by Tanya Moir
The rain rode him down so softly he didn’t even know it was there until he saw the droplets clinging to his sleeve and the first wave carried on past him and over the range and the second came in harder. Winstone looked back and there was a pretty good hollow halfway up one of the tors so he climbed up and sat in it and watched the rain and the far-off cattle and huts down below and the line of the dirt road darkening.
When he’d finished doing that he got the Zippo out and practised flipping it open and lighting it all at once in one hand. He smoked the speargrass stem for a while, which tasted bad, and after that there was nothing to burn but a few tussock blades that curled to black ash in his hand and refused to flame.
OUTSIDE THE RAIN FELL thick and thunderous over the range and ran off the overhanging rock and sputtered fatly in the dust. The light of Cooper’s fire was red on the roof of the cave and spilled out into the steely blue deepening day and the coffee pot hissed and in the dry at the back of the cave the tethered horses shifted.
You figure they know we’re comin for them?
Reckon so.
What if we don’t find em?
Cooper held up his hand. Quiet now. You hear that? He picked up his rifle and crossed the dirt to lean at the mouth of the cave.
Cattle? The Kid pressed up to the rock on the other side. He had his six-shooter in his hand. There was bellowing coming up over the rain and then the sound of hooves and the crack of whips and when he leaned out, pistol first, the Kid could see steaming backs and plastered-down hides and the canyon filling with the herd.
So what do we do?
Untie the horses. You ready to ride?
Yessir.
Then sit down, Cooper said, and he walked back to the fire.
That’s all?
That’s all. Lessen you’re fixin to make some more coffee.
You figure they’re just cowmen down there?
Could be.
Cooper reached the coffee pot from the fire and poured himself another mug. For cowmen, he said, they been runnin their mob pretty hard. And I don’t know about you but I counted four different brands on them cattle out there.
Rustlers?
That’s my bet.
You figure they seen our fire?
Cooper stirred it up some and said, I reckon they mighta done Kid. Lessen they’re blind.
Howdy fellas.
Five men stood strung across the mouth of the cave. They carried their rifles across their chests and the light from the fire played on their boots and the pistols slung at their hips and their hats were dark and dripping with rain and shaded their eyes and what light there was left in the day was behind them.
That’s a mighty fine cave you got there, the tallest one said. Real commodious like. Mind if we step inside?
Be my guest. Cooper raised his mug. You boys want some coffee? We just made a fresh pot.
Well that’s mighty kind, aint it boys? Don’t mind if we do.
Outside the cattle shifted and settled and spread out to graze and the strangers’ horses stood with their eyes half closed and their heads down in the rain. Inside the fire burned low and the strangers sprawled on their blankets in the dirt with their shoulders on their saddles. Two of them pulled their hats down and dozed and the rest didn’t speak a word.
The tall one pulled a canteen out of his saddlebag and took a swig and grimaced and sucked his teeth and passed it on and the other two men did the same. The Kid had never seen Cooper take strong drink but when the canteen came to him Cooper lifted it high and long and then he handed it on with a look that said the Kid should do the same. The Kid took as small a sip as he could and the moonshine burned down his throat and up into his nose and he coughed it back up and the strangers laughed and Coop said, Boy never can hold his drink, and then they laughed some more.
Over here kid, the tall one said, and the Kid stoppered up the canteen and tossed it across the fire and around it went again.
So, the tall one said, when Cooper had drunk a third time. You boys lookin for someone or they lookin for you?
Cooper wiped his mouth and said, I don’t follow you friend.
Only two reasons a man has for being up here. Which is yours?
Cooper let the question hang over the fire for a while like maybe there was a third choice and the Kid thought he saw one of the sleeping men’s hands move a little closer to his gun. The tall one and his friends were watching Cooper hard and while they did the Kid shifted back a bit further out of the light and didn’t even pretend to drink this time.
A girl, Cooper said at last, and one of the strangers laughed. We’re lookin for a girl.
Aint we all. Don’t find many runnin this high on the range. What’s she like, this girl of yours?
Little, Coop said. With long yellow hair. You seen her?
Up here? Alone?
No, Cooper said. No she aint alone. You got any more in that bottle?
The Kid didn’t remember going to sleep but then someone was kicking his foot and in the darkness under the brim of his hat he opened his eyes and saw Coop lying next to him with his back to the fire and a stranger’s boots between them. The Kid froze. The boots moved off.
They’re out cold, he heard a voice say. Drunk as skunks.
I don’t like it, another said. They’re bounty hunters for sure.
For sure, the tall one said.
You reckon they’re up here lookin for us?
Dont hardly matter none. They found us.
I say we kill em now.
The Kid hardly dared move except to glance over at Coop whose eyes were open wide and he had a finger to his lips and his six-gun out and cradled close to his chest.
I’m beat, they heard the tall one say, and he yawned. Aint no call to go messin up this nice cave in the middle of the night. Let’s get us some sleep. We can kill em first thing in the mornin.
But what if they wake up before then?
The tall one laughed. Before sun-up? You see how much they drank? That amount of swamp whisky gets in a man he aint openin his eyes before noon.
