“I know how to make it better.”
He pulled her thigh over towards him, forcing her gently onto her back. He slipped his fingers inside the front of her g-string, pushing through the short hair and working his finger into the dry groove beneath. She said nothing, her eyes staring at the ceiling, avoiding his face. He pulled her g-string off, slowly at first, sliding it down her thighs, but when she didn’t help him he dragged them down, tearing them past her ankles and tossing the garment onto the floor behind him.
“It’s what every woman wants. You want it. I know ya do.”
Jimbo spat on his fingers and rubbed them around her snatch, becoming impatient. He thrust a finger inside her, and she tensed, a small whine locked in the pit of her throat. He kept shoving his fingers until her muscles relaxed, and her breathing resumed normally, searching for the signs that might precede her fainting - the hitched breathing, the bulging of the eyes before they rolled white - and Jimbo was getting better at this all the time. And when he judged she was good and ready ...
“We’re gunna have a baby.”
... he drove his cock awkwardly inside her, struggling to get in, but he pushed as he always did and she would yield as she always would but this time, oh, this time -
Kylie screamed and bucked, taking Jimbo unawares. Shit, she hasn’t screamed for weeks, what the fuck? Jimbo fell awkwardly, clutching the edge of the bed. Kylie lashed out with her foot, catching Jimbo under the rib cage and sending him sprawling to the floor. Pain flared, but it was dwarfed by the anger and humiliation he felt. How dare she? How dare she fucken raise a hand against me? He clambered to his feet, as she launched herself screaming at his face, her hands clawed and tearing at the air. One swiped his cheek, deep, and blood splashed against his shoulder. He caught her other hand with his, and began to crush her wrist, then he kneed her in the stomach to bring her down.
Kylie collapsed with a whoosh. Jimbo dragged her up by the hair and threw her to the bed. She tried to sob, but couldn’t inhale properly. He pushed her down onto the mattress, mashing her nose and lips with his palm. Using his knees, he repositioned himself between her thighs.
“Don’t you fucken hit me, bitch!” He slapped her face. Blood sprayed from her lips.
“No, Jimmy, no,” she managed to stammer, before he brought his hand across her face again.
“And don’t you ever fucken say no to me!”
“You don’t understand, you don’t unn unner unn ...” Pink froth leaked at the edges of her mouth. The eyes bulged, her back arched and she spasmed.
Jimbo shoved his cock inside her and rode the waves of her fit. As she passed out he came, then rolled off and went to sleep.
~ * ~
The following morning, from the privacy of the kitchen window, Jimbo watched his wife and his mother out on the beaten dirt Mum liked to call a garden. Kylie sank to her knees, her face covered by her hands. Mel knelt quickly beside her, wrapping her arms around Kylie’s trembling shoulders, her mouth working at soothing sounds.
Anger bubbled like acid inside Jimbo’s gut, the rage not quite succeeding to mask the inevitable feeling of wrongness that was trying to work its way out of his subconscious into his waking mind.
He couldn’t make out her words, simply a torrent of broken sobs punctuated by guttural noises. Her trembling turned to shuddering, and Kylie fell backwards onto the patchwork grass, her flailing limbs churning the dust into a thin brown cloud that rose up around them like a veil.
Jimbo unclenched his fists and looked away. Ten fucken grand. And what have I got? Damaged goods. The bitch is an epileptic. Damaged fucken goods!
He rummaged in the vegetable bin in the fridge, pulled out a beer and popped the top. Jimbo swallowed a mouthful of cool froth and stared around the room, wondering what he was going to do. No job, no money, and when the boys found out he’d been sidled with a dud, he’d be laughed out of town. It was bad enough he hadn’t cut her when he should have, he was already copping shit for that.
The wooden box on the mantelpiece drew his eyes. And soon his fingers followed, rubbing the smooth surface of the box, unadorned teak, over one hundred years old. From father to son.
