by Greg McLean
A shadow in the grass. It wavered. Rose as if after them.
He stood like a statue, rooted to the spot, his sister beside him. Could only raise a hand to shield his eyes against the glare of the sun. And then the wallaby – spooked by his movement – pivoted and bounded away. In two springing hops, it had cleared the grass and disappeared.
Mick frowned. What did he think it would be? Someone following them? He didn’t like how the man had made him feel. Weak somehow. Vulnerable.
His sister pushed away his outstretched hand. ‘Want to have chocolate!’ she cried, pouting again. ‘Why can’t we go back? It’s melting, Micky. Why can’t we have it?’
He gritted his teeth at her grating voice, his impatience and anger with her rising, and he found himself searching the grass on the rise again, expecting to see the man watching them, his eyes above the yellow stalks. He hated this feeling. ‘Because we don’t trust bloody strangers!’ he yelled at her – not meaning to swear but it’s how his dad always said it – and then pushed her. Hard.
He’d just meant to make her run the last bit down the slope. But her legs were locked and when he slapped his hand between her shoulder blades and shoved, she overbalanced. Her arms pinwheeled out and then her feet were somehow above her head and she tried to scream and then he heard the crack as her skull hit a rock and she tumbled to the bottom. She reached the edge of the water long before he did, her limbs slapping the ground all the way down. And then she was still, in the cloud of dust.
He skidded after her on his rickety legs, trailing his stick. Cut his arm good and tore his pants. She lay, chest heaving, skirt hiked up and panties torn in the fall. Her head was cocked at a weird angle and a jagged white of bone protruded like a stick jammed into her throat. She saw him and gulped for breath, fish-like.
He squatted next to her. Blood flowered the dirt, spreading outwards. A glaze in her eyes as she tried to focus on him. There was pain and fear. But also . . . a terrible knowledge, like she knew she was dying and could see death. Realised she wasn’t coming back.
A few months previous he’d been helping at the McAllisters’, drafting sheep for docking, when Mr McAllister decided to kill one of the old wethers for the next week’s dinners. The boy had never seen this done before and kept quiet and watchful, and wasn’t sent away. Mr McAllister isolated the sheep and grabbed its back leg, hauling it to the run and into the killing gate. Then he straddled it and as the rest of the herd bleated and mewed from the yards, he’d reached up for the rusted knife on its hook and in one movement slit the animal’s throat. The sheep kicked once against the steel fence, the sound ringing in the air, and the boy watched slack-jawed as it bucked then slowed. Mr McAllister angled its throat over the grating and the sheep stared down unseeing as its neck sprayed a steady stream of blood. When there was only a trickle Mr McAllister reached for the winch, handing the boy the still-warm knife. Hot blood had run over his fingers but he’d still been holding it tight when Mr McAllister told him to hook it back up and help him with the carcass.
This wasn’t like that. There’d been no awareness in the animal’s weird horizontal eyes. No revelations in its stare. It had simply died.
This was more important. Not just dying, but . . . life leaving. He was mesmerised. He let his gaze run down his sister’s twisted body, taking in the strange shapes the fall had bent her into, the torn clothing between her legs.
Her skin smooth and alien. He ached to touch her. Feel her life, and death.
She clutched a hand out to him and he knelt down, then lay alongside her crumpled length.
Her gasps close to his ear, the soft pumping of her blood into the dirt. He stroked her with his finger and she felt like the softest leather. Then her head rolled a little and he saw she was staring at him, a tear trickling down one cheek. She whispered his name, and as he watched, the awareness went out of her gaze and she simply shut down, eyes becoming glassy and fixed, body easing with a sigh. She was motionless. Warm.
He scowled and pulled himself up. She seemed to watch him and he had to turn away. ‘Stop looking at me,’ he said. When he glanced back, her big eyes stared at him, unblinking. He felt hot. ‘Stop it!’
But she wouldn’t and he kicked out and her head lolled back, her stare unbroken. He could feel her eyes and he fumbled on the ground for his stick and brought it down on her face. Her nose cracked and collapsed and then he hit her again and her head gave in. The stick was caught and he had to try to wriggle it free. Mick felt sick. The smell of urine and sweet shit, and something faintly metallic. When the stick was free, a little mat of hair and blood clung to its end.
