by TJ Park
“No, Mick, I don’t.” Doug could barely look Mick in the eyes, afraid his sight would be flash-burned by what he saw in the other man’s face.
“Yeah, you’re forced to do it,” Mick said.
“You’re not having a go at me, Mick? You understand?”
“Yeah. You can’t help yourself.”
Mick went and patted Doug on the shoulder and looked away straight after. As an act both of absolution and dismissal, it came out crooked. In that moment, Mick was worse than old. He looked utterly defeated.
Warlock wouldn’t let go so easily. He hung close to Doug, just outside the perimeter of a good swift kick. “Doug! Listen! Just listen! Think about it. It’s after us, you said. It’ll leave the kid alone if we go now!”
Doug’s hesitation spurred Warlock on.
“Us and the crate. We get in the ute and go. It’ll chase us!”
It was crazy how Warlock was excited over such an idea, but it was an attractive lunacy. It made it seem so easy … just get in the ute and go.
“Get out of my way before I knock you down,” Doug said.
Warlock, stricken, jolted out of the way as if pushed.
But Doug wasn’t really angry at him. Any ire was reserved solely for himself.
“Are you going?” Janet asked, her voice cracking from strain.
Doug moved over to the threshold, hoping all talk was done with, but Mick spoke up once more. “I know we’ll catch up again, Doug. I want us to, so we can curse each other for how we screwed it up.”
Doug nodded, his throat closing up. He was glad of the distraction as he prepared for his own dash out the door.
The old man said one more thing, almost lost in the crashing out back that Doug was anticipating. So he was outside and running before he could ask Mick to clarify. It almost sounded like something out of some ancient book. It made for lousy last words.
“Remember, you broke faith first.”
Chapter Fourteen
Doug stepped lively as he crossed the veranda, shunning the front steps, not trusting the obvious route.
He vaulted the railing one-handed and landed in a light crouch on the ground beyond the flowerbed. It was remarkably easy to do; it felt like gravity’s pull was cut in half. He seemed impossibly graceful, amazingly fast, his pulse ticking appreciably in his wrists. This was what happened when the high voltage of fear was put to good use.
He knew the last thing he should do was approach the ute, but he could not resist a quick glance inside. Making a half-arsed compromise between curiosity and caution, he went around it and looked in through the passenger window, not the driver’s side. In the dark interior he could make out the grey gleam of the ute’s key enticingly fitted into the ignition. It took a determined effort to turn his back on it.
He ran in a crouch from the ute for a short distance, eyes darting every which way. When he couldn’t pretend the ute was screening him any more, he straightened up and sprinted across the yard.
Once he was out in the middle, he hesitated, hovering in place, not sure which way he should go first. The machinery shed was where the boy would have gone initially, but it didn’t have an air of occupancy about it. A gut feeling.
He should not have stopped moving. His fear-fuelled drive was deserting him. In its place came an inertia that made him feel sluggish, out of sorts, lost.
He knew there was a good reason for his indecision. It was trying to alert him to some obvious fact, but his efforts to grasp it consciously only pushed the elusive knowledge further away. All he knew was that something around him was gone. Something that should be there was missing.
He studied the dark farm structures surrounding him, and the darker slots in between, trying to discern any difference. It was so quiet. Even the low moan of the wind had died down.
Feeling vulnerable, he began moving again, hoping some of his former vigour would return if he acted. As he trotted he kept a sharp eye peeled, not only for Scott, but for what was wrong, what was missing.
Doug was too focused on seeing when he should have been listening.
***
Hardly any time after Doug had left, the steady pounding out back stopped.
Its halt was not a complete surprise. Until then, everyone inside was braced against the front walls, fearful the house would come down all at once.
Mick seemed unconcerned about the possibility of the roof caving in. He appeared to be brooding on an entirely different matter as he sat on the crate beside the open front door. He picked at the hard calluses on his hands … waiting, everyone assumed, for Doug’s return.
