by Scott Monk
Mr Douglas mmmed before there was an almighty squeal like the tin roof was being peeled off. ‘I better take a look outside anyway. We don’t want a repeat of the last flood. You go back to bed. I’ll wake you if I need you.’
The door closed with a click and Brett waited until he heard Mr Douglas leave through the back before letting himself out of the cupboard.
‘That was close,’ Brett said.
‘You better go. You can’t stay. Dad’ll be back soon.’
‘But I’ve got to talk to you now.’
‘Why? What’s so important?’
‘Us.’
Caitlyn had already guessed that. That’s why she’d been avoiding the topic for so long. ‘Now’s not a good time.’
‘When is a “good time” then? Tomorrow? I might be in prison by then.’
‘No you won’t. Just tell the police what happened and they’ll believe you.’
‘What happens if they don’t? I ran away from them, remember.’
‘Because you were scared. That doesn’t make you guilty.’
‘But robbing a hotel is still illegal.’
‘Brett! Shhh! Don’t let my parents hear you.’
‘Then give me five minutes. I’ll go once you’ve heard me out.’
Caitlyn pushed back her fringe and breathed. ‘Okay. But not here. Dad’s probably back in so we’ll go outside. We can talk in the shed. No one will hear us out there.’
The offer was enough. Brett slipped out Caitlyn’s window and followed her across the yard. He couldn’t make anything out in the dark so he let her lead. He wouldn’t leave her anyway. This was too important. He had to know if she was worth risking everything for — even his freedom.
‘Do you love me?’ he asked her.
‘What?’ she shouted above the storm.
‘Do you love me?’
Caitlyn shook her head and signalled she couldn’t hear him. She looked round nervously and pointed to the old shed rippling and screeching in the wind. Brett followed her. Inside, she wiped back the rain from her face then lit a lamp by the door and placed it on the dirt. If she put it anywhere else it would have been shaken free and thrown to the ground.
‘What did you say?’
Slower and quieter this time, Brett swallowed and asked the question that, to him, meant everything. ‘Do you love me?’
Caitlyn paused, startled. She looked at him then away at the lamp, hiding her eyes as she thought about what he’d just said. Her silence, however, said it all.
‘Well, do you?’
Again, she didn’t answer. She stood there, trying to find the right words, before giving in. ‘Brett, I —’
‘I’ll only turn myself in if you love me,’ he said. It was his last shot. His one last feeble shot.
‘Don’t force me to make that decision, Brett.’
‘It’s too late. If you love me, I’ll turn myself in. If you don’t, you won’t see me again.’
‘What do you mean?’ she said, fear in her voice.
‘I’ll run away. I’ll leave Mungindi tonight.’
‘Run away? But why? The police will find you’re innocent —’
‘They won’t understand anything.’
‘What about Sam? Frog? The Farm?’
‘What about them? It’s you I want, Caitlyn.’
‘Brett —’
‘I’ve tried everything to get us back together. I’ve said sorry. I’ve rung and left messages. I ran away from the police to see you. I don’t know what more you want from me. I love you, Caitlyn, and I mean it.’
‘Don’t throw your life away because of me,’ she said, eyes pleading.
‘Then tell me you love me!’
‘Stop it, Brett. You can’t bully me into saying that.’
‘Then tell me if you do or you don’t.’
The loudness of Brett’s voice was only matched by the storm. The wind and rain were knocking on the walls, ready to tear the shed apart. But his attention was on Caitlyn — the girl he loved and who he thought once loved him. He needed an answer. He needed to know the truth, whether it was good or bad. He would leave if she said no. He couldn’t live in a town where he’d lost so much.
‘I —’ she started, shaking her head. But that’s all she said.
Brett turned away from her. That hurt. He loved her. He really loved her. But they were finished. Permanently. He’d never felt this way about another girl. Now to hear her silence was devastating. He had to let her go. To do anything else would be trying to own her. And he’d learnt the hard way that love couldn’t be owned.
