The Shepherd's Hut

by Tim Winton

  What did happen is I slept past dawn, way past. In the end Fintan had to come up and wake me, I was that sore and fucked up. He cooked us a feed of chops and fried a coupla munted tomatoes and made a brew strong enough to leave rust in your veins. And we was both quiet, a bit embarrassed after last night maybe and I was trying to make a plan while we got the feed in. Fintan did that old man thing he did, like he was chewing doublegees with them plastic teeth of his. I tried to ignore it. I was pissed off at meself. I knew I’d have to push like hell to get him ready to go now. It shoulda been me waking him before first light, getting him cracking. But I could see he was already faffing over what books to take, still thinking it hadn’t come down to the four things you can carry. On your back, in your hand, over your shoulder, round your neck.

  And that’s when I thought of it. When I got up to check.

  The pack was still under the verandah. The dirty .243 next to it. The waterjug empty on its side right behind them.

  I went in the hut and looked round but I already knew they wouldn’t be there. Them fucking binoculars. I knew exactly where they were.

  I didn’t even stop long enough to get dressed properly. All me camo clobber was still wet and strung out on the wire so I went out in them baggy shorts and that polo shirt of his. I pulled me boots on barefoot and laced them extra tight. I told him to take water and ammo and hide up the ridge and wait till I come back. And if I didn’t he should wait till the moon come up and get out on the lake and walk till he come to the salt mine. There’d be water there. If it turned out I didn’t make it that far there might be people decent enough to take him in.

  But he wasn’t listening. I knew it then. He thought I was bullshitting him, that this was just my way of pissing off and leaving him there on his own. And if he hadn’t of been tugging at me and following me to the tank again I might of remembered me hat at least, and taken some food. But it was a fucking scene, a full on circus. He begged me not to go. Actually got on his knees. And I was that disgusted, that bloody panicked I nearly give him one. It was all I could do to pull him off and yank meself away.

  He called after me. You, he said. Jaxie. You’re the one, boy. It was always you. You’re the man.

  And I thought, yeah. I’m the one got us in the shit, it’s me who put us in danger, and maybe the old nutbag’s right, maybe I am the end of days.

  I hoisted the rifle and jug and got running. And right from the start that pack pounded at me, punching me low in the back like it wasn’t ever gunna let me forget.

  No word of a lie, that last day was a hell march. Backing up and doing that trip again, it was harsh. Fucking near killed me. Though least this time I knew where I was going. Which shoulda made it faster. But I was tight and sore from the get-go and panicky too, which didn’t help. Yesterday I was only curious and worried, now I didn’t know if I was too scared or not nearly scared enough. Those jokers up there might not be back for weeks. But the way that genny was sounding yesterday I figured it’d be sooner rather than later. Could be they were there already. Looked like they’d been at this game a while, they’d know how long a tank of petrol lasted. I tried not to think about that. Just cracked on running all the way. And pretty soon I was blowing raw.

  About halfway I rested a minute under a piddly little sheoak. I had a sip and looked at all the shit caked in the barrel of the .243. Figured it wasn’t gunna be much use like that. So I pulled out the Dexter and cut a long piece off of Fintan’s shorts. But then I realized I had nothing to use as a rod. No gun oil neither. Not even any goat fat. I’d have to wait till I found a decent twitch of fencewire or a piece of steel, even better. And then scour the barrel out dry, which couldn’t be good. Or maybe I could gob in it for lubrication. Anything was better than having it plugged up with red grit. I thought of that wrecked F-truck up ahead. There’d be something on that for sure. A steel rod. Engine oil. Even steering fluid. So I stuffed the strip of rag in me pocket, pulled meself into shape and got going again.

  I never run so hard and so far in all me life. At school they couldn’t even get me to jog round the oval. But there’s this thing that happens once you been going long enough, this feeling you can go forever. Maybe I was a bit tapped by then but I got this idea I was made to do this. I was hard and lean and gnarly. And now I’d run the panic out I was fuck-off determined too. All I needed was speed. And some luck. And if I didn’t get lucky I’d want a clean gun. So for a long while I didn’t think about those jokers up there. They were strangers I might not even meet. What I stuck to was getting the Browning sorted. That meant making it to the effy. Everything else was too far in the future.

