Moonlight Downs

by Adrian Hyland

  But he thumped the roof, and I blessed what I took to be his little Mediterranean heart.

  ‘Hey, Bernie!’ he yelled, not taking his eyes off me in case I vanished back into the desert, ‘pull up!’

  The vehicle drew to a halt. The bloke on the back continued to stare. ‘You right there, lady?’

  Am I right? I bloody well am now that you’re here. I could have just about leapt in and rooted him on the spot. I sank to my knees, heaving for breath, but kept a tight grip on the tray. They weren’t going anywhere without me.

  I glanced back down the track. Blakie stood there agitated and scowling, his nostrils flared, his mouth a mess of snarls and desert dentistry. The prospect of tackling a truck-load of burly miners— there were four of them, and the tray was full of hard hats and hammers, hydraulic hoses, crowbars—was enough to make even him think twice. Presumably they were making their way to town from one of the mines out west.

  The driver’s window rolled down and a head appeared: fortyish, fair-haired, covered in dust but vaguely familiar.

  ‘Madam?’ he asked. ‘Do you need help?’

  ‘Help?’ I gasped, climbing to my feet. ‘You dunno the half of it! Just gemme the fuck outta here!’

  They looked shocked. Shit, I thought, just what I need. Prim miners.

  ‘Good God,’ exclaimed the driver. ‘It’s Jack Tempest’s daughter.’

  It took me a second or two to place him, so scattered were my wits: Bernie Sweet, the miner who’d come to call upon my father. Yet again, Dad and his mates were saving my bacon.

  I sucked all the air I could suck, then spat out a scattered explanation: ‘There’s been a killing. Two killings. Blackfeller camp back there. Bloke who did it…bloody madman, on my tail…’

  Bernie looked up and back.

  So did I.

  The track was empty.

  ‘Madman, you say?’ he asked, clearly suspicious that the neighbourhood maniac was kneeling in front of him. The dirty back window was rolled down and a head like a hairy gumboot appeared, stared at me: ‘If we are gonna give ’er a lift, Sweetie, watch out for your fuckin radio—she’ll flog it if it isn’t bolted down.’

  Camel.

  I glanced up into his bloodshot eyes and tried to smile. Even Camel looked like a knight in hairy armour to me right now. ‘Look, Camel, I suggest we forget about any little differences we might have had in the past. There’s a killer close behind me and there’s no telling what he’ll do.’

  Which there wasn’t. At least he couldn’t say I hadn’t warned him. No sooner had the words left my mouth than something long and lethal came whooshing out of the bushes on the other side of the truck.

  The skinny feller on the back gasped, cursed, clutched his chest and looked at the inch of wet wood in his fingers in astonishment. Not that that particular inch was the problem—it had already done its damage. It was the twelve inches still in his body that was killing him.

  In the wake of the spear came the madman himself, laying into the poor bastards like a bull with a bullet up its arse. He ripped the back door open with an almighty roar and plucked poor Camel from his perch as easily as he would have plucked a blowie from his beard. Then he speared him into the side of the truck. Head first.

  Blakie hit the front passenger door before Camel had hit the deck, ripping it open—just about ripping it off its hinges—with a ferocity that stunned the bloke sitting there, but not Bernie Sweet, who used the intervening seconds to seize a rifle from the rack behind him.

  Blakie grabbed the startled passenger by the beard and dragged him out, began stomping his head into the dirt. Kept stomping his head into the dirt until Bernie levelled the rifle, pulled the trigger and blew a great red hole into his corrugated chest.

  I was looking into Blakie’s eyes just as he was hit, and such was the fury I saw there that I knew a few grams of lead wouldn’t hold him, knew he’d just keep going, insane and unstoppable, until he killed the lot of us.

  But he didn’t.

  He flew up and back, arms and legs going every which way, and landed on the wind-row. He did raise his head for a moment, his eyes burning with high-octane hatred, his green teeth twisted into a ferocious grimace.

  Then he dropped back down. Lay still.

  The silence reverberated as powerfully as the chaos that had preceded it. Somewhere in the treetops a crow called, a long, falling sigh. A dying sigh. Bernie climbed out, cast a measured glance at the body, checked for a pulse. Didn’t find one. Looked up at me.