He started speaking out of the blue. “Know anything about opals, Wally?”
Warlock did not reply. He was almost hoping the familiar had gone after Doug, because otherwise it meant the house was about to give way. He listened for the ceiling to give some brief warning, a curt creak or groan, before it went.
Not bothered by the lack of response, Mick continued: “I read up on them while we were preparing for this job. Did you know that most gems are supposed to have magical properties? I suppose you do, in your line of work, so stop me if you know this one … the opal’s a healing stone. Part of what they can do is fix your eyes. I could definitely use that. They make you smarter – that’d help you, Wally. They’re also supposed to protect you from disease and help mothers have babies.”
He regarded Warlock with a lively expression. “And I believe it all, Wally. I honestly do. With all the money this lot will bring, you can have those things. Laser surgery for the eyes, the best doctors and hospitals to help mothers with babies. And as for making a person smarter? Why, there’s no-one smarter than a rich man, is there?”
Patting the crate beneath him, Mick smiled. Seeing those sparkling eyes on him was bad enough, but the smile scared Warlock out of his wits. It was the first friendly smile Mick had ever given him.
Mick patted his hip pocket, cupping the rock in there. He remembered how holding it had comforted him when he approached that other misbegotten house.
“The most reassuring thing I learned, the thing that made me feel good about this job, is that opals are known as ‘the patron stone of thieves’. They reckoned they had the power to make their wearer invisible.”
He raised his head, cocked an ear. The silence outside was large and consistent.
He nodded, satisfied.
“And no-one’s more invisible when all eyes are looking elsewhere.”
He got off the crate and began inserting the colour-coded keys in it.
Warlock stepped forward carefully, to better observe what Mick was doing.
The old man got the crate open. He lifted out the top tray, tipping it into an old knapsack he had acquired from somewhere. It was an awkward job one-handed, having to keep the top of the knapsack from flopping shut while scooping velvet baggies into it. Half of them tumbled to the floor. Yet he collected them up briskly enough. Anyone could see he was enjoying his work.
Warlock was the calmest he’d ever felt, though a cold ocean wind roared through him. He heard himself say, “Mick, what are you doing?”
Mick was onto the second tray, not losing a single baggie this time. The sack grew fat.
“I said, what the fuck are you doing, Mick?”
Mick hesitated. It had nothing to do with Warlock, whom he soundly ignored. He waggled one of the baggies in his hand, halfway in its transfer from the third tray to the knapsack. After a moment’s indecision he added the baggy to the knapsack and two more after that in quick succession.
Warlock had retrieved his sawn-off earlier (guns were starting to be left all over the place), and he was gripping it now as desperately as he would a ripcord in freefall. He marched over to Mick and pointed its stubby barrel at the old man’s hunched-over back. “I’m seeing you fine, Mick. You haven’t gone invisible on me.”
Mick picked out two more baggies from the crate, hefting one in each hand. He rose achingly to his feet, then turned and tossed one of them to Warlock.
“Here, catch.”
To his credit, Warlock did not drop the shotgun … but he did pull it up in a defensive reflex.
Held by its drawstring neck the other baggie made an expedient cosh. Mick brought the weighted end of it down as hard as he could on Warlock’s wrist. Yelping, Warlock dropped the shotgun. It hit the floor and went off. A floor rug flapped like a startled bird and a side table lifted briefly before it dropped again, part of a leg shorter. It could have easily made Mick one leg shorter.
“You little prick,” he said. “You had that cocked.”
Mick swung the cosh at Warlock’s head. Warlock didn’t try to get out of the way, with not a care for anything right then, except holding onto his jangling wrist.
At first, his face appeared clear and unblemished where the baggie had struck it. Then Warlock smacked both hands over his face, his wrist quickly forgotten as blood poured out through his fingers in a shocking flood. He fell onto his knees, blathering pleas for Mick not to hit him again as he tried to hold his gashed face together.
