‘I’ll put them on now.’
Les went to his room and got changed. When he came back, Lonnie had placed the other submachine gun on the table with a silencer attached and a drum magazine in the feed lip. He’d also opened the other case, and sitting on the table were two green ammunition holders resembling a cut-away fisherman’s vest with four wide pockets on the front secured by press studs.
‘Everything fit all right?’ said Lonnie, looking up at Les in his overalls and bandana tied round his head.
Les placed a gym-boot clad foot on one of the chairs. ‘Yeah. But what size feet did the cunt have?’ he laughed. ‘You could put oars on these bloody things and row them.’
‘At least you’ve got a good grip on Australia,’ replied Lonnie. ‘Okay,’ he said, standing up. ‘I’ll run you through the weapon again and we’ll go back over the plan. Then you can zip yourself into your ammo holder, throw some dirt on your face, and you’ll be ready to rumble.’
‘Sounds good to me, Lonnie,’ enthused Les. ‘I can’t wait.’
Lonnie got Les to change magazines, swapping them with the ones in the ammunition vest. He took Les back out onto the verandah and suggested where Les should lie in hiding at the side of the gate. Lonnie would be up in the hills looking down as planned. He’d give Les a whistle. As soon as he heard it, that’s when they’d both open fire. He told Les to keep his head down, move around and try not to shoot up the cars as they had to drive them up to the mine. Then they went back to the kitchen.
‘Shit. I wish I had my camera here,’ said Les, catching his reflection in the kitchen window. ‘I’d love to show this to Eddie.’
‘I got one in my room,’ said Lonnie. Lonnie went to his room and returned with a digital camera the same as Norton’s. ‘Get the gun and come back out onto the verandah.’
Norton’s face broke into a grin. ‘Yeah, baby,’ he said, rising from the table. He adjusted his black bandana, picked up his submachine gun and followed Lonnie back out to the verandah.
Lonnie took four photos of Les in various poses with the weapon and let Les take a couple of him. When they’d finished, Lonnie checked his watch and suggested it might be a good idea to run the old Kingswood down to the gate. Les returned the weapon to the kitchen then followed Lonnie down to the front of the house. The station wagon was parked nose-first to the driveway. They gave it a push to get it going and with Lonnie behind the wheel, coasted down to the gate, parking it in the middle of the driveway, between the two thick wooden poles supporting the gate. Leaving the keys in the ignition, Lonnie pulled the handbrake on tight and they got out.
‘The gate swings down and to the right,’ said Lonnie. ‘So when they open it, there’ll be plenty of room for them to stand around exposed.’ He pointed to the trees and bushes on the level side of the driveway. ‘You want to have a quick look around, Les, and familiarise yourself with your firing area?’
‘Yeah. Good idea,’ agreed Les.
Norton moved around the trees and boulders, noting where different ones were and putting them between himself and the driveway. He checked the tree canopy for light and made sure there were no ant hills around for him to unsuspectingly throw himself on, then rejoined Lonnie, who was making sure the lock and chain on the gate were secure.
‘You can bet your life those bastards will have bolt cutters,’ he complained. ‘Which means I’ll have to buy another lock and chain. More bloody expense. Fair dinkum, Les. It never ends.’
‘Yes. It’s sad, Lonnie,’ sympathised Les. ‘But with ten million dollars’ worth of gold about to fall in, I think you can afford it.’
Lonnie pointed up to the old home. ‘Come on,’ he winked. ‘Let’s jog back to the house. Get our blood circulating.’
‘Hey. I’ll be in that,’ said Les.
Despite having his ammunition belt on and a pair of gym boots three sizes too big for him, Les jogged up the driveway with ease and would have liked to have kept going. Lonnie went with him stride for stride and neither of them would have blown out a candle when they reached the parking area in front of the house.
‘Hey, you’re not in bad shape for an old bloke,’ joked Les. ‘I’m half full of speed and you were starting to get away from me in the finish.’
‘I used to run marathons a while back,’ said Lonnie. ‘Didn’t win many. But I always finished in the top ten.’
‘Fair dinkum?’ Les pointed to his mouth. ‘Mate. I got to have another drink of water. I’m drier than a bunch of artificial flowers.’
