The Shepherd's Hut

by Tim Winton

  Went into me room, took down me pack from the wardrobe. Looked at the swag but knew it was too big to carry. Pulled hunting clobber from the wardrobe, the camo pants and jacket. Nearly tripped and fell getting the dacks on, I was in such a hurry. Took the pack to the kitchen and filled it with tins and packets and stuff from the fridge. Took the stove lighter. Three boxes of matches. Wrapped it all in tea towels to keep it from clanking.

  The big bedroom stunk of him but it still hadn’t quite give up the smell of Mum. Stood in there a mo just looking. Then I got the key that was hid up behind the doorframe. Unlocked the gun safe with it, took out the .243 and two boxes of shells, Winchester 80 grain soft points. Took the binocs as well.

  Halfway down the hall I turned round and went in the bathroom. Snatched a bog roll and forgot the toothbrush.

  Out in the laundry I found me steelcap boots and yanked them on. Hanging off the trough was his blue singlet, Y-fronts, a striped apron stiff with fat and blood. Just stared at them while I laced me feet in. Like those stinking rags might leap at me on their own, even now.

  Then on the washing machine I saw the water bottle he took to work every day. A five-litre Igloo. Figured I’d be needing it. Filled it from the tank outside and tried not to think of his filthy mouth on the spout. I knew there was a coupla camelpacks out in the shed. One of them’d be ten times better than lugging a jug, but I wasn’t going back in there for love or money. Which was a big fucking mistake, I’ll give you the tip, bigger than the toothbrush and it cost me hard the next few weeks. But I topped the Igloo up and the brass tap give a yelp when I shut it off and when I was done I walked round the side of the house, stood under the big old flame tree a minute, getting me breath and me wits, and a roadtrain come by, taking the back way to the servo, hissing and jerking to keep his speed down, all lit up like a ship and reeking of wool on the hoof, and once he was gone I took a good look round, stepped out into the empty street and walked fast as I could.

  There was no one at the oval still. Nobody that I could see, anyhow. I cut by the changing sheds and was out into mulga inside two minutes. Just a bit of moon now. Enough to see the shadows of trees and tell what was clear dirt and what was bush.

  I reckon it was half an hour before I lost the lights of town. I thought that might be a good feeling but it was lonely. I coulda cried. I mean I was happy, wasn’t I? It was just sudden.

  I told meself this was the best day of me life. Figured by morning I’d fucking believe it.

  Being a cheap bastard is what killed him.

  All that brake trouble he was having with the Hilux and he won’t take it up the road to Cec Barton. Reckons he’ll do it himself. Except his trolley jack got flogged back in March along with the compressor and the bunky crossbow. Coons, he said, but really it coulda been anybody.

  So he cranks the thing up with a high-lift under the roo bar. And any fuckwit can tell you that’s not smart. You never get under a vehicle hanging off one of them widowmakers.

  Well there’s no widow. And no one’s crying any tears for him. Not in Monkton, not anywhere in the wide world.

  I didn’t think about any of this then. I just went. Got going, kept going. That’s all I was for days, this moving crazy thing. Pushing. Hauling. Going.

  First two days I stayed right away from the highway, so far back you couldn’t hear it or see it. Kept at it day and night. Angled north whenever I could. Tried to stay out of sight but that’s a mission in the wheatbelt because there’s hardly a tree left out there. Nothing but stubble paddocks far and wide. Everything flat and bare. Shanksing across that country you stick out like a rat on a birthday cake. One time, for an hour or two, I slept under a couple of wandoos in a fence corner. Just wedged in a pile of granite rocks. Daytime it was, and when I woke up there was a bird looking down on me, one black cocky giving me the stink-eye. Like what the fuck are you doing out here?

  I was lucky both them days. With the weather specially. Because it was full autumn now and I knew further south people had crops in already. But up this way the rains hadn’t come and no one was seeding yet so there was hardly a bastard out there but me. No machines moving, no vehicles on the side roads. Farmers musta been in town bitching or sat in front of the telly watching footy. Maybe that’s when they get on the nest, these people, I dunno. Anyway I just slipped through boundary lines, kept off the gravel and give driveways and houses a wide berth. Which isn’t so hard in wheat country, out there houses are rare as rocking horse turds.

