The Shepherd's Hut

by Tim Winton

  When the sun come up I saw there was a billion spiderwebs all shining along the ground and across the dead timber. Like the silver lining people talk about. And I felt maybe I’d be alright. So I got up and going.

  Possibly an hour out I come to a little rubbly clearing with a coupla sheets of rusty tin curled up and some twists of wire. Like what was left of some prospecting setup. Trenches and holes and small piles of stones and dirt and one half-collapsed ditch. Didn’t look like anybody got rich digging and poking there. Didn’t look like they tried real hard neither. But I found a bent star picket in all the crap and it was jagged at the butt where some numpty bashed it crooked with a sledgehammer, so I used it to bust into me tins. Et the pork and beans cold. Sitting in a ditch full of bottles. And it tasted pretty decent. I opened up the pineapple chunks and the corned beef and stuck them back in me pack where they wouldn’t spill. I wasn’t about to go carrying a star picket along as a can opener.

  But then I pulled them tins out again and emptied the pack and looked over what I had. Besides the beef and pineapple I had four oranges, one onion, another packet of noodles, a lighter, three boxes of matches, two tea towels, a roll of dunny paper and the ammo. I had the glasses round me neck, the waterjug in one hand and the rifle on the strap over me shoulder. It was too much to carry but not nearly enough to keep me alive. I had maybe two litres of water left. And no hat and no knife, what a mong.

  I wasn’t so sure about the steelcap boots now. It was staky ground out here but the Vans mighta been easier to walk in. Me feet was sore and me shoulders too but there was no point stopping. I could go a coupla days on the food I had and maybe last a few after that but if I didn’t get a drink tomorrow I was in the deepest shitter ever dug. No getting round it, I had to find a bore or a tank or I was stuffed. The chances of coming across either one wasn’t real flash but if I couldn’t find water I’d have to pack it in and head for the highway, flag down a truck. And then one thing’d lead to another. Any way you cut it from that point it was over.

  I got going. I was that dark on meself, especially about the knife. But the anger kept me at it, going hard.

  By the afternoon I could hear roadtrains thundering way off to the left of me and I figured I’d met the highway where it elbows off towards the gold country. I hadn’t seen a fence in a day and a half. I was on the money. And it was no use thinking how quick I coulda come this far in a car.

  Now there was just prospecting country for hundreds of kays. Maybe a broken-down sheep station here and there. Further east, far as I could remember, there was just the desert, the kind of country that’d boil your insides dry in a day. Only a proper blackfella could live out there and there’s none of them left, so I wouldn’t be trying it on, not even with a hat and a blade and a skinful of water.

  I pushed on a couple more hours. Kept near the highway, close enough to hear a truck now and then but far enough into the trees no one’d see me. But that road started to do my head in. It was bad having it so near and I knew I should stay away but I cut over to cop the flash of roadtrains through the trees, trailers high and bright as buildings. Crept in so I could see the pearly quartz bits in the bitumen shining out there in the sun. I hunkered down in a clump of jams, right in the shadows. I could smell the tar and oil and rubber, I was that close. You could hear a truck coming a long, long way off. And when it come by, clanking and jerking, those triple trailers rumbled the ground under your feet and ripped at your hair, spitting chips and blowing past hard enough to pin your ears back. When it was gone it left a cloud of pink dust and that hundreds-and-thousands feel of diesel grit on your tongue and it took a long time for the quiet to settle in again.

  I thought about all that milk and beer and meat and fruit headed north. I never been there but I pictured all them big towns way up, Karratha, Hedland, Broome, Kununurra. That’s a lot of people to feed. Everything they need comes up on the road. Just one of them trucks’d have enough packed in it to keep me alive for a year. Two probably. I had a weapon, it’s true, but I couldn’t see meself jacking trucks. How long would that caper last? Anyway I can drive a car pretty good but I’ve never tried a rig with three trailers and eighteen forward gears.

  I just sat there. Like hypnotized. Thinking any moment I could step out and show meself. Catch one of them roadtrains and in two days be in the full-on tropics, Wyndham maybe. Darwin. Long as I ditched the rifle someone’d pick me up in the end. But even without the Browning and the ammo I’d look dodgy as hell. Staggering out of the bush, face like a bucket of smashed crabs, stinking the way I did. And maybe I was on the news by now. Then I’d be toast. But not everyone’s the good citizen type. Some truckies’ll always turn a blind eye. But not for free. I lived long enough near a roadhouse to know what a ride north can cost. You think it only happens to chicks? Well I wasn’t that desperate, not yet.