‘I’m a bit that way myself,’ said Lonnie.
They took the stairs up to the house and went straight to the kitchen. Les had one glass of water then poured himself another. Lonnie also poured himself a glass. Les had another drink then glanced at his watch.
‘How long before you reckon they’ll be here?’ he asked.
‘Not long,’ answered Lonnie. ‘Let’s go back out onto the verandah.’
‘Okay.’
They stood on the verandah, taking in the sun while they drank water and quietly discussed things. Les was about to drill Lonnie over a couple of matters that had been nagging him, when Lonnie stiffened and any expression drained from his face.
‘They’re here,’ he said bluntly.
‘They are?’ replied Les. ‘How do you know?’
Lonnie pointed to where the driveway turned off from the road. ‘See that flock of sulphur crested cockatoos down there?’
Les stared out over the valley to where twenty big white parrots were circling noisily above the trees, their raucous screeching echoing all the way up to the house.
‘Yeah,’ replied Les. ‘There’s got to be a couple of dozen of them.’
‘Well, they’re my guard dogs.’ Lonnie turned to Norton. ‘Okay, Les,’ he said seriously. ‘It’s show time. Let’s go.’
Les swallowed the rest of his water. ‘Righto.’
They hurried back to the kitchen. Lonnie zipped into his ammunition vest, put his bandana on, then they both picked up their submachine guns and double-timed it out of the house. Next thing Les was running down the driveway behind Lonnie till they stopped at the front gate.
‘Okay, Les,’ said Lonnie, pointing to the hills on his right. ‘I’m going to be up there looking down. As soon as you hear me whistle, pour it into the cunts. And don’t worry about wasting ammo. You’ve got heaps.’
‘No worries,’ replied Les.
‘And don’t forget to rub a bit of dirt on your face.’
‘Okey doke.’
Les watched Lonnie scramble up the slope then quickly moved back into the bush about fifteen metres from the gate. He found a concealed position between a clump of boulders and a gum tree, cocked his weapon and lay down on his stomach, picking up some dirt as Lonnie had told him and smearing it across his face. After wiping his hands on his overalls, Les readied his weapon again and waited, and although he felt upbeat and ready to go, the gravity of what he was about to do suddenly sank in. This wasn’t a game of paintball. This was the real thing. And quarter of a million dollars or not, he was about to help a bloke he’d only just met murder nine men in cold blood. It might have been some twisted form of self-defence. But it was still murder and if the law ever caught up with Lonnie, they could both finish up in gaol. Besides that, if things went wrong, he could cop a bullet in the head himself or get his stomach blown apart. Fair dinkum, sweated Les. Can I get myself into some situations. And all over a lousy fuckin frog. You can’t tell me that’s not karma. Les brushed away a fly as two kookaburras started a heated argument in a nearby tree. Suddenly the kookaburras stopped arguing when two cars appeared moving slowly up the driveway.
Neither vehicle was late model. The first was a dark blue Ford station wagon with decals all over it. The following car was a black Ford sedan with a luggage rack on top. The station wagon stopped a little before the gate and the driver cut the motor. The second car pulled up behind and its driver did the same.
His adrenalin now squirting around i
n the pit of his stomach, Les watched intensely as a tall skinny man wearing a brown baseball cap and blue bib-and-brace overalls over a matching T-shirt, got out from behind the wheel of the station wagon. Another, shorter man in a dark T-shirt and black jeans got out of the passenger side carrying a pair of bolt cutters, leaving three men seated in the back. Another man in jeans and a blue flannelette shirt got out from behind the wheel of the sedan, leaving another man seated in the front and three in the back.
Peering through the scrub Les was able to count ten men instead of nine and imagined Lonnie would have no trouble doing the same. The first three men went into a quiet huddle. From his position between the rocks and the gum tree, Les couldn’t quite hear what they were saying. But he watched the man with the bolt cutters snip the lock and chain, as Lonnie had predicted, and kick it to one side of the driveway before he swung the gate back. The man in overalls walked across to the Kingswood and peered in the driver’s side window, then opened the door and got behind the wheel. A second or two later, Les heard the slow dull whine of a starter motor trying to kick over. The man in overalls soon gave up then got out of the Kingswood and walked back to the two men at the gate. Les still couldn’t quite pick up their voices, but he had a pretty good idea what they were saying, because the man in overalls went to the station wagon and the man in the flannelette shirt walked back to the sedan. Next thing, the remaining seven men got out of the two cars carrying weapons, some of which they handed to the first three men, then as Lonnie had predicted again, all ten men gathered in front of the open gate. Les studied them intently.
