

‘
Travis!
' yelled Tammy as she flung herself forwards and rammed the gearstick into third. The engine speed kicked in, rapidly slowing the vehicle down. The motor roared its disapproval as both Tammy and Trav were thrown against their seatbelts. The motor was screaming its injectors out. Trav jabbed the clutch and moved up a gear while flexing the fingers of his left hand.

Tammy couldn't help herself. ‘For land's sake, I don't bite. Crikey, you could have killed us!'

Trav threw her a look which was somewhere between agitation and fury. And here she was thinking she was doing the neighbourly thing. She'd spotted him trying to push that damned post into position and eye up the fence-line all by himself. Realised she could pound out her frustration and anger over Shon by walking towards Lake Grace, or use all that negative energy on something productive. Plus, if the truth be known, she just didn't want to be by herself. She was sick of spending so much time alone.

Enter Travis Hunter and his blasted fence. So she'd offered to help. What an idiot. Although, and the thought was grudging, the eye-candy factor hadn't been a bad side benefit. All those muscles, pecs and decs. Sheesh! Cords of them travelling down a tanned chest and disappearing into a pair of jeans that screamed
everything in here is male
! The sheer animal attractiveness of the man was breathtaking.

Shame his demeanour didn't match.

He could do his own bloody fencing next time. She folded her arms and willed herself to stay calm. As the ute flew across the rough shortcut towards Joe's place she wondered what the hell the old man had done.

The vision that greeted them wasn't good.

Just below his verandah, the old man was face down in the dirt. Totally still. Wild, grey-white hair lay tangled over his head like a dish mop that had seen better days. A leg was cocked at a crazy angle. His arms were spread wide to embrace the earth he was kissing.

Perfectly placed across Joe, a child lay prostrate. A boy with a shock of red hair.

And the blood was everywhere. Spilling from the bodies to pool like beads of water refusing to soak into sodic soil. Mean soil which didn't encourage life meeting unforgiving human blood. The red claret was terrifying in its quantity. Macabre in its presence. Sinister in its intent.

‘
Billy!
' Hunter yelled as he flung himself from the ute, running towards the figures on the ground.

‘
Billy! Joe!
' Tammy's voice caught in her throat. Oh. My.
God
. What had the old man done? Who had he shot? Billy? Himself? It was a bloodbath. She ran towards them.

The ambulance siren screamed, coming up from behind.

Two dogs danced around the bodies. Confused, they darted forwards then back, barking and yelping. The place was bedlam.

Except for the two silent bodies.

Just lying there.

Hunter came to a halt, sliding the last few metres across the ground on his knees.

‘Billy!'

Suddenly the boy's head lifted. ‘Dad?'

‘Bloody hell! Are you all right?' Trav could feel his heart pounding so loudly he felt like it was about to explode from his chest.

‘Yeah, I think so.' The boy started to move, a little dazed, slightly wobbly. First one arm, then the other. His earnest face propped to the side, looking up at his father.

‘Are you hit?'

‘Shot, do ya mean? Nah, it's the rabbit. I've got it here in me hand. Mr McCauley's not good though. I can't hear his heart.'

‘Mate, you won't hear it properly in his back. Can you move? Can you get off him?'

‘Yeah, I was just trying to see if he was dead. Thought if I laid on him I might hear what was going on inside. But I think he's alive. He was moving his hands a bit before and groaning.'

A noise came from the direction of the dish mop. Hunter could hear it now the ambulance had turned off its siren. He leaned down to catch what the old man was saying.

‘Get the little bugger off-a-me,' mumbled Joe. ‘Can't bloody breathe!'

Hunter pulled his son off the old bloke's back real quick, the dead animal which had been squashed between the two bodies coming away with them. Blood, guts and fur were everywhere. All over the boy. All over Joe. But that wasn't what was holding Travis's attention. There was more blood here than could just be attributed to the damned rabbit.

Joe tried to roll over. Fell back face down. ‘I can't,' the old man mumbled. ‘Hurts.'

‘Just stay there, Joe. The ambos will be here in a sec.'

‘What's he done?' Tammy was leaning over Trav's shoulder. ‘Are you all right, Billy? Crikey, you had me scared! Crap, that's a huge cut on the old bloke's head. Can you hear me, Joe?'

Joe could hear her all right. Those dulcet tones he'd never thought would drift around his ears again. So beautifully pitched, with the lilt of huskiness curling at the end of the sentence. ‘Mae?'

‘Good Lord, he thinks I'm my grandmother.' The voice sounded surprised.

Joe couldn't work out why. It
was
Mae, wasn't it?

‘Tammy, move over. The ambo's here. He's wanting to get through to Joe.' That was Travis Hunter. Funny, in the few times he'd spoken to the bloke, he'd never heard him sound so agitated and stressed. The man was usually like a refrigerator. Solid and cool.

‘Sorry. Here let me help you with that case. Trav, do you want to go check on Billy? The other paramedic's over there. I'll stay here and answer this one's questions.'

There she was again, Mae. No. The man called her Tammy. Who the fuck was Tammy?

‘And you are?' the ambulance officer asked.

‘I'm – well, I'm actually his niece, but he doesn't know me. He doesn't like people. Especially family.'

Aha, so that's who she was. Of course! Tammy from
that
place. How the hell did she get up on top of
his
hill? The bloody cheek of her! Mae . . . no . . .
Tammy
was talking some more to someone with a calm, male voice. Then there were cool hands on the back of his head, over his body, thoroughly checking here, there and everywhere.