  All the same I wasted a whole hour by that road. It was like I forgot who I was and what I was doing. As if I was alone in the world.

  I had to keep my shit straight. Find water. Rest up. Get to Magnet. Otherwise I might as well pack it in and die. So in the end I got up and got on with it. Took meself deep into the bush and put the road behind me.

  Thing is, I’m not alone in the world. That’s the only thing keeps me going.

  I dug right into them scraggly trees. Stepping careful through the million sticks and strips of bark in the shadows because getting snakebit wasn’t gunna be any help.

  I got someone. And that means something. It’s why I was back thinking of that shady pub verandah in Magnet, them long curtains. Smell of bore water out in the yard behind.

  Soon enough I couldn’t even hear the highway anymore. The air was warm and mad with clickers and bees and hoppers. For a while I tried to figure what all that sap and tree oil smelt of. And then I got it. It’s like what your mum rubs on your chest when you’re little. Vicks. In the smeary jar.

  I didn’t stop all the rest of that day. I was dry and tight in the legs but away from the road me head felt clear again. That’s when I started thinking about her. Lee. Reckon I thought about her more than I’m letting on but it was something to keep the nasty shit away.

  See, it was the middle of the afternoon, school would be getting out. She’d be hauling her bag home down one of them wide empty streets on her own. I hoped she was pushing her board with the new wheels and trucks I give her. Maybe she never got them, I didn’t ever hear. Abecs, they were. Pink SickSicks. Cost me four weeks’ pay. I don’t care, it was worth it.

  I followed her home. In me head I mean. To the pub. Upstairs. I could see her in the shade, on the big verandah. Reading a book, or with her buds in. We like prison books. And thrash. Well the books she reads and tells me about. The music we listen to together, sharing buds.

  It was warm now and I figured it’d be hotter still up her way. Maybe she’d go down the pool. I could picture it easy. The crazy blue water. The soft grass where we layed our towels. Bleach smell of her hair up close.

  I wished to fuck it was wildflower season. So I’d have something to give her when I got there. But there wouldn’t be any flowers out here till September. If I showed up with anything it wasn’t gunna be wildflowers, that’s for sure.

  They said it was a good season up here last year. First winter with any rain for ages. People turned up like locusts. City people. Tourists. Asians and all. They never stopped in Monkton for anything except pies and petrol. Nothing to see in our town but farm wives and browntooth drunks. But those weeks I watched them coming and going. Sat outside the roadhouse just to get a good look and laugh at them fuckwits.

  Not that I got any beef with people going to see wildflowers. Used to go along with Mum up this way some years when I was little. She was into them pretty big. Knew all the names. Her fave was the sort that grows in a big flat circle, green in the middle and all white and pink round the outside. Wreath flower, it’s rare most years. You need decent rain. She was mad on it, said it was like an angel just landed there on the
dirt. She said five minutes of mercy in this country and you’ve got a miracle on your hands. And I don’t know if she’s right but that’s what wreath flower looks like when you find it next to a bush road out in bumfuck nowhere.

  It’s what I wanted on her coffin. But in February there’s nothing to see but dry dirt and VB cans. Last summer there was no mercy and no miracles. Not any week or day of it. And when everyone went home after the funeral and I finished putting all them casseroles in the freezer I stood in the lounge in me good duds and the Captain sat out on the back patio drinking homebrew and rum. Arm over arm. Neither one of us said nothing. We both knew there was never gunna be anything good again.

  I shoulda been making proper plans to go right then. But I wasn’t. You ever seen a chased rabbit give in running? When he just pulls up and stands there? Like he’s out of puff and out of ideas and can’t put two moves together anymore? Well that was me. I shoulda been gone already. Shoulda been emailing Lee, making arrangements. Christ, we coulda been on a bus to Marble Bar by then. It was like I was paralyzed.

  Next day I spat a tooth up in the trough at work. Half a tooth really. And that look on his one-eyed face, that smile said it all. Like, what you gunna do now, mummy’s boy, where you gunna go? Fucking nowhere. Because you haven’t got the scrote to go.

