Abby felt a cold knot weaving itself in her chest. She’d rather not go to this cull, would rather read about it in an official government report or even in one of Cameron’s articles in the newspaper. She tried to hide her reluctance, to appear professional. There’s no-one else? she asked.
A frown folded between Quentin’s eyes. You’ d only be expected to go for one night. And I’ ll be there. The vet, too.
Abby couldn’t trot out the excuse of field commitments—her work was almost done and Quentin knew it. He was waiting for her response. I suppose I can do it, she said. If it’s just one night.
He’d relaxed into an approving smile, and gave her the date and the time.
Now she crests the hill in her work vehicle and stops on the road to survey the reserve. It’s a bleak place, bare, dry, rocky, and the adjacent farmland is flogged and grey, grassless, scraped by wind. There’s nothing but sheep and a few sad farmhouses, hunching in hollows between hills. Abby can see why the farmers might want to shoot kangaroos that rove onto their properties. There is nothing to eat.
Her eyes shift to the reserve gate and she notices movement down there, a crowd of people. She sees lines of parked cars along the road, a thread of smoke coiling from a campfire near the entry, signs and flapping banners. She wonders what’s happening, maybe a demonstration . . . she hadn’t thought of that. She hesitates, watching people milling and scurrying near the gate like ants. There are so many of them, and the gate is shut.
Her heart rate climbs a notch and she wonders if they will let her in. She’s running late—she forgot her coat and beanie and had to go back for them. Now it is past the time Quentin told her to show up; he must have gone in without her. The shooters, the drivers and the reserve staff must have passed through the gates already. If they managed to get in, she hopes she can too. Quentin would have called if there was a problem, but her phone has been silent all afternoon. Everyone is too busy for phone calls, Cameron too—she hasn’t heard from him since the night of the public meeting. But she knows he’ll be at the gate with all those people. This is the biggest environmental story of the year, and she’s sure he wouldn’t miss out. She puts the vehicle in gear and starts down the hill.
As she approaches the gate, the crowd turns and tightens like a predator examining prey. The mass of bodies spreads, separating into small groups. Abby sees them snatch up items from the ground and bunch together before they launch towards her. She hesitates and her foot slips from the clutch, and the vehicle lurches, shudders and stalls. The protesters rush forward, leaping and jeering, pumping placards. She reaches to lock the doors.
They come at her armed with sticks and rocks, their voices raised in a battle cry. Swelling like a wave, they flow around her. She sits tight behind the wheel, cowering. She doesn’t know what to do. Should she re-start the vehicle and try to push through? It seems a mistake to stop, but she doesn’t want to hit anyone.
They batter the car with sticks and fists, yelling, shouting, their faces pressed against the windows. She sees mouths torn open with rage, eyes blazing, hands shoving against glass, ripping at the door handles. The vehicle rocks. There is banging. Thuds and crashes. A banner is plastered across the windscreen, Killer glaring at her in red capital letters. Her heart is thunder. She can’t see the way, can’t escape the shrieking, swearing, curses. She’s an animal in a trap. These people might smash the car, shatter the windscreen. They might try to drag her out. Is there anyone out there who can help her? Where is Cameron?
A deep voice sounds at her window, and a square grim face stares in at her, a man in uniform. Strong blue men are pushing the people back. The banner is dragged from the windscreen, bundled into a roll. Police guards shove through, ejecting protesters, yelling threats. The man at the window signals for her to open the door but she is gripped in a vice of fright, incapable of moving. She thinks perhaps she sees Cameron out there among the blur of faces. He will help her. He will take her away from all this.
‘Come on,’ the guard shouts. ‘Let me in. The men will escort you through.’
Several uniformed guards have circled her vehicle now. She opens the door and scrambles into the passenger seat, shaking. The man climbs in, taut and grim-faced. He settles in the driver’s seat, gripping the wheel. ‘You have ID?’
‘Yes. I’m here as an observer for the cull.’ She scrabbles for her wallet in the glove box to show her driver’s licence.
The guard starts the vehicle and clunks it in gear then he eases forward. The line of uniformed men forces the protesters aside as the car inches through. At the gate they are buffeted by a renewed surge of jeering and screaming, insults pouring down. Protesters break the line and dive at the car. A rock cracks the rear window leaving a streak of lightning. Then the gates swing open and they are through. The gates close behind them, thrust by guards leaning into the desperate force of the demonstrators.