‘We're just going to examine you a bit more before we turn you over, Mr . . . ?'

‘McCauley. Joe McCauley.' Her again. So Mae remembered him, even after all these years? Damn it, it wasn't Mae. Tammy. It was
Tammy
.

‘Is he going to the hospital at Narree? Geez, he's not going to like that. Is he going to be okay?'

Of course I'm bloody well okay, thought Joe. Just a little bump on my head. Can't move me left leg either, but I'm not telling you lot that. I'm fine. You can just sit me up and then bugger off, all of you.

‘Yes, I suppose I can get some clothes and stuff sorted for him. As I said he's practically a hermit. Will he be there a while?

What? Leave home? Go to
town
? No way. Who did this Tammy woman think she was? Be buggered if she was just going to step in and take over! He tried to roll onto his back but firm male hands made sure he stayed put.

‘No, Mr McCauley, not just yet. We need to make sure we
can
turn you over first. Just give us a few minutes more, okay?'

Fuck it, thought Joe. Bloody rocking chair. He hadn't meant to go that far forwards but he'd been so excited seeing it was a hare not a rabbit and the kid had popped up at the same time he'd squeezed the trigger, and he'd been trying to miss the boy, hit the hare . . . and then he'd been so damned wobbly lately. He'd really fucked it up. What in the devil's name had he just done?

Tammy cast a worried look across at Trav and Billy and was relieved to see the boy appeared none the worse for wear. A little wide-eyed at the whole drama and covered in all sorts of muck, but that was all. He was sitting on the ground with a hand on an old border collie, who was lolling ecstatically at his feet, tongue hanging out, mooching and begging for a scratch.

Hunter was crouched in the dirt beside his son. Not touching him, just watching the boy. Tammy found that kind of sad. Surely he'd want to cuddle him – especially after all this? Heck, she'd thought Billy was dead the way he was lying over old Joe. Thought the old man had somehow done both himself and the boy in.

She turned back to her uncle. Thanks to the ambos he was now loaded onto a stretcher, a pad strapped around his forehead to staunch the bleeding of a nasty cut. There seemed to be no other obvious injuries apart from the fact he was having trouble with his left leg. The taller of the paramedics muttered about a possible broken hip, but they couldn't be sure without an X-ray. They'd given him a green whistle-like thing to suck on, which apparently contained a painkiller, but that hadn't seemed to make much difference.

‘If you think I'm gettin' in that bloody ambulance you're gunna be sorely disappointed!'

‘Now, now, Mr McCauley. You need to go to the hospital to be checked over.'

‘I'm not goin' to some bloody hospital to be poked and prodded by the likes of you. Get me offa this thing right now!'

‘Sorry, Mr McCauley, no can do. You need help and you need it now.'

‘Don't you Mr McCauley me, you young whippersnapper. If you think you're so bloody clever just fix me up and leave me here then. I've got me dogs for company, I'll be right as rain.'

The old man suddenly gasped as the stretcher hit a boulder. He grabbed at his green whistle and sucked back on the painkiller like his life depended on it.

‘Sorry about that, Mr McCauley. That's probably why you cut your head. Those rocks are big and sharp. Now, we just need to adjust this bandage on your head again. It's not quite right.'

Tammy moved up behind the paramedic to peer over his shoulder. The bandage wasn't holding the blood and the wound was weeping outside of the gauze. Nothing like a head wound to turn everything claret.

‘
You
! What the bloody hell are
you
still doing here?' said Joe as he spotted her looking down at him. ‘I don't need you up on my hill. Jigger off back down to those irrigated flats where you belong. Get the hell off my farm, you –' The old man gasped something and grabbed again for his medicinal whistle.

. . .
land-grabbing little fucker
. In her head Tammy finished the sentence with him; she was thrown back to the age of six. She could almost taste the Tabasco sauce on her tongue. She quickly stepped away from the stretcher. The paramedics were giving her sympathetic looks and she could feel the colour starting to steal up her neck. How embarrassing and unfair to be thought of like that.

She had all the land she could deal with right now. She didn't want anything off this horrible old man, except maybe acknowledgement he was family. But the way he was carrying on, why the hell would she want that?

A hand clamped down hard on her shoulder. Travis. ‘You all right? I'm sure he doesn't mean it.' His voice was low, only for her ears. ‘He's a bit out of it. Pain, pethidine – probably some shock.'

She shifted a little under his warm touch. It felt nice. Quiet and firm.

‘Yes. I'm fine.' Was she? Really?

‘I told you, Mrs Murphy. Get the fuck away from me.' Old Joe was trying to sit up, impeded by the straps on the stretcher. ‘I know your type. Always want, want, want and you only take the best of what's given. So why do you want a gravelly, god­forsaken piece of ground like McCauley's Hill? You just piss on off outta here. Get back to that lah-di-dah farm of yours and don't come back. I don't need nobody but this here green stick. It's good shit.'

Suddenly the old man's eyes rolled back in his head and he was gone. Out for the count.

The tall ambo held up a needle and sighed. ‘Didn't want to do that, but by God he's a stubborn old bugger.'

Trav laughed quietly and with one last pat of Tammy's shoulder, his warm hand was gone, leaving a searing sense of loss.

‘You okay, miss? I'm the new ambo from Lake Grace, by the way. Dean Gibson.' The paramedic stuck out his hand then realised he was still holding the injection he'd used on Joe. ‘Argh, sorry.' He dropped the needle into the disposal box in the back of the ambulance then tried again. ‘Dean Gibson. And you are?'