Gunshot Road

by Adrian Hyland

I dished up, sampled the stew.

  ‘Not bad,’ I had to admit. The seeds and herbs gave it an unexpected pungency. Made it taste less like dog food.

  The lines around his eyes crinkled in a smile. ‘You expected anything less?’

  ‘Never know what to expect when you’re around, Jojo.’

  ‘How long can you stay?’

  ‘Should have been back yesterday. Boss breathing fire down my neck.’

  ‘Tom McGillivray breathing fire? Not unless somebody put a match to it, surely?’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s not Tom. He’s off sick.’

  His bushy eyebrows curved. ‘You didn’t mention that. What happened?’

  ‘Cookie Crankshaft.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Smack in the face with a walking frame.’

  He winced. ‘The old Crankshaft fighting spirit! What’s the new bloke like?’

  ‘Cockburn? Neat.’

  ‘So what does he make of you?’

  ‘Not much. Plays a lot of squash. Chews a lot of gum. Likes to keep his uniform clean and his car cleaner.’

  A worried expression rolled across his face. ‘That wouldn’t be his car you’re driving now, would it? That battered old bomb?’

  ‘Didn’t look like that when I started out.’

  ‘I see.’ He scrutinised the car. ‘And he’s particularly attached to it?’

  ‘Thinks the sun shines out of its tailpipe.’

  ‘Might be a short career, this copper turnout.’

  He walked over to the Tojo, surveyed its wounds.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  We finished the meal, then Jojo dug out a toolbox, had a go at the car. After a brilliant bit of improvising he had it in a reasonable semblance of its former shape. He knocked out the more obvious dents, jemmied the bumper back into its bracket, gave it a polish with a concoction of bush oils. But no amount of ingenuity could make up for the lack of proper equipment.

  When he’d finished, he stood back, crossed his arms, studied his handiwork. Shook his head.

  ‘So how big a prick’s this boss?’

  ‘The full Ron Jeremy.’

  Jojo ran a finger across the vehicle’s bodywork. It had the lightly hammered surface of a Jamaican steel drum. ‘If I were you I’d park it outside the cop shop after dark and run.’

  I ran a finger across his own lightly hammered surface. ‘So what are we going to do till then?’

  ‘Well…’

  He sat me on the bonnet, ran his knuckles down my spine and a cheek across my neck. His breath smelled like desert rose. ‘We could see if there’s anything left in the toolbox…’

  Devil in the dark

  I LEFT LATER THAT afternoon, reluctant to get back to the office while Cockburn was likely to be lurking. Jojo promised he’d be following in a few days.

  It was getting on for dark when I reached the Green Swamp Roadhouse. I had no intention of stopping, but as I cruised past, I glanced at the mirror, caught a glimmer of light in the window of Doc’s cabin.

  I pulled over, my curiosity and suspicions piqued. Maybe murderers really do return to the scene of the crime. I backed up, took another look: the light had vanished.

  I grabbed a fighting stick from the back of the vehicle, stole across the stretch of dirt, came up along the west side of the dwelling, peered in through a window.

  The room was in darkness. I pressed against the wall, listening intently, watching in case the intruder made a break for it.

  Five minutes crawled by. Nothing.

  I crept around to the back, found the door unlocked. Stepped into the shack, flicked on the torch.

  Fuck! I gasped in pain as something smashed into my hand. The attack seemed to come from nowhere—but I sensed another one on the way. I threw the fighting stick up, deflected the blow and launched myself in the direction it came from. Made contact with someone—someone who promptly grabbed an arm and flicked me westwards.

  Fuck this, my stomach said to my brain as they sailed through the air and landed in a heap on the far side of the room.

  I rolled over and swivelled the flashlight into the face of my assailant.

  ‘My god!’

  She was in a fighting stance, foot forward, poker in hand, ready to strike another blow. Wearing a ferocious glare and not much more. What was her name again?

  ‘Jet?’

  She blinked, eased off on the glare. ‘The policeman?’

  ‘Wish you’d stop calling me a man.’

  ‘I apologise. Did I bl…break you?’

  I climbed to my feet. ‘Only slightly.’