  I don’t know how long it took to get up into the neighbours’ place. But when I found the old fencewire in the weeds at the boundary corner I had no cutters or even pliers. And that F100 was no use at all. It was full of dry buffel grass and snaky as shit. I got clutch fluid all over me hands and tried for a while to get a gas strut off the back of the thing but me fingers were greasy and it was hopeless without tools anyway. After a few minutes wasted on that caper I had to settle for pulling the bolt out of the rifle and blowing down the bore. Which did five-eighths of fuck all. Then I rubbed me hands through the dirt, took another sip from the Igloo and went on.

  I spose it was near on lunchtime when I got up the last ridge and scooched in on me belly to scan the valley with the rifle scope.

  There wasn’t a soul about that I could see. Only one thing was different to yesterday. No generator noise. Out of juice.

  And it wasn’t like I needed any motivating but that didn’t half give me the hurry-up.

  I got to me feet and got running. Only had them stupid binoculars to get and I’d be outta there. I was more than halfway down to the clearing before I copped the shine off the windscreen. Up along the spine of the ridge in the west. Just a half a second of flash and I hit the dirt like I’d been shot, went face down in a dive that knocked the wind out of me. And it took a dog’s age before I even heard that vehicle come janking slow and steady down the track. Stones pinging, suspension squeaking. All I had for cover was knee-high saltbush. So I kept flat and still. Didn’t dare look up. Not when it rumbled to a stop. Not even when the engine give out.

  For a little while the only sound was crows. I had the urge to feel round for me waterjug and rifle and pull them in tight so they couldn’t give me away but I had the pack still strapped on, that bright blue piece of shit, and it was stuck up there like a turtle shell on the back of me. Soon as I moved to pull it off they’d see me bright and clear. So I just made meself flat and swivelled bit by bit, real careful, to get a glimpse. I looked slantways at them like they were roos I was hunting. Man, I was peering through me fucking eyebrows in the end.

  The car was one of them tinny Jeep things. Cherokee. Station wagon. With shiny polished mags. And a petrol engine. A real townie car. It had a horse float hooked on behind that looked big as a caravan. I saw two blokes, one with a dinky straw hat and one with long dark hair. The dude with the hat was the driver. He got out, stepped my way a little and took a piss. The other one went round to the trailer and unlatched the back. The first dude shook himself off, give a shiver and then helped his mate drop the ramp. The driver went up into the float. He passed something out. A red plastic jerry can. The longhaired one took it and stood it on the dirt and soon another one was handed out, then more. They worked like that till there was maybe ten of those things lined up next to the trailer, 25-litre jerries, all full by the looks.

  Then the driver passed down a long-handled shovel. And I always knew this was gunna happen, there was no other way it could go, I’d played it all in me head already but when I saw that thing come out I nearly let off a groan. All I could do was hope I was wrong. But I knew I wasn’t wrong. The longhair swung the shovel to his shoulder and stepped out to the soft dug dirt where everything was buried. By then I couldn’t help but lift me head for a better view and fuck me if there wasn’t a wodge of prints round the edge even I could see from
this far out. But I don’t think he noticed them because when he called out he was right over where the hatch should be, there on the dirt I’d swept down so careful with a sheoak branch. And I knew what he was gunna see before he stopped and looked down. But I still twitched when I heard him.

  Fuck! was all he said.

  And there they were, swinging in his hand, those bloody glasses.

  The driver was halfway past the car by then. He had a steel crate like an ammo box in his arms and when he heard his mate yell he dropped it flat. From the sound it made I figured it was full of tools, not bullets. He half ran out to where the dude was pigrooting round with his Adidas and getting all excited. Straight away they both started scoping every which way. I just shoved me face into the pebbles and tried to make meself invisible.

  Pretty soon I heard the shovel and the trapdoor. I snuck a peek and saw one guy kneeling and talking to the other one down the ladder. He passed down a torch. Right then I knew my best chance to bolt was when the second bloke got himself down the hatch too. I might be gone before they saw me and even if they copped a glimpse I’d have a head start. But the driver bastard never climbed in.