  I went hard, half running if it was safe but the going was ugly. I was hauling too much stuff. It got easier as the water bottle emptied out but that wasn’t gunna help for long, was it?

  Second afternoon I pinched some water from a place that looked like no one had lived in for years. There was papers all stuck in the flywire door and toys on the dead lawn. It was the last house and the last farm I seen before the salt country.

  Maybe I was being too careful. Could be there was never anyone coming for me. Maybe nobody was interested enough. It was only Captain Wankbag. Everyone knew what a cunt he was. But someone pegs it like that, mashed flat under a car in his own shed, people want to know the how and why and who. And there was me skateboard still in the shed, bogged in all that blood, and me spewed-on shoes on the path and the gun safe open. And who’s the Captain’s bestie? The cop with the gold tooth. Yeah, that fat ranga with the hissy laugh. They were pretty thick them two, and just my luck. Used to hear them out in the shed laughing like poofs over stuff I couldn’t never figure out. Gotta be why he was safe all them years, and not just with the meat neither, I mean bashing the tripe out of Mum week in and week out and walking round town like butter wouldn’t melt in his dirty cakehole. His copper mate, that’s why she never put him in, why she never said nothing.

  Used to wish Mum’d just get in the Corolla and drive down to Perth where the cops didn’t know us and the bloodnut couldn’t pull any moves. It’s hardly four hours down the highway. But I knew the city give her the yips and I understand that. Wouldn’t last a minute there meself. Still, she coulda buggered off to Geraldton. Same distance really. That’s a big town and we’re nothing to nobody in Gero. Just drive in there and do him up once and for good. There’s a real police station and a courthouse and all. She coulda got herself a place by the sea, et prawns, got herself free. But she’d of been leaving me with him. On me own. And she knew what that’d mean. Every day she was gone, every day she was safe she’d have that on her head. Even if she didn’t go to the law, even if she just disappeared, she’d know what her safety cost and who’d be paying for it. As it was, I copped it anyway but it mighta been easier to take if she’d run away. Getting the shit kicked out of me woulda been worth something then. Reckon I wouldna blamed her, not even back when I didn’t know what sacrifice meant, what a martyr is. I would of took it. That’s what I tell meself. I wanted her to run, I begged her to and that’s the truth, but then I was glad when she said she couldn’t and that’s true too. I know I was just a kid then but that’s something I gotta live with. I didn’t get her free. I didn’t have the brains. Or the guts.

  I knew what people thought, but. Jaxie Clackton, that dirty fuckup. He was getting what he deserved. And his mum was just another budgie-brain female too stupid to save herself. The Cap they had to be nice to, to his fat face anyway, especially since the IGA closed. But they had him pegged. Clacktons, we were rubbish. Town like Monkton, one pub, roadhouse, rail silo and twelve streets, half of them empty, small enough everyone heard something and they all had a fucking opinion. But no neighbour ever once come running when Mum needed help. No one called the cops. Not with that great one-eyed pile of shit running amuck. Lots of big opinions in our town but when it come to saving Shirley Clackton there wasn’t a ballsack in the whole shire.

  She was the one with guts. Said she stayed for me. And you don’t know what that’s like, how something that good and pure can feel so filthy.

  I come to the first little salt lakes so I knew where I
was. Picking my way round them pans I had the urge to lay down in all that soft purply-pink samphire. I heard people say you can eat it. Maybe the olden time blackfellas did. Nowadays, them people, all they eat is chicken and chips.

  I kept hustling north. The sun come up over one shoulder and went down by the other.

  I tried to get me thoughts straight while I went. But there was too many of them. Then for a long time, hours it was, I had no thoughts at all. And when they come back it was like fuzzy radio.

  I spose it’s wrong to pray that someone dies. But us Clacktons aren’t churchy people and I never did any praying at all till I had nothing else to go with. I only went to church once or twice and that was pretty crap. Honest, you can see right through those people. Up at Magnet this was, when I was younger, with Auntie Marg and them. She’s no churchier than the rest of us but she goes to a baby sprinkling now and then to suck up to the publican and the nobs in town. We went into the Catholics, not the mission place. She’d never go where there was people like that, the local indigenous. Anyway church was mad. Mumbo-jumbo and ladies in big hats. Everyone following along like trained monkeys. What give me the creeps was seeing how they let the padre put his soft pink priesty hands on the baby. Don’t these cockheads know anything?