‘I guess this is it then,’ he said finally, wiping his eyes.
‘Who said it has to end?’
‘You did. By not answering me. We can’t be friends, Caitlyn. You know that. Not after everything that’s happened — or hasn’t happened …’
He moved to leave and had his hand on the door bolt when he said one last thing. ‘I never lied to you.’
The storm hit Brett hard in the face as he opened the shed door. Caitlyn said something but the wind filled his ears. The rain blinded him again and, head down, he moved towards the homestead to pick up his gear.
Bad move. Caitlyn’s father returned from scouting the property at the same time.
‘What are you doing here?!’ he demanded.
Brett ignored him.
He grabbed Brett by the shoulder this time.
‘Don’t walk away from me! Answer me!’
‘Don’t worry! I’m leaving!’ Brett shouted above the storm, shrugging him off.
‘Hey! I asked you a question!’
‘And I don’t want to answer it, so back off!’ Brett flung out an arm this time to force Mr Douglas to retreat.
‘Dad? What’s going on?’
‘Caitlyn? What are you doing out here?’ Then a new thought came to Mr Douglas’s mind and he turned on Brett again. ‘What have you been doing with my daughter?’
Brett kept walking.
But Mr Douglas chased after him. ‘I said what have you been doing with my daughter!’
‘Nothing, all right? Leave me alone!’
‘You better tell me or I’ll get the police onto you!’
Brett nearly laughed.
‘Dad! He hasn’t done anything!’
‘You stay out of this!’
Brett spun round. ‘Don’t talk to her like that!’
‘I’ll talk to her however I like!’
‘She hasn’t done anything!’
‘I’ll believe that when I find out for myself!’
‘Dad!’
‘Caitlyn, go inside — now!’
‘No!’
‘Caitlyn!’
‘Don’t listen to him,’ Brett said. ‘He’s not listening to you.’
‘Don’t you tell my daughter what to do, you lowlife.’
‘Why shouldn’t I? I know her better than you do.’
‘I bet you do, you dirty little —!’
THUD! OOMPH! Brett hit the muddy ground, his jaw stinging. He looked up at Mr Douglas, the farmer’s fists steeled to unleash another punch.
‘C’mon! Get up!’
‘Dad! Stop it!’ Caitlyn shouted, now at Brett’s side.
‘What are you waiting for? Get up!’
‘Stop it, I said!’
Brett pushed himself off the ground and stood up, wiping his bloody lip. He gritted his teeth, all fired up.
‘C’mon! Show me what you’re made of.’
‘Dad, are you crazy!’
‘No. I’m protecting you from this criminal here. I want to show you what kind of a gutless lowlife he is.’
Brett rocked back and forth on his feet, ready to spring forward. His two fists were poised close to his chest. Any second now …
‘Don’t, Brett! Don’t!’ Caitlyn pleaded.
‘I have to,’ he growled back, eyes only on her father.
‘No you don’t. Just walk away!’
‘I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can
. Prove to me you’ve changed. Please.’
Brett looked at her out of the corner of his eye. That last word hit him harder than any punch. She was begging him — not only for herself but for him too. He felt cramps in his fingers and he glanced down. He saw his fists. Fists which were swollen and aching from too many fights … He shook his head. He had to stop thinking that way. This fool wanted a fight. Brett’d give him one.
Pain! Two punches smacked him in the face. Her father lashed out while he was distracted. He was yelling again but Brett’s ears were filled with Caitlyn’s screams. Brett threw back two punches of his own, neither connecting. Swaying slightly, he and Mr Douglas circled each other, ready for the next shot.
Brett clenched his fists tighter. The pain travelled up his arms. The bruises there stung too. Then his stomach flared up. His skull and back also. Ignore it. You’ll be okay, the old Brett said. No, no. You won’t be, the new one argued back.
‘Walk away.’
Suddenly, Brett realised he was tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of arguing. Tired of the pain. Sixteen years of anger had only got him further into trouble. He couldn’t keep solving his problems with his fists. He wanted out. He wanted a normal life.