He stumbled backwards and stared up the embankment in a daze, wondering how he’d gotten here. Then back at her again, at the blood on his hands.
As soon as his father saw the body he’d know the truth. He would tell from her beaten face. He crouched and tried to cover her up better, to rearrange her clothes, but all that did was put his bloody finger marks on the white material. With desperation he started to drag her towards the lake to wash the stain away. Then he stopped. What if that wasn’t enough? What if his father guessed as soon as he saw her? What could he say?
Mick thought fast. He ran unsteadily to the Bowler property nearby and stole into the sheds near the road. He grabbed the old wheelbarrow resting against one wall and wheeled it over the bumpy ground, hauling her into it and around up the opposite bank, cursing and sweating all the while. They’d check the lake first. Instead he pushed her a mile or so east to the old mine shafts he was sure only he knew about. Then he tipped her floppy body in one and heard her thump against the side on the way down. Threw the barrow in too. And his stick.
Only then did he wash his hands and clothes as best he could back in the water and sweep the dirt clear of marks. He headed home still unsure what to say. He could still smell blood.
Fear-sweat pricked his brow. He didn’t understand what had just happened, what he’d just done. Only that no one could ever know.
The story came to him as naturally as getting rid of her body, the thought slipping into his mind and feeling right. He would tell them about a man they would never find and they would search and search until they gave up. And find nothing.
And by the time he got home the story had become the truth in his mind and his tears of failure were real.
3
Mick’s heading to the stables the next morning when he realises someone’s stepped through the gate behind him.
‘Maybe I musjudged you,’ Cutter says.
Mick falters momentarily, then continues to the horses. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Really hut a man where he hurts, don’t ya? Going for the dog.’
‘I already said I didn’t do it. Why don’t everyone think the dumb thing just ran off? Was as thick as a brick.’
‘Nah,’ Cutter says, shaking his head. ‘Reckon you slut its throat, gutted it like a sheep, then mixed it with the rest of the meat. Ta feed to its owner.’
Mick doesn’t break stride, though sweat beads up his back. ‘And why the fuck would I do that?’
‘’Cause that’s what I woulda done.’
Mick stops, stares at him.
‘Ya know,’ Cutter says, leaning against the gate, ‘they say ya don’t ask a man about his past in the outback. ’Cause he might tell ya. Ya come here when you’re on the run. From a woman, from kuds. Debts. The law. National Service. The bush hides it all, least for a while. But the way I see it – ya cun’t run forever. It’ll catch up with you eventually. Ya cun’t keep hidden what’s eating you inside.’ He looks at Mick as if able to see through him. ‘I reckon you got secrets, Micky.’ He winks and heads off.
Mick sullenly spends the morning mustering the end paddocks, saying little to Opey, and is then made even angrier when Cunningham doesn’t give them Saturday arvo off. By the time Sunday rolls around Mick’s itching to get out of the place and he borrows the ute while most of the others go to church.
He heads
due west this time, and stops at the first town he comes to. He walks into the pub and sits in the back until a big man in a suit wanders past, wiping his brow at the heat, and Mick kicks out a chair. They talk for a bit but the salesman – a feed merchant working his way down from Darwin to Perth – soon gets that he’s being baited and excuses himself and heads to the bar. ‘Oi,’ Mick says, following. ‘It’s your round, mate. Ya gonna welch?’ The man doesn’t take the opening when Mick shapes up to him and instead just buys two beers. Mick finishes his and insists on buying another – even though the bloke hasn’t touched his yet – and the barman tells him to leave. He takes in the no-necked galah behind the counter for a moment. But he also sees the twelve-gauge stashed behind the whisky bottles and walks out without another look at the salesman.
In the car outside, he watches the night close in. He feels empty and unfulfilled, wonders if he should hit another pub or just go home. The man was one of those smartarse types from down south: university trained, wears suits for a living, has a big house, maybe a family waiting for him back in the city somewhere. Even though he didn’t have a clue – wearing a two-piece in the heat of the day, for Christ’s sake – he thought he was better than Mick, better than everyone in the pub. Mick could see it in his eyes, in that folksy overconfident way he talked, throwing in a big word every so often then explaining it, assuming Mick didn’t know what it meant. And Mick didn’t know, making him even more angry.