They were all dressed in the same dark clothing and each had the same slow dull-witted look about him. Les put their ages at around thirty, except for two carrying pump-action shotguns. One had long straggly blond hair, the other’s hair was cropped into a brown mullet and both wouldn’t have been more than eighteen; the man with the brown mullet had a distinctive face full of acne and would be lucky if he was that old.
Beads of sweat trickled down Norton’s face attracting more flies and Les would have given anything to swat the annoying little insects as he forced himself to remain motionless. The seconds began to feel like hours while the men formed perfect targets standing around the open gate and Les began to worry Lonnie might have got distracted by something. Come on, Lonnie, Les urged silently. We won’t get a better opportunity than this. Les moved the barrel of his submachine gun a fraction, figuring to take out the man wearing overalls first, then work the weapon left. Despite the bandana, more sweat trickled down Norton’s face and a fly landed next to his eye. Les blinked hard several times to dislodge it and his concern for Lonnie rose as the men appeared not to bother about moving the old Kingswood. Then Norton heard Lonnie’s short sharp whistle echo down the hillside. The men reacted and turned to each other as Norton let go a sigh of relief. That’ll do me, smiled Les. He lined up the man in overalls and squeezed the trigger for two seconds.
Six teflon-tipped bullets slammed into the man’s chest almost ripping his heart and lungs out. He gave a quick scream, dropped his rifle then collapsed straight onto his behind and fell backwards, dead. Les moved the silenced submachine gun to the left and stitched the next man across the chest, who fell down in a fast spreading pool of blood on top of the man in overalls. With bullets clanging into the gate and kicking up dirt around their feet, other men started screaming and falling as Les and Lonnie poured a steady stream of bullets into them. Panic-stricken, the remaining men began firing blindly into the hills and bushes on either side of the driveway and around the gate as they dived for cover.
Les shot another man’s face off and wounded another in the legs when he ran towards the Ford sedan behind the young bloke with the acned face. The wounded man fell down against the sedan and, through his pain, started firing in Norton’s direction. Two bullets ricocheted off the boulders on Norton’s left, and another buried itself in the gum tree. Les quickly figured the only way the wounded man would have spotted him was the arc of shells flying up in the air then landing in the surrounding bush. Les rolled away to his left, just as a blast of shotgun pellets tore apart the bush where he’d been lying, followed by another which blew away a small tree. Les raised the submachine gun and stitched the man he’d wounded from his groin up to his chin, slicing him open like a watermelon, then Les rolled to the right as another two blasts from the shotgun ripped into the surrounding bush. Les went to fire a burst in the direction of the shotgun’s noise and found he’d emptied the magazine. Swiftly he changed magazines then rolled away once more as another two blasts from the shotgun ripped into the bush and scorched slivers of granite into grainy clouds of dust from the boulders where he’d been lying. On the other side of the driveway, Les could hear men screaming in pain, guns going off and teflon-tipped bullets thumping into the ground and slamming into the station wagon. He surmised Lonnie had everything under control, so he concentrated on the kid with the shotgun, intent on nailing him before he took off down the driveway and brought everything undone. Cradling his weapon, Les sprinted in a half crouch through the bush till he was a few metres past the black Ford and flopped down behind another gum tree. Suddenly everything went quiet.
‘Hey, Les,’ Lonnie called out, from up on the hillside. ‘You all right?’
‘Yeah. Good as gold,’ Les yelled back. ‘How’s yourself?’
‘I’m all right. I think they’re all dead over this side. What about you?’
‘I’ve got one with a shotgun near the black Ford. Watch out for him. And watch out for me.’
‘Roger that.’
