That’s my son, Decker acknowledges proudly. Thinking ahead without being told! He momentarily regrets the quick death he had given his mother. If only she could see how he turned out. She hadn’t been interested and reckoned he needed a psychologist. Bloody dog got what it deserved too, barking all bloody night long and disturbing Jesse’s sleep. I did a better job without her, he prides himself. He looks sideways, watching his son cradle his treasured rifle with the Winchester resting beside his leg. Fatherhood’s something! The pain in his side stabs at him but he enjoys the sensation. It means he is alive! He will cover some ground before patching it up. What a life! He wouldn’t swap it for anything!
Chapter Sixty
Jed curses his missed shots. Shouldn’t have bloody fired! Doubts nag at him but his rational mind kicks in. If he hadn’t fired, he knows he’d be cursing himself for not trying. He rises into a crouch, cradling the Colt in both hands, ready for anything. He wants to go straight to Alex but self-discipline kicks in. He scouts the area carefully, ready to engage any target. He finds tracks heading back toward the vehicles, decorated with a few small spots of blood that soon peter out.
He finds where they crouched together behind a log and guesses they were leap frogging, covering each other on a speedy withdrawal. A sign of Decker’s military experience. At least he hit the bastard, giving him something to think about before he bugged out with that psycho kid of his. He scouts further just to be sure the area is clear and then works his way back to Alex. He kneels down beside her, checking her pulse again, pleased to feel it is strong and more regular. He taps her gently on the cheek and is relieved to see a reaction, a slight movement of her head. He takes a rest next to her, cradling the Colt and waiting for nature to take its course.
Noticing the water bottle is gone, rolling away somewhere on the rock above them, Jed fills in time by going to find it. He fingers something on his cheek and realises he is picking off pieces of brain matter and bone. Joe’s head had exploded over him. He knows the bullet was probably meant for him and that Joe moved just at the wrong time. But the right time for him, Jed ponders with guilt. His years in the State Emergency Service attending road accidents superficially accustomed him to blood and guts. Some would think him callous but, like ambulance officers, he can put horror to one side and get on with the job. Shock and nightmares come in the dead of night. He rubs the remains of Joe off his face as best he can and buries the vision of his exploding head somewhere deep inside him.
He returns to watch Alex carefully, always scanning the surrounds. Cutting the straps of the plate that saved her life, Jed hurls it away into the scrub. Clearly it only worked because the bullet struck as she turned, changing the angle of impact. A full frontal hit may have been very different but he isn’t in the mood to analyse ballistics. Seeing her face flecked with blood and bone, Jed uses water from the bottle and his fingers to gently remove all the traces of Joe he can. He can’t do anything about his blood staining the blouse around her stomach and settles down to wait.
Her eyelids flutter and finally open. Her eyes are vague pools of shadow, letting in the light and images of the world around her. Shaking her head, Alex tries to make sense of what she is seeing. Her hand comes up and touches the matted blood on the side of her head. Jed watches as Alex’s eyes start to focus and she finally moves her head.
Jed waits a few extra moments before speaking. “You had a good nap?” he asks warily.
“Joe’s dead.” There is no emotion in her voice.
Witnessing death is never easy. He hesitates before replying. “Yes, Joe is dead and you are alive.” He can sense what might be coming and the sickness wells up inside him again but he fights it down.
She stays quiet for a while, slipping in and out of consciousness, but then responds very clearly, “You knew he would take a shot at me. You knew! You didn’t explain it to me. You led me into it!” she accuses, rolling away from him.
No! I didn’t know, he thinks, I just covered the bases as best as I could. Should I explain every thought that goes through my mind? Jed is feeling frustrated. He had hoped to avoid any confrontation out here. It could never really be avoided, only delayed. His actions saved her life and in return he is getting the cold shoulder.
Watching her lie in the dirt with her back to him, Jed steps away in order to keep his mouth shut and give him time to ponder the situation. He walks in a circle beside her. Alex has survived abuse and started a new life. Now fiercely independent, she craves safety and protection. I didn’t discuss the situation with her and put her in the firing line. The shock of so narrowly escaping death will be hard to take.
