Since they had made the discovery that Monsoon’s Combi was gone, along with Bjørn Eggen, Mary Rose, and the money, suspicion had followed on the heels of shock, with concern third by a nose, alarm a couple of lengths back, and despondency bringing up the rear. At the turn, it was alarm by half a length from despondency, and then concern coming away down the stretch. They had endlessly reviewed the possible permutations of motive and method, running different scenarios through their minds, postulating connivance and complicity, kidnapping and caught napping, double crosses, triple crosses, and noughts and crosses, not wanting to think the unthinkable but not being quite able to discard the idea either.
The hours until the plane had arrived had seemed interminable, and tempers frayed as the tension increased. Wally had quickly explained the situation to Helmut, and everyone had piled into the truck and headed back to the airplane. The relief had been palpable as they took off—for everyone except Crispin, that is, who had quickly realized that he was going to die as Helmut banked the Cessna into a vertigo-inducing spiral. The first day they saw nothing but miles of empty roads unraveling below, interspersed with tiny settlements and the occasional road train dragging a huge red cloud in its wake. The gathering gloom of sunset matched the mood in the truck as they trundled back to the hotel, weary and disconsolate after their long and fruitless search.
They were up and away again with the sun, heading at right angles to the immense shadows which crept across the limitless expanse of bush below. Just before ten, sunlight flashed on glass, and Wally and Asia both cried out at once.
“There, there, down there.”
“Under that fucken gum tree.”
“It’s all down there, you drongos, and which particular gum tree did you have in mind out of the approximately forty million that I can see?” said Helmut, who was understandably a little testy.
“Just in front of the shadow of the plane now,” Asia said.
“Yah. I see it now. Hang on to your arses. We go down for a closer look.”
Crispin’s shriek rivaled the engine’s whine as Helmut dropped the Cessna into a Stuka nosedive and swept over the treetops. Except for Crispin, they all clearly saw the white Volkswagen in the shadow of a large stand of trees. Helmut pulled up into the sun and came round in a tight circle, holding the pattern as they searched the area for signs of life.
“Can’t we land?” Asia asked.
“No. I am afraid we have not sufficient clearance between the trees.”
“What can we do, then?” asked Crispin, whose curiosity had overcome his terror now that the aircraft seemed to be flying on a more even keel.
“We’ll head back. I can radio Stavros, and they can bring the truck.”
“How long will that take?”
“On this road? Sunset, I should think.”
“Fuck.”
“I agree.”
“Helmut,” Wally said, “head this crate over to Jimmy’s. You can put ’er down in the meadow.”
“Good thinking, Wal.”
Crispin closed his eyes again as the Cessna made another abrupt and alarming turn.
“I don’t understand,” Asia said.
“Our mate. Jimmy. Lives out in the bush. Can eat ashes and drink stones. Not to mention ’e could find a white flea on a polar bear’s arse with ’is fucken eyes shut. We’ll send ’im overland to track ’em down, and we’ll ’ead back, and in the meantime ’Elmut can radio Stavros.”
Helmut turned the plane directly towards the sun, and the cabin was filled with a blinding light.
“How can you see where you’re going?” Crispin asked Helmut.
“I fucken can’t.”
As Jimmy was returning to his Holden with a small kangaroo swinging lifeless from his shoulder a strange smell drifted to him on the wind and he froze, seeming to disappear into the surrounding heat haze. He circled around, coming upon his camp from behind a low hill, and soundlessly on leathery feet advanced to its summit. Crouching in the tall sun-bleached grass, he peered between the dry blades. He saw a single-engine Cessna pulled up in the shade next to the tree, and beneath its wing three men and a woman sitting on camp chairs drinking his beer.
One of the men was as black and wiry as beef jerky; another slight, with a white shirt, and hair that shone in the sun; and the third was fat, florid, and soft, and appeared to have a pile of cotton candy stuck to his head. The woman had flaming copper hair tied with a green ribbon, and a spectacular figure. Jimmy grinned broadly and ghosted forward without a sound.
Wally grinned, similarly broadly, converting his parchment face into a passable impression of a happy Shar-Pei as he fastened his gums onto the rim of his can like a limpet clam clinging to a rock.
