Moonlight Downs

by Adrian Hyland

  I collapsed onto the couch. Felt lonely. Wanted Jojo. Spotted the phone beside it and decided to ring the cops.

  As luck would have it, an unpleasantly familiar voice announced that I’d reached the Bluebush Police Station.

  ‘Emily Tempest here, Griffo.’

  ‘Emily. How are you this evening?’

  ‘Shithouse. Have you heard from Jojo Kelly?’

  ‘No, where’s he gone?’

  ‘Out bush for work, Ngampaji way. Don’t suppose you could get a message through to him, could you?’

  ‘I could try.’

  ‘Tell him his Kupulyu Creek solution to the juvenile delinquency problem is a load of crap.’

  ‘Er, he’ll know what that means?’

  ‘It means the Sandhill Gang are back in town.’

  ‘What!’

  ‘I’m looking at the damage as we speak.’

  ‘Have they hit the other flats?’

  I took a look out the window: fluorescent lights were blazing, alcohol-fuelled conversations were roaring, Black Sabbath and Lee Kernaghan were serenading each other from opposite ends of the court. ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘Phew. That’s a relief.’

  ‘Thanks for caring, Griffo.’

  ‘No worries. Are you going to report it?’

  ‘Is there any point?’

  ‘Probably not. I’ll pass the message on to Jojo if I can.’

  I spent a hectic hour cleaning up the mess, and by the time I was finished the flat was more or less back to normal. My head was taking a little longer. I stripped off, had a shower, made a pot of tea, pulled on a pair of old army britches and stretched out on the back porch.

  Count your blessings, I counselled myself. Count your bloody blessings. There were half a dozen gangs in the town camps. Lucky it wasn’t the Petrol Boys—they would have eaten the walls. I even had a bit of tucker left. Well, some biscuits anyway, a packet I found in the back of the cupboard. Milk arrowroots. Good job, too; I suddenly found myself famished from my exertions.

  I was salivating over the first one, jaws agape, when something twigged. Milk arrowroots—that was it. That was the connection, the hook, the key, that was the thought that had been bobbing around like an unsinkable turd in the toilet of my subconscious all night.

  There was an old bloke who lived out on the Stark River, east of Moonlight. An old bloke everyone round here referred to as Bickie. He was a winemaker, of all things. As a kid I’d figured the nickname came from the giant milk arrowroots he was forever munching as he marched around his vineyards, but Jack once told me it was an abbreviation of his real name. Something Polish and ending in ‘bicki’.

  Wiezbicki. Oskar Wiezbicki.

  A picture appeared in my head: a wizened little whitefeller, pale-faced, smooth-skinned, with scrawny legs and big boots, thin lips and a massive hat. But gentle. And clever: they’d hung shit on him for trying to grow grapes out there, but he’d confounded them all. His label, Rotenstok, was said to survive more on curiosity than oenological value, but I’d spotted it at roadhouses and pubs all over the region. He’d started out small and ended up…well, still small from what I could gather. But alive, which was more than could be said for a lot of the blokes who’d been hanging it on him.

  One person who’d never shared the general scepticism about Bickie was Jack, and for a very good reason.

  Bickie was a water diviner.

  He was always the first person the stations round here turned to when they were looking for water, before they brought in the hydrologists and drillers. Jack had used him for a couple of the early mines, and they’d become mates, after a fashion. Jack reckoned Bickie could smell water the way a mozzie can smell blood.

  Bickie it’d be, for sure, this Wiezbicki, O. So what was he doing at a meeting between Marsh, Massie and Lincoln? I couldn’t imagine the four of them sitting around discussing next year’s vintage. Come to think of it, had the meeting taken place in Bluebush at all? Maybe Massie had gone to them; there was nothing in the files to indicate the venue. Massie had always enjoyed mixing it with the locals—the better class of locals, anyway—on their home turf. I remembered my first sight of him, sitting next to Brick Sivvier, hoping a little bit of Brick would rub off.

  What was Bickie doing getting round in the company of guys like these?

  I finished my tea and my biscuit. Felt a bush trip coming on, like the first flush of spring.

