DINING WITH DEVILS -- A Tasmanian Thriller

by GORDON AALBORG

  “Get the bastard off me!” Ian squealed.

  “I can’t. It’ll be worse for you if I even try,” Charlie replied, not sure whether to laugh or cry at the insanity of it all. “You’ll have to wait until the old man gets here. Nobody but him can handle this brute.”

  And he called for Viv, half thinking the old bushie wouldn’t be able to hear him over the cacophony of screams from Bluey’s victim. But come he did, scrambling through the scrub, blood dripping from the cut on his forehead, to stand there beside Charlie, panting, puffing, staring in apparent astonishment.

  Still carrying his antiquated shotgun, which, thank heavens, he made no attempt to use. But he also made no attempt to call off the dog.

  “Serves the bastard right,” he growled. “Let the dog have his reward, so long as he doesn’t eat it. Probably poison him. I wouldn’t fancy the vet bills.”

  “Fair go, Viv,” whimpered Ian Boyd, faint with the pain of it, the effect of his drug use driven out by the shock and fear.

  “Really, Viv,” said Charlie. “He’s had enough, don’t you reckon?”

  Even then it took a minute before the old man condescended, whistled cheerfully, and fell to his knees to cuddle the vicious beast when it lurched toward him, limping, blood still oozing from its own wound. They stayed like that, perhaps comforting each other, but equally likely to be sharing in the triumph, Charlie thought, as he knelt to handcuff Ian Boyd, then dragged the renegade to his feet, where Boyd stood hunched over in obvious pain.

  “Not too much blood. That’s a surprise,” Charlie said after a cursory inspection of the damage caused by the dog. “You’ll live, I reckon.”

  “I need a doctor,” whimpered Ian. “Jesus, Charlie, but it hurts. What’s the bugger done to me? I’m afraid to look.”

  “Nothing that shouldn’t have been done at birth. Or at your father’s birth, best yet. Just thank your lucky stars the dog’s old and his teeth are a bit blunt.”

  “I shouldn’t have missed the bugger when I shot at him,” Boyd said, glaring at the dog. Bluey glared back, his eyes yellow, glowing, as if daring the tall bushman to start a rematch. “I should have shot you too, Charlie, when I had a chance the first time.”

  A quick search turned up the expected wallet, stockman’s knife, Ian’s vehicle keys, a small plastic bag nearly emptied of pills . . . not all of which Charlie could even begin to identify, and a cell phone.

  “Bloody oath,” muttered Charlie when he found it. “Is there anybody left on earth without one of these damned things? Not your style, Ian, I wouldn’t have thought.”

  “Course it isn’t mine,” was the reply in a voice still shaking with shock. “I took it off Rosie Chapman to . . . to pay a debt, that’s all.”

  “Why the hell would Rose Chapman owe you money?” Charlie asked. “She was supplying you with drugs, not the other way round. What the hell could you provide that’d be worth her paying for?”

  Then the incongruity of Ian’s earlier remark came to him. “And what did you mean about not shooting me the first time? You could have shot me ten times over today, if you’d really intended to. What’s this first time you’re on about?”

  Ian looked up, his bloodshot eyes weeping tears. “It doesn’t matter now,” he said. “Just get me out of here and get me to a doctor. Please, Charlie.”

  “It does matter,” Charlie said. Paused. Then added, “Maybe I should get the dog to ask y—”

  “At the gundog thing on Saturday.” The words emerged in a whisper, urgently spoken to avert Charlie’s suggestion, but now Ian wouldn’t meet Charlie’s gaze. His voice grew even more faint as he mumbled.

  “Lucky I didn’t shoot you. Could have been anybody . . . didn’t get the guy I was aiming for. Fuckin’ jack-jumpers.”

  Charlie was dumbstruck, if only for an instant. “You?” he asked. “Jesus, Ian, are you saying it was you who shot that gundog judge from Canberra? But why, for God’s sake?”

  “Never shot at him,” Ian mumbled. “Told you that. I was aiming for that other bloke, the writer. Rosie wanted me to scare him. I was only aiming to knock his hat off or some such. Never meant to hurt anybody, never mind kill anybody. Jack-jumper bit me . . . told you that . . . hurt like buggery it did . . . made me flinch. Now please, Charlie . . . get me out of here. Get me to a doctor.”