  No, I got no use for any of that magic shit. Some jokers come to town in a little yellow bus one weekend and walked round chatting us all up in the streets and shops and down the oval. Musta been five of them in a row asked me was I saved. And I laughed in their goony-bird faces. Fuck, they wouldn’t know the half of it. Maybe if they give up their Jesus talk and let me sneak on that bus they could of saved me then and there. Not that I woulda gone, not with me mum to think of, but if they only knew what kind of saving I needed it might of shut their gobs and taught them something.

  Nah, I’m not the churching sort but I’ve thought about all the prayers. If that’s what I was doing them years. If wishing and wanting and hoping so hard you sweat bullets and your balls climb up inside you to die is praying, well then I done plenty of it. And got fuck all for the trouble. All that whining and begging in the dark. It’s undignified. Asking something, someone, anything, for a big black anvil to fall from the sky like in the cartoons. Kerang! On Wankbag’s head. Because nothing else was gunna save us. Not unless I topped meself and set Mum free. And I thought of that a coupla times. Course I knew where the guns were, where the key to the safe was. Coulda gone and done exactly that. If I wasn’t such a pussy. I prayed to be brave and I stayed scared. And then when Mum got crook I asked for mercy, to make dying quick and painless for her. But there was no saving and no mercy for Shirley Clackton. And me, the only relief I got was having the feeling flogged outta me by the Cap.

  Once Mum was gone and it was just me and him I mostly give up the praying. I figured the only thing left was to kill him or outlast him. And I never had the nerve to blow him away. I thought I could never do something like that. Which just shows you. So that meant outliving him. Then bugger me if a big weight doesn’t land on his head after all. What’s the odds? I dunno if it’s my fault or not. Like maybe the Cap did it on purpose. Could be he was ashamed and lonely or just so fucked up he didn’t know what he was doing.

  Or what if someone else did it? I wasn’t the only one in town hated his guts. Whatever, whoever. That high-lift jack, that was me saving and me mercy.

  I don’t know if I really thought about all this shit while I was hoofing it north. Some of it maybe. It’s hard to remember. There’s gaps. Mostly I was too scared and numb to work stuff out. Them few days there woulda been dogs thinking more than me I reckon. But I did wonder about all this afterwards. Still chewing on it now, tell you the truth. Isn’t that what I’m doing today, still praying, begging her to be there up the highway, hoping she’ll be ready when I call? When you need something, even if it can’t be got, especially if it can’t be got, you ask anyway. So I figure even if you don’t believe any of that crap you’re always praying to something, or someone. Even when you shout at the TV, when you talk to cats and yell at cars. Hell, I’ve pleaded with puddles and stars and piles of rocks. Not exactly ashamed to say it neither.

  But praying to get someone killed? Not much philosophy in that.

  I knew one thing those first days walking. It was what kept me going after the first panic wore off. That I was it. Last man standing. Still am. Call it a stroke of luck, answered prayer. After a miracle what you end up with is me. Me, motherfuckers!

  The eye wasn’t too flash. I kept wanting to tip water on it to cool it off a bit but I couldn’t afford to waste a sip so I kept on, sore and fat-headed, and just looked out me good eye. Kept on north best I could. I didn’t have any clear plan, only getting to Magnet. But that’s three hundred kays from Monkton. Making it there was gunna take some time and I didn’t know how to do it yet. But right then the big thing was cover. I had to find meself some trees. And fast. Once I had bush I could move without being seen. Then there wouldn’t be any hurry. I’d have time to think.

  I was always gunna go north. Even if I had no one to go to. South of here it’s all farmland. A few more trees down there where they run sheep and beef, but more people too. Past that it’s the city and there’s no way.