  She put the bar down, ran a hand through her hair, loosened up. ‘It is the men.’

  ‘It is. What men?’

  ‘All of the men—in this country. They make me crazy,’ she exclaimed, waving her arms around to demonstrate how crazy they made her.

  ‘I see.’

  ‘All the time, they never stop, these hairy desert monsters, slamming on the door, coming at all hours, sniffing around me like I am a woman dog in the…whatever…’

  ‘Heat.’

  ‘The heat, perhaps, yes. Or the dry. Or the alcohol. Or the no-women.’ She scowled suspiciously. ‘Have they murdered all the women? Where are they?’

  ‘White women, there never were. Not many. Just my mob.’

  ‘Yes, your…mob. I learn the expression. Your people from the Stone House Creek, I know them. They were here just yesterday.’

  ‘The Stonehouse mob?’

  ‘Yes, Magpie and Meg, Danny and the Crankshafts, the fat lady in running shoes—they come back from a long trip—into the desert.’ She turned her head to the west as she spoke, made it sound like the outer reaches of hell.

  ‘I know; I was with em. They called in here after I left?’

  ‘Yes—Mister Nipper wished for money.’ She moved around the room, lighting lanterns, throwing shadows in every direction. ‘I have even been to their dirty little village.’

  ‘You’ve been to Stonehouse Creek?’

  ‘I went out with Kitty…’

  ‘Ah, you’ve met Kitty too.’

  ‘She is my friend—when she is not asking for money. Then I am her play.’

  Kitty and Jet: a fascinating thought. I couldn’t imagine either of them being anybody’s prey. ‘Jet?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mind telling me what you’re doing here? I mean, I could have knocked your block off back there.’

  ‘My block?’ She looked around, puzzled.

  ‘Head.’

  A sardonic smile. ‘Your block was, perhaps, in greater danger than my own.’

  I rubbed my wrist, examined it: nothing broken, but it was going to be a dozen shades of blue by morning. ‘Probably right.’

  ‘I told you, did I not? I must spend some time here, try to comprehend this puzzle of a place.’

  ‘I suppose you did. Didn’t realise you planned to do this much…comprehending.’

  ‘And I have my job.’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Come with the house.’

  ‘At the pub? You’re working for Noel Redman?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It beggared the imagination, the thought of this slinky young thing working for the Great Ape over the road. At least she knew how to look after herself.

  ‘A little cleaning,’ she explained. ‘The office work, sometimes I work the bar, pull the beer…’

  I could imagine—beers and leers.

  ‘So how’re you enjoying it?’

  ‘More, I would say, than the poor gentleman who occupied this house before me.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Doc. He’s the reason I’m here.’

  She eyed me sharply, put a thumbnail in her mouth.

  ‘Can I offer you a cup of tea?’

  ‘What’s that—compensation for the arm?’

  She glanced at it curtly and said, ‘It will repair.’ Not a model of compassion.

  She rummaged through a backpack by the bed, threw on a few scraps of
clothing. Made her way to the fireplace, threw on a few scraps of wood.

  Soon afterwards we were out on the veranda, cradling cups of yellow butter-laced tea and taking in the sights of Green Swamp—i.e. the pub across the road, where the lights were glowing and the volume rising. It was coming up to peak period, with ringers and Rabble furiously drinking themselves into an hour or two of respite from the oblivion of their lives.

  Jet didn’t beat about the bush. ‘This man who died. Mister Ozolins. Doc, they call him, I know. What are your questions?’

  ‘You know he was a geologist?’

  ‘I have seen his rocks. Used some of them in my work.’

  ‘What is your work?’

  ‘I make things.’

  ‘Things?’

  ‘Objects.’ That was helpful. ‘Art, when I am fortunate.’

  ‘Out of rocks?’

  She sliced the air with a dismissive hand. ‘Out of whatever works.’ Well, that answered that. ‘But this…quest of yours. It has to do with his death?’

  ‘Probably not, but I like to be sure.’

  ‘I told you, did I not? You should look at the rock formation he was building. That is what I have been doing.’

  I paused, studied her severe features in the moonlight. My curiosity was piqued.

  ‘So what have you made of it?’