  Charlie mulled over the surprising information all the way back to his vehicle, not too awfully surprised when most of the questions answered themselves merely on the strength of being mentally voiced.

  Rose hires Ian to put the frighteners on Kendall. Why? Jealousy, I reckon. Or maybe some baggage left over from when they were married. Okay? But why would Ian want to mess with old Viv and that damned dog? Jesus, Charlie . . . you’re losing it.

  He waited until Ian Boyd was safely installed in the rear of the police vehicle before he asked that question, half afraid of what the answer might be, half afraid old Viv, who’d followed on out of the scrub with them, might welcome an excuse to sic Bluey on Ian again. Or shoot him. He didn’t know what to expect for an answer, except for almost anything but the one he got.

  “It wasn’t nothing personal. I kind of like old Viv, Charlie. Well, mostly. We’ve had our differences, but usually . . . well, you know.” The words came through clenched teeth. Ian was hunched over in the rear of the vehicle. He’d have been clutching at his ruined genitals if he could, Charlie knew, but Charlie had no intention of releasing the handcuffs that kept Ian’s hands behind him.

  “Cut to the chase, Ian, lest I open that door and turn the dog loose again,” Charlie warned. “There had to be some bloody reason. What was it?”

  “The . . . the doc wanted me to get them is all. Said he wanted to have a wee chat to ’em. It was something about that damned book, but I don’t know what, Charlie. Honest. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

  “And you’re not making any sense, either. What doctor? What damned book?”

  “The doctor that was in the damned book,” Ian whined. “You know him – the guy from the clinic in town. The cannibal bloke that American I shot at wrote about.”

  “Stafford?” Charlie couldn’t believe what he’d heard. It made no sense.

  And then it did.

  Charlie yanked open the door of the vehicle and half dragged Ian out again, now oblivious to his prisoner’s howls of pain.

  “Where?” he demanded. “Where is Stafford? Has he got Kirsten Knelsen with him? Has he got bloody Kendall with him? Rose Chapman? Talk to me, Ian, and do it damned quick smart, too, or—”

  He was only marginally aware that he was shaking Ian, slamming him again and again into the side of the vehicle as he screamed the questions at him, over and over and over. That Ian was whimpering, then screaming, trying to answer but being given no opportunity. Until old Viv rushed in, shouting, grabbing at Charlie, screaming at him to stop. Until that damned dog rushed in and grabbed at his pant leg.

  “Stop it, Charlie. He can’t tell you anything if you kill the bugger.”

  Charlie let Ian go, saw him slump against the side of the police vehicle, was so shaken by his own loss of control that he couldn’t even reach out to steady the man before he fell in a crumpled, fetal ball at Charlie’s feet.

  The three men lapsed into a momentary silence that was broken only by the furious yapping of the dog, who had fixed his gaze on Ian Boyd and was clearly only one command from resuming his assault on the man’s testicles. And Ian knew it.

  “Please, Viv,” he whimpered. “Keep the bugger off me. I’m sorry . . . fair dinkum I am.”

  “Not as sorry as you’ll be if I don’t get some answers,” Charlie snapped, his composure back in place, if barely, and only partially subdued.

  “Rose was supposed to bring in that writer fella, whatever his name is,” Ian said. “That was . . . yesterday, I think. Not sure. I was supposed to bring in Viv and the dog, but I stopped off in town . . . needed my rifle; the doc’s got my Vaime, the bastard. So I stopped off to pick up the .22, the
n stopped at the pub . . . got pretty wasted . . .”

  “Where, Ian? Where the hell are these people?” Charlie could scarcely contain himself, but knew he must. Ian was in pain, coming off a drug high, and never totally coherent at best. Push him too hard now and . . . Charlie shook his head sadly, angrily, wearily. It didn’t bear thinking about.

  “Jeez, Charlie, I told you. Didn’t I tell him, Viv? They’re at that old shack of mine up behind Loila Tier. You know the place, Viv . . . you go in along that track beside the river and then . . .” The rest dissolved into what sounded to Charlie like utter gibberish.