Mick hefted up the opal-laden knapsack, and pulled it round on a heavy centrifuge swing. It arrived at Warlock slow, but its momentum was undeniable, sending the younger man onto his back. Mick then retrieved the shotgun from where it had landed under a chair, and began dragging the knapsack by the straps toward the front door. Curled up on the floor, Warlock gulped like a fish in silt-clogged water.
“You traitor.”
Mick staggered as if hit with a new burden. He recovered swiftly. Rage made him agile. “What did you say?”
Warlock shut up and studied the floor centimetres from his nose, but the conviction of what he had said still showed on his face.
Though Mick had injured Warlock, he’d done it with little malice. He had done it with the distracted satisfaction of a man who, though he felt past it, was still able to trounce a young pup. Now an ugly colour suffused his face.
“What did you call me?”
Any show of defiance had scarpered. Warlock scrunched up on the floor to intrude as little as possible on Mick’s outrage. It wasn’t good enough. Mick set the knapsack aside and marched over to him, pushing the shotgun barrel into the raw face. Warlock squealed.
“Don’t kill him!” Lauren cried. Her plea wasn’t due to any affection felt for Warlock. She simply didn’t want another human being killed in front of her, no matter how despicable he might be.
Warlock was almost yodelling.
“I was wrong, alright? I didn’t know what I was saying! I’m a moron, just like you said! I’m wrong! I’m wrong!”
“You’re fucking right you are!”
“No, he’s not.”
Mick whirled round.
Janet had never moved from her place, but she suddenly seemed imposing, as if she was standing right over them. Beside her, Lauren looked on anxiously. But Janet knew when it was enough. She did not dare any more, but she didn’t back down from what she had said, either.
Mick switched back to Warlock. The women did not matter, neither did their opinions. It was listening to them that screwed everything up to begin with. His issue was with Wally – the gutless wonder huddled on the floor daring to find fault with him.
“I’m not taking a single stone more than my due,” he said to the pathetic shit who cowered at his feet. “Truth be told, I left you more than you deserve, Wally. It’s an equal share, a three-way split. Or however Doug decides to divvy up the rest with a worthless dropkick like you. So don’t you dare call me a traitor.”
He poked the shotgun’s bore at Warlock’s cringing head, noting with satisfaction the dull thump it made against his skull.
Warlock shrieked. “Alright! Alright! You win!”
With that, Mick’s fury seemed to fall away. He suddenly appeared very old and bewildered, uncertain of what to do next. He distractedly pulled a mashed box of cigarettes from his breast pocket. He frowned at its ruined condition and stuffed it back in. He half-looked around as if seeking out someone he knew, but not finding them.
He discovered Warlock again when he had to step around him, and some of his focus returned. “Damn junkie. You wouldn’t know loyalty if it bit you in the arse.”
He went back to the door and hefted up the knapsack, but found it harder to manage this time. He swayed at the threshold as if caught in a breeze, tormented by the empty silence.
Then he left.
***
Doug went to the machinery shed first, despite the firm conviction no-one was there. As he approached its dark, propped-open doors he grew afraid he would find Scott inside, either kneeling before his father’s mangled corpse, or lying still and silent beside him.
He found neither of the Clarkson males inside, dead or otherwise. He did discover spilled blood and signs of a ferocious struggle, but it appeared the work of a fight between men. Of the beast there was no sign.
Thinking of the familiar made him listen for its impacts against the house. He listened and he listened and heard only his own heart wanting to beat free of his chest. He waited a while longer to be sure, but it was undeniable: the familiar’s assault on the house had stopped.
How long ago?
He wondered if Janet would allow him back into the house empty-handed when he caught a noise, like a loud knock, from the direction of the old shearing shed. He followed it, but only because he thought the familiar would be far stealthier, far quieter.