The guard drives a short distance into the reserve then he hauls on the brake and steps out. ‘Nasty lot,’ he says. ‘You’ve copped a few dents, but that’s getting off lightly.’
Abby’s insides feel pummeled. ‘Thank you,’ she says. It’s the understatement of the year.
He flashes a grisly smile then slams the door and strides back to the gate.
For a few moments Abby sits there, trying to subdue her battering heart, then she crawls into the driver’s seat and opens the window. Beyond the gate-hysteria, the reserve is bathed in a vast, incongruous quiet. She breathes in, seeking composure. Around her everything seems hushed, connected to another world, separate to conflict. Her heart slows. On the road, a willie-wagtail flaunts its tail and chitters. In the grass, thornbills and fairy-wrens bob. There is normality here after all. She slips the car into gear and trundles along the road.
The depot car park is bristling with four-wheel drives, all crowded in neat rows. Among them are Troop Carrier tray-backs decked out with panels bearing hooks, and topped with the silver orbs of spotlights. These must be the shooters’ vehicles. On the back of one, in a wire cage, a large mongrel dog fixes Abby with a restless eye and growls as she passes on her way to the depot. Her stomach clenches—after the encounter at the gate it doesn’t take much to escalate her adrenalin.
Inside the depot building it is warm and quiet. Abby follows a hum of voices to a room where men sit on orange plastic chairs facing a whiteboard to which a map of the reserve has been tacked. The reserve manager is drawing lines on the map with a texta and a ruler. He stops as she enters and waves her to a seat. From the front row Quentin nods and smiles.
Abby sinks onto a chair. She is the only double X in a room pulsing XY. In jeans and a fleece, she’s a stranger among this gathering of overalls and gumboots. Girl-neat, she sits among splayed legs and hairy arms, probably thirty kilograms lighter than the smallest of them.
The reserve manager is dividing the reserve into units and assigning areas for shooters. The aim is to remove as many animals as possible in one night; the shorter the time frame, the less headache for everyone. Each shooter will start in the north of his zone and work south. There is a designated buffer area between each zone to prevent accidents. Everyone has communications equipment to use if in doubt.
Female kangaroos are to be pouch-checked and any live joeys slipped into cloth bags until they can be examined by the vet; Abby sees him sitting down the back on the other side of the room. Each vehicle will have an assistant/driver to help lift carcasses onto the truck, and also an observer. Extra staff will be spread around to help pick up bodies. They are to count animals as they are shot and make a tally. When vehicles and trailers are full, a cease-fire will be called so teams can drop off carcasses at the pit.
Abby is assigned to a shooter named Kevin. When her name is called, the men turn like folding hinges to examine her. Down the front, a stocky, clean-shaven man with a square jaw and short-cropped brown hair gives her a nod, his blue eyes flashing beneath solid brows. This must be Kevin. He looks friendly, doesn’t seem to be annoyed a
t being lumped with her.
One of the shooters asks what they should do if protesters manage to gain access to the site—he doesn’t want to shoot anyone. Grunts of concern echo among the men. The manager explains there will be an immediate cease-fire if any demonstrators breach security lines. Guards posted along the boundary will alert him if any problems arise. A discussion ensues about security protocols and procedures; the men are clearly worried about possible tactics from the activists. Abby is impressed by the attention to detail. Apart from the fact that she was somehow left out of the loop, the safety of the shooters and reserve employees has been carefully protected. While the demonstrators were performing at the front gates, the shooters entered hours ago via another access point, using side-roads where nobody could see them.
After the briefing, Quentin tells her that he came in the back way too. He says he tried to call her so she would know where to go, but she didn’t answer. He left messages to warn her. She checks her phone and is embarrassed to find she has forgotten to turn it on; it’s no wonder Quentin couldn’t contact her. Cameron might have tried to call too. But it’s too late now. She decides to leave her phone off for the duration of the cull. She doesn’t want Cameron ringing when she’s in the thick of things.