  About time, too, I decided. Bluebush was getting me down, and my little bit of it stank of White King and black vandalism. I went to bed, huddled against a pillow, felt a wave of sleep stealing over me.

  The jagged hum of Bluebush’s night machinery gradually softened into the whirr of wings. I found myself floating over a moonlit plain, wind lilting among silver feathers, the watercourses awash with a music soft as rain. In the hills below I could hear dingoes yapping and howling.

  I opened my eyes, troubled by something I couldn’t put my finger on. Something suggested by the dingoes.

  The dog over the back fence. Why hadn’t it barked?

  Could the Sandhill Gang have somehow silenced it? That seemed unlikely; I thought about the way they treated their own dogs, cuddling and kissing them, smuggling them out bush.

  The implications of this question were just beginning to make their way through my head when I detected a faint, scraping noise from the back door. I looked up in alarm. Russell and the boys coming back for more?

  The door creaked on its hinges, ever so slightly. A slight rise in the level of the noise from outside. A footfall. A rustle of clothing. What might have been a stifled intake of breath.

  Then a long, malevolent silence.

  I lay still, strained my eyes, but could make out nothing in the darkness. Until I spotted a blur of movement in the kitchen. I slipped out from between the sheets, slithered onto the floor.

  The intruder entered my room on cats’ feet and a holy terror swarmed through my heart.

  I lay there, listening intensely as the steps drew closer, then paused. Another couple of steps, then a sudden, furious blow hammered the bed. I heard a sharp snarl of exasperation as he felt the pillow where my head should have been, then a narrow beam of light swept the room. He began to make his way around the bed. I held my breath, did my best to still my heart. He reached the end of the bed, moved round to my side. I braced my body against the wall, prepared to launch myself at him.

  Suddenly the room swivelled and swirled and a blast of light shot across the wall. Somewhere outside a heavy motor revved and roared, then stopped. I heard a car door slam.

  I looked up in time to catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure haring out through the back door, and heard the crash of a fist on the front one. A fist followed by a familiar voice.

  ‘Emily!’

  Jojo.

  I scrambled to my feet, rushed to the door and flung it open, threw myself into his arms so ferociously I almost bowled him over.

  ‘Shit, that’s an enthusiastic…,’ he said, then caught a glimpse of my face in the half-light. ‘What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘Somebody broke into my place.’

  ‘I heard.’

  ‘No, not that. Just now. While I was asleep. You scared him off.’

  He bolted into the apartment and out the back door, which was wide open. He pulled the torch from his belt, followed its beam to the back fence.

  I came and stood out on the porch; felt suddenly chilled, found myself shaking uncontrollably.

  ‘Jojo!’

  ‘Yep?’ came his voice from the alleyway.

  ‘Come back.’

  His head popped up over the fence. ‘I want to have a look around; he may still be in the vicinity.’

  ‘Don’t do that. Please. Just stay with me.’

  He came back frowning, studied me for a moment, drew me into his arms. ‘You’re trembling.’

  ‘This is nothing compared to what I was like a minute ago.’

  He held me tight, and his whis
pered reassurances and the rasp of his whiskers on the top of my head slowly soothed me.

  ‘You didn’t get a look at him?’

  ‘Just a glimpse as he ran out the door. It was all too dark and fast.’

  He let go of me for a moment, pulled out his torch and ran it across the ground nearby.

  ‘Is that yours?’ he asked. He was looking at my nulla-nulla lying in the dirt.

  ‘You ought to know—you’re the last person I belted with it.’

  ‘Wasn’t it by the front door?’

  ‘It was, but the whole place is topsy-turvy after tonight’s goings-on.’

  ‘Don’t touch it,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the cops to come and check the place over.’

  ‘Do you have to do that?’

  He frowned. ‘I don’t like the way this feels.’

  ‘It gets worse. There’s a dog.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Over the back fence, normally. Tonight there wasn’t.’

  He went out into the alley, shone his torch through the chain mesh, then hoisted himself over the gate. I saw him bend over a prostrate shape close to the house, then knock on the back door. An old bloke came limping out, all splutters and snarls, joined Jojo at the dog’s side. Jojo’s explanation must have been succinct: a few seconds later the owner was revving up his car. Jojo gently lifted the dog inside and laid it across the back seat. When the owner had belted off down the driveway he came back and joined me.