  ‘As yet I have made—nothing. The beginnings of a beginning, no more.’ She put her teacup down, did the hand-waving thing again. ‘It is labyrinth, mandala. But where I come from, we spend our lives looking into mandala. After a time—perhaps a lifetime—you begin to see meaning.’

  ‘I think that’s what Doc was doing. He was investigating the geology of a site out west—place called Dingo Springs.’

  She went quiet. ‘Dingo Spring?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The Dingo—it is the wild dog, no?’

  ‘Yep.’

  She took a noisy slurp of tea. ‘My employer…’

  ‘Noel?’

  ‘He has the land out there.’

  ‘I don’t think so. It’s crown land. Nobody owns it, not in the whitefeller way.’

  ‘He has a government paper for the looking of gold.’

  ‘A mineral exploration lease?’

  She shrugged.

  Not so unusual, I supposed. A lot of people on the fringes of the mining industry like to try their hand; there were MELs dotted all round the countryside. But then she added, ‘He owned it in company with your Mister Ozolins, I believe. The Doc.’

  ‘How the hell do you know that?’

  ‘I have been doing a bookkeeping for Mr Ledman.’ She frowned, pursed her lips. ‘Red!’

  ‘Doesn’t matter—wasn’t far off the mark. So you do Noel’s books? You are multi-skilled.’

  ‘I am not good. In truth, I am hopeless. But I am Chinese—they make the assumption, I bury the mistake. Sometimes I open the mail. The other day was letter from—the Department of the Mining, no?’

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Inside was a renewing notice for a mineral exploring lease. The place was the same—this Dingo Springs. And the names were two together: Ozolins and Redman.’

  I gave that a moment’s consideration. If Redman had a lease out there, in partnership with Doc it complicated things enormously. With Doc out of the way, Redman would have first crack at anything of value.

  No choice now: I had to question the publican, see what he had to say for himself.

  There was a sudden ruckus from the pub. A jumbled figure flew out the door, picked itself up and dusted off, rejoined the party, skull first. A raucous chorus from within: pool balls, pinballs, cannonading laughter.

  Happy hour at the Green Swamp. I sure as hell didn’t fancy trying to tackle Redman in the middle of that. Cockburn was going to have to wait another day to get his Toyota back. Somewhere inside, I was grateful for the delay.

  I leaned back against a post, wondered about the sharp-eyed woman before me.

  ‘Where are you from, Jet?’

  ‘You said before: China.’

  ‘I’ve met a few Chinese immigrants. They tend to be accountants.’

  ‘I also: for Mister Redman.’

  ‘Your conversation is full of mandalas and labyrinths. I don’t think you’re an accountant. Which part of China?’

  ‘The north-west.’

  ‘Gansu? Xinjiang?’

  She scrutinised me suspiciously. ‘You have been?’

  ‘China? Few years ago now.’

  ‘You know Qinghai?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘My people: the Tibetan. Minority.’

  ‘I see.’

  That explained a lot of things: her comfort with the vertiginous incline, her mandalas, her terrible greasy tea.

  ‘How long have you been in Australia?’

  ‘Five years now.’

  ‘And you live in Sydney?’

  ‘For now I live in this cabin.’

  ‘What brought you to Central Australia?’

  She tipped her head back. ‘Aaiee—I see why you are police.’‘Just curious.’

  ‘Curious!’ she said dismissively, then seemed to resign herself to the fact that I was a nosey little bastard. ‘I have colleague in Sydney. Countryman, many years in Australia. Also artist. When I am miss my country, crying for things I have left behind, he tells me to come to this out back. Says I may find here some of the things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘My god, this Emily Tempest!’ Her bevelled face shivered in the half-light. ‘Things in common? Where to begin! Hawks and stars. Men on horseback. Ghosts and ropes of air. Gods who live in songs and make mountains. Pushy women! Dreams!’ She rose to her feet. ‘For which it is time, no?’

  She threw the remnants of her noxious brew into the darkness, went inside. Presumably that was goodnight.

  Pushy women? She could talk! The past was clearly a no-go area.