Walking over to her, Jed crouches down on his knees, placing his hand on her shoulder. He considers explaining or making excuses, but rejects all the logical options open to him. “I’m sorry I put you in that situation Alex. Realising how close you came to death must be a huge shock. I should have handled it better. Decker thinks you are dead,” he adds and leaves it at that.
After a moment, Alex suddenly rolls up onto her knees, shaking her head before standing and bushing herself off. Her thoughts explode with unleashed emotion, “I should be saying, ‘Thank you,’ but right now I’m bloody pissed off you didn’t trust me enough to tell me the plan—fuck off and leave me alone.” Her tone has more venom that a pair of King Brown snakes in the burning heat of summer. She shakes her head again and gingerly feels the lump sprouting under her hair.
Only a glancing blow, Jed assesses with more dispassion than he wants. He recognises he needs a more empathetic response.
“Decker took a shot at someone. I took two shots at him. Drew some blood from the bastard! We best find out who he was shooting at. Decker’s cleared out.” He is mindful to add a genuine tone of concern to his voice instead of efficiency.
Alex ignores the question and the tone. “He shot someone else apart from Joe? Who else is bloody well out here?” she asks, rubbing and shaking her head.
“That’s what we better find out,” he suggests, hoping he may have passed over the crisis period.
Taking her gently by the arm, they climb back up to the ridgeline to see what they can find. After a few wobbly steps he feels her composure return as Alex shoves pain and him to one side and focuses on survival. Clearly, she can handle physical pain. He is less certain of her emotional resilience.
They pick up her bag, water bottle and the few scattered possessions. “Let’s go sideways and stay off the skyline,” he suggests, preparing to argue the point if necessary but Alex is too subdued to comment. Following Jed warily, they work their way forward in the direction Decker fired. Jed guesses the distance was less than forty metres for the shotgun and keeps low as they approach the top of the ridge.
“There! Jed snaps, pointing his finger to indicate a blood stain on the rock surface. “Someone took a hit and left in a hurry.” Trying to downplay what they are witnessing, Jed leads her down and around the boulder, finding drag marks on the ground. All his senses are on alert and the Colt is in his right hand, ready for action, but he still notes the feel of her fingers in his left hand.
“This guy can’t walk or is staying real low,” he surmises as he inspects the marks. He once again hefts the Colt in a two-handed combat hold. “Follow me and stay behind and low.” He doesn’t look around but stays focussed, sweeping the area in front and to the sides, wondering if she will follow his instructions.
Alex doesn’t argue. She isn’t interested in debating anything, still struggling with the fact she has survived a close call with death. She follows wordlessly but is aware of everything around her as the pain starts its pulsating stab in the side of her body and a throbbing thud in her head.
Jed stops, moving into a kneeling crouch and bringing the Colt up smoothly, aiming into a patch of small boulders under the shade of a clump of trees. “Who are you?” he demands.
Alex can see nothing among the shadows but hears a deep voice grunt from under the trees. “No friend of that fuck’n bastard
! Maybe a friend of yours? I’m hit and not go’n anywhere so you don’t need that bloody cannon!”
Jed smiles at the directness of the response. This man is no threat. He flicks the safety on, slips the Colt into his belt and walks into the shadows with Alex behind him.
Chapter Sixty-one
Jed sees an Aboriginal man slumped against a rock. He is obviously in pain but still alert. Crouching beside him, Jed holds out his hand. “I’m Jed,” he says, grasping the left hand offered in return.
“Charcoal, head drover for boss man, Stu.”
Jed makes the connections. “Alex,” he adds with a wave of his hand. “You out here checking on us?”
“Found tracks near the homestead. Somebody watching when yous’re there the other night,” Charcoal replies, trying his best to hide the pain savaging his back, chest and arm.
Jed doesn’t ask pointless questions. He guesses Decker was there the night they shot the pigs and works it logically forward. He must have thought Jed had a rifle of his own and decided to take him out the morning he blasted his swag. Only chance and Jed’s sense of uneasiness had averted an appalling outcome for Alex and himself, leading to their current situation. Sometimes you just get lucky!
