The Amber Trail (30 page)

“
Good, good. Now just
let me get rid of this.” He shouted across the room. “Troy! Watch
the desk.” The boy pushed to his feet and walked over to stand
beside Dig. He produced a small handgun from his back pocket and
held it loosely at his waist, watching Dig from the corner of his
eye, blank-faced.

Hari slunk out to the back room.
There was a fiddling of keys, and a loud creak. He returned moments
later with a wad of notes, and held it out low at the side of the
counter. “Three hundred K,” Hari whispered. “I promise.”

Dig took the wad of notes and
pushed it into his bag, deep into the bottom compartment.
Butterflies danced in his stomach. “Okay then.”

“
Good to do business
with you.” They both stood stiffly with their hands in their
pockets.  

“
Well, I’ll be going
then.”

“
Will you be back
with more?”

“
No,” Dig said. “I
don’t plan to ever come back to Hampi. But no offence or anything.
It’s a nice town and all that.”

Hari wobbled his head and cocked
his eyebrows. “You need a bus ticket?”

“
Yes,” Dig said,
smiling. “I’ll take a bus ticket.”

A COUPLE OF DAYS LATER,
Dig’s taxi
pulled up outside the family home back in Sydney. He paid the
driver, stepped out of the car, and watched the brewery while the
taxi reversed out of the driveway.

He walked down the drive and
entered through the side door. Jake drove the forklift through the
building, transporting a pallet of beer to the delivery truck. He
wore blue overalls, and the shelves around him were all but bare.
The forklift drifted to a stop. He stepped out, smiling, and
embraced Dig with his good arm. “You made it.”

Dig nodded. “How’s the
hand?”

Jake shrugged and held up the
bandage. “Getting better.”

“
Got things under
control?”

“
Yeah I think so.” He
pointed at the shelves around him. “Apart from the fact that we’re
nearly out of stock. How’d things finish up?”

“
It was
mental.”

“
Dig!” said his
mother, standing in the door. “I saw your taxi pull up.” She gave
him a solid hug. “How was your business meeting?”

Dig’s forehead creased and he
shoved a hand into his pocket. “To be honest,” he said. “It didn’t
go that well. Our supplier can’t supply us with hops anymore,
meaning we can’t produce Buckley’s Chance.”

Dig’s mother put her hand to her
mouth. Jake dropped his head and cursed under his breath. “So
that’s it then,” he said. “We just lost the house.” He turned away
and laced his hands in his hair.

Dig’s mother looked from Jake to
Dig with wide eyes. “Is that true?”

Dig paused. “Not
necessarily.
”

Jake frowned. “And how do you
figure that?”

“
The supplier offered
us some compensation for our losses.”

“
Huh?”

Dig reached into his backpack,
dug around at the base, then threw the wad of notes to his brother.
“Three hundred thousand. In cash.”

Jake examined the money. “How the
hell did you manage that?”

“
I’ll tell you later.
But, by my calcs, that gives us a couple of years where we can keep
the mortgage paid off, and in the meantime we can work on getting
the production of Buckley’s Chance going again.”

Jake raised his eyebrows. “Sure,”
he said. “But aren’t you missing one important fact here? We still
don’t have the hops.”

Dig smiled. “I think we can do
it.” He reached deep into his pack again, down inside the hidden
compartment, and held up some wiry brown roots.

“
Just before I left
the brewery,” he said. “I took the liberty of grabbing a handful of
rhizomes.”

“
What’s a rhizome?”
said his mother.

“
The roots of the hop
vine. They’re still alive, and ready to be planted.”

Jake smiled. “You cheeky
bastard!”

Dig’s mother frowned. “But, can a
few vines produce enough hops?”

“
Not straight away,”
Dig said. “But I’ve been studying up on cutting and transplanting,
and by the time we’re a couple of years down the track, we should
have a reasonable crop developed—enough to get a few solid batches
going.”

“
And no reliance on
suppliers,” Jake said, smiling broadly.

“
Exactly.”

“
Well that’s
good...isn’t it?” said Dig’s mum.

“
Very good,” Jake
said, and put an arm around Dig’s shoulder, shaking him
side-to-side. “Well played bro, well played.”

Dig’s mother planted a kiss on
his cheek. “I’m going to make some hamburgers to celebrate,” she
said, and turned back to the house. As she passed through the
doorway, she stopped and turned back around. “And you know you two,
I just want to say that it’s good to see you actually getting on.
Can we try to keep that going?”

They shrugged.

His mother smiled and left the
room.

Jake turned to Dig. “Was that
bullshit?”

“
Nope,” Dig said.
“All true—except the part about compensation.” He followed his
mother out the door.

Jake followed close behind. “So
where
’d
you get the cash
from?”

Dig stopped at the patch of grass
beside the house, and looked up at the roof. The sky was clear and
blue and the sun was warm. “It’s a long story,” he said. “How about
we grab some beanbags and beers and sit up on the roof? It’s an
awesome view up there, and I’ll tell you everything.”

“
Now you’re starting
to sound like Dad.” Jake shook his head and sighed. “The ladder’s
down the side. I’ll get the beers.”

Dig watched him go, then crouched
to claw at the dirt near the base of the chimney until he had an
elbow deep hole. He retrieved the rhizomes and placed them
vertically in the hole before filling it back up with
dirt.

“
Already starting
your crop?” Jake held out a bottle of
Buckley’s
Chance
.

“
No point waiting,”
Dig took the beer. “Just needs a bit of moisture.” He poured a
third of it into the ground around the rhizome.

Jake poured out some of his own
bottle. “Start of a new era.”

Dig glanced up to the roof of the
house. Against the blue sky, the shape of a small bird floated down
from the trees and landed on the top of the chimney. Its feathers
were green and blue, and its neck a pale yellow. It lifted its head
and chirped out a melodic tune.

Dig smiled. It was good to be
home.

Please consider leaving an honest review at
the place you bought it, or at sites such as amazon.com or
goodreads.com, or liking it on Facebook.

This story is for my father, PK, who passed
away suddenly during its writing. I wish he could have read it.
Huge thanks also go to my wife, Angela, who supported me throughout
the writing process.

I’m grateful that two people who didn’t know
me agreed to be beta readers
-–
and ended up acting more like structural
editors. The time, effort and brutal honesty they dished out helped
me more than I could imagine. Jason Noble and Alice Miller are both
great writers, look out for their work.

Thanks also go to
the
copy editor, Sophie Dougall; the cover artist, Derek Murphy; Owie
for his modeling work on the front cover; and my
f
riends who helped me choose the title and
cover
design.

And finally thanks to you, the reader, for
taking the time to read it. Maybe we can meet here again one
day.

MJK

M. J. Kelly lives in Sydney, Australia with
his wife and three children.

News on his future books can be found
at
mjkellybooks.com

friends of

THE
AMBER TRAIL