“Strewth!” he yelled in dismay as a six-foot length of fire-hardened eucalyptus zipped through his beer, knocking it from his grip.
“G’day, Wally, g’day, Helmut,” said Jimmy as he bent to retrieve his spear, sliding the can from it with a harsh rasping noise.
“Jimmy, yer useless, sheep-shaggin barstad, you’ve ruined me bladdy breakfast.”
Tossing Wally another can, Jimmy responded with a stream of Ngadjonji, of which an approximate translation would go something like, “Stop nicking me fucking beer, you short-arsed, wrinkled old cunt, and why the fuck has that fat poofter got a dead fucking sheep on top of his head, and who’s the sheila with the big knockers and does she fuck, and who are these wankers anyway, and where’s me fucking cockatoo, you thieving bastard.”
“This big fella’s Crispin,” Wally replied in English, pulling the ring on his tin, and indicating Crispin with his thumb. “This lovely sheila’s Asia, an’ no she don’t, least not with dingbats like you. An’ I et yer fucken cockatoo, so kiss me arse.”
Wally did his Shar-Pei impression again, fastened his limpet lips to the can, tilted his head back, and waited for his words to sink in.
Crispin, meanwhile, was frozen to his chair with his mouth open, observing the proceedings with a disconcerting mixture of dismay and desire. His short-lived euphoria with his bucolic surroundings had evaporated in direct proportion to the ferocity of the hangover, which was currently hammering hot rivets into his sinuses, and his near hysteria over the most recent calamity. Still shaken from the turbulent and terrifying flight, Helmut having maneuvered the plane so close to the tree tops that he swore he could see the whites of the koalas’ eyes, and finding himself for the first time in his adult experience without a building in sight, in the company of an unintelligible savage, Crispin was on the point of wigging out.
The incident with the spear had almost finished him, and the sight of the lithe, ebony figure of Wombat Jimmy, with the sheen of the morning sun on his sweating skin and his formidable equipment swinging in the antipodean breeze, had unleashed an irresistible stream of ecstatic imagery in his brain that had him almost swooning, so long had it been since he had indulged in the pleasures of the flesh. And what on earth was that frightful beast? It looked like it had been unearthed from a compost heap, and smelled even worse than the time that Nigel had his little accident. And why did it keep looking at him like that?
Asia was studying Jimmy with similar sentiments, but shared none of Crispin’s trepidation and would have enjoyed the excitement of the bumpy flight and appreciated Jimmy’s display of marksmanship, had she not been so overwhelmed with worry about Baby Joe, and concern for Bjørn Eggen and Mary Rose, not to mention the money. Despite all, she couldn’t resist making a fuss of Walkabout, whom she thought was just the most adorable creature. Walkabout reciprocated, and just to prove it he lifted his snout from the beer she had just poured for him long enough to sniff her gusset. He quickly decided in favor of the beer, but then Asia had been all morning in the cramped plane and the hot sun.
She was stroking his rank fur, gazing at Jimmy and fantasizing about what his huge clam digger would look like in its proud state, when he spoke to her.
“G’day, sheila. I’m Jimmy. Me wombat’s called Walkabout.”
Asia summoned the best smile she could muster under the circumstances. “We’ve been introduced. He’s cute. I’m Asia.”
Asia turned her smile up a couple of watts and extended her fingers. Jimmy grinned, showing his perfect teeth, but made no attempt to take her hand. Crispin roused himself from his catatonic state, struggled to his feet, and stepped towards Jimmy with his hand outstretched and an unctuous smile on his sweating face.
He was midway through his second step when Wally leapt from his chair with a speed belying his years, dived full length, and tackled Crispin behind the knees. With a cry of dismay, Crispin collapsed onto the hard earth like a giant jellyroll, his arms flung out theatrically, and the beer spilling from his can in a glistening arch. He smacked into the dirt with his face inches from Walkabout’s rear end. Walkabout dutifully farted. Crispin struggled to an upright position, and, as he did so, planted his pudgy hand smack into one of Walkabout’s recent efforts. He suffered complete composure meltdown.