  Charlie snarled with anger, hoisted Ian to his feet and once again thrust him into the rear of the police vehicle. Then he scrounged around in the front until he found the map he wanted, his detailed topographic map of the territory around St. Helens, amended here and there with hand-drawn additions.

  “Show me, Viv,” Charlie demanded. “I’ve got to get some people up there, and quick.

  The old man looked at Charlie’s map, but only briefly. Then he snorted with contempt and turned his attention to the prisoner.

  What followed was an exchange of information Charlie could make little if any sense of. The two men spoke not in terms of miles and road names and numbers, but in the context of incidents that had happened, or so it sounded, when both men were still in their active youth. In terms of where some log truck driver Charlie had never heard of had lost his load, where someone else he’d never heard of had found a tin deposit, where some mighty forest giant had crashed too quickly, in the wrong direction, at the wrong time, and someone had died, where a particular bridge had gone out, where so-and-so had got bogged for a week with no tucker and no grog. It went on and on in a litany that might have been a foreign language for all the sense Charlie could make of it.

  Yet it seemed to make sense to them, and Charlie realized it had better, because Ian Boyd was thoroughly losing it. He’d come down from his drug-induced high and now was floating into the abyss of withdrawal and the pain of his ruined testicles. He’d be of little use to anyone, including himself, before too long.

  But finally: “I think I know the place,” said old Viv. “Fastest way is if we go in from this end. You drive and I’ll try to reckon it out as we go along.” He didn’t wait for Charlie to reply, much less object. With startling agility he ran to the passenger side of the vehicle, whistling up the dog as he clambered inside.

  Charlie devoted only seconds to wondering how he could explain attending at a crime scene accompanied by a geriatric bushman, an evil renegade of a dog, and the prisoner from yet a different crime. In the dark. After a cannibal armed with a Finnish sniper rifle.

  Bugger it! If I start arguing with this old fart, I’ll lose time. If I take Ian to the hospital, I’ll lose even more. And there’s no way known I can get any backup if nobody’ll explain to me where we’re going and why.

  There was, however, one thing he could do, that he had to do, for his own peace of mind if nothing else.

  “Give us that blunderbuss,” he demanded. “I won’t have it inside with us . . . that damned dog is bad enough.”

  The look the old man shot him would have frozen hell, although Charlie wasn’t sure if it was on behalf of that damned dog or just Viv’s usual irascibility. Whichever, he gave up the weapon, if grudgingly, and with only minor grumbling.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The oldest devil was first on the scene when the vehicle lurched away along the rutted track. He’d eaten enough road kill during his life to know it was worth revisiting the scene of last night’s feast, just in case the smelly, noisy vehicle had miraculously supplied new offerings of tucker.

  Or in case some other element had changed – he hadn’t forgotten the unreachable, unattainable but oh, so enticing carcass that his nose told him was still there, still hung high in the tree above where the vehicle had sat.

  As he approached, new scents intruded, and he cast his head in the air, sensitive nostrils quivering. Then, ignoring the thrashed-up ground where the vehicle had been, where last night’s feast had been, he turned and waddled off along the track toward the cabin, following his nose. Aware he would soon be joined by others of his kind. Determined to get there first.

  He couldn’t get up on the tailgate of Stafford’s vehicle. But he tried. Many, many times. He reared up as high as he could reach, but his claws couldn’t get purchase on the metal. He managed to clamber up into a wheel well, but couldn’t figure out how to get from there up onto the tailgate, where he knew there was meat. Fresh meat.

  The old devil’s growls of frustration drew in others of his kind, and soon there were five there under the tailgate, noses lifted, their ears crimson with a blush of frustration, their voices an unholy complaint about the unfairness of it all.

  One of the younger animals made a mighty leap and actually got both front paws and his snout up on the tailgate, but he couldn’t hang on for long. His rear legs thrashed in thin air as he gradually slid away from the prize and landed upside down in the mud.

  But by this time, the oldest devil had lost interest. He was strolling in his rolling, uneven gait along a different scent path, this one leading from the vehicle to where light showed through the partly open door of the shack. The creature’s sensitive nose informed him of old blood here, and blood less old.

