by Ben Hobson
‘You heard what I said?’
‘Yeah, I heard.’
‘You understand it’s not just me saying it?’
‘Yeah, I get it.’
He went back to the verandah and walked up the steps. He heard Brendan in their parents’ bedroom, raiding the closet for the shotguns their father kept for foxes. Sarah was cradling Amy in their bedroom. Her eyes were wide.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked.
He took Amy from her and held her close and whispered in her ear his love for her. It was hard to quantify. He had just moments to instil in her all he felt and he found the task impossible. Knew it would be even if he had decades. He told her she was special and beautiful and lovely and kind. He told her she was brave. Then he turned to Sarah and wrapped her in his arms.
‘Sid, will you tell me what’s happening?’ she pleaded.
‘They’re making me do something and then they’re going and we’ll be right.’
‘Making you do what?’
‘We have to go and find that old man, Moore.’
‘And then what?’
‘That’s it.’
They were still entwined, her hair in his face.
‘Just find him, that’s all?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What for?’
‘I don’t know.’
She pulled away from him. ‘I know Brendan’s getting the guns. You going to shoot that old man?’
He didn’t move a muscle. ‘They said if I didn’t help them they were going to come back here for you.’
Her eyes fell, her breathing quickened.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’ll be right. You go to your mum’s and I’ll meet you there tomorrow.’
She held his eyes. Cupped his cheeks with her hands so he couldn’t break the stare. ‘Don’t you do anything stupid.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You promise me.’
‘Alright, I promise.’
She let him go and he rubbed his cheeks and grinned. ‘Grip like a vice. Enough to break an arm.’
‘I’ll break you, you don’t come quick tomorrow.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’
He picked up his little girl once more and said to her, ‘You’re so beautiful.’
His wife said, ‘Wish you talked to me like that.’
‘Where do you think she gets it from?’
He gave Amy to Sarah and stepped away. In the doorway he looked back at his daughter and wondered what type of world he was making for her to inhabit. Then he turned and walked out of the house. Brendan was in front of him, his arms awkward with the two shotguns balanced across them like heavy planks of wood.
They drove into Newbury, over the old bridge. Judah had got in the backseat and sat there smoking. Brendan was driving, sweat coating his face, despite the cool air and the open window. Sidney’s leg was jumping. His chest hurt. And his shoulder. He wondered if that kangaroo had been sent by God and he was supposed to have succumbed to his injuries, to prevent him from aiding this mongrel on the backseat. Maybe Doctor Wilkie was the devil in disguise, propping him up, sending him to hell all stitched up. Maybe Moore was the angel, one who Sidney was now travelling to destroy. But what choice did he have? Judah was just the start of it. Even if he somehow managed to run with his wife, avoid Judah, go someplace safe, Melbourne would still come. And there was his brother to think about.
On the left the church. Outside, three police cars with their lights flashing. Two officers standing there, probably more inside. An ambulance. Brendan accelerated.
‘Slow down, idiot,’ Judah said.
‘What happened there, you think?’ Sidney asked.
Brendan’s eyes were twitchy and Sidney knew that whatever had transpired there had involved his brother. Probably the blood coating his shirt.
‘You reckon that was the same cops parked outside Moore’s?’ Judah asked after they’d driven by.
‘Probably,’ Brendan said. ‘Not many police to spare in Newbury. Or Trenton. Both small towns.’
‘Good.’
‘Hopefully that’s where they’ll be concentrated then, not on searching for Caleb.’
They drove on down the main street, past the pub. As they cleared Newbury and were passing the pastures on the road to Port Napier, Sidney ventured, ‘What’re you going to do with Martin?’
His body was now in the boot and Sidney imagined him trying to claw his way out.
Judah said. ‘None of your bloody business.’
‘Just asking,’ Sidney said.
They drove past the service station, turned down to Port Napier. Sidney looked at the cemetery through the window and wondered if there should be streetlights down the rows of plots, so the dead might see where they were going as they walked around.