The Kid heard the strangers settle themselves and slowly the firelight shrank and after a time no shadows moved and under his poncho the Kid drew his gun and he didn’t doubt for a second that Coop had a plan but he couldn’t help wondering, lying there, how long they had until dawn. He could see the back of the strangers’ watchman slumped in the mouth of the cave and the stars in the clearing sky outside, and it seemed to him they were already starting to pale before the last of the strangers began to snore and Cooper gave the sign.
You, Cooper pointed. Two eyes. And while the Kid kept watch, Cooper rolled slowly, like a man in his sleep, two turns away from the fire. The Kid’s finger was on his trigger. He held his breath. Across the cave, the strangers continued to snore. Cooper’s boot nudged his back. The Kid lowered his pistol and rolled. Still the strangers slept on.
As soon as they were out of the light the Kid and Cooper crawled like Apaches on elbows and knees through the muffling dust until they reached the horses. The grey and the palomino stood still and quiet as mice and the Kid and Cooper rolled under their bellies and felt for the stirrups and crouched there until their eyes got used to the dark. Cooper tapped the Kid’s arm with three fingers, then two, then one, and on the next beat they swung up and dug in their heels and then they were charging straight at the fire and the horses lifted and strangers rolled from their hooves and in their wake red embers flew. The Kid heard a shot and in the mouth of the cave the watchman threw up his hands and fell and the palomino jumped him lying spread-eagled there on his back in the dust with his rifle beside his hand.
They flew down the slope and gunfire rang from the rocks and bullets whined in their ears and they fired behind them without looking back. Cooper took a knife from between his teeth and cut the strangers’ horses free and the Kid fired up in the air and scattered them wide and the cattle woke as they galloped through. The Kid yelled and fired off a couple more and by the time he a
nd Coop had cut through the herd it was up and scattering too. The night closed behind them and the strangers couldn’t see what to shoot but the grey and the palomino were sure-footed as cats in the mountain dark and their hooves thundered on without missing a beat until they’d left all the miles of the night between the canyon and them and galloped clear into the dawn.
Winstone watched the back of the rain move off. Sun trailed it over the range and he followed them both.
Winstone Blackhat is getting away.
EAST
Winstone had been on Facebook for ages. It was how he met Zane. He’d been living in Clintoch for about two weeks when he first got on, and while he was never completely certain what started it off he had a pretty good idea it was the Samsung Galaxy Y that Tui Baxter-Brown got for her tenth birthday.
She started showing the phone off the moment she got on the bus, and instead of turning it off before they went into class, Tui waited until Miss Flynn got up to write on the board and took a close-up picture of Miss Flynn’s big bulgy bum with her pants digging in and pxted it round the room. Winstone, of course, didn’t have a phone, and Tui wouldn’t have sent it to him if he did, but she sat in the desk in front of him and he could see her do it.
It was one of the days that Winstone had lunch, and later, as he sat under the staffroom window by himself, eating his Marmite sandwich, he started to notice people were looking at him. They were whispering too, and Winstone was surprised, because usually the staring and whispering only lasted for a few days before the avoidance kicked in, and he’d thought the Clintoch kids were over the Hasketts by now and would mostly leave him alone as long as he didn’t get too close and was careful not to touch them.
That afternoon there was giggling all around him in class and people were sneaking looks at their phones and Winstone’s face grew hot and his belly felt sick as he tried to think what he’d done. He thought of asking to go to the toilet to see if his pants were wet or his fly was undone or he had a sign on his back saying Kick me, I’m a dick, but if they were, or he did, standing up in front of the class would make it so much worse and so he didn’t dare.
After the bell rang, the whispering and giggling went on as Winstone walked out to the bus park. He climbed up quickly and slid into his usual seat behind Marlene at the front and got out a book and pretended to read and not listen to what anyone said and he felt pretty safe because he knew he’d be getting off soon and the driver was there and no one was going take the seat beside him.
Hey nit-kid, Luke Carter said as he walked past, how was your lunch, and the whole bus cracked up, and that’s when Tui leaned right across the aisle and stuck her Galaxy Y in Winstone’s face and took a picture.
Winstone stared at her. He couldn’t help it.
You want to see? Tui’s fingers moved over the phone.
No, said Jacinda Pryce, sitting next to her. Don’t show him, Tui, that’s mean.
Tui held the phone out across the aisle and Winstone shuffled over the seat and for a moment he thought that she was going to let him touch it, but she didn’t, she just angled the screen so he could see.
There you are. Look.
Winstone looked. It was the first picture he’d seen of himself, alone. His face was screwed up and his eyes were red and he looked psycho and dirty and runty and mean. Winstone Haskett changed his profile picture, it said.
Tui scrolled down.
Winstone Haskett just shat his pants.
There was a picture of Winstone holding his lunch and scratching his head. Winstone Haskett is making nit sandwich for lunch.
Hey, you’ve already got twenty-eight likes, Tui said. You’re going viral.
