Something shiny, lying in the grass, caught his eye. It was his harmonica. He picked it up, stared at it for a moment, then saw Ham’s body lying a few yards away. Grace tried to stop Tom crawling over to him but he wouldn’t hear of it. He knelt down and stroked the top of Ham’s head with the back of his forefinger. He blinked away tears but Grace couldn’t stop hers from flowing freely as she watched him.
“Come on, we have to go,” she said, after a while, putting her hand on his shoulder. “They might come back.”
Tom took a long, hitching breath and shook his head.
“I don’t think they will.”
“We’ll go and get a lift off someone back at the dam.”
“What about Mr. Pope?”
“Your cheek! We have to get home!”
Tom swayed a little, then looked over at Ham again.
“I’m taking him,” he said.
Grace nodded. She went over and picked up her satchel and opened it up. Tom lifted Ham into it and buckled up the straps. His cut bled some more. Grace tore another strip from her dress and wadded it and handed it to him.
They walked back down to the dam but the people who had been there before had deserted the place. The day had clouded over and cooled and the water in the dam looked even blacker, a reservoir of something not meant to be stopped up. A fresh breeze began to pull the trees to and fro and Grace thought of Charlie and Sonny and Blackie out there somewhere . . . and the other thing, and she shivered.
When they reached the road again they stopped. A cloud slipped in front of the sun and all of a sudden the day became even more gloomy. A few drops of rain fell from a scudding cloud. Away through the trees to the west they could see black rain clouds wheeling around above the hills. The wind picked up and made a howling, rattling sound as it swept down through the trees. Grace grabbed Tom’s shoulder and stopped him.
“There’s a storm coming!”
“Yeah.”
“What’ll we do?”
Tom shrugged.
“We can’t walk all the way home through it! Not in the dark!”
Tom didn’t answer. He turned away as more rain began to fall and bent his head, his arm slung across the leather of the satchel. Grace stared at him, breathing hard. Something was wrong with him and it wasn’t just his cut face. She looked around, frantic, for someone to help her, but there was no one, and she was close to a strange kind of panic when it occurred to her what they should do.
“We could keep going to Mr. Pope’s,” she shouted in Tom’s ear. “He’s got a phone. We could ring Pop. We could ring Pop and he’d come and get us!”
Tom looked at her uncomprehendingly. Grace grabbed his hand.
“Come on, Tom! Come on!” she cried, and they set off up the road, the day closing in by the minute.
28
Gibson thought he must be dead or blind or both. He tried to lift his head but a tremendous pain shot up into it and fireworks appeared and he had to lie perfectly still for ten minutes or more before the pain subsided. The details of a dream came vividly to him as he lay there. He’d been in a country hall, the woman from the grocery shop in Angel Rock up on the stage on a throne. The throne had been formed from the interwoven bodies of a dozen or more lion-like creatures with steel-grey coats, their claws and teeth digging into each other to hold the shape of the seat and the animals quivering and shaking with the effort. Jaw to haunch, flesh to tooth, no beginning or end, their glittering eyes watching him standing there before her, itching to leap up and tear him limb from limb. She’d just watched him for a long while, oblivious to her tightstrung seat, then dropped her index finger down and levelled it at his chest, her look neither kind nor unkind. His heart had gone as hot as a coal in his chest and he’d found himself on the floor, one of the animals standing over him. He’d seen the seams in its hide as if it had been, far back in time, stitched together from the offcuts of other, greater beasts. It had bent to him, opening its mouth, two long fangs filling his vision. A delicate cream colour, flawless, pristine, age-old, razor-sharp. He’d looked up into the beast’s eyes as it had looked into his—iron-grey, traces of cornflower-blue, depths of black—then he’d lifted his arm, put his hand against its rough, cool side, seen its frame aglow in its flesh— bones sculpted from light—and he’d known the thing was beyond ancient and beyond comprehension. It had brought up its massive paw, unsheathed a set of razor-sharp claws, put one of the black scythes down upon his bare chest and swiftly undid it, lifting out his heart for all to see.