They turned left, went down a few streets, and at the end of one Brendan parked and turned off the lights.
‘Good, no police car here,’ Brendan said.
‘Guess that was all of them back there then,’ Judah said. ‘You get out, see if Moore’s come back. And be quick. They’ll send somebody else out here soon to wait for Caleb to show up, I’m sure.’
‘This is his house?’ Sidney asked. The front garden was well kept.
‘What do you think, dickhead?’
Brendan clambered from the car. There were no lights on in the house but at the front door an automatic light flicked on. Brendan stood stock-still, looking like the trespasser he was. When there was no movement from within, no door opening, no curtains parting, he kept moving. He knocked on the front door. Judah lit another cigarette and Sidney coughed. Brendan lifted the doormat, moved some rocks near the front step, could find no key. He turned to the car and shrugged in an exaggerated way. He walked back, opened the door, leaned his head in.
‘They’re not in,’ he said.
‘No shit,’ Judah said.
‘Well? Now what?’
‘Go round the back.’
‘Why?’
‘Just see if you can get in that way. Make sure they’re not in there.’
Brendan took a moment before shutting the door. Sidney watched him go around the corner of the house. The obnoxious cigarette smoke trickled up his nostrils. When Brendan reappeared he beckoned them to join him.
In the backyard, Brendan led them to an old shed. Beside it Sidney noticed freshly hewn dirt.
‘There a torch?’ Judah asked.
‘Don’t need a torch,’ Brendan said.
‘I can’t see dick.’
Brendan sighed, then caught himself. ‘I think there’s one in the glove box.’
He went back to the car. Sidney risked a glance at this man who held them captive. He seemed monolithic in the moonlight and his cigarette made his face orange, some obscene traffic light. He turned to grin at Sidney, lifted his eyebrows.
‘You see that light out there?’ Judah said. He pointed out to sea.
Sidney saw a small light out in the darkness. Could be a fire. ‘Someone’s camping out on Snake Island,’ he said.
‘Snake Island?’
‘It’s just out there a bit. People camp there.’
Brendan returned with the torch and flicked it on, coating the shed they stood beside.
‘This is what I wanted to show you,’ he said. He shone the torch on an old engine, a tin of fuel, some battered life vests. ‘Boat stuff,’ he said. ‘Reckon he’s got a boat.’
‘And yet the boat’s not here,’ Judah said, more to himself. He left the shed and looked again out over the water. ‘Might be them out there.’
Brendan and Sidney joined him. ‘Could be,’ Brendan said.
‘How long would it take to get over there?’
‘Not sure,’ Brendan said. ‘An hour or two? Depends what kind of boat.’
‘You got a boat?’
‘Why would we have a boat?’ Sidney said.
‘Bloody hell,’ Judah said. ‘You always this whiny?’ And then to Brendan, ‘He always like this?’
When
Brendan didn’t reply, Judah said, ‘We get a boat and head out there.’
‘Might not be him, but,’ Brendan said.
‘Might not. You got any other ideas?’
‘He could be anywhere by now,’ Brendan said. ‘He could’ve driven up to Melbourne.’
‘In that car I slashed the tyres of, out in the bush?’ Judah asked.
‘His wife has a car, maybe.’
‘Maybe,’ Judah said. ‘And maybe hers is that car parked right out front of the house.’ He sucked on his cigarette. ‘I want to get out there.’
‘Probably a waste of time,’ Sidney said.
‘Quit bloody whining or I’ll smack you.’ Judah said this with little venom; just dissatisfaction.
Sidney stood silent, then said, ‘That’s two hours out and two hours back if it’s not him.’
‘What did I just say?’ Judah lifted his hand as if to remove the cigarette from his mouth but instead clapped Sidney on the back of the head, hard. Sidney stumbled, and put up his own hands to steady himself, the movement jarring his already sore shoulder.
‘Keep going,’ Judah said, and raised his hand again.
Brendan said, ‘He’s right, though. That’s a lot of wasted time if he’s not out there.’