He shook and lowered his guard, raised it again then yelled and turned away. He couldn’t fight any more. He just couldn’t.
‘Coward!’ Mr Douglas shouted after him. ‘You gutless dog! Don’t you come back round here ever again! I don’t like your kind — especially losers!’
Brett staggered into the darkness clutching himself from the pain and cold, those words echoing in his ears. He shook his head. That wasn’t right. He’d lost one fight but won another.
Three days later, a teenager kayaked down the Barwon, surveying the storm damage. Three brothers aged seven to twelve wrestled outside their house shouting and laughing in the ankle-deep waters. Two Aboriginal kids backflipped off an inflated rubber tube into the river and repeated the performance. A State Emergency Service crew helped an elderly couple to drier land. A dog stood guard as its shell-shocked owners wondered what to do next. A rescue chopper thundered overhead looking for troublespots. Shop owners stood in open doorways, sweeping out the mud, which was their only visitor for the day.
But the storm was over and the sun was out.
Brett watched all this from the passenger seat of Sam’s ute. He couldn’t help but sympathise with these people as they entered his life for that one quick thought then disappeared again. Their despair and misery. Their losses. The hardship the country tested them with. If it wasn’t drought, then it was flood.
But was that why they lived out here? Was it the challenge? Or did they love the land that much? Maybe. He didn’t know, and he didn’t think he would ever know. The next day it would be different. The town would start rebuilding itself as it always had.
But for Brett there was no happy ending.
The cops caught him; pulled him over for trespassing. He couldn’t prove it, but it was obvious Caitlyn’s father had dobbed him in. The hotel owner who’d witnessed the fight between him and Tyson was called in to give a statement and mentioned that Brett had broken into his bar two weeks earlier. Brett was asked if that was true and he answered yes.
He would be sent to a proper juvenile detention centre this time. No doubt about it. The charges against him were clear-cut and there had been witnesses. The prospect of serving twelve months or more in one frightened him. It would be a hundred times worse than The Farm.
Sam, driving the ute, followed the police 4WD in silence to the agreed meeting point. He just stared at the road, quietened by his own thoughts as Josh, Brett and Frog sat beside him squashed into the rest of the front seat. No one felt like talking.
Brett didn’t know why they’d come. He’d never asked them to. In fact, he wished they hadn’t. It would’ve made this a whole lot easier. They could get on with their lives and forget about him. He could face the uncertain future that awaited him. He’d just get into the paddy wagon and disappear into the sunset like they did in the movies. Simple. No fake farewells. No you-be-goods. No promises of never-to-be-written letters. Just the slamming of the wagon’s back door and a lot of diesel. But Brett overlooked one thing. They were his friends.
He’d made some enemies here too. Rebecca for instance. He wouldn’t see her again. She’d skipped town after a local dobbed her in for soliciting. She was probably shacked up with some truckie by now, selling herself. He felt sorry for her. A person couldn’t live like that — or with themselves for that matter. One day — sooner than she might think — no one would want her anymore.
As for Tyson, he was already on his way south. He’d left an hour before Brett in the back of another piggy van, charged with several offences, including escaping, that he’d be formally sentenced for in Sydney. Apparently, he’d been holed up in a squatter’s shack in the bush since doing a runner. He was lying low until the cops forgot about him. Flushed out by the rain, he’d headed into town to steal a car and seen Brett making the phone call.
Sam gently eased the brakes.
So this was it. The end. The cops in the 4WD ahead of them stepped out of their vehicle and said hello to the officers waiting by the wagon.
‘You ready?’ Sam asked.
Brett swallowed and half-smiled. ‘No.’
They hopped out into the morning sun. It reflected off the rain waters, causing them to shade their eyes. The warmth was glorious. After riding and walking through the cold and wet for several nights, Brett welcomed the change.
‘Got your gear, Brett?’ Sergeant Kenny asked.
‘Yer, right here,’ Brett mumbled. Sam, Josh and Frog followed them, seeing the cops didn’t want to waste any time.