  ‘Still alive?’ I asked him.

  ‘Only just. Gone to the vet.’

  ‘What happened to it?’

  ‘Doped.’

  ‘Shit.’ I looked up and down the alleyway. ‘What’s going on, Jojo?’

  ‘That’s what I was going to ask you.’

  ‘Why did you come?’

  ‘To see you.’

  ‘At three in the morning?’

  ‘Got a strange message from Griffo. Said you’d had another visit from the Sandhill Gang.’ We were walking back up the path by now. I clutched his arm.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘No you didn’t. I spoke to Con just this afternoon; boys are all still out at Kupulyu, doing well.’

  We stopped, looked at each other and I felt a tremor run down my spine. ‘I think I’d like to get out of here for a while.’

  ‘Out of the house?’

  ‘Out of Bluebush.’

  ‘You should go and talk to the cops.’

  ‘Bare my soul in front of Griffo and his mates? I don’t think so.’ I squeezed his hand. ‘Can’t we just go out to your place?’

  He considered this for a moment. ‘Okay, but let me get the cops to scout around the neighbourhood, just in case your visitor’s still on the prowl.’

  While Jojo was on the phone, I gathered together a few things, threw them into a bag, and we drove out to the shack. He entered the building ahead of me, lit a lantern, boiled a billy.

  I lay down on the big spring bed. He brought me a cup of tea, rested it on the bedside table, slipped in beside me. I rested my head on his chest, looked down at our bodies bathed in blue moonlight. The aromas of the bush—nectar and mint, coolibah—drifting in through the open walls slowly calmed me down.

  ‘Thanks for tonight, Jojo.’

  ‘You don’t have to thank me, Emily.’

  I buried my face in his neck. ‘You’re the calm after the storm,’ I whispered.

  ‘After the tempest, you mean. And I don’t know that it’s over. What have you been up to?’

  ‘Just the usual. Poking my nose in.’

  ‘How unlike you. Poor old Tom told me about your shenanigans. He thought you were crazy.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  He lay there for a moment or two, his dark eyes gazing out into the stars as they rolled through the trees. A gentle breeze drifted over us and the lantern guttered. ‘I suspect you come from a different galaxy than the rest of us. You’ll find what you’re looking for—long as you don’t get yourself killed in the process. Wouldn’t want to try and stop you, though.’

  ‘Good, because I’ve got another suspect to throw into the mix.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Lance Massie.’

  ‘I see. Starting at the top and working your way down, are you?’

  ‘I think he might’ve fathered Flora’s child. Lincoln thought so too.’

  ‘Okay. Could well be. What’s that got to do with his murder?’

  ‘God knows, but don’t you think it’d be reasonable to try and find out if they’re linked?’

  He climbed out of bed, threw a piece of wood on the fire, turned out the lantern and closed the door. His shutting-down rituals. He came back and sat in a chair next to the bed, put his feet up alongside me.

  ‘Emily,’ he began, ‘you’re not going to like this, but I have to say it anyway. I understand what you’re trying to do, but I think you need a rest. That look in your eyes tonight—you were totally freaked out. You’re not going to get anywhere like that. Why don’t you leave it with me for a while? I’ll ask a few questions.’

  ‘Maybe…’

  ‘You need a break. And I’ve got the ideal getaway for you.’

  ‘Is this where you tell me I’ve won the five-star holiday at Byron Bay?’

  ‘Even better. Moonlight Downs.’

  ‘Moonlight!’ I raised myself up onto an elbow. ‘Don’t know if they want to know about me out at Moonlight right now.’

  ‘I bumped into Winnie and the kids on the road today; they were hitching a ride back into town with the Jalyukurru water works team.’

  ‘Clive James?’

  ‘That’s right. It’s just Hazel and the old folks out there right now, and Winnie kind of hinted that Hazel’s starting to pine for you.’

  ‘Hazel pining for me? That’ll be the day.’