At dusk, they head out into the car park, dividing into teams. Abby watches Kevin pull his weapon from a locked metal compartment in the back of his truck. It’s a .223 target-grade rifle, with a thick stainless-steel shaft and wooden stock. Abby has seen guns before, but nothing like this. Guns were part of her life, growing up on the farm. Sometimes her father had to shoot sick stock—the vet’s call-out fee was more than the price of a sheep. Cattle were more valuable, but if hope of recovery was minimal, it was better to end the struggle sooner.
Her brother Matt used to go out shooting rabbits sometimes. He would head into the hills behind their farm, fading into the bush with his shotgun over his shoulder, the dog slinking at his heels. Afterwards, it was rabbit stew for dinner—the skinned carcass simmering in a pot with carrots and potato. Once the meat was falling from the bones, it was ready to eat, dished with gravy onto a pile of rice. Occasionally she would bite down on pellets in the flesh, grimacing at the shock of metal against teeth.
But this is different.
She watches Kevin empty a box of bullets into a leather pouch around his waist. He extracts a fistful and slots them into the magazine. In his hands, bullets are like marbles, harmless things that click against each other, rolling and jingling. He shuffles his fingers through the pouch as if he is sifting Lego, then zips it up. Next he slides the bolt into the rifle, twisting deftly till it ratchets into place. Then he inserts the magazine which locks in with a dull click. His fingers stroke the weapon with the familiarity of a lover. The gun is an extension of self, part of his daily rhythm and routine. He slips it onto a safety rack bolted to the dashboard.
Around the car park, men are sorting themselves and swinging into the vehicles, engines rumbling. Darkness is falling, the last of blue dusk fading from the sky. Kevin directs Abby into the front of his truck: a boxy old LandCruiser modified for the job. It’s dirty—dust and grass seeds everywhere. On the dash there is a GPS and a heavy sandbag. There’s no windscreen. ‘Increases the range of angles for shooting,’ Kevin explains.
Pete the driver jumps in and slams his door. He grasps a handle dangling from the roof and smacks a switch on the dash to ignite a swathe of brilliant white light. He swivels the handle, and the light shifts from the ground and flashes up in the trees, blinding any possums that might be hiding among the foliage. He switches it off. ‘Still works,’ he says with a grin.
Kevin wriggles in beside Abby and grunts. ‘Bit cosy.’
Abby makes herself as small as possible to allow him more room.
‘Sorry about the windscreen,’ he says. ‘Hope you’ve got plenty of warm clothes. She gets a bit breezy.’
Abby huddles behind the dash as they drive out from the depot, a trailer rattling behind them. She is sandwiched on top of the gearstick between Kevin and Pete. Pete is driving first while Kevin mans the gun. When Kevin tires they will switch jobs. It’s safer this way. Better for the kangaroos too, improves the accuracy of the shots.
The night is cold and clear. In convoy the vehicles drive slowly along the road, headlights dimmed and engines quiet so as not to alarm the kangaroos. Kevin and Pete are silent; Pete leaning forward over the wheel, Kevin with his elbow hooked out the window. They don’t seem inclined to conversation, and that’s good because Abby doesn’t feel like talking.
Somewhere in the darkness kangaroos are grazing, teeth nipping and cropping, soft lips seeking blades of grass. Abby wonders if heads are already raised, watching this procession of four-wheel drives trundling down the road, now turning onto the dirt track, bouncing over wash-outs, now mounting the hill to the ridgeline.
There is no moon and the landscape sleeps in shadows. The vehicles move in the yellow haloes of dimmed headlights, blocky silhouettes tracing the line of the trail, riding the hills and gullies. At the designated location, a vehicle stops and remains idling on the ridge, its headlights off, waiting. The other trucks move on, dipping and bobbing along the track.
Abby glances at Kevin. His hands are easy on his lap as he absorbs the rough jolts of the track. His body is loose, accustomed to irregular terrain. The crackle of the radio makes Abby jerk, raising a smile on his face. ‘Bit jumpy?’ he says.
She shakes her head, not wanting to admit her anxiety.
‘Got any earplugs?’ he asks.
‘No.’
‘Here, have some.’ He fumbles in the glove box and drops a small plastic bag in her hand. ‘You’ll need them. Pete and I have earphones to cut the noise. Otherwise we’d be deaf.’