  I wasn’t even fifty metres out. The ground sloped up behind so me boots were higher than me head. Between where I was and the rim of the ridge back there it was more or less open ground, just saltbush. And that was no small stretch of country to get up and across. They’d see me in a heartbeat. And even if they didn’t have anything to shoot me with, even if I got up there and into the mulga before they could get their shit together and chase me down with the car, I’d have given meself away. And Fintan too. Unless they were real city fuckwits, all they’d have to do was find me with those glasses or follow me tracks.

  But if I stayed put and waited till they left, maybe I had half a chance of getting home to warn Fintan. Could be now they had the wind up they’d camp here for the night to keep an eye out. That was gunna be tough for me but better than no chance at all. I figured in the dark I’d have pretty decent odds of getting away clean.

  But fuck me, they were taking a year to make their minds up. The longhair was underground for ages. When he climbed out he chucked something on the dirt, the torch I think, and then the two of them were flapping their hands and arguing, quiet as they could, till in the end they calmed down a bit. Then they dropped the hatch and shovelled dirt back and smoothed the ground real quick, rough as bags. Longhair went to the trailer and started hoiking jerries in. The driver in the hat snatched up the glasses and hung them round his neck. He shoved the torch in his pocket and walked out to the mulga edge, broke a bit off a little jam and used it to sweep everything clear of prints. The numbnuts, he even wiped out mine. Then he went back to the Jeep. Ditched the torch and binocs in the window and took the heavy box to the ramp.

  After that they were a while getting the rest of the petrol in the horse float. I couldn’t make out anything they said but you could tell it was snarly. In the end they hoisted the ramp and latched it and went to the vehicle. Longhair opened his door and reached in and pulled out a pistol. An automatic. I saw it across the bonnet. He drew the slide and I heard it snap back from where I was. Then both of them got in and the engine cranked over and they spent five minutes jinning about, trying to back the float up to turn round the way they come. City fellas, no question. Them muppets couldn’t reverse a trailer for shit. In the end they had the thing totally jackknifed and any other time it woulda been bloody hilarious. Anyway after a bit more pissing about and heaps of shouting they got out and unhitched the thing, left it on the jockey wheel and took off without it. They were fully peaking, these dudes. I felt better about them all the time.

  But they weren’t gone yet. Hardly a hundred metres up the track they jammed on the anchors, pulled up in a cloud of dust and had themselves a right old blue. Screaming, finger pointing, arsing and cunting, full catastrophe. Longhair slapped the side of the car through his open window so hard I jumped. Against that tinny piece-of-shit Jeep it sounded like a .410 going off. And I thought Jesus, any moment one of these jokers is gunna blow the other one’s brains out. They’re mental.

  Come on you cockheads, I said to meself. Make your minds up. Get on with it. Go! And for fucksake don’t turn back this way, head for the highway, don’t go down the lake track. And that’s a joke on me, I know, praying to utter bastards.

  But in the end they didn’t go down the lake track. Probably didn’t even know about it. And it was pretty faint and grown over, true. They rumbled on up along the ridge and where the fork come they followed the track west. I just hoped and wished they were scuttling back to the city but I knew if that was what they were planning they wouldna left the horse float. West, though, that was towards the highway.

  I can’t say I wasn’t curious about what else was in that big trailer. I saw all I needed to see later. But there wasn’t time for that now.

  The moment they got over the crest and out of sight I was up and running again.