  ‘That your madman, Emily?’

  He turned back to where his shafted off-sider lay gasping against the sides of the truck.

  ‘Jesus!’ I heard him exclaim. ‘Tony!’ Then he got to work.

  This is one cool bastard, I thought, as I watched him try to save his mate. Must come from running a show out bush. I looked on with growing admiration as he moved into paramedic mode: grabbing a first-aid kit, applying a pressure bandage, attempting a bit of messy CPR.

  I stirred myself and did what I could to help, but it was no use.

  ‘Lost him,’ he murmured a few minutes later, shaking his head, glancing at Blakie’s body and cursing. ‘Fucking thing’s gone through his heart.’

  I sat on the step, my own heart pierced by a raft of black emotions. Dejection, shock, dismay. And not a touch of guilt. What a mess, I brooded. What an A-grade fucking disaster. And I got the poor bastards into it.

  ‘What was his name?’ I asked.

  ‘What?’ asked Bernie, looking up at me.

  ‘Your mate. I didn’t even know his name.’

  ‘Tony,’ Bernie murmured darkly. ‘Tony D’loia.’

  ‘He have any family?’

  ‘Family?’ For a moment he looked as though he didn’t know the meaning of the word, then he shook his head. ‘None that I know of. Just us, I suppose. We were partners. Poor bugger—all he was looking forward to was a quiet drink in the beer garden.’

  ‘You’re heading in for Bluebush?’

  ‘We were. Fellers have been working hard for weeks.’

  I went over and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I can’t tell you how bad I feel about all this, Bernie. If I’d known I was bringing this maniac down on top of you…’

  He glanced at me, then looked away, shaking his head. ‘Wasn’t your fault…’

  What was left of his outfit had picked itself up out of the bulldust and staggered in to join us by now. First came Camel, gradually unscrambling his brains after his encounter with Blakie. Then Mal, the front passenger and, I realised, his occasional flatmate. Last time I’d seen the bloke he’d been decorating the couch. On closer inspection he looked like a lot of other miners I’d met over the years: head like a dead leatherjacket above a shapeless bulk; gruff, morose, baggy-bearded and blue singleted.

  ‘Christ,’ rasped Camel, staring at his murdered workmate. ‘Tony. Is he…?’

  Bernie nodded.

  Camel glared malevolently at the outstretched Blakie, whose resident flies had begun to resettle after their recent disturbance.

  ‘Black bastard!’ he spat. I didn’t feel like arguing the point, bit of a black bastard though I might have been myself.

  Either Mal wasn’t as close to the dead man or he wasn’t the demonstrative type. Whatever the reason, he didn’t have much to say. He settled against the bull-bar and glowered out into the bush, alone with whatever was oozing through his brain.

  For myself, I didn’t care what any of them did or thought. They’d saved my life. At the cost of one of their own. And Bernie Sweet, clearly the head honcho, couldn’t have been more solicitous: he plied me with water and coffee, settled me under a tree, threw a rug across my legs.

  ‘You sure you’re okay, Emily?’ he enquired, looking over my battered body with an air of deep concern. ‘You’ve had a hell of a shock.’

  ‘Bit shook up, but I’m fine, thanks. Just amazed to be still in the land of the living.’

  ‘And you reckon he’s killed someone else ba
ck in the camp?’

  ‘Another couple, looked like. But I wasn’t hanging around for the post-mortem. And there’s a woman missing.’

  ‘We’ll get you back to town as soon as possible. You ought to see a doctor. But what about this missing woman?’

  ‘Her name’s Hazel. I reckon I know where she’ll be—if she’s still alive.’

  He glanced at his battered workmates, then said, ‘Give me a few minutes to sort things out, then we’ll see what we can do to help. There’s nothing more we can do here.’ It was a generous offer, given the circumstances.

  He went back to the truck and fired up a short-wave under the dash. I sat in the shade of a whitewood tree, leaned my back against its rough bark and nursed my coffee. Normally I would have found it vile: a murky conglomeration of UHT, sugar and bore water. Right now it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever tasted. Every sip savoured of salvation. Heaven in a pannikin. Alive alive-o.