‘Open her up then, Rog.’
The back door of the wagon swung open and Brett recognised the cage that had first brought him here. It was not a friendly reunion.
‘In you get.’
Brett grabbed the roof to pull himself in but Sam stopped him. ‘Wait!’ The old man pushed Frog forward, who walked eyes down towards him.
‘I just wanted to say seeya,’ the kid said quietly.
‘Thanks,’ Brett answered. ‘I guess you finally get a room to yourself, hey?’
‘At least now I won’t have to put up with any more of your girlfriends coming through the window.’
Brett tried to smile. He wanted to call him a crazy tadpole or a shrimp but he let it go. He didn’t know why.
‘Well, seeya.’
Frog went back to the group. He was replaced by Josh who walked with his hands in his pockets and his eyes stealing away to the surrounding fields. He stopped and breathed over his bottom lip. ‘What can I say?’
‘Don’t. It just makes it harder.’
‘I understand. But I do want you to remember one thing: don’t give in.’
Brett nodded. ‘I won’t.’
Josh turned round but he didn’t get far.
‘Score a try for me against the poms, won’t you?’
The stablehand grinned. ‘How ’bout two?’
Finally, it was Sam’s turn. Brett hoped it wouldn’t come to this. He felt like he’d let him down. No one had put up with more from him. He’d been patient so many times. Forgiven him. Let him back to The Farm when he’d run away. He’d always been there regardless of the trouble Brett had caused and all he’d got in return was grief.
‘That’s not true,’ Sam said, looking away. ‘You just … took time to settle in.’
‘I never settled in.’
‘I know. And I doubt you will anywhere for quite a while. You’ve still got to work out who you are first.’
‘How long do you think that’ll take?’
‘I can’t tell you. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe never. Just remember to learn from your mistakes just as you do from your wins.’
‘Was me being sent here a mistake? I mean, I’m going right back to where I started.’
‘Did you learn anything while you were here?’
�
�Yer, of course. Lots of stuff.’
Like friendship. Trust. Love. And loss.
‘Then you’re better off than you were three months ago.’
Brett thought about this. And in some strange way the old man was right. His life would’ve been emptier if he had never met Sam, Frog, Josh and yes — her.
‘Do you … think I can make it, Sam?’
‘I hope so,’ he answered softly.
Silence. The pair felt uncomfortable. There were a lot of things they wanted to say, but they’d stay unsaid. Each of them knew what the other was going to say anyway.
The pause was enough for Sergeant Kenny to tell them time to go and move Brett once again towards the paddy wagon.
‘Don’t forget us,’ Sam said, as Josh and Frog joined him.
‘I won’t.’
The goodbyes finished, the cops snapped a pair of handcuffs onto Brett’s wrists. He paused and looked across the Barwon to the Queensland side one last time. There was no urgent blasting of a car horn or last minute call of ‘Wait!’. She hadn’t come to see him off. He didn’t expect her to because it was finished between them.
He’d heard a rumour Caitlyn was moving to Brisbane to live with her brothers. She’d decided to go after the confrontation between him and her father. Good. There wasn’t much here for someone as lively as her.
Brett allowed himself to smile. He remembered their times together. The rodeo. Their first kiss. Swimming. Escaping The Farm. He’d enjoyed every moment and wouldn’t leave without those memories.
‘C’mon,’ one of the cops urged, putting his sunglasses on.
Reluctantly, Brett clambered into the cage before the door was shut behind him. He looked out a peep hole as the wagon’s engine was started.
And watched his friends then the town he’d called home for three months disappear. When they finally did, he slumped down on the metal seat for the long journey back. He thought about his mistakes and consoled himself with his wins as the shadows across the green-gold countryside lengthened. A lot of people would say that he’d failed when he did get back to Sydney, that he was a loser. But they’d be wrong. He was young and he was going to start again. Because as an old man — no, a friend — had once told him: “Just remember, Brett, only you can change your life.”