The Shepherd's Hut

by Tim Winton

  Oh man, you and them rocks.

  Yes, lad, I know. But listen, when they go all loose and watery in the heat, you’d swear they’re dancing.

  Yeah, whatever.

  No, truly. It’s as if they’re limbering up, like warriors preparing for battle. You’ve seen them yourself all bunched up like a phalanx out there, bristling, pulsating. Some fearful, pagan part of a fella expects them to charge on down the lake.

  Like, at you?

  Exactly.

  And what d’you think they’re gunna do, ask for a cup of sugar?

  Well, I don’t really know. That’s the thing of it. In the moment it gets me very apprehensive. But excited, all the same. Sometimes I get this quare feeling they’ve come for me, to hold me to account.

  What, interrogate you sorta thing?

  Something like that. Yes. Oh indeed. I have dreams about it. Often, now. And in these dreams they move like people. They come in off the salt, silent as ghosts, and they stand in by the fire. But they never say a thing.

  Well they’re fricken rocks, I said.

  Perhaps.

  Then what do they do?

  They just watch, boy. And listen.

  That’s fucked up.

  Disconcerting, yes.

  How many are there? These walking rocks.

  Oh, five or six that come in close. Maybe a hundred stand off back towards the lake. And I can feel them taking me in, sizing me up. And in the dream, every time, I’m certain they know all my darkest secrets. They see right into me, Jaxie. And I’m frightened and ashamed and I want to tell them everything.

  Like confess?

  Aye.

  All your sins and whatnot?

  All of it.

  But they’re rocks!

  You see, that’s the thing. In the dream they never seem so rock-like. They’re bigger, of course, the size of you and me. And there’s a grandness to them, something severe and monumental. It makes the heart race, lad. And I am afraid each time they appear, very fearful, but then I feel their great dispassion, their purity. I can trust them with everything I know, everything I fear. And the relief of knowing that, Jaxie. I can’t begin to tell you.

  That’s whack.

  Indeed.

  So you tell them stuff ? These bloody rocks.

  Yes, said Fintan. That is, I begin to. I take a breath to spill it all. And then I wake. Like a man fallen short once more. And it’s crushing. Terrible.

  Geez.

  Terrible, he says again, like he’s there still trapped in the nightmare.

  Well, I said, to buck him up, it’s just a dream.

  Ah, perhaps it is. And nothing more. Who knows, Jaxie? Maybe it’s the stones and trees who’ll be our judges in the end.

  And the goats and roos?

  Could be so.

  And the birds?

  Oh, especially the birds.

  I laughed and he laughed a bit and ducked his head and scuffed his boots in the samphire.

  You’re one druggy fucker.

  Oh lad, I know they’re only stones. And the moon is only the moon. But they’re not empty things, you know. The past is still in them. The force of events long gone, it lingers. These heavenly bodies and earthly forms, what are they but expressions of matters unfinished? Perhaps it’s not childish nonsense to see stones as men walking, to behold the moon and feel a tinge of dread. A stone is a fact, a consequence. And the moon, it marks a man’s days, does it not? Another month gone, a reminder every cycle that your moment is waning. No wonder it catches in a little fella’s chest when he sees it. Mebbe lunatics are men who’ve remembered they’re just men, not angels.

  Jesus, I said. That’s what you come out to see the moon for, to remember you’re gunna die?

  No, he said. To remember I am a creature, not a ghost. I am, for all my sins, the thing itself, not just the idea. Ah, look at that moon. Still rising, rising. Like the wafer. Forever out of reach. When I close my eyes it burns in my head. And Jaxie, how I wish that afterglow would light my way. To sleep. To peace.

  So, I said after a bit. Who does a priest confess to?

  Whatsay?

  You priests, I said. Who do you tell your shit to? Another priest?

  He shrugged, like that was his half-arsed yes.

  And it’s secret forever?

  Fintan turned his hands over, feeling his knuckles. He was clear in the moonlight. His mouth was all puckered.