  No one ever called me lucky but maybe I am. For one thing, Monkton’s not so far from the goldfields, hardly an hour by car, and maybe that sounds like desert if you don’t know any better because it is pretty rocky, that’s true, but it’s greener than you think. I know some of it, which is another lucky thing, something I can actually thank the Captain for. Because he did give me a few things. Flogged some hardness into me. And I can hunt and butcher. I know some quiet spots to camp too. In the gold country. Outta the way places. Where no one’d think to come looking.

  When I come to this big blue line at the end of the day I nearly shit meself. It was like an army of cops waiting out there for me. I give out a little girly squeak and dived down in a ditch, face first. Got meself a mouthful of dirt and a smack in the chops from the waterjug. Just layed there panting and twisting off, trying to figure where I could bolt to. Nothing behind me but bare ground. When I got me breath back I took a peek. And saw what a fucking goose I was. It wasn’t men up there, it was trees. I was that pissed off at meself. But relieved. And in the end you had to laugh.

  I took a sip from the Igloo and layed back a minute. Glad as hell and all soft and gooey with it. And then I reckon I dropped off a bit. Because when I come to there was a couple of spinifex pigeons at the edge of the ditch. Checking me out. The sky behind was faint, it was nearly sundown. When I stirred them birds took off with that creaky sound their wings make. Then I got up, pulled meself together and made for the shelter of the trees.

  They was jams and gimlets mostly. And kurrajongs. Nothing big. But enough to hide in. They stretched on as far as I could see. I got into them quick and walked until it was dark and I was so tired I thought I might trip and break something. But it was good to be surrounded, closed in. That night I had a fire. You don’t know what a difference a fire makes. You’d think I’d found a house to live in and a shed to park me car in, I was that happy.

  I et two cold chops and three baked spuds and the smell of them was on me hands all night, like when you been with a girl. And just thinking that had me turning the phone on. Which was stupid but I was messed up. I was hardly catching one bar of signal now but the light off the screen was nice. There was no messages or missed calls. Nothing on me page, no notifications. And all the texts from her were old. I looked at a coupla photos but that killed me. I had to keep me shit together and save the battery. Most of all I needed to stay smart. It’s one thing to make no calls and stay off GPS. But just switching your phone on you ping a tower somewhere and leave a footprint. Like an idiot. And the cops can probably fiddle your phone remotely anyway, switch your tracking on without you even noticing. I had to leave it off now and stay strong. But by the time I shoved it away me stoked mood was gone.

  I just looked into the fire an
d tried to stop feeling sorry for meself. It wasn’t cold and there was no mozzies. I was rooted but I was fed and I’d come a good way already. Another day or two and I might be safe.

  I slept okay but I had dreams and woke up a lot. There was no wind but the trees creaked and cracked. A coupla times something give off a thud. A roo maybe. Least I hoped so. Every time it happened I sat up with me heart peaking.

  Jesus, I told meself, harden the fuck up.

  She heard me say that once, Mum. To me little cousin out by the laundry where he was bawling, his knee bleeding a tiny bit. She had that disgusted look on her face. What? I said. I didn’t do nothin.

  You’re no better than your father, she said. Listen to you, Jaxie, you sound just like him.

  I didn’t talk to her for three days. That’s how fucked off I was.

  She was wrong about me. But I was wrong about me too. You tell yourself you’re not the praying type, not the kind who talks to himself or cries for his mum or gets himself torn up over some chick. You’re not that sort of softcock. Not a bully neither. You just like a fight and you always did. But you’re not a psycho, doesn’t matter what they all think. Even if you hate someone’s guts you’re not the killing kind, you’re sure of that. And not even in your weirdest dreams do you think you’re an instrument of God. You dunno what that even means. You’re a kid, you don’t know anything.

  First light was up when I woke. The dirt was purple. I lit the fire again to warm a tin of pork and beans and then I realized I had no opener and no knife. The opener wasn’t such a biggie, I hardly had any tins anyway, but with no knife I was up shit creek fully. It was a kick in the arse. I couldn’t believe I was that stupid. No camelpack and no knife, what a fuckwit.

  I et some noodles dry but they made me hell thirsty so I hoed into me waterjug something shocking. Now I wished I’d gone in that abandoned farmhouse the day before and got meself a blade. There’d of been something left in the kitchen, or even the sheds. And now there wouldn’t be a farmhouse between me and bloody Bali.