He still boils from the frustration of the encounter – the cunt not taking the bait and starting something. So he doesn’t leave, and he’s still sitting in his car a few hours later when the man stumbles out. The big salesman fumbles for his car keys, muttering to himself: ‘Find a motel, Brian. Left things a bit late this time, old mate.’
He turns to the sound of Mick coming up behind him and drops the keys. When he bends over to scoop them up his drunken gaze slowly focuses on the shadow eclipsing him. ‘Oh hey, steady on,’ he says, looking up and recognising who had approached him. Then Mick hits him in the gut, hard.
The man keels over and vomits a green stream of muck onto his shiny shoes: an afternoon’s worth of grog.
‘Fucken pissant. Gave you the chance,’ Mick says and hits him again, clumsily to the face. Brian is too stunned to fight back and stumbles against his car. Mick launches in with his fists, striking hard, and the bloke grunts with each blow but doesn’t say anything, doesn’t cry out or swear at him or scream. He lurches against his nice new Falcon XP holding his bulging stomach – he’s more out of shape than Mick had realised – before raising a hand.
‘Wait, son —’
‘Wrong fucken answer,’ Mick says and hits him flush on the nose and Brian staggers, then belches a hail of blood and snot. Mick steps back spreadlegged. ‘Come on, hit me.’
Dazed, the man blinks, so Mick punches him in the gut and something cracks under the low ridge of ribs and the bloke whoomps and goes down on one knee, gasping for breath.
‘Friggin pathetic.’ Mick clenches his fists but he doesn’t hit him again. It was all a waste of time and he just stands there staring out at the street, feeling the anger surge useless through him. ‘World’s all pain, you piece-of-shit city cunt,’ he snarls, looking back at the man. ‘Never been hit before, eh? Welcome to reality, cobber.’
The man scratches in the dirt like a chicken for his keys, then throws open the door. He pulls his bulk up into it.
‘You’ll thank me,’ Mick says, but Brian’s not starting up the car and racing away. Instead the city slicker’s fumbling beneath the seat and he pulls something out just as Mick gets his arm. It’s only a tyre iron, but when Mick sends it spinning away into the darkness the man launches his full weight after it like it’s a gun. Mick’s knocked to the dirt and the man slams on top of him, scrabbling after the weapon.
Mick groans, the wind punched out of him. The fat heft of the man wrestles over him, sliding towards the tyre iron, and Mick grabs the man’s hair and clambers onto his back. The big man still tries to scramble on, desperate, and Mick tries to rear him back. ‘Leave the fucken thing.’ But the bloke keeps struggling and Mick pulls out the knife tucked against the small of his back.
The man must sense a shift in his weight because he suddenly bucks upwards and Mick tumbles off, nearly stabbing himself with his knife. It spins away across the dirt.
The salesman pushes up to his feet and stumbles towards the open road as Mick scrambles for his knife. He sees the bloke duck down for the tyre iron and as he comes at him, the man spins, swinging the iron hard through the air. His momentum too much, Mick tries to jump backwards but his weak legs tremble with the exertion and the metal cracks into his ribs. Pain explodes in his side. He collapses onto the man and as they fall backwards the knife slides in easily, and then he’s gut-sticking the fat fuck again and again: hard sharp thrusts into the apron of flab around his middle. The man’s eyes bulge with white fear as he flails at the knife and Mick punches between the bones of his hand and impales it to his stomach.
The salesman bubbles blood from his mouth and Mick yanks out the knife and holds the bloke down by the hair. He saws the blade across his throat, a grinning line. Mick holds him tight as the man gags and vomits again in a disgusting splatter, and keeps him pinned to the ground as the ragged gash of his throat spits and burbles. Even bleeding out his life on the dirt the fat bastard tries to buck Mick off one last time.