  But you’d rather go to a stone instead. Tell that all your secrets.

  Aye, I would.

  Because that’s all you can trust?

  I’m not sound, Jaxie. I’m not proud of it.

  They’ve kicked you out, haven’t they?

  No, he said. That might have been a mercy. But I’m still a priest.

  You don’t even believe in it.

  The priesthood? I don’t know.

  God, I mean.

  He shrugged again.

  That’s a bit piss-weak, I said.

  Indeed, I suppose it is.

  So how long were you in the job?

  Oh, he said. Well, let’s see. I was a lad. And then I was a priest. So, what’s that, then, fifty years, give or take?

  And you didn’t believe in God?

  Jaxie, you’re not a believer yourself – how can any of this matter to the likes of you?

  Well, I’m not a fucking priest, am I? How can you be a priest and not believe in God?

  I don’t know, he said. Sometimes you do. The rest of the time you settle for just believing in the Church. It’s like family, lad. What else do we have?

  Don’t ask me, I said. I haven’t got a family.

  Well, that’s a pair of us here, wouldn’t you say?

  The moon was higher now and shrinking. The colour was leaking out of it. Soon the lake and the moon were pale as each other, like the inside of Lee’s leg, creamy enough to make you hurt just looking.

  Aw cut the shit, I said, boiling over all of a sudden. What the fuck did you do, Fintan?

  It doesn’t matter what I did.

  Geez, it must of mattered to someone if it’s got you in this much trouble.

  That’s not what I meant. Of course it mattered. It affected a lot of people. The consequences were monstrous, unthinkable, unspeakable, unforgiveable. But I won’t be confessing any of it to you.

  You don’t trust me.

  Wrong. Untrue.

  You’d only trust a rock.

  Hell’s teeth, boy, don’t you think you’ve seen and suffered enough? Do you think for my own ease I’d pour all that on you, too?

  I don’t care. I can take it.

  You shouldn’t have to take it, and you don’t know enough to care. I mean that kindly, now.

  Well fuck.

  I know.

  I just couldn’t stand it if you were a pedo.

  Dear God, he said. If I were one of those do you think I’d be out here in Gehenna? I’d be off in some rainswept parish. I’d be riding the Salthill bus. I’d be tucked up in bed by the bay in Galway.

  I don’t get you people.

  So you keep saying, boy. But it’s like this. And I’ll try to keep it simple, because for a man like me, under the great mercy of order and discipline as I’ve been, life should be simple. There’re only three things can get a priest into serious trouble. That’s doctrine, sex and money. In the case of the first two, discretion will generally keep a fella safe. I shut up, they shut up, and all will be well. But where money is concerned, no secret will hold.

  It took a sec for any of that to make sense. But it hit me like a slap.

  Are you shitting me? I said. This is just about money?

  The want of it, the power of it. The excitement in it. The consequences of it. These are not small things, lad.

  Jesus fuck.

  When you’re older you’ll see this for yourself, sad to say.

  I got up then. I couldn’t stand any more.

  You’re pathetic, I said. All of you.

  He didn’t say nothing
to that. I didn’t even look at him. I took me crate and left him there.

  Up at the hut I lit the hurricane lamp and fluffed the fire up and put the billy on for a brew before bed. I dunno why I was so bummed. I should of been glad he wasn’t a rock spider. But whatever he was he wouldn’t say. And maybe that was it. Knowing he was never going to. He would always have this secret thing. And I felt like such a tool. It was a mistake to think we were on the square, like equals, because it wasn’t like that, never would be. But then I thought of Lee and all the things about her, stuff right deep in me I didn’t want to share with anybody, him included. Half of it he wouldn’t get anyway, he just wasn’t ready for that sort of information. He’d look at me like I was a filthy savage. But he couldn’t help that, he was just another flaky fuckup pretending to be full grown. And thinking of it that way some of the sting went out of me. I was sad but not so mad. I sat and looked round, kind of taking everything in one last time, and the billy hissed and mumbled and finally it come to the boil.