“YOU TOOTHLESS OLD CUNT. WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE PLAYING AT?”
Wally stood grinning, still holding his can, proud of the fact that he had made the tackle without spilling a single drop. He turned to Jimmy.
“Lissen ’ow ’e’s jabbering to a bloke what just saved ’is fucken life, eh, Jimmy?”
Crispin was futilely trying to wipe his hand on the red earth, while simultaneously glaring at Asia, who, despite all her anxiety, had slid from her chair and was sitting on the dirt holding her knees together and howling.
“What the fuck is that old goat talking about?” continued Crispin. “Is he completely deranged or what?”
“Na, mate,” said Jimmy, softly, “it’s fair dinkum. Wally just saved your life for sure. You wanna thank ’im ’stead a cursin ’im.”
“Thank him for saving me from what?” Crispin asked, suddenly unsure, his eyes flicking around nervously as if searching for some thereto-unrevealed nastiness lurking in among the leaves.
“Me shadow.”
“Your what, now?”
“’Is shadow,” interjected Wally. “If a white bloke steps on it, it’s curtains fer sure. Kill ’im quicker than fucken taipan.”
Wally snapped his horny fingers to illustrate his point. Asia had stopped laughing and was looking from Jimmy’s face down to his shadow, which was looking all of a sudden blacker and somehow sinister on the baked earth, and back to his face again. Crispin’s mouth was open.
“Yah. This is correct,” Helmut confirmed, looking grave.
“That’s why I’m fucken famous, mate. Learned it from old ones. Dreamtime fellas.”
“You mean you’re trying to tell me that a man can die just from stepping on your shadow?”
“Only white blokes. Don’t work with black fellas like Wally.”
“This is also correct,” Helmut added.
“Why, that’s the most preposterous crock of horseshit I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” said Crispin as he wobbled to his feet, fuelled by his outrage. Gathering momentum, he continued, “You mean to tell me that I have risked my life flying halfway across this benighted desert, at the ass end of the world, in the company of an unhinged gibbon, in that fucking gossamer deathtrap, piloted by a pomade-smeared refugee from Baron Von Richtoven’s flying fucking circus, to listen to some mumbo-jumbo, voodoo bullshit about killer shadows. You have got to be shitting me, my dusky friend.”
The light went out of Jimmy’s eyes. Without seeming to move, he was suddenly in between Crispin and the sun, his shadow stretched out before him like a poisoned blade. Crispin blanched and took a step back.
“Try it,” said Jimmy, in a very quiet voice, barely louder than a whisper, the whisper of scales, snake scales on dry stones.
“Ya,” said Helmut, “if you don’t believe, step forward.”
Jimmy advanced half a step towards Crispin, who retreated until his spine thumped into the trunk of the tree.
“Wally, do something,” Asia said, suddenly alarmed.
“Eh, Jimmy,” said Wally, “’ow we gonna get this fat barstad in the plane if ’e carkes it?”
Jimmy’s face cracked into a smile, and the air of menace dissipated as quickly as it had appeared. “Yeah, Wal. Good thinking. Chuck us a fucken beer, mate.”
As Wally bent for the beers, Crispin and Asia exchanged a long, meaningful stare.
“’Ere, Jimmy,” Wally said, “some mates of ours are lost, out in the bush. We reckon they’re in trouble. We seen the Combi, but we can’t get the plane down. We want yer ter go an ’elp em.”
“We still don’t know they’re lost,” said Crispin icily, regaining some of his composure. “Maybe they just ran off with the money. After all, Bjørn Eggen is Monsoon’s grandfather, and Mary Rose is a gangster. I mean, look what she did before.”
“What she did was save our lives, Crispin, if you remember,” Asia said sharply.
“Nah, mate, Bjørn Eggen wouldn’t pull a stunt like that. Mary Rose neither. London to a brick, it’s that useless drongo grandson of ’is up to ’is tricks again. We shoulda let ol’ Penguin Brew heave ’im overboard.” Wally turned to Jimmy. “Lissen, mate. These are old folks. It might not go too good for ’em out in the bush. We don’t know what they’ve got in the way of water. I reckon you’re about an hour’s trek from ’ere. I ain’t got the legs for it no more.”