I wanted you to be special, not like the others, not like those hobbled, meek fucken cows the rest of them end up with.
He lifted his fingers from the box, briefly picking at the scabs on his cheek.
I wanted you to be like ... to be ... and the subconscious broke through and swamped him ... Niki.
Jimbo stood there unable to breathe, staring at his father’s wooden box - his wooden box, his heirloom - and knew that he’d been fucked, that he was fucked, that Niki was gone for good, and he’d spend the rest of his life saddled with this broken bitch he’d wasted his father’s miserable inheritance on.
~ * ~
Jimbo spent the day perched on the crumbling banks of Broken River, polishing off a bottle of Cranky’s homestyle whiskey while admiring the thick stagnant pools of mud that not so long ago were at least waterholes. Most of the tributaries into the Goulburn River were drying up quicker than cum on a whore’s chin.
Used to be able to get yellow-belly and carp outta here, even cod. What’s this world coming to?
He threw the empty bottle down into the mud, then splashed it with some yellow dehydrating piss, clambered onto his bike and pedalled away from town.
Maybe go up to the North-South Pipe, smash some more fucken holes in it. City cunts. Stealing our water, stealing our lives, stealing our fucken women.
A whiskey haze had settled in, and a slow sweat dripped into Jimbo’s eyes while thoughts of Brian and his fat pregnant cow whore Belle whirled around in his head; of frothing, twitching Kylie; and Mel, his mother, retreating from him, hiding away in her own house; Brian, fucken Brian and that card, that number to ring; of Dave and his Abo fucken ways; Wazza’s truck; Keats hooking up with The Cartel; Brian fucken set me up; and Niki, oh, Niki ...
... then Jimbo discarding the bike in the driveway. Staggering to the front door - the lights are all off, not that late, why’s the - stumbling inside onto his knees. Dry retching into the threadbare carpet.
Padded footsteps, a sudden rush.
“You don’t know anything about me!” Kylie’s voice, high-pitched and stretched.
Jimbo lifted his head and half-raised an arm against the cricket bat swinging towards his face. It smashed into his arm, a flare of pain shooting through his nerves, whiting out, hold on, hold it, don’t fucken lose -
Jimbo sprawled backwards, breath caught in his throat, unable to scream as the pain roared in his arm.
“Babies! Babies!” Kylie held the bat aloft, high over her shoulder. “You know nothing!”
“Don’t ya fucken dare -” Jimbo managed to shout, before the bat crashed down on his head.
Then nothing more ...
~ * ~
A flurry of torchlight ahead on the banks of the Goulburn River broke the deepening dusk. The horses slowed, reined in by Dave, who sat on the roof of the ute. Jimbo and Keats sat inside the cab. Keats hadn’t said much, and Jimbo knew he was more than angry. Keats’s half-breed dogs, part dingo and pit bull, whined and slavered out in the back, their claws skittering over the rusting corrugated tray. The smell of drying mud and rotted vegetation rose from the river with the light breeze that ushered in the night.
“Shit,” Keats hissed between his teeth. “She’s going upriver. You got the knife?”
Jimbo nodded, patted the thin leather scabbard on his belt.
The ute ground to a halt and they leapt from the cab. Several of the boys had turned up - Brian, Sledge, Mason and cousin Rhys - wearing daypacks and with torches strapped to foreheads, scenting blood as much as the dogs Keats was rounding up with the leash.
“Found ya bike up on the side of the river,” said Brian. Torchlight flashed over the nearby ground, settling on the bike frame. The front wheel lay twisted. Brian knelt and sniffed the seat. “Engine’s still warm.”
The boys ch
uckled.
“Cut the shit.” The dogs strained at the leash, and Keats pulled back hard. “How long ago?”
“Maybe half an hour. Reckon she’s making for the Abo camps. She gets there, she’s gone, Jimbo. Ya know how they feel about this sort a thing.”
“If we know where she’s headed, then we can cut her off.”