The hall, the beasts and the shopkeeper slowly faded away as he lay there until there was nothing left but stone-cold reality. He opened his eyes to slits and peered about. His top half was lying in leaves and grass and his lower felt in even worse condition. He looked down. His trousers were round his ankles and his pecker was in the dirt and there were smears of mud across his bare arse.
“Fuck,” he croaked.
He couldn’t remember anything of the night before. He got to his feet very slowly and pulled up his strides. It was merciless broad daylight. He tried to remember what had happened and where he was, but until he spied another man asleep in the grass alongside a number of long-neck beer bottles he remembered nothing. The man looked somehow familiar but he couldn’t remember his name. He’d met him, and some others, after he’d been with the girl. Another pub. Much more drinking. That was it.
He looked around. He was in the back yard of a house. It looked like a fine day, half gone. He took a few tentative steps towards a nearby water tank, then stopped, wincing, as a dog began to bark somewhere close by. He continued, very gingerly, over to the tank, and caught sight of himself in the drum of water sitting under its tap. His face was stuck with pieces of dry grass and there were tracks across his cheeks where his drink sweat had run down through a fine layer of dust.
“You look like your fucking father,” he muttered.
He bent to the tap and drank from it for a long time and then he walked round to the other side of the house wiping his mouth with his forearm. On the stairs leading up to the back door of the house sprawled a large woman with matted red hair, snoring away as though she were tucked up in bed. Her dress was torn at the shoulder and flies buzzed over the broad slab of her exposed breast. It and the front of her dress were both sticky with spilled liquor of some sort. Her legs were open and no underwear was in evidence. Gibson looked at her, scratched his head, and wondered what the hell they’d got up to. A chicken came scratching round the corner and then a lean, scarred dog emerged slowly from underneath the house. The dog looked at him for a while, looked at the chicken, then turned round, tripping over the chain attached to its collar. Sheepishly it picked itself up out of the dust and padded back in under the floorboards. When Gibson looked up from watching it there was a boy standing in the middle of the yard watching him. He was barefoot and thin and dressed in a dirty T-shirt. His grim, wizened little face gazed up at him from under a long fringe of dull brown hair. He continued looking at Gibson for a while longer and then he picked up a stone and shied it in his direction.
“Hey!”
The boy picked up another stone. Gibson set off round the house, passing by where Col or Ray lay snoring in the grass, and looked around for his car. His heart sank when he couldn’t spot it—couldn’t even feel the keys in his pocket. The boy came round the corner and fired off the stone he’d picked up. It caught Gibson a stinging blow behind the ear. He swore, then ducked off into the jungle of hedge and fruit trees at the side of the house as another stone slapped through the leaves above his head. He made his way down to the front of the house and there he stopped, panting, to look about. A driveway joined the house to a dirt road. Parked along the road was his car. It was about fifty yards away. He made a dash for it, the boy opening up with a hail of rocks and wild, unintelligible shouts; a burlesque of ancient war song that made Gibson’s skin crawl. When he reached the car he glanced back. The house stood all by itself on a little rise in the middle of a swampy valley. The boy had stoppe
d before it, his goal achieved. He stared at Gibson as he went to the window and looked in at the ignition. There were no keys there.
“Where are the keys, kid?”
“Fuck off!”
“Give me the keys and I bloody well will!”
The boy didn’t answer him. Gibson sat behind the wheel and wondered if he could start it without a key. He reached down and struggled with the ignition for ten minutes before he managed to remove the casing and work out which wire was which. After he’d stripped the wires and touched them together the starter motor gave a whine. Gibson half smirked at the boy as he held the wires together again and put his foot on the accelerator. The starter tried its best but the engine refused to kick into life. Gibson, swearing, popped the hood and looked underneath. He couldn’t see anything wrong with the engine but when he tried the starter again it still wouldn’t start and then the battery began to run out of juice.