Passing the corner of the machinery shed he sensed something monstrously large watching him from the side of it. He halted before he was ready to, his toes stubbing the inside of his boots. Precise round eyes gleamed at him. Large ones.
The moment he saw them he knew they were the dead headlights of the combine harvester parked next to the shed. But it still gave him a nasty start. It seemed too much like the familiar had become larger by fattening on those who had trespassed outside.
A sharp crack came from the shearing shed, perhaps a door or gate slammed shut. Doug went in via the old sheep pens, not the more obvious front doors. Jumping the railings, he went for the ramp that led up the narrow chute and raised floor within. He winced at the clumping noise he made going up before cat-treading into pitch black. He didn’t turn on the torch, not wanting it to stand out as a target.
He stood in the total dark a moment, willing his eyes to adjust, listening.
There was no way to skulk through the place effectively. The old timber floor boards creaked at every tentative step. He had a sense of something large bearing down on him. He jerked up to see an overhanging construction of interlacing rafters and crossbeams that hinted at a cavernous ceiling beyond.
Then something really went for him.
He didn’t see it. No need to. The boards were trampled in its rush to get to him. He turned and began to run, but the rate of hammered boards told him his race was already lost. He leapt for a low crossbeam directly above, hooking his arms around it, but couldn’t get his legs up in time. They were shunted from behind with incredible force, flipping him over the crossbeam so he roughly straddled it.
He lay there, stunned by an acrobatic feat accomplished without any effort on his part. He hugged the beam fiercely while the darkness below him snorted with rage. He had lost the rifle, but was still holding onto the torch. He had no urge to turn it on. His right thigh, the one struck hardest, was numb and leaden. He took quiet deep breaths, staying absolutely still until feeling came back into the leg, the subsequent pins and needles feeling like ants devouring him. When he was certain he wasn’t about to fall off, he sat up and shuffled along the beam toward an upright post.
Something small and hard struck the boards far below him. It sent the monster down there into a frenzy of explosive movement. Doug came alert to something that was meant to be fitted snugly under his belt. He patted the lack of it, then felt about the rest of him to be sure. No rifle and no pistol. Totally disarmed in a space of moments.
“Shit,” he hissed.
The monster heard. It assaulted anything in rea
ch, making Doug’s perch tremble.
Close to his ear a voice whispered: “Stuck up here, too, hey?”
Doug nearly fell off the crossbeam.
“Christ,” he cried, barely recovering, “you scared the fucking life out of me!”
Doug switched on the torch and Scott was there, sitting on a crossbeam adjacent to his own.
“You better turn that off,” Scott said. “You’re just stirring him up.”
Doug looked down. A huge, murderous devil with knife-tipped horns was glaring right back at him. The light was stirring it up. The monster shook its head and charged the nearest thing to dare stand against it – one of the shed’s support posts.
Doug and Scott hung on tighter as their seating shook.
The monster bounced off the post. It grunted to a standstill, one ear twitching in a half-turn, then it went for the post again. Ancient dust fell in curtain drops from the rafters above. The dust falling into the monster’s eyes was another affront. It kicked about as if trying to dislodge a rider from its back, horn tips flashing and ready to impale and gore if they could.
Doug switched the torch off.
The monster seemed to calm a little when the dark fell again, but still lumbered about, more than willing to be vexed, huffing and puffing to show its umbrage.
“What the hell’s that?” Doug whispered.
“A bull,” Scott said simply. “His name’s King Solomon.”
“No, I know what it is. I mean, what’s it doing here? Where did it come from?”
“We own it.”
“What …” he choose his words carefully, “… is it doing in the shearing shed?”
“He chased me here. That’s why he keeps hanging around. He knows I’m up here.” Scott nodded in response to Doug’s open mouth. They were close enough to faintly see each other in the dark now. “King Solomon doesn’t like to be owned.”
Doug thought a moment. “You got a gun?”
“Nah. I chucked it at him.”
“Did you manage to get a shot off first?”