  New blood. Fresh blood. And with it, the scent of fear. The oldest devil mumbled to himself as he shouldered his way through the doorway, then halted, blinking in the light, testing the air with his nose, peering nearsightedly, his whiskers twitching as he evaluated the situation.

  The prey was large. That was the first thing. And frightened . . . the stink of fear was unmistakable. And the blood was fresh; a trickle of it still moist on the prey’s head. The creature stank of man-smell, but the shape was strange, all bent and contorted like that sheep he’d once found caught by its own wool in a jungle of barbed wire fencing carelessly discarded.

  Dangerous? It never hurt to be at least a little cautious, but time was an issue here, too. Behind him, the oldest devil sensed the arrival of other devils, younger, less cautious maybe, certainly more impetuous.

  And equally hungry.

  Soon they were seven. Heavy-shouldered creatures with jaws powerful enough to crush the leg bone of a horse. Mouths that gaped hugely in yawns that weren’t yawns at all. Scavengers of the finest order, occasionally predators if the opportunity arose.

  Like now.

  The oldest devil was almost entirely black, but several of the others had the more usual white blazes that ran like distorted lightning through the fur on chests and rumps and shoulders. None were pretty . . . merely efficient.

  None were overly brave. When the creature writhed and screamed and thrashed about just at the sight of them, the devils rocked to and fro on their front feet and looked at it, none quite ready to be first, none wanting to be last to feed, either.

  They were unconcerned about the noise of the creature’s screams. The oldest devil again recalled the sheep in the wire coffin. It, too, had screamed. For a while. Nor was the thrashing of this creature more than a brief concern. There were no hooves to lash out, apparently no teeth that, like their own, could rend and tear flesh.

  The screams intensified when the bravest of the devils dashed in, jaws open in the hellish gape for which the animals were infamous. The oldest devil lurched forward, second in the scrum but unconcerned. There was space here for all of them, and sufficient meat for them, too.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Charlie locked up Ian’s .22 rifle in the rear of the vehicle with Viv’s ancient shotgun, then hustled around and got into the driver’s seat. Whereupon old Viv thrust the much-maligned map in front of Charlie and pointed with one tobacco-stained finger. “Tell your mob to come up this road here,” he said. “It’ll take them longer than us, might be, but we should run across them about here. Maybe. Might be the wrong road entirely. I can’t tell from this stupid map, and we’re going round by
a different route that isn’t on this map at all, see?”

  Charlie thumbed on his radio and relayed the information as best he could, knowing he could be sending everyone on a genuine wild goose chase but having no choice in the matter. “Just keep it quiet,” he ordered into the radio. “No noise, no sirens, no flashers. Make sure you stop and check out anybody you find if they’re headed down out of the hills. And be careful.” Then he turned the vehicle and headed south toward the Tasman Highway and the maze of crude forest tracks that led even further south, into the rugged country above Loila Tier.

  “I hope you know where you’re taking us, Viv,” he said to his geriatric co-pilot, who was calmly rolling a cigarette and would have, Charlie knew only too well, been yanking open the tab on a tinnie if he’d had one. Old Viv was no respecter of authority even when he wasn’t dealing from a position of power.

  Practically from that moment on, the trip became a nightmare. Once across the Tasman Highway and into the maze of forestry roads, Charlie could only follow his headlights and Viv’s shouted, often barely coherent directions through the night, the vehicle bouncing and jouncing like a live creature.

  They plowed through swampy areas Charlie would never have dared to face under normal circumstances. His vehicle was in four-wheel-drive and needed it every inch of the way, just as Charlie needed his nerve. At one point they navigated an ancient logging bridge he thought would surely collapse and plunge them to perdition in the swift-moving creek below.

  Charlie wanted to nose his way cautiously over the thing, but old Viv screamed, “Give her hell, Charlie,” and he did, and they virtually flew across the chasm, to his great relief.

  In the back, Ian Boyd moaned and screamed and occasionally argued with the old man about which direction to go at intersections Charlie could barely even distinguish as intersections. And every time Ian opened his mouth, that damned dog would start in yapping and yodeling and carrying on like a pork chop.