“What’ve you done to my car, you little bastard?”
The boy gave no answer, just turned away as if Gibson was of no more interest to him. Gibson, nonplussed, watched him walk back up to the house and go inside.
There was nothing for it but to get back to Angel Rock somehow and come back with Pop’s car. He slammed shut the door and started walking and then realised he had no idea which way to head. He stopped and contemplated going back to the house, but had to decide against it. There weren’t even any other cars in the house’s yard. He turned back to the road and after half an hour he came to an intersection and a bitumen road. He sat down on the grass verge to wait for a car to come along and then he remembered that his mother was dead. He dropped his head into his hands and wept.
He sat by the road for a long time but no cars came. In the end he flipped a coin and headed to the right, hobbling slightly, his legs stiff and sore. His thirst bit into him and he realised—maybe for the first time—how sweet water really was. He touched the side of his aching head. There was blood but his skull seemed intact. He walked for about an hour and then he heard an engine. He turned and saw a battered old ute coming down the road. He waved it down as it approached, then peered in through the window at the driver when he’d pulled up.
“Angel Rock?”
“Sure,” said the man, slowly, studying him, a faint look of bemusement on his face. “Hop in.”
“Bit of weather coming,” said the farmer, as they drove.
Gibson looked. To the west, up behind the hills, sat dark and sour-looking clouds and beyond them there were only more.
“Yeah,” he croaked. “Listen, you got anything to drink?”
“You mean liquor-wise?”
“No, just water, anything.”
“Course. Bag there. Help yourself.”
Gibson picked up the waterbag and unscrewed the lid. It was almost empty and he drained it, his stomach cramping almost at once.
“Steady on there, mate. Don’t bust your boiler.”
Gibson wiped his mouth and grimaced. About twenty minutes later he began to recognise the outskirts of Angel Rock. They were heading into town along the road that ran along by the river. They rounded a bend and Gibson saw two houses nestled together. Across the road a trio of young boys were sitting fishing.
“That’s Henry Gunn’s place, right?”
“Yeah, it is. You know him?”
“Ah, yeah, sort of. Let me out here, will you?”
“Sure.”
The farmer stopped the car and then hung his elbow out the window as Gibson came round to thank him.
“Take care now. Steer clear of those kiddies. Might give ’em a fright.”
Gibson looked at the driver uncomprehendingly and then he bent and looked at himself in the ute’s wing mirror. Trails of blood from the wound above his ear ran down across his cheek and neck. He looked a sight.
“Ah yeah, thanks, I’ll keep it in mind.”
When the farmer had gone he headed over to the boys. They watched him come and looked at one another a little wide-eyed. He went down to the water’s edge and laved water over his head and washed away the blood from his neck. The boys watched him in silence. When he’d finished he looked back at Henry’s house, then changed his mind and headed into town.
From the house Henry watched him stop by the river and wash and then continue on. Sometime later he finished the bottle of beer he was drinking, rubbed his eyes, then pulled on his boots and headed into town himself.
When Gibson reached his room in the convent he took his revolver out from under the bed and put it and his other belongings into his bag. He went and washed the last traces of blood from his neck and put on a clean shirt before heading up to the station house to ask Pop about getting a tow for his car. As he approached he saw Henry’s truck parked outside and then Pop and Henry came out of the front door together. Pop locked it behind him and looked around. Something about the way he did it seemed slightly furtive—and completely out of character. Henry just looked baffled.