They studied the flickering light in the distance.
Brendan said, ‘We could ask the neighbours.’
‘Ask them what?’
‘Whether he went out in his boat today.’
Judah took a moment and then nodded. ‘Alright.’ He stubbed his cigarette in the dirt and walked back down the driveway. Sidney followed him and Brendan to the house next door, a three-person army under cover of darkness.
They were soon motoring through the water. The darkness beneath them like blanketed sickness, souls gathered in evil perpetuity. The shotguns lay on the bottom of the boat, at Sidney’s feet, clunking together. The old man’s neighbours, after being threatened with violence by Judah, had been quick to give up what information they had. They’d seen Vernon head off that morning in his boat, his wife with him. He went out to Snake Island all the time, they said.
They hadn’t put up a fight when the three of them took their boat. It had been a struggle to fit them all in, the two hulking giants and the diminutive Sidney. Judah sat in back with his feet up on the bench, Sidney squashed to the side near the just-in-case oars. The engine was garbage, barely strong enough to motor over this inky blackness. Any small swell would send them right back where they’d departed from.
Judah was grinning at him, like some horrible clown in the moonlight, his big teeth yellowed and his eyes wide. ‘Bit of fun, hey?’
Up front, Brendan steered towards the flickering in the distance. As they grew closer they could make out the flames between the trees, and then two figures around the fire, their ghostly images hard to see for the warping heat and scrub.
Brendan said, ‘Should we slow down?’
Judah nodded. ‘Head around this other side where they won’t hear us. Gun down the motor.’
Brendan did as he was told. They slowed to a crawl, barely any ripples floating by them. Sidney let his arm dangle over the side, almost willed a shark to take his fingers. Come on, you bastards. Swim to the surface and take my whole damn arm.
They drifted, Brendan steering. They waited until the couple left the fire. Must’ve gone inside their tent. Judah’s feet were tapping. He lit a cigarette.
‘Put that out,’ Sidney said. He almost reached for it.
‘Why?’ Judah asked, mouth around the filter.
‘They’ll bloody see.’
Then he did reach for it. He swiped it from Judah’s grinning mug and threw it in the water. Judah’s grin fell, his chin followed, and he smacked his lips. ‘You do that again, you’re in the water.’
‘Good.’
‘With a hole in your chest.’
They decided to use the oars, Sidney and Brendan rowing, and soon passed by a smaller vessel, closer to the island. It looked as though nobody was in it and it was still some distance from shore. Drifting, though, untethered. A phantom boat.
Judah said, ‘Put the boat in over there,’ pointing at the shore.
‘Should we check this floater out?’ Brendan asked, nodding in its direction. ‘Might be Moore’s.’
‘Who cares? We saw where they were. Don’t need their boat.’
Sidney watched the boat as they glided by it. He saw what looked like a man’s leg in there, up on the bench inside. The other two were keenly watching the shore now. Sidney decided not to mention it.
At the shoreline the water slapped against the hull. Brendan was first over the side, dragging the boat up onto the sand. Judah lumbered out with the shotguns and Sidney followed. Brendan made his way through the bush. The trees were huge and banded together like braided rope. The smell of salty mud. Sidney could feel it sticking to his shoes. He was sweating. The air was still.
Before him now this dreadful prospect. Judah had a shotgun and so did his brother a few paces ahead. They intended to shoot this old man who had sat beside him in the car as the kangaroo had struck him and, although it was not the old man’s fault, he had still nursed him to the car, delivered him to his father. His father now mostly bandages in hospital.
He saw his daughter in all her smallness in her crib, just a newborn, suckling at a dummy, content in her beanie, her mittens, her socks. There with her kangaroo. His wife nearby asleep. What world was it they lived in where a man like Judah had the power to do whatever he pleased?
They came upon a clearing and in the midst of the cloying trees before them a ways away a smouldering fire, just embers burning under charcoal. They marched through the clearing like soldiers, carrying their weapons. Soon Judah motioned them to be still.