  I made a brew and when it was ready I poured a pannikin for meself and one for Fintan. But he didn’t come up and I figured he wanted to sulk and watch the moon without the likes of me. His tea was cold and mine was drunk when he shuffled in and dropped his crate by the fire.

  I’m just heading off, I said.

  But where, lad?

  Bed, I told him.

  Oh. Yes.

  I’m cactus.

  Cactus, he said. Yes, indeed. You’re that, I’ll grant you.

  Right, I said getting up.

  Before you go, now, I wanted to clear something up. Although I doubt it’ll be of use to either of us, and probably clarify nothing at all.

  It doesn’t matter, I said.

  Well, it does. Because I don’t want to give you wrong ideas. I don’t want to add to your confusion if I can help it. And I’m hardly a man to turn to for wisdom, but you deserve an honest answer to something.

  Look, I said. It’s no odds to me.

  Mebbe so. You say that now, but you asked me what I believe, Jaxie. About God.

  That’s none of my business, I said. Tell it to the rocks.

  But I can’t. This is the point, lad. This is the rusty hook I dangle from. In some pain, I’m not too proud to add. Perhaps I’ll never settle it, never be coherent, let alone sound. But I suspect that God is what you do, not what or who you believe in.

  Well. Whatever.

  You understand me? It’s what you do.

  But people do shit things all the time, I said. There’s something wrong with us.

  Perhaps. And maybe not. But when you do right, Jaxie, when you make good – well, then you are an instrument of God. Then you are joined to the divine, to the life force, to life itself. That’s what I believe. That’s what I hope for. And it’s what I have missed.

  That’s all jumblyfuck to me, I said as decent as I could.

  Well, think of it this way, he said, pushing his specs back up his nose. When somebody does me a kindness, it enlarges me, adds to my life, you see? And not only mine – it adds to all life. Which is why I wanted to thank you. For coming here.

  Me?

  Fintan give a sad little laugh. And I caught him looking at me goony as an emu.

  What? I said.

  Don’t you understand me, boy? Can’t you see it? Jaxie Clackton, you are an instrument of God.

  Oh, I said. You mad fucker. You been out under the moon too long!

  And we both of us laughed.

  I am in earnest, boy.

  Get fucked, I said still laughing.

  Think on it.

  And I left him there with that look on his face and the flamelight running up his legs.

  Back at me swag at last I layed down and pulled the sheet up and thought about him a while. All his ten-dollar words and priesty shit. Instrument of God. It was priceless, a bloke carrying on like that. It was like he had too many words in him to just come out and say we was square and equal. Sometimes it was like Fintan was drowning in his own talk. And I wondered what that might be like. Us Clacktons never done our thinking out aloud. Or our talking neither really. Wankbag only ever talked about what he could hold in his hand. Before he closed his fist on it and clubbed you with it. And Mum, I wonder if she ever could tell me what she wanted. In the end she had nothing to say to me at all. Maybe too much talk’s better than that.

  And it’s curious how Fintan could be so old and lost and sorry and fucked up and still see so clear and far. He got me somehow, that’s one thing for certain. Makes sense in a way because we put in bulk time together, those months there was no one else to turn to. But it was strange how he got Lee as well, when I never let on, never said. Still, he knew what she was like. Not just her eyes and shaved head and whatnot, that’s the outside. It was like he knew how solid she is, and brave, how she adds to life, the way he said, how she makes the world bigger just by being in it.

  Look, I always knew he was a bullshit artist. Thing is, most of that was outside too, like camo sorta thing. But there was some hot feeling he give off once you knew him. It was like you were standing too close to the stove or coming over with a fever. And I only ever had it with one other person before and that was Lee. It’s a dangerous feeling getting noticed, being wanted. Getting seen deep and proper, it’s shit hot but terrible too. It’s like being took over. And your whole skin hurts like you suddenly grew two sizes in a minute.