Roger that, mused Les. Where does Lonnie think he is? Viet-fuckin-nam? Now, where’s this pimply-faced little shit with the shotgun? Two blasts from the shotgun sailed over Norton’s head into the trees telling Les someone was firing from down too low. He snuck his head around the tree and stared at the black Ford. A moving shadow beneath it told Les all he needed to know. He aimed the submachine gun and fired a long burst beneath the car’s chassis. A haphazard blast from the shotgun, followed by a shout of pain, told Les he’d struck pay dirt.
‘Hey, Lonnie,’ Les yelled out. ‘I think I got him. I’m coming towards the back of the old Ford. Okay?’
‘I’m on you,’ Lonnie’s voice called back.
Slowly Les stood up and with finger on the trigger, advanced slowly and carefully towards the rear of the black Ford. When he got to the car he saw a denim-covered leg and a shotgun barrel sticking out from under the left rear door, just as Lonnie appeared, stepping around the bodies on his side of the driveway.
‘Shit,’ said Lonnie. ‘What a mess.’
‘You can say that again,’ agreed Les. He pointed his gun at the leg poking out from beneath the black Ford. ‘There were ten shooters and that’s the last of them. The kid with the shotgun.’
‘Yeah. Let’s take a look at him.’ Lonnie kicked the barrel of the shotgun to one side then took hold of the kid’s leg by his jeans and yanked him out from under the car. One hand was almost shot off, he’d taken two bullets in his left leg and one through his ribs, but he was still breathing. ‘Well, I’ll be buggered,’ said Lonnie. ‘Look at that. He’s still alive.’
‘Unbelievable.’ Les shook his head and stared down at the unfortunate young bloke lying bleeding on the driveway.
‘Ohh, give me a break will you, mister,’ begged the young bloke. ‘Please. I’m hurting something awful.’
‘Sure,’ replied Lonnie. ‘We’ll stop the bleeding and get you to a hospital in no time.’
‘Thanks, mister,’ sniffed the young bloke. ‘I didn’t want to be here in the first place. They forced me.’
‘They forced you?’ said Les.
‘Yeah. I’m only seventeen.’
‘Shit. That’s a bit young to be running around firing shotguns at people,’ chastised Les.
‘I know,’ sniffed the young bloke.
‘Have you got any HCF?’ Lonnie asked him.
‘What?’
‘Have y
ou got any HCF? Are you in Medibank Private?’ asked Lonnie.
The young bloke shook his head. ‘No, I ain’t, mister,’ he coughed.
‘Well, you should be.’ Lonnie brought his submachine gun up and put six rounds in the young bloke’s heart, killing him instantly.
Les looked at what was left of the young bloke’s chest beneath the holes in his black T-shirt, slowly shook his head and turned to Lonnie. ‘Do you think he feels better now?’
‘I’m not sure,’ replied Lonnie. ‘I certainly hope so.’ Lonnie clicked his still smoking weapon onto semi-auto then walked around the bodies and pumped a couple of bullets into the heads of any he thought still showed signs of life. Satisfied they were all dead, he returned to Les.
‘Everything sweet?’ Les asked.
‘Yes. Everyone is resting comfortably,’ answered Lonnie.
‘You know, it’s funny,’ said Les, taking in the carnage around him. ‘When I first moved to Sydney I had this phobia about dead bodies. But after knocking around with Eddie, I started getting used to them.’
‘That’s understandable,’ conceded Lonnie. ‘Okay, Les,’ he said. ‘If you’ll start throwing the bodies in their cars, along with all their guns, I’ll back the Kingswood up to the house and get it out the road, then come back and give you a hand. Then we’ll drive both cars into the old tin mine and—ka-boom.’
‘Okay,’ replied Les.
‘And the sooner we get this done,’ smiled Lonnie, ‘the sooner we can sit back and have a nice cup of coffee, or whatever.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ said Les.
Lonnie took Norton’s weapon and ammunition vest, placed them in the Kingswood with his, then got behind the wheel and rolled it forward in front of the station wagon. He got out, opened the back of the Kingswood and took out two pairs of gardening gloves and a set of jumper leads. He tossed one pair of gloves to Les, popped both bonnets and in no time had the leads connected and the Kingswood’s motor started. He disconnected the leads, got behind the wheel of the Kingswood and started reversing the old car back up the driveway to the house, leaving Les with the grisly chore of loading the bodies and body parts into the two cars.
High Noon in Nimbin Page 17