  But I was pleased; I’d been pining for her as well. It was, I had to admit, the reason I’d hung her wind-chime out on my veranda. The trip also offered an opportunity to combine pleasure with business: I’d drop in and visit a little Polish winemaker while I was in the neighbourhood, see what he had to say about his meeting with Marsh and Massie.

  ‘So what do you reckon?’ he asked.

  ‘I reckon,’ I paused, reached out, drew him into the bed, slipped him out of his shirt, found his left nipple with my teeth and finished the sentence with a flurry of nibbles and kisses that covered the length and breadth of his body, ‘that—we—might not be— seeing—each other—for a while—so we might as well—enjoy ourselves—while we can.’

  A canopy of leaves and light

  THE NEXT morning he drove me back to the flat. I rolled up my swag and threw it into my ute, grabbed my hat and bag, gave him a kiss. He stood by his car, arms folded, and watched me as I drove away.

  ‘See you in a few days, Jojo,’ I called back at him. I picked up a few supplies at the store, then headed out onto the northern highway.

  It was late morning when I pulled into Bickie’s—into Bickie’s what? I wondered, looking at it. Too upmarket to be called a camp, but hardly a station. His oasis, perhaps. Twenty acres of trellises and green light, a stone house set alongside the powder-dry Stark River bed. The corrugated-iron shed between the house and the vineyard was presumably where Bickie made his wine.

  For the moment I had the place to myself, and I took the opportunity for a bit of a poke around. If Rotenstok had a theme it was water: the name, I recalled, meant ‘red river’ in some dialect of Polish. A nostalgic gesture once, perhaps, but there was water now a-plenty. A bronze fountain studded with blue glass gushed among water pipes and windmills, a man-made stream trickled through rock pools and green plants. Even the shack looked like it had grown out of an upturned water tank.

  A little to the east, close to the river and under a tree, was a grave with a single word chiselled into the headstone: Alicja. Another of Jack’s stories came floating up from the past. The tale of an immigrant couple, newly arrived and lost in the desert, of the young wife who’d done a per
ish and the husband who’d refused to abandon her.

  And who’d built, I realised, a kind of outback Taj Mahal.

  I heard the sound of an approaching vehicle, and watched as a white Falcon ute came trundling in from the vines. The driver looked at me briefly, then climbed out and stretched his back.

  He didn’t look much older. Then again, nobody could have looked much older. He’d shrunk, though. Either that or he was wearing a bigger hat.

  The only other change was a huge pair of sunglasses: they made him look like an albino blowie. Presumably the sun was troubling his ageing Polish eyes.

  ‘Hello, Bickie,’ I said as he came walking towards me with a load of hoses and tools in his arms. He nodded, dumped them at the shed, climbed out of his glasses and studied me, a finger curled round his chin. There wasn’t much of him, but what there was was crackling with an energy that suggested he’d be powering on until the day he dropped.

  Recognition dawned slowly, but dawn it did—more than it would have done had our positions been reversed. ‘But you’ll have to give me a Christian name…’

  ‘Emily.’

  ‘Tempest,’ he nodded, his voice as deep and cracked as the ravine that split the hills above us. He looked promisingly pleased to see me.

  ‘Hell of a memory you’ve got there, Bickie. Reckon I was about ten when you last laid eyes on me.’

  ‘Ach…but it’s the eyes I don’t forget. Such intensity. I remember you sitting on the back of your father’s motorcar, watching like a little bush rat as I felt for water. And did I not see you afterwards, with a length of wire in your own hands?’

  ‘Never found anything, though.’

  ‘Perhaps you found things more elusive than water. You’ve grown up as small and beautiful as your father is big and ugly.’

  ‘He sends his regards to you too.’ Which wasn’t that far from the truth. I’d given Jack a call from the Resurrection Roadhouse, got a few directions, made sure Bickie was still alive and picking.

  Twenty minutes later we were relaxing on the veranda, a glass of rough red in the hand, a slab of cheese and a loaf of rye bread on the table. The Dry was coming to a close, the sun was gathering strength, but here, under this tranquil canopy of leaves and green light, all was coolth. I’d given him the bowdlerised version of my life since Moonlight, he’d given me the biography of his vineyard.