“Yeah. No worries, Wal,” Jimmy said, picking up his weapons. “Which way?”
“Aim for those blue gums, then foller the line of the ’ills, till you get to the stream. Foller the shadows, then turn east when you get to the road.”
“Whaddya want me to do with ’em when I find ’em, Wal?”
“Just see ’em right. Truck’ll be ’ere ‘round sundown, I reckon.” Wally nodded, and turned to go.
“Please hurry,” said Asia.
“She’ll be right, sheila,” Jimmy said, beaming his smile. “See ya, Walkabout.”
Jimmy ghosted off between the trees, running effortlessly, seeming to float away as his image disappeared into the mirage. Walkabout farted.
Chapter 24.
The good news was he was a millionaire. The bad news was he was in the middle of a waterless plain under the anvil of the sun with a broken foot, two dehydrated geriatrics, and nothing to drink but half a bottle of whiskey. Monsoon was a city boy. If you wanted water, you turned on a fucking tap, and if you were too hot you put the A.C. on. When he had meticulously planned his transcontinental adventure, he had meticulously failed to understand that there are places on earth that require greater self-sufficiency than the ability to pull into a gas station. He had not taken into account that there were stretches on his trip where he could literally drive for days and see no more sign of human presence than a dead sheep on the side of the road. He had no water, other than what was left in the radiator, no food, no camping gear, and was not adequately equipped to spend even one day in the moisture-sucking Australian bush. In fact, he was not adequately equipped for a trip to the movies. In the grip of this new and alarming reality, Monsoon did what seemed to him to be the most sensible thing. He sat down in the shade of a gum tree and drank the rest of the whiskey.
In the back of the Combi, Mary Rose was in bad shape. She was seriously dehydrated, and her feet and hands were badly swollen from being bound. She was unconscious and as white as a sheet, and her breathing was very shallow, coming in fast little gasps. Bjørn Eggen was better, but not much. His rigorous outdoor life and the essential soundness of his body had stood him in good stead, but the intense baking heat in the back of the Combi was sapping his strength fast. The force of the sudden skidding halt of the vehicle slamming him up against the back of the driver’s seat had roused him, and he looked at Mary Rose and knew instantly that she was in trouble. He was still drowsy from the drug, but had sweated much of it out of his system.
Whoever had tied him up had been an amateur, binding his hands in front of him with duct tape. Aching in every joint and feeling the weight of every o
ne of his years, he battled to a sitting position and shuffled over to the spare wheel. After a couple of minutes chafing the tape against the threads of the bolts that held it in place he was able to free his hands, which had also swelled but not as badly as Mary Rose’s. Freeing his feet, he moved over to her and loosened her bonds. Her skin was clammy and he could barely feel her pulse, and when he lifted her eyelids her eyes were rolled back in her head. She needed water. Fast. Opening the back door and sliding out, his cramped legs buckled under him and he fell to the earth, landing hard, tasting the bitter red soil. He heard an exclamation, and looking under the wheelbase saw a pair of outstretched legs.
Clambering to his feet, Bjørn Eggen heard a cry of pain as Monsoon tried to do the same, supporting himself against the trunk of the blue gum. Bjørn Eggen hobbled around the back of the van and saw his grandson leaning against the tree, favoring his right foot and holding an empty whiskey bottle. His rage overcame his pain and fatigue, and the years melted away as he strode across the distance between them, snarling like a fighting dog, and drove his bony fist onto the point of Monsoon’s nose, breaking it.
Monsoon went down with a yelp, smacking his head into the tree and dropping the bottle, which bounced off the red soil but did not break. Monsoon was used to life kicking him in the teeth, and had almost come to expect it. What he did not expect was to be kicked in the balls by his own grandfather as he lay on the ground under a eucalyptus tree with a broken nose and a broken foot. He vomited up the whiskey and looked up through tear-filled eyes to see Bjørn Eggen standing over him brandishing a branch, and as he tried to curl up, squealing wordlessly, Bjørn Eggen began to thrash him.
Machine Gun Jelly (Big Bamboo Book 1) Page 41