Winstone blinked. He didn’t know how this could be happening to him, and he would have quite liked to ask, but he could feel the whole bus waiting for him to do something, move or speak, and he knew what kind of waiting it was, and that the only safe thing was to slide back across the seat and down into himself where nobody could see him. It wasn’t easy. He was bent out of shape and deep in the pit of his stomach his self fizzed and heaved as if it was going to burst out and explode like a Baghdad bomber. Winstone rested his head on the window and thought about that, bits of bus and Tui and Luke and Galaxy Y everywhere, and it felt pretty good, and he wished he had a button.
He wouldn’t have pushed it, though, because of Marlene. She was sitting right there in the seat in front not looking at him or doing anything that would make it worse, but she had her forehead pressed up to the window too and she stuck her skinny elbow back through the gap between the window and the seat and it was like a touch.
Winstone could feel his nose starting to run but he couldn’t wipe it or sniff because then they’d think he was crying. He saw Tui’s phone flash again.
Hey leave him alone, Jacinda said. That’s enough.
It wasn’t though. The next morning they started again.
Not just Tui, who got the Galaxy Y confiscated in maths, but the whole junior school. By the end of lunch, even some of the boys in Bodun’s class had joined in. Everywhere Winstone went there was a phone in his face, and even when there wasn’t he couldn’t relax because Tui wasn’t the only one with a zoom. The only person who didn’t know Winstone’s status was him, and sometimes someone told him and sometimes not and he wasn’t sure which was worse, but he did know it was going to get really bad after the final bell.
Sure enough, four Year Nines trailed him out to the bus and when they were past the school gates one got in front and walked backwards shooting them all on his phone. Winstone tried not to look. He didn’t know their names.
Hey Haskett, the one with the camera said. Smile. You’re going to be on YouTube. What shit looks like when it’s walking.
Winstone tried to speed up and get past but he couldn’t, so he tried to slow down but they wouldn’t let him do that either. His face was hot and his ears were filling up with fear and he thought he saw a chance to slip to the side but they caught him and gave him a shove and he stumbled forward and as he put up his arms to save himself he bumped into the boy with the phone.
Whoa! the camera boy said, and everything went quiet. Did you touch me, Haskett? He looked down and brushed an imaginary louse off his shirt. I think you did.
What’d you do that for? The boy behind shoved Winstone forward again. He’ll have to get a shot now.
The camera boy shoved him back. Ass-shit, are you trying to touch me again? Are you gay?
His nits have got Aids, said the boy at the back.
Hey, said a voice, and it was deep and angry and came from above and Winstone nearly threw up with relief because he knew it had to be a teacher. Leave him alone. What do you think you’re playing at? Real hard men, eh, to pick on a kid that size. Get out of here, go on, before I call your parents.
Yeah fuck you man, the camera boy muttered, but he and the other Year Nines moved off towards the bus park pretty quick.
You all right? the teacher said.
Winstone nodded without thinking – you were always all right, it was part of the rules. He looked up at the teacher, and then down the street. There were still kids streaming out of the school gates and along the road and he knew it would be at least ten minutes before the buses moved off and although Winstone couldn’t see the bus park from where he was standing he felt pretty sure the Year Nines were at the back of it waiting for him.
Come on, the teacher said, and he opened the passenger door of the car he was standing beside. Get in, I’ll take you home.
Put your seatbelt on. Winstone looking for it, the clean all up in his nose, shiny vinyl and carpet mats, air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror. The key going in. Stereo twanging like a wire fence, tight and low. Gliding away from the kerb. The kids on the street getting silent and small behind green glass until there was nothing left of them at all.
What was that about? With those boys?
The streets sliding empty and slow. Brick houses, red orange brown. Wide asphalt drives and gr
een lawns and pale garage doors clamped down tight.
You can tell me.
Facebook. They’re putting things about me. Making me say bad stuff.
They hacked your account?
Does everybody have one? An account.
No. You have to join up. Did you? Join?
I don’t think so.
Coasting up to the stop sign, looking right, left, right. Wheel turning. You’d know, the teacher said. If you did.
Winstone too scared to touch anything. Elbows in, hands on knees. I saw me, he said. On their phones.
An imposter account. You can report it. Get it taken down.
Sudden stereo screech like a train, sawing down. What was that instrument called again? The thing that sounded like woodsmoke and leaving.
What are you, Year Three?
Year Five.
Quick sideways look.
You’re not allowed on Facebook at your age anyway. Tell your parents. They’ll know what to do.
White circles spreading across the purple of Winstone’s knees. Rinky-tink tink tink. He knew that one. Banjo.
You don’t talk to your folks much huh.
Winstone’s head hardly moving, a flax blade bob in a meagre breeze.
Yeah well I know what that’s like. Where do you live?
How do you do it? The report.
Just go onto the site when you get home. Tell them how old you really are. They’ve posted pictures of you, yeah, those kids. Facebook’ll see you’re not thirteen. You don’t have to prove anything else.
Guitar strings fading plunky plunk plunk down into the silent street.
You’ve got a computer. Right. At home.
Left turn. Snot leaking. Not far now to Boundary Road even though he hadn’t said where to go and how come the teacher knew the way? Sudden burst of hope fading like a fart and as soon as he opened the door of the car it would be all gone.