  I settled back, closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Suddenly exhausted and content to let this competent dude run things. Not my usual modus operandi, but what I’d been through in the last hour would have been enough to make George Orwell turn things over to Big Brother for a bit.

  Then I thought, Hazel.

  My peace of mind shattered like a thunder-egg in a fire. Where the hell was she? I scratched the sand with a stick, drew circles and arrows, found myself beginning to shake with fear. Had she gotten away, or was her broken body lying somewhere in the scrub?

  What on earth—or out of hell—had possessed Blakie? For a moment I told myself that maybe their absurd affair would be her salvation. Maybe the fact that they slept together would have stayed his hand, inclined him towards mercy?

  Christ, I was fooling myself and I knew it. He’d gone right over the edge. From what I’d seen of his rampage today, he’d have killed her as casually as he’d have knocked a goanna on the head.

  I pulled myself up.

  No, until I knew that she was dead, until I touched her cold body with my own hands, she was still alive. Still out there somewhere.

  I’m forever making wagers with myself, and I made one now. If she was alive we’d be okay. The lot of us—me, Hazel, what was left of the Moonlight mob. We’d work our way out of these horrors and we’d flourish. If she wasn’t…

  No. I shook my head. It was too awful to contemplate.

  I’d never felt so dependent on anybody in my life.

  Bernie came back, squatted beside me. I found his presence— not just his bulk but his burly self-confidence, his fluidity, his ease of command—immeasurably reassuring. With him around, at least we had a chance. ‘Police are on their way, but it’ll be a few hours. I told them we’re heading out to find this friend of yours. She may be injured.’

  ‘From what I’ve seen today that’s not very likely. Blakie doesn’t injure, he slaughters. But thanks.’

  ‘My God, you don’t have to thank me. If we don’t look out for each other out here, who else will?’ I smiled gratefully. ‘Where do you think she’d be?’

  ‘Place we used to hang out as kids,’ I told him. ‘Especially when there was trouble.’

  ‘So where is it, this hideaway?’ he asked.

  ‘Maybe fifteen, twenty k’s to the north. An old police station.’

  ‘Police station?’ He gave me a peculiar look, then smiled. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any old policemen out there?’

  ‘Think they’re long gone.’

  I could see myself getting to like this bloke. So calm in a pressure-cooker situation, so measured, and yet thoughtful. Capable of humour, even, at a time like this.

  ‘Camel’s going to stay back here, with the…with the bodies. He’ll wait for the police. Frankly, he’s still a little too shaken up to be of much use. What did you say your friend’s name was?’

  ‘Hazel.’

  ‘Hazel. Okay, if she’s out there we’ll find her. But we’d better check the camp first. If you’re up to it.’

  Which we did. And which I wasn’t. Bernie went into the shack alone, while Mal and I sat in the Hino.

  The roaring swarm of flies told me that Bernie was checking the bodies. He came out a minute or two later, shaking his head.

  ‘Unbelievable!’ he muttered. ‘He did a good job. Poor old buggers. I covered them up; least we can do is give them a little dignity.’

  I nodded my appreciation. Not everyone out here would have been so sensitive.

  ‘Let’s see if there’s anyone alive around here.’

  A quick search of the camp revealed neither dead nor living. A slower search, this time out as far as the horse yards, told us that Hazel’s little bay was missing. The maze of hoof prints around the yard made it impossible to track. But if Hazel had managed to get away, I was sure she’d head for the gaol.

  When I said this to Bernie, he glanced at Mal, who nodded his agreement, then we climbed back aboard the Hino.

  ‘Okay,’ said Bernie, ‘let’s go!’

  Ghost roads

  I TOOK them cross country, and we hit the track not far from where we’d had our disastrous encounter with Blakie. I caught a glimpse of poor Camel in the distance, crouching forlornly by a small fire. Sweet drove up and filled him in on our plans. After the vaguest of acknowledgments from the battered, bearded one we set off to find Hazel.

  I took them via the Long Yard shortcut, but the track faded into a faint set of wheel marks, then disappeared altogether in a patch of whippet grass. I decided to give directions from the back of the truck, just as the late Tony D’loia had done, and it was as I was changing places that I spotted the first hoof prints in the sand.