The fading light in the man’s eyes is so like Mick’s sister’s: a giving over of power. A giving up of self, of hope, of identity. There’s something pure in it: the heart of existence or something, the moment just before death when the mind relaxes and the eyes go blank and bowels loosen, and Mick’s there drinking it all in: the smells, the sounds, the sight, so like the first time.
He sits straddling the bastard’s still-warm chest – the smell of blood rising up in the cooling air, silence around him – and it’s like he’s just tamed a great stallion between his legs and it now rests docile beneath him. He presses a hand into the gore of the gaping throat then raises it to his face. Stares at the blood running down his palm in the darkness. His anger is gone. The world is calm.
It’s some moments later that he rises, stepping back from the body unsteadily, and takes in the aftermath. The lot looks like a warzone. Anyone could pass by the street or come out of the pub and the whole thing would be laid out like Christmas dinner, and it hits him what he’s done. He’d tried to control himself for so long – all those years at the camp he’d kept his anger locked tight, had tried ignoring the taunts and humiliation until he couldn’t take it anymore.
And then he’d been sent to the station where Cutter had sensed the anger: his rage at the world. He’d pushed him and pushed him, talking about his secrets, of not being able to hide what’s inside him forever.
And the first friggin’ chance, this happens.
Dammit. Dammit. Dammit.
He’ll be caught if he doesn’t move quickly, if he doesn’t clean it up like he did with his sister, as his father did with the sleeping man.
He grabs the fat bastard’s keys and opens the XP’s boot, drags his bulk over and hauls him into it. It’s like picking jelly up off the floor. He retrieves the tyre iron and grabs some cardboard from a nearby pile of garbage and sweeps over the scuffmarks in the dirt. When he can’t clear the blood, he finds a half-empty can of oil and pours it over the stains as if from a car’s leaking engine.
He’s about to get in the man’s car when he hears something from the street. He crouches by the car and looks out at the building across the way, thinking he sees a shadow in the darkness. But after long moments nothing happens, and he figures it’s his nerves. He jumps into the unfamiliar sedan and takes off.
On the outskirts of town he passes a tip and dumps the body in the middle of a huge pile of rubbish. He spends some time burying it, and in the process getting covered in blood and shit and the garbage of the town’s residents, but the body’s soon hidden deep. He considers setti
ng the whole thing on fire, but that’d just draw attention and wouldn’t burn the skeleton anyway. Instead he returns to the XP and pushes it off a nearby quarry wall. Shame that. Would have been a nice one to keep.
It takes him a while to jog back to the lot. His car’s still there and he stands at a distance watching it a bit longer, but the street’s empty and he finally makes a run for it and hightails it out of town before he comes across anyone.
He’s parking back at the station quiet as he can when someone passes on the ridge above on a horse, their cigarette gleaming high in the air. Mick sits silent, waiting for the figure to look down, to sense the heat from the car, thinking it’s Cutter. But it’s just Cunningham doing a last check of the nearby stock and he soon passes and Mick can head for the trough to wash off the blood and stink of rubbish. There’s a rush through his body like a drug and he welcomes the bracing cold of the water. It’s like being baptised once more.
He heads to the mess hall in time for dinner, legs still shaking – with adrenalised fear, with excitement. But as he’s walking up he notices a light at head height beside the door.
Cutter takes a last drag on his ciggy and grounds it. ‘Ya mussed a spot,’ he says, tapping his grizzled throat, then walks inside.
Mick touches the wet of blood he stupidly missed on his neck.
4
Mick spends the next nervous few days watching Cutter close, wondering how much he’d seen. Had he guessed what Mick had been up to, from the blood on his neck? Or seen him pull in before he’d cleaned up? Could he even have been there in town, watching the parking lot from across the road?
But the Kiwi doesn’t look at him at meals, and nor does anyone else seem to look at him differently. Mick begins to suspect the shooter’d thought he’d simply culled another wether. The bloke got to him with all his sly jokes and bullshit questions, but he was just being a shit-stirring prick. He didn’t know jack and as long as Mick didn’t cave and give anything away there was no reason for Cutter or anyone else to know anything. The only thing tying him to the salesman was that they’d had an argument in a pub. Big fucken deal. And Mick’d left straight after that, anyway.