  That’s what I mean about the nasty shit. The way it gets me off track from thinking something nice. Start out thinking of Lee and I end up on that stuff. Which is why I did so much shouting out there. Yelled till it burnt. That was me, gobbing off at trees like a loony.

  The shadows got long. And the ground got a bit more stony. The dirt was pink now, red in patches, and soon big gum trees showed up. York gums that drop their bark from halfway up the trunk. Big gnarly buggers some of them. Standing round like old blokes with their shirts off. Scars and divits, man boobs and everything. Kind of funny to look at. Least when you’re bone dry and half off your head from walking and yelling all day.

  I kept on till it was nearly dark and then I come to a nice red dirt clearing and give it away for the day. Scuffed up some bark and sticks and got a fire going. Took me boots off. Scraped a clean spot to lay in.

  The fire was decent. There was heaps of wood all round, dead stuff, grey and papery from white ants and it burned beautiful. And that was something at least.

  That night I et the tin of pineapple. I was arse over tired and really thought I’d go out like a light soon as I put me head down but I couldn’t get off.

  I wished I had a bottle of rum right then. And I don’t even rate the stuff. Took pills a few times, that’s more my thing. Only because I could jack them from Mum. It’s like a fog comes on you. It’s nice.

  I musta been desperate. Wishing for rum I mean. Honestly, sometimes you’d rather be a dog. A mutt doesn’t torture itself with thinking. Just licks its knob and goes to sleep. And that makes sense to me. Keeps a dog’s life bearable, doesn’t it?

  Fact is I’ve met dogs smarter than the man my mother married. And I’ve had a long time to wonder how he got like he was. Maybe he was born like that. But, do people start out vicious? I fucking hate that idea. And I guess he had his worries, the Cap. But don’t get me wrong, I hated the cunt. Nasty prick he was. And dead stupid. Who else could take their own eye out with a flyswat? Who else’d leave a breadknife half off the sink, handle out? Like the diving board at the pool it was. I’m standing there watching him chase this blowfly round the kitchen and it lands on the handle, right on the end. And wham. Next thing he’s got the blade sticking out the front of his head. I was too bloody scared to laugh. But talk about funny. Mum comes in, goes Oh Sidney. He just chucks her against the piano and goes out and gets in the car. She lays there bawling till dark. And two days later he comes back from Geraldton with no eye.

  Look, I’m not making excuses but maybe he knew what a piece of shit he was. Could be he was embarrassed of himself sometimes. I know he was frightened. When Mum got crook he was bloody useless. Had that panicked look like a ram all fucked up in barbwire. And once she was really bad he wasn’t even there half the time. I thought that’d be a mercy, having him gone, sat out behind the shop all afternoon pouring it down with the copper, or passed out in the shed. But it wasn’t better without him and that’s the honest truth. No one should have to watch their mum die on their own.

  But that’s how it went down. Mostly them last weeks she sat in a chair by the window and said nothing. Like she was too weak or too sad to bother. But sometimes she perked up and got talking. About stuff she remembered. School. Picnics. Things she did when she was a bit of a lady. She never said nothing about Monkton. It was only the days before, happier times, like they were things she kept in a box locked away all these years. At the end she could only whisper and her stories got jumbled up to hell. And she went on about the same three things. This big New Year’s party on the beach we went to. So lovely, so romantic. A concert too, Kasey Chambers it was, in Moora. And some rodeo at Mogumber. But I wasn’t at any of them, it was nothing to do with me. Jesus, I never even been to Mogumber. And I was never at any beach party ever. She was so crook by then she thought I was him, for fucksake. She must of really loved him. That fucktard.

  But she tried her best. I’m not dissing her. She was a good mother to me.

  Still. Those last weeks I used to wonder what she thought about leaving me alone. She knew she was dying and I spose it’s not easy to get things straight in your head, but didn’t she want me safe when she was gone?

  She never said a thing about it but I reckon before Christmas she woulda had plans. She was well enough back then. She woulda teed it up, talked to Auntie Marg. Said when the day comes promise me you’ll drive down and collect Jackson. Please Margie, don’t leave him there. Promise me. Yes I’d bet money on that. Mum woulda made sure and got me out. I woulda gone to live with me cousins in Mount Magnet. Which wouldna been easy, not for any of us. Still, family’s family, isn’t it.