He whispered, ‘Their tent’s just through there.’
Sidney saw it then, billowing slightly in the breeze. An army-green colour.
‘Now,’ Judah whispered, ‘we just walk right over this clearing and unload these into that tent there.’ His eyebrows motioned towards the tent. ‘Just destroy it. Then we take their bodies on that other boat and leave ’em somewhere in the centre of town. Nobody’ll be messing with your family again.’
He held the shotgun like others might hold a loaf of bread. Like it was nothing. Sidney thought about his daughter. Thought about the type of man he was, the example he’d set her. How he’d live with himself after this, look her in the eye, try to teach her the world was good, that there was kindness, that there were people who’d care for her, love her truly. Knew that if he did this—if he helped pull the trigger—he’d never be able to show her the world he wanted her to know.
He yelled out Moore’s name, almost unbidden. It seemed to come from his stomach, and then pulse through the trees. An animal roar. A warning for the old man. Brendan, upon hearing, must have seen the change in Judah’s eye, the way his shoulders shifted, because he leapt onto the larger man and shouldered him to the ground. Judah grunted like a pig. Sidney tried to run but struggled in the mud. He had time to turn and look when he heard the shotgun, and saw his brother’s wounded body fall from Judah and slap against the mud.
THIRTY-THREE
CALEB MOORE
The sound of voices woke him. He sat up quickly and saw how dark the night had become. The moon in the sky otherworldly. He saw another boat pulled into shore. Saw three figures huddled together, entering the overgrowth. The hint of whispers lost in the breeze. He also saw, with relief, how close he’d drifted to shore while he slept.
As his brain kicked back into gear and caught up with his situation he realised with deepening fear the three men were the Cahills of some description. Could pick out Brendan’s silhouette easily, the lumbering monolith. Knew too his father and mother were probably asleep and had no idea what was going to happen. So he picked up his oar and started rowing. The boat spun, his arms still pained, the broken wrist just about useless. He abandoned it quickly and hopped out and found the water over his head he
ight and so he swam with all he could, broken wrist and all, the cast waterlogged, up to the surface, gulping air. He kept swimming. Bloody arms need to work. The shore his lighthouse. It was slow going with the arm and he felt he would drown. He reached out with his legs and found soft ground beneath them. He could walk, and did so. His body slowly emerged from the water and the cool breeze stuck the clothes to him. His arms in the fresh air, his hair cold. He was holding himself as he walked, trying to keep warm, and struggling. Soon he was entirely free of the ocean. He raced into the bush, over the gelatinous sand, trying to make his way to where his father used to camp on the other side of the island. He pried apart trees and soon found his fingers raw. Push on, push on. It was difficult going without a torch and he found his eyes were refusing to adjust.
You’ve done enough rotten things with your life, he told himself. Just do this one thing right. Just this one thing.
Soon he could make out his father’s tent just through the trees. He almost yelled out but was silenced by the sound of voices nearby. He crouched down, stopped moving. There, almost upon him, were the three men.
The men were talking in low voices that didn’t reach him. The largest of them was even bigger than Brendan and he had in hand a shotgun. Brendan too carried a gun. The smaller of the three was looking perplexed, and Caleb saw in his face the features of a Cahill.
This younger man turned away as the others readied themselves. Hard to tell what he was thinking but there was a surge to his chest, like he was holding his breath. Then he called out Vernon’s name, a yell that sounded like it was borne from the earth itself. It shocked Caleb. The bigger man was immediately set upon by Brendan, as the younger one started to flee, and then the sound of a shotgun, cracking into the air, muffled by Brendan’s body. He fell onto the earth and then scrambled away and into the bushes.
The other Cahill was now running but he hadn’t made it halfway across the clearing before the man fired again. The shot struck him in the back of the head and he went down hard into the muck, like he’d been thrown there by a giant. His jagged arm was sticking up as if frozen, the mud around him sucking. The sound of the shot striking the bloke’s skull was still echoing through Caleb’s own head when Brendan collided with him.