  That last night there’s words I would of said to Fintan if I hadna been so rooted, if I’d of known what tomorrow’d bring down on us. Things I should of got up off me swag to tell him. Not about me really, not even about Lee or Monkton or Magnet. Just things about him I should of thought to say. I guess he done some horrible things and I reckon he was a pretty bunky priest but I knew he was more than any of that.

  And I wish I could say I stayed up late thinking about him but the truth is I was only awake a little while. I was so tired the swag felt like a sponge that soaked me up. I went to sleep like someone disappearing from the earth, like rain sopped into dust.

  I woke up in the night to another noise. A kind of clunk. Like somebody was there. I sat up real slow and remembered I’d left the Browning in the hut. I didn’t even have a knife with me. The pack was still out there under the verandah.

  The moon was gone behind me now but it still lit everything plain enough. The hut was quiet, no one to see anywhere near it. The lake was so bright it looked like a sea of milk. And the windmill was clear against it and its blades weren’t turning. I took a few secs to cop the white flash underneath it. Rising and falling. It was just a goat trying to figure its way out of the yard. It jumped against the gate and hacked along the fence. It was nothing.

  I slid back under me sheet and pulled the canvas flap up a little way because the air was chilling off a bit. The goat kept at it down there, clacking and pigrooting. A coupla times it give out a bleat but it didn’t keep me awake long.

  But I dreamt I come home here again. Walked in by the killing tree. Back from a long trek sore and hungry. And there was a goat hung up on the gambrel. And me mouth run with spit. I walked faster, to see how far the old man had got with it, wondered how long it might be till we got some meat on the grill. But when I come by close I saw it wasn’t even skun yet. And it was too big for a goat. Too thick for a roo even. There was blood strung out black from its toes and I saw they were me own feet there lifted off the dirt, me bare legs all bruised and dirty, me dick shrivelled small as a snail, and I looked up into that face and saw I was a beast with all the wildness bled out of him.

  I don’t spose I’ll ever know if things coulda worked out different. But I been thinking about it, wondering if it was all my fault. Asking meself if everything mighta gone better if only I stayed keyed up that night and hadna gone off the boil.

  I know I shoulda kept savage. Right from when I come back to the hut. Shoulda told Fintan to shut his cakehole the second he started up with his clean-freak carry-on. Just layed down the law then and there,
even if I had to shove a gun in his face again for his own sake. Because when I staggered back in from the north I already knew it was war we had. If we didn’t piss off straight away some serious shit would go down. And if anything needed cleaning first up it was the fucking rifle, not me. But by then I was so used to his gobbing and nagging. Used to giving in just to keep the peace. Now I can see there was no time to explain right then, no time to argue about what to make of all this news, no time to rest up and start fresh in the morning. It was then we shoulda gone.

  Taking that bath was the first mistake. It took the edge off. Slowed me down. When I shoulda been getting sorted straight away, shoving Fintan inside, filling a pack for him and handing him his shotgun and shells I was letting the old bugger talk, leaving him to make everything feel normal. Because that was him. He could throw enough words at something to smother it. Like you toss a blanket on a fire. Oh if only I got him up and going. Then he could of crapped on all night, talking on the march. That was the thing but. He could talk the hardness out of you. What happened was I give in to being hungry, give in to feeling zombie tired. And if I’da stayed hard and kept smart I woulda got straight down to business, I know it. Seen to me kit. The waterjug. Backpack. The Browning. I woulda seen what was missing.

  And yeah, then everything would of been different. All of it. We coulda hiked out north, fixed me horrible mistake and kept on up the lake. And give ourselves five more hours, maybe even twelve. Them hours, they woulda made all the difference. True, I wouldn’t be on the road today if things had gone down otherwise. But I wouldna spent yesterday burying people neither.

  Still you can’t keep doing the coulda and the woulda and the shoulda. This isn’t about what didn’t happen. And if there’s one thing I know it’s this. Doesn’t matter how smart you are, or even how careful or lucky, there’s some mistakes you just keep making over and over. And they’re the ones that fuck you up and get people hurt.