“How bad you hit?” Jed asks.
Charcoal appreciates the directness of the whitey. He is no time waster. “Scratch on the chest, broken rib, broken wrist and a flesh wound across my back. Can move me legs,” he adds.
Jed nods, accepting the self-diagnosis. The guy is a skilled bushman and there is no room for stuffing around. Jed’s years in road accident rescue kick in automatically. “You’re gonna hurt, but you won’t die.” He doesn’t waste time on emotional commiserations and Charcoal doesn’t expect them. Jed bends down to look more closely. “Can I check you out?” He starts looking without waiting for an answer, gently unbuttoning Charcoal’s shirt.
“Yeah sure, go for it,” Charcoal replies, thankful he is no longer alone.
Jed inspects his chest and wrist then eases him gently over to inspect the wound on his back. “The back wound is a clean wound in and out. You’re lucky—no kidney or spine damage. The wrist and rib I can strap. The graze across the chest can be cleaned. The pellet that broke your rib should come out. I can see it sitting just there in your chest. After breaking your rib it was deflected up along the bone. Infection would be bad.” Jed doesn’t spare any details. “I should cut it out. It’ll hurt but won’t be as bad as an infection. The sooner we do it the better,” he finishes. The odds are high that with dirt and fragments of shirt in the wound, it will quickly turn septic.
“You got nicked?” Charcoal observes as he inspects Jed’s bandaged arm.
“Yeah, just a graze. I cut it to get some extra blood. Made Alex here look a bit more dead! I’m goin’ to need your shirt for bandages for both of us,” he adds as he starts work.
Alex listens to the conversation but says nothing. She kneels down and joins them, using her handkerchief to wipe Charcoal’s face. “Thanks for getting involved in this mess. Are you alone out here?”
Jed doesn’t give him time to respond. He’s read the situation. “He had another drover with him. There’s no sign of Joe’s brother. Your mate got him?”
Charcoal nods sadly in confirmation.
Alex is about to fire another question about how he got here when the answer appears between the trees. “That your horse?” she asks, her eyes not moving from the animal standing challengingly a short distance away, all black with a white blaze on his forehead.
“That be Thor,” Charcoal answers. “Great horse for me! Handful for anyone else. Named him after the Norse God of Thunder—learned that one day listening to the mission school radio. Seemed to fit him.”
“I have to get that pellet out, sooner the better,” Jed informs both of them. He draws his knife and tests the sharpness of the edge as Charcoal watches carefully.
Alex has other things on her mind. “Thor can get one of us back to the homestead,” she announces decisively.
Jed and Charcoal make eye contact, acknowledging with a slight nod that she is right. “Can’t be me,” Charcoal says, “I’m not fit for much at the moment,” wincing again as pain stabs randomly at his body.
“Can’t be me,” Jed contributes. “I can use the Colt and fly a plane, but horses are out of my league.”
“I can use the Colt and I can ride,” Alex throws in after a few seconds.
She is greeted with silence. Charcoal wonders whether anyone else can handle Thor. Even his fellow drovers can’t handle him. All have been thrown, hitting the dirt in a way that didn’t do much for their ego. Charcoal eyes her carefully, sizing her up with horse knowledge born from hard experience.
Jed doesn’t know much about horses. He has ridden a little, if you could call it that, while chasing wild pigs along the Barwon River. Probably he just pointed out a direction and the horse had taken him for a ride. To him horses are horses, even if he has a private dream to work with one properly. Now he is more concerned about her ability to handle the Colt on her own in a desperate situation. Using a handgun isn’t easy, whatever TV programs portray.
Both men know she might be their only chance. Wounds fester and the human body needs water every day, even more importantly when moving cross country, and it is a long way back on foot. With Decker already on the way out, possibly to the homestead, time is not on their side.