  Her horse? I wondered. Maybe.

  A little further on, at the northern gate, I picked out a foot print. Not just a foot print, the foot print, the only one in the world I knew at a glance. The crack in the heel, the long, skating arch.

  ‘She’s been here!’ I cried. ‘We’re on the right track.’

  Bernie gave me a cheery thumbs up.

  I climbed aboard, grinning with relief, confident that she was still alive.

  My confidence took a downward spiral a few kilometres later when we found the horse itself, lame and alone. We doubled back, searching for the spot where she’d abandoned it. We dismounted, fanned out. We did eventually pick up her tracks, but it took us a good hour to do so, and even then it was only because I’d guessed where she was going. She was heading for the gaolhouse, but taking the longest, toughest route, covering her tracks and cutting across country.

  I was puzzled. What was the point? Me she could fool easily enough. But Blakie? Blakie could have tracked a bird through the air.

  We pushed on, Mal taking a turn at the wheel now. I took them up through the foothills, over the jump-up, then round the western side of the ranges. From time to time, when something caught my attention, I’d pull him up with a thump on the roof.

  Once it was a set of scuff marks, where she’d fallen to the ground. Another time, at the Ngurulu soakage, we came across the remains of a dried-out camel, its teeth little tombstones, its skin rotting away like a carpet left out in the rain.

  In the soak itself were fresh holes, but no water.

  She was getting thirsty.

  Then we found hand prints, stretching for thirty or forty metres. Hand prints! I thought. She’s on her knees. Christ, she must be getting desperate. Was she injured? Or worse, driven out of her mind by the horrors she’d witnessed back at the camp?

  The anxiety gnawed at my insides. I could feel her fear. Sometimes, touching her hand prints or studying an acacia bush under which she’d rested, I could almost smell it.

  I found myself drumming the roof of the Hino in frustration. I longed to speak to her, to touch her, to reassure her that help was at hand. Christ! I thought, what a godawful nightmare the last few weeks have been for her. First her father, then the rest of her family. Thank God Winnie and the kids were in town when Blakie struck.

  We hit the plains and the miles flew
by, the wind rattled my eardrums.

  The two miners sat in front, neither of them making more than the odd comment. I stood on the tray, clutching the bar and yelling out any change of directions, but our course was usually obvious. Bernie flashed a reassuring smile through the rear window now and again, but for the most part they just stared at the horizon, focusing on the job at hand.

  Occasionally they consulted a map. I knew the country better than either of them, of course—I’d grown up among its sun-scoured hills and hollows—and didn’t need a map. I wasn’t looking for landmarks, I was looking for variations. Things out of place. It was something I’d learned from Lincoln. Visitors to the desert sometimes remark upon the amazing long-range vision of those old blackfellers, but it’s not their eyes. Half the poor buggers are just about blind. It’s their minds. So well do they know the lie of the land that they’re quick to spot anything up and running.

  And that was how it happened: a dead branch beside the track suddenly sprouted wings and burst into a mopoke. As I followed its line of flight I spotted a tiny blur, out on the far side of the burnt scoria that stretched out under the stern gaze of the Brothers Grim.

  ‘Over there!’ I yelled, bashing on the roof so hard I put a dent in it. ‘Something moving!’

  The truck pulled up. ‘Which way?’ yelled Bernie, his head half out the window as he shaded his eyes and peered into the afternoon glare.

  ‘Bit more to the left!’

  He tried to follow the line of my outstretched arm, then climbed up beside me. ‘You’ve got better eyes than me, Emily.’

  ‘Follow the line of desert oaks until you come to the gap in the cliffs.’ The cliffs, coincidentally, that I’d been standing upon earlier this morning as I sat and peered out over the plains over which I now found myself travelling. Jalyukurru.

  ‘She’s just below it, see? Near the rocks.’

  They were, in fact, a damn sight more than rocks. They were the Tom Bowlers. Karlujurru. Diamond Dove. An appropriate place to find her, given her dreaming, but explaining their significance to my rescuers was the least of my concerns right now.