She tears open the small bag and fingers the cylindrical nuggets of rubber.
‘You don’t need them yet.’ Kevin’s face glows in the light cast from the dash. ‘I’ll let you know when to stick them in.’
They grind up a steep hill, lurching over wash-outs. Abby tries not to stare at the rifle, cradled in its rack in front of her. It’s a thick and sturdy work beast with impressive telescopic sights. The barrel shimmers greenish-silver in the muted light.
‘You’d think I was married to that thing,’ Kevin says, nodding at the rifle. ‘I clean it daily. The barrel gets dirty. Gunpowder’s messy.’
Shooting’s messy, Abby thinks. Death is messy. She knows about that.
The track mounts a knoll and they stop while the last of the vehicles lumber on. Abby is already cold. Soon her fingers and toes will be stiff.
They wait, and there is stillness in the dark as if the night is waiting too. Minutes shuffle by. The headlights from the other vehicles ascend the next hill and disappear into blackness. A breeze shivers in the mounds of tussock grass. Time grows heavy.
Then a radio message comes through: confirmation to start. At Kevin’s nod, Abby stubs her earplugs in while he slips his earphones over his head and lifts the rifle from the rack. Pete lights the spotlight, puts the truck in gear and they trundle slowly forward. With a paw hooked in the handle, he swings the spot in an arc, scanning the bush. Grass shimmers yellow and trees smoulder in the light, branches reaching.
The spotlight roves steadily then hovers on a mob of kangaroos, perhaps fifty to eighty metres away. They emerge like ghosts from the undulating slope, shadow-hummocks that lift their heads to examine the light. The long arm of the spotlight stretches and Abby sees the sideways shift of mouths still chewing. The kangaroos have paused mid-mouthful to look. There is no alarm. Why don’t they flee?
Pete eases his foot off the accelerator and lets the vehicle idle gently while Kevin shifts the rifle into position, resting the stock on the sandbag nestled on the dash. The bolt clicks home. The kangaroos watch, semi-erect like a readying orchestra. They are dazzled by the beam, unsure, but insufficiently alarmed to run. On bunched muscular haunches they sit, fixed on the hypnotic eye of the light, their forearms
waving.
There is a pause, pregnant with anticipation. Abby’s breath locks in her throat, her fingers tingle. Her entire body tenses.
Then bang: an explosion in the night, her ears echoing, despite the plugs.
A kangaroo slumps sideways and the others lift as a unit and bound off in erratic leaps. Relief sweeps Abby. They are going—but no, they’ve stopped about ten, twenty metres from where they started. They stand upright, heads raised. There’s a click then another stupendous pause; time melting before another blast. At the edge of the beam, a body lapses with a thud. Two more rapid detonations and two more bodies fold with soft swishes.
A lull ensues as Kevin searches for the next best target. The muzzle of the gun follows the spotlight, seeking other quivering faces, other eyes shining red in the dark. The mob has tightened: their bodies lifting, uncertainty swelling.
More shots crack from the gun. Kevin’s body jolts as it absorbs each kickback. Closer now, bodies slump. Animals are dropping like stones, skewing sideways, legs jerking. Then the mob is moving, a few startled bounds and a gradual shifting away, kangaroos fading among trees. Abby doesn’t understand why they don’t rush, panic-stricken, into darkness.
The truck bumps forward among the skeletal shadows of trees, the spotlight seeking. There is another large mob, eyes shining in the light. Kevin’s tongue eases across his lips as he reaches and flicks the magazine out of the rifle, deftly slotting in six more bullets, each as thick as Abby’s thumb. ‘Okay?’ he grunts.
She nods.
‘Gotta keep moving,’ he says, somehow sensitive to her struggle.
He cradles the rifle in his hands. The barrel slides out the window. Again, the blast. Abby is almost half ready this time.
38
Cease-fire is called to pick up bodies.
Pete pulls up beside the first carcass, and Kevin hooks the rifle onto its rack and swings out of the vehicle, hefting the kangaroo by the hind legs and dragging it. The head dangles and blood drips, making a dark trail on the pale cropped grass. Kevin heaves the dead kangaroo onto the trailer.
The Grass Castle Page 30