  But after Christmas Day Auntie Marg wouldn’t have me in a bare-arse fit. Never wants to see my filthy face again. And it was like Mum thought I deserved it.

  Which was the biggest surprise of my life. It’s a hard thing to know about your own mum. That she’d side against you. But I’ve had time to think about this now and maybe I shouldna been so shocked. Because it was that way all along and I just couldn’t see it. But now everything’s burnt off me. All that kid shit. See, here’s the thing. All those years in Monkton, once it got real bad with the Cap, did she really have to stay? She always said it was for me, she couldn’t just take off and get herself free, there was me to think about. And I believed her. But now I’m thinking why didn’t she just take me with her? We coulda packed up the car and gone anywhere together. Made a new life, just the two of us. Was she too scared of what Wankbag might do, frightened he’d come and find us? Or maybe I wasn’t worth the risk? Maybe she figured like everyone else that I was a scumbag. See, my mum couldn’t make herself choose me. Three’s a crowd. She picked him.

  I know dogs are fed scraps. And they’re flogged, true. So it’s not always the best life but sometimes, I tell you, being a dog wouldn’t be so bad.

  Anyway fuck it. This shit’s no surprise anymore, I’m over it. But that night it was still fresh and it went deep. I burned a lot of wood and saw a lot of stars.

  I wasn’t real sharp next morning. Slept till the sun was already up. For breakfast I peeled an orange. It tasted better than any orange I ever had. I should of et that juicy bugger nice and slow to enjoy it properly instead of gutsing it down like that. But I was hollow and thirsty as hell.

  When I pissed it come out dark and stinky. I figured pretty soon I’d be shitting gravel like a sheep. I stood round in me bare feet a while. Then I sorted me stuff, kind of half hearted or maybe half asleep still. The Igloo jug was nearly empty. Like hoisting a bucket of air. But the rifle was getting heavier. I was still tight in the legs and sore all over now. When I sat down to pull me socks on and lace me boots up the bad eye stung some
thing horrible. It was hot and throbbing and I wished I had something cool to put on it. I’ve used rump steak and frozen peas, cold flannels, everything you can think of. On the bus home from school once I had a shiner like a squashed plum and I walked past a girl with an icecream. Just snatched that thing and shoved it straight on me face and sat up the back. Beautiful it was. That chick and her mates and every other kid on the bus were so pissed off, and not a single one of them game to say a thing. I just let that mess melt down my face like I didn’t give a fuck. But all I had this morning was orange peel. It was right on the ground in front of me. There was nothing else to go with so I picked it up and stuck it on. Christ, you coulda heard me howling from Sydney Harbour. Banana skins aren’t bad for a bung eye but you can take it from me, orange peel isn’t the go.

  One thing I can say about it, it woke me up. I pulled me pack on and got going there and then.

  The sun was in my face. I was raggedy at the start but then I got a sorta rhythm. And for a while it was real peaceful. If you know what I mean. Quiet. Just footsteps. Until I didn’t even hear them anymore. All I heard was birds. Peewees it was. And that’s a sound you don’t get sick of. Reminded me of school. Sitting outside the principal’s office. As usual. Them little birds they’re game as Ned Kelly, no shit. There was a couple would come right in off the quadrangle. Every time. Right in under the verandah there to the bench where I was always parked up. Come just about to my feet. Neither one much bigger than your hand. Sticking their chests out, making that noise to see me off or just see what I’d do. And just remembering that made me happy.

  Mum said school mighta been different for me if I only give a damn. Maybe it was wasted on me like the teachers said. I didn’t have any philosophy in me then, so I didn’t know what to listen for. Most of it was pointless crap. Don’t reckon I met a single wise person all the years I stayed but like I say, I wasn’t paying close attention. And the thing is I miss it a bit. That’s something I never thought I’d hear myself say. I didn’t know what I was, what I could do. Except the lame things I did do. But shit was always being done to me, every single day, and sooner or later you figure you should be the one doing unto others. So by Year Four kids were scared of me. And I spose I liked that. By the time I got to Dally District High they thought I was a psycho. Which suited me fine.