“Already sorted. Brownie’s gone ahead to the camp, gunna work his way back down the river.”
Keats shook his head. “Dave, you get on well with the Abos. Get over there before Brownie fucks it up.”
The dogs snarled and whined, slowly pulling Keats down towards the water.
“Once Jimbo and I are in the water, I want the rest of you to follow. Hang back about fifty metres or so in case we miss her and she tries to double back. Keep ya torches off, so she doesn’t twig. Sledge and Mason, you take the left bank. Brian, you and Rhys take the right.”
Jimbo strapped the torch to his forehead and turned it on. “You not wearing one, Keats?”
Keats laughed. “Nah, this should be fun. Haven’t had a real good test for ma ultras since I had them put in. Ya got those knickers?”
Jimbo handed Keats a pair of Kylie’s knickers, the black laces ones she liked to wear when they were about to make love. “The water ain’t gunna be a problem?”
“These are my fucken dogs.” Keats rubbed the knickers in the dogs’ noses, then unclipped the leashes. The dogs bounded into the shallows, then raced upstream. “Come on, let’s move.”
The water was cool on their ankles as Keats and Jimbo waded in. Soon they were in up to their knees, a thick layer of mud squelching over their feet, making it hard to move quickly. Up ahead, the dogs splashed through the shallows near the left bank, growling and yelping. Jimbo surveyed the river banks as they moved, casting the torchlight over the bushes, looking for clues in the mud. He couldn’t make out much. Behind him, the rest of the boys followed, but he couldn’t see them either.
“What are ultras, Keats?”
Keats tapped his temple near the corner of his eyes. “Had it wired up recently. I’m using infrared at the moment.”
“But ya don’t have metal eyes.”
“Jesus, Jimbo. The older boys wear them like a badge of honour. Nobody in the last five years has had that done - they’re fucken ugly. There’s a whole bunch of spectrums I can use. Ultraviolet’s good for following blood trails. She wasn’t bleeding, was she?”
“I dunno, don’t think so.”
“The Cartel’s where it’s at, Jimbo. I tell ya.”
“The fucken Cartel. How come they got all the good technology? How come the government doesn’t invest any of that out here? Just the fucken Cartel. City cunts.”
“The government? Who do ya think keeps the train running? Keeps your phone working? The Cartel is the government, mate.”
“Bullshit.”
“They’re in charge now, no bullshit. The Cartel are bringing the rural areas back into the fold, building them up again.”
“Using us, Keats, that’s all. Taking what they want, taking over the town.”
“Shepp was fucken dying under the last government! Yer standing on the wrong side of the fence now, Jimbo, and the longer ya stand there, the sooner yer gunna find yaself hung out to dry. Just like the Abos were when we were in charge. Ya gotta move with the times, mate, stick with the winners. If ya don’t yer gunna be stagnating just like this fucken river.”
They slogged up that stagnating river for the next twenty minutes in silence. What Keats had said nagged at Jimbo, eating away at his inner core, at who he was. Keats is so fucken sure of himself these days, so fucken confident. And me? What the fuck happened to me? How did this happen? And it nagged at him, because deep down he feared what Keats said was true. The Cartel weren’t coming, they were here, and soon the City, and the things he despised about it, would follow.
“We got some action up ahead!” Keats pointed towards the riverbank, but it was now too dark for Jimbo to see anything and his torchlight faded over the water. “The dogs are up on the bank. Come on, move it!”
They waded towards the riverbank, sloshing out of the cool dank water towards the thick weed that clung above the waterline. The dogs growled menacingly nearby, though Jimbo still couldn’t see them. They clambered up the bank, Keats leading the way, pushing through the low scrub, as the ground slowly levelled. Torchlight revealed the crossbreeds pacing the base of a crooked gum tree, their backs bristling. Sharp teeth shone with slaver, the red of their eyes reflected back in the light, casting the animals with demonic demeanour.