Alex runs her eyes over Thor—big, broad, compact, tough; a wide white blaze running from the top of his poll to the end of his muscle. One blue and one brown eye focus, unflinching from her gaze. “He’s a good looking quarter horse, with a wealth of smarts, he’s not going to take kindly to fools or arseholes who think they can out muscle him,” she states with a knowing grin.
Charcoal acknowledges her judgement with a nod, which Jed sees and respects. She certainly knows horses!
She meets their gaze, flicking from one to the other without flinching until one of them finally speaks.
“Thor be a handful!” Charcoal states with emphasis.
“No problem, I’d rather work with a strong-willed horse than a hard-headed man; the former I can form a partnership with while the latter I just want to shoot in the guts and leave for the crows to finish him.”
The boys are left wondering if she is joking or really means it. Jed has the sneaking suspicion she is simply stating a fact.
“You be either a confident lady or a crazy one!” Charcoal replies with a wince as Jed probes the pellet in his chest with his fingers. “You best give him a try. Let your man here deal with me.”
My man—like hell! She says nothing but ponders the situation for a few seconds. “I can’t do much here. You know what you’re doing,” she says to Jed decisively. “Give me some time with Thor.” She doesn’t wait for a reply, confident with her assessment and stands to walk toward the horse.
“She be right,” Charcoal states and Jed nods. “Let her be. You dig this bastard out,” he commands, picking up a branch. He breaks off a section to bite on as Jed probes again in preparation to slice. He bites hard as he feels the tip of the knife start to open his skin, keeping his eyes on Alex to distract himself.
Thor does exactly what he expects, moving fast toward the woman to establish dominance. He is a typical herd animal. Once he gets her to step back, their relationship will be defined and he will be dominant. Charcoal holds nothing against the woman. She just doesn’t know about a horse like Thor. He is one hell of a horse for droving. Charcoal’s relationship with Thor is a struggle he has to work on constantly. He knows the woman will lose.
He glances down at Jed probing to find the pellet, then twists his head fast as he senses Thor about to run the woman down. Instead he sees her spread her feet to take a solid stance, swinging her arms diagonally up across her face with fingers splayed to make her look as big as possible—like a judo instructor on speed. She stands firmly in place without stepping back. Thor veers away and steps out a half circle, stopping sideways to Al
ex, eyeing her carefully and chewing contemplatively.
Charcoal feels the tip of the knife start to lever the pellet out. The pain should cause him to groan but his lips are trying to smile grimly around the stick clamped in his jaws. The woman has stood her ground, not easy facing a horse that big coming full on. He watches the woman ignore the horse as she picks a bunch of succulent greenery, talking in a low, reassuring tone so he can’t pick up the words. Thor watches her but she continues to ignore him, walking diagonally away holding the fodder between her fingers. Thor neighs, stamps his hooves and then moves toward her.
As he approaches, she waves her arm up and down, stopping him from invading her personal space. Thor veers away as she continues picking the best growth she can find, walking away from the horse. The horse stops to watch her, his mouth chewing away on nothing. Alex watches Thor carefully out of the corner of her eyes, pretending no interest.
Charcoal is so engrossed by the show, he barely feels the pellet being levered from his flesh. He hears the woman continue to talk in that subtle, reassuring tone, paying only passing attention to Thor until she is ready with a handful of juicy greenery that she offers temptingly.
Thor moves toward her warily. She steps forward, holding out the succulent food for the horse. This time she lets him into her space and Thor takes the food, listening to the same subtle tone that even tempts Charcoal to strain to listen. Thor nuzzles her and cradles his head over her shoulder while she strokes him along the neck, still talking in that low tone, gently massaging the groove in his forehead with her fingertips.
Charcoal has never seen anything like it. His horse has succumbed so easily, surrendering with a minimum of a struggle. He watches her take a step forward, pushing gently on his chest and telling him to back off, which he does. Alex steps to the side and lifts her foot into the stirrup to launch herself up into the saddle. She leans forward, wincing at the pain of the bruise spreading across her waist and strokes Thor along his neck while continuing to talk in the same low tone. Thor turns his head from side to side to check where she has gone, nuzzling her leg.
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