  I went that hard on the trip back, way faster than on the way out. Because I knew we were truly in the shit now, me and Fintan. But most of that afternoon it felt like I was running on the spot. I had too much time to wonder where them city boys were, what they were planning to do, how far they’d got. If I was them I’d of put the time in looking for tracks, worked me way out from the dope in circles. Get a direction first. I knew from hunting food the thing you need most of isn’t water or ammo, it’s patience. But these characters, they couldn’t imagine anyone hoofing it out here. Already had it in their heads I was in a car. So they’d follow every two-rut they come across. But there could be dozens of them. Who knew how many tracks were out here across this stretch of prospecting country? If they were halfway smart they’d see pretty quick it was a waste of time chasing down every old car track they come to. They’d go out the way they come. If they saw nothing by the time they got to the highway they’d drive up and down it looking for other ways in. Whoever got in here had to come off the main road. They had to be able to nut that much out. And if they did and drove south a few minutes they’d soon see a slip-off running east. The miners’ track, the one to the diggings and the prospector’s shack. They’d be there quick enough. They’d see the roo I left hanging out the front. After all this time it might be nothing but bones but they’d see plain as dick that someone’d been there and if they checked the shack they’d find whatever shit I left behind. They’d push on down to the lake. By then they’d know for sure that people were about. They’d be toey as all hell. And once they got down to the shore they could drive flat out down the lake, following me footprints. And Fintan wouldn’t even hear them coming.

  If they knew what they were doing all this might take only a coupla hours, tops. But they might get lucky and do it quicker. So I was hoping they navigated about as good as they backed a trailer. And it wouldn’t hurt if they were a little bit unlucky as well. The tracks out there were rough as guts. I needed them to take a few wrong turns, maybe stake a tyre. Even better if they busted an axle. Otherwise I had the awful feeling they were gunna beat me home.

  It’s one thing to think someone’s stupid. And fair enough if you need them to be. But you can’t go banking on it. That’s a mug’s game.

  So I pounded back through the mulga. Nearly ditched the waterjug because it slowed me down so much but in the end I hooked the handle over the rifle barrel and let it thump me shoulder every step I took. It was deadset irritating but it was like some little piggybacking bastard kicking me on, it kept me hard at it.

  Somewhere down the lake I started wondering if I wasn’t twisting off about nothing. Who’s to say these jokers were even serious about looking for us? After all there was nothing of theirs missing back there. I didn’t touch a thing down that ladder, never even got in to take a proper look. What was the use in hitting the panic button? And if they thought it was the cops and there was some big sting going down, wouldn’t they just fuck off and stay away forever? Me, I’d torch everything, the whole b
unker, leave no evidence. But they’d left the horse float, hadn’t they? And it’d be full of incriminating evidence, DNA and whatnot.

  But the cops don’t leave binoculars laying round. That’s only what a normal idiot does. So they’d figure it wasn’t cops, they had to know it was the genny give them away. And who else’d hear that but people living close by or someone camping along the lake? They were like us, these dudes, they’d never even dreamt there was anyone else out here. Not until them glasses. No, they wouldn’t just be curious. They were jumpy as fuck. Saw that with me own eyes. That and the pistol. I knew I was right to be worried. These cunts would be trouble.

  When I got to the lake I had a blow and took a swallow and thought real hard about heading straight out onto the saltpan and bolting home that way. No question it’d be quicker. But then I’d be out in the open. Even if I hadn’t seen a gun already I wouldna given up the cover to make time. That just wasn’t smart. So I kept back in from the shore, running the rocky edges through the saltbush and mulga.

  And I’d be one lying bastard if I said I never thought about pissing off and getting away clean. Fact is I didn’t have to keep on south like that. Except for me duds I didn’t have to go back to the shepherd’s hut at all. I could of cut back north. Hugged the shore till I found the saltworks. Or gone deep into the canyon country where there was no vehicle tracks at all. Those numbnuts wouldn’t come in after me on foot. Fintan MacGillis, that old motormouth, he was no family to me.

  So yeah, I thought about it alright. For a while it was all I could think about. But I kept on south anyway. Because I knew whatever was gunna happen was my fault. It was me responsible.

  I don’t know how far I got before I put me foot down the goanna hole. One moment I’m plugging along with all this crap going through me head. Next thing I’m face down in the gravel between the jam bushes and me knee’s so bad I don’t even feel the stake through me hand till I’m squeezing me leg like I’m trying to strangle the pain out of it, and I cop this thin hard spear of mulga wood, long as a finger, going right through the meat of me thumb. The point of it stuck up clean and grey and for a sec there wasn’t even any blood. The knee hurt a lot worse but the look of that thing coming through me hand made me bum quiver. When I yanked it out it bled like I’d struck oil. Jesus, what a mess. I had to sit there for a bit, get me shit together.