“Good boys, good boys.” Keats gathered them, reattached the leash and wound part of the lead around his wrist in an attempt to help restrain them.
Jimbo peered upwards into the branches, but couldn’t see her. “How far up?”
“About halfway. Ya gunna have to go up and get her. Be careful but, she falls she could break her neck.”
“Boys!” Jimbo hollered into the darkness behind them. “We’ve got her. Gunna need ya steady hands real quick!”
Within minutes the rest of the crew arrived at the base of the tree. Kylie had ignored Jimbo’s attempts at talking her down, so Mason, on his first hunt, volunteered to climb up and get her down. Brian took a leash with a metal cuff from his pack and handed it to Mason.
“We’ve got thirty metres of lead, should be plenty. When you get to her, clip -”
“I know, I know. Clip it to her ankle.”
“Let us know when yer done it, then give her a push, we’ll take the weight.”
Mason scrambled up the base of the trunk, pulling himself up through the lower branches.
“And Mason!” yelled Jimbo. “Be careful. She kicks hard.”
Sledge and Brian fed the leash through their hands, while Rhys opened his pack and removed the first aid kit. Jimbo unsheathed the knife. He didn’t want to do this. Up above, the sounds of a struggle, Kylie yelling and Mason grunting, no doubt a foot lashing out at a head. He really didn’t want to do this. The adrenalin surged through his body. A rabble of butterflies hatched in his stomach, making him feel sick.
“You ready?” Keats had tied the dogs to a nearby tree, and then taken up the slack on the leash with the others.
Mason yelled, the boys braced themselves, then Kylie screamed and the leash snapped taut. It took almost five minutes to lower her. Whenever she managed to cling to a branch, Mason was there, a foot ready to stamp her free. By the time they got her to the ground, the butterflies had burst into a flock of sharp-beaked magpies, tearing at his insides. He couldn’t look at her. She screamed as the boys pinioned her face-down on the ground. The dogs strained at their leash nearby, barking furiously. His heart hammered in his eardrums like the machinery in the cannery and sweat trickled cold from his armpits down his sides.
Keats held her right leg firm, presenting the ankle, its thick cord of tendon stretched tight. Rhys stuffed a thick, tooth-marked leather cord into Kylie’s mouth and told her to bite down. She tried to spit it out and he forced it back in.
“Do it!” Keats snarled, not unlike his dogs.
Jimbo knelt down and carefully, almost gently, took her ankle in his hand. He felt the tension there, the bound energy willing itself but unable to kick. Keats held the leg vice tight. Veins rippled across the surface of his scalp with the exertion.
The knife rested on her tendon, like a bow on a violin, and Jimbo readied himself to play a terrible song. When he cut her, the snap of the tendon cracked like a gunshot through the night, the dogs suddenly whining. Blood sprayed hot and stinging into his eyes. And then Kylie’s scream, a howling pitch of despair and pain that rose like a white heat in their ears, and as Jimbo wiped her blood from his face, her body fell slack and silent.
“Let her bleed clean.” Keats released her leg, then clapped Jimbo on the shoulder. “You did well, mate. That was a good cut.”
A match flared, then the aroma of strong tobacco cut through the stink of the river and the acri
d smell of fresh blood. Brian passed over the cigar, and as Jimbo savoured the taste of the first puff, Rhys began to dress the wound.
~ * ~
A mob of eastern grey kangaroos lounged in the shadows Mount Major cast over the flatlands in the early afternoon sun. Even though winter was drawing to an end, enough heat remained in the day to draw a light sweat to the surface of the skin. The air hung still and resonated with cicadas buzzing in the scrub while kookaburras cackled hidden in the eucalypts that clung to this side of the hill that called itself a mountain. Cockatoos fought noisily in the tree Jimbo and Brian had taken shelter beneath, the boys enjoying both the shade and the noisy cover the birds provided while they scoped out the mob below.
The Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy - vol 05 Page 25