They headed up the street and he followed them at a distance. He couldn’t quite see what they stopped to look at in the cemetery and he had to wait until they’d disappeared into the bush before he could move closer. When he looked down into the empty grave and saw whose it was he thought he was dreaming again. As a dozen questions rushed into his head he almost ran after the two men, but then he stopped and turned round and headed back down to the convent instead. He pulled his gun from his bag and stuck it in his belt, then he went back up to the street and began looking for a car to borrow. It was nearly five o’clock and there weren’t many about and he felt the urgency inside him begin to spill over into panic. He felt like he was in the wrong place at the right time and was missing something—something he had to witness. Then he spotted the ute of the farmer who’d given him a lift into town and ran over to it. The keys were in the ignition and the old man was in the butchery. The butcher saw him as he started up the car and put it into gear, but then he gunned the engine and roared away. Country and western songs crackled out of the radio as he drove, but it wasn’t until he reached the crossroads and a few stray drops of rain came and speckled the windscreen that he heard them and flicked the music off.
29
As they walked the breeze picked up and cooler washes of air began to sweep down across the valley. Pop, lowering his voice, described what had happened. Henry listened, open-mouthed and shaking his head.
“Rita Coop went up there to talk to her husband. When she came to me she was in hysterics. I had Lil put her to bed with some tea and Bex. Hopefully we’ll be all right for a while yet. Hopefully long enough to find . . . the body, put it back where it belongs.”
They followed the trail without any difficulty for a while and then the ground became rocky. Pop continued apace, undeterred.
“Should have brought . . . some water,” said Henry, panting, wiping his mouth.
“Here,” said Pop, handing him a bottle from his knapsack.
“Thanks.”
They continued on, the Rock looming up out of the trees before them, and before long the broad expanse of the dam began to appear through the trees. They scrambled down to the shore and peered about. The water looked black. Pop thought that those who said drowning was an easy way to go hadn’t seen this place. He turned to Henry.
“See anything?”
“No.”
He bent and looked around at the bank. Even though the day was getting very gloomy there was still just enough light to see by. There were all sorts of tracks, but mostly of bare feet.
“Can’t see his bootmark,” said Pop, standing. “Too many people have been up here today. But if he came this way he must be headed for the house. There might be tracks across the top of the dam.”
Henry nodded. He looked back the way they had come. The hills behind were now swathed in grey clouds and he could barely see the township below. Rain seemed imminent. When he turned back Pop was kneeling again, looking intently at the ground near the dam wall.
“What is it?”
Pop motioned him forward and pointed.
“What do you see there?”
Henry looked.
“I—”
“That’s the print we’re following. That . . . is Grace’s. And that, I’d guess, is young Tom’s.”
Henry shook his head. “You sure?”
Pop put his hands on his knees and pushed himself up. He didn’t respond to Henry’s question but stormed away across the dam wall. Henry went after him.
“You sayin’ that’s my fault or something?”
“It’s no one’s fault.”
“Look, I don’t know—”
“By Christ, Henry! You’ve been drowning your damn sorrows for too long to know a damn thing!”
“Me? Do you know what your daughter’s been up to today?”
Pop stopped and turned and gave Henry a cold stare.
“I just hope . . . I just hope, for both our sakes . . .”
He turned and walked on, but he kept talking.
“You know, Henry, back in the old days, when a child was stillborn, miscarried, you know what they did? I’ll bloody well tell you. They gave the body to the father to bury, just like that. I buried three. Two boys and a girl. After that, me and Lil gave up on children, for years and years, and then Grace came along, a bloody little miracle. You know how much she means to us? If anything’s happened to her . . .”
“I’m sorry . . . I—”
“I know losing your little bloke’s been hard, Henry, but you’ve still got Tom to think about.”
“I’m tryin’, Pop, but I can’t watch him twenty-four hours.”
“No. No, you can’t. You can’t keep ’em locked up either. Look what happens when you do.”
“Darcy.”
“Yeah.”
“Grace’ll be all right, Pop,” said Henry, his voice a little shaky. “I know it . . . and if Tom’s with her . . . he’s a good boy.”
“Yeah, he is. But let’s pray they’re both safe at home and not out here. Let’s just find Darcy now . . . and Billy. Let’s get it sorted, before the day’s out.”
Angel Rock Page 30