  I unleashed the bedroll, climbed aboard, lay staring into the fiery sky and thinking about landscapes and the people they gave birth to.

  Running with the wonder dog

  I WENT OVER EARLY the next morning, came across June mopping a slop of god-knows-what off the lounge floor.

  She raised a wet hand and a weary brow, drawled my name.

  ‘Morning, June. Boy up and about?’

  ‘Meat shed.’ She flicked a thumb in its direction.

  ‘What’s that, his home away from home?’

  She rolled her eyes: ‘Got his little chores he likes to attend.’

  I eyed the menu. ‘What’s a girl gotta do to get a feed round here?’

  ‘Sandy’s still recovering from last night, but I can knock you up some bacon and eggs.’

  ‘The perfect antidote.’

  ‘To what?’

  I grimaced. ‘Jet’s rice gruel.’

  ‘You had breakfast with Jet?’

  ‘Got in late last night. You looked a little hectic—she was the closest thing to a B&B. B1 was okay, but the breakfast was crap.’

  June smiled. ‘Did you try the greasy tea?’

  ‘The gruel’s worse. Never was quite sure what the word gruel meant—now I know. It’s a combination of glue and cruel.’

  ‘Maybe we ought to put it on the menu, number of Asians we’re getting through.’

  ‘Just don’t let it contaminate the food.’

  I went off in search of her husband.

  Stiffy the hyperactive hound was on guard at the meat shed door, and put on the usual hysterical display.

  Redman was laying into a slab of something that had been mooching around a paddock not long before. This was obviously the high point of his day: he was a man who loved the heft of a weapon, the crackle and crunch of frozen bone. He turned round, seemed—if the energy he put into the next blow was any indication—as happy to see me as the dog was.

  ‘Miss Tempest.’

  He laid the cleaver aside, stretched his back, rearranged the contents of his Y-fronts. He was charmingly att
ired today in off-white slacks—a mile or two off—matching singlet and an overhanging roll of blubber. The combination of heat, cold and sweat was doing alarming things to the scribbly veins in his nose. He gave vent to the wheezy exhalation of the seriously out-of-condition man.

  ‘What brings you out this way?’ he enquired.

  ‘Just come in from the Gunshot Road.’

  ‘Goldfields?’

  ‘Further west.’

  ‘Chip off the old block, eh? Prospecting?’

  ‘Maybe, but not for gold. I’m on duty—had a few questions I wanted to ask.’

  A slight crimping at the temples. ‘Fire away.’

  ‘I understand you’ve got a mineral lease out west.’

  He looked as cagey as a camp dog—and as itchy; either that or he was trying to invigorate a frost-bitten nostril. ‘And if I have?’

  ‘In partnership with Doc, is it?’

  He gave me a malignant stare. Stiffy caught the mood, resumed yapping.

  ‘Bugger me breathless,’ said Redman, ‘is this never going to end?’

  ‘You could get a labrador.’

  ‘I mean the trouble that old fool is causing me, even after he’s kicked the bucket. First I have to put up with his lunatic ravings and his hopeless work ethic, and now I get some smartarse little midget copper coming in here looking like she thinks I shanked him.’

  I nodded at the cleaver. ‘Well you do seem to know your way around a sharp implement.’

  The stare intensified.

  ‘Look, all I want’s a few straight answers, and I’ll leave you and Stiffy in peace. Tell me about the lease.’

  The flakes of ice on his brow rearranged themselves, like iron filings on a magnet. ‘Lease? Which one?’

  ‘The one out west.’

  ‘Yeah, but which one out west?’

  ‘You got more than one?’

  ‘Had half a dozen of em over the years. Each time it’s the same bullshit story: Doc worked out there years ago, prospecting for Copperhead. Reckoned he’d sussed out the mother of all lodes, the other half of Broken Hill, Lasseter’s fuckin Reef, whatever—all he needed was a bit of help to find it. So I bankrolled him, paid for the leases and fitted him out, even fed the crazy bastard. And it wasn’t until I actually went out there…’

  ‘You went bush with Doc?’

  ‘Mostly I just forked out the money and signed the leases. Didn’t head out west with him till early this year. Wanted to see what he was actually doing with my money.’