Only Killers and Thieves

by Paul Howarth

  “Empty!” Jarrah shouted; Tommy flinched and dropped his flask and the last of his water glugged onto the ground. He jumped down to retrieve it, peered into the mouth, but there was barely anything left. The others set off for the house and Tommy looked forlornly at Billy, who only shrugged.

  “Might be a well,” Billy said, before turning and following the group in.

  There was no well. They rode around the house, into the rear yard, and found a three-walled barn and rusted wire coop, and by way of a scullery an open stone fireplace and the rubble of a collapsed chimney stack. Crumbling wooden palings lay about in piles and there was a spool of old fencing wire, but not even the yard had been properly cleared let alone the surrounding land. Maybe someone once intended grazing here, but there were no signs of cattle having ever been run.

  Noone dismounted, went to the back door, leaned his head inside, then poked about the scullery with his boot. He wasn’t wearing his longcoat, and his collar was open and bare, nothing official about his appearance anymore. He picked through the rubble and turned up a shelf and a fire grate and a rusted iron skillet, lifting them one by one from the dirt, then tossing each aside. He crouched and inspected the leavings in the open fireplace.

  “Anything?” Sullivan called.

  Noone took a long time to answer. “You know whose place this is?”

  “Never knew anyone was out here. Crazy bastard’s doomed.”

  “Well, someone built it. And there’s a fire inside not a couple of days old.”

  “Was it them?” Billy asked. “Joseph and that lot?”

  Noone ignored him. He and Jarrah walked back to the group. Billy went to ask again but Sullivan told him quietly, “Don’t push it, son. Leave all that to me.”

  They moved on. Mile after mile and still the ranges seemed no closer, lying on the horizon like something buried there. Easy to question whether they were even real, wavering like a mirage—many times out here Tommy had blinked and some landmark had shifted or disappeared. The shimmer of a waterhole. A flurry of wild dogs. A native warrior, ochre-painted, standing with his spear at his side; on second glance a termite mound or tangle of bare tree limbs. The heat working its spell, the sun directly ahead of them, blasting in their faces, swollen by a wind that seemed to build with every gust. Tommy was parched. Lips cracked, throat burning; his eyes so dusty it stung when he blinked. Gamely he tried sucking another lemon lolly but it hurt just to swallow and he spat it on the ground.

  Billy noticed and waited for him.

  “What was that?”

  “You got any water?” Tommy croaked.

  “They said to save it till camp. You’ve none left at all?”

  Tommy shook his head. “Please, Billy.”

  He reached for his flask. “If you weren’t so bloody jumpy you’d still have your own.” He pulled out the stopper with his teeth, handed it across. “Just a sip.”

  Tommy guzzled the water, it dribbled down his chin.

  “Fucking . . . give it here!”

  Billy snatched back the flask. Tommy reached for his saddlebag, intending to repay him with one of the lollies, and didn’t notice the young trooper falling back along the line, until he slid into place at Tommy’s side. He was holding out his own water flask, offering it for Tommy to take.

  “Get you good drink now, youngfella.”

  Tommy watched him warily. The trooper nodded and offered the flask again. His face was glistening with sweat but he didn’t look so crazy, Tommy thought. No mad eyes or inane grin. He could hear the water sloshing in the flask. His left hand dropped the reins but Billy warned him, “Don’t you fucking take that.”

  “I’m thirsty, Billy.”

  “It’s black water. It ain’t clean.”

  “Water’s water,” Tommy said. He took the trooper’s flask and drank. Billy began shouting at him, and Sullivan called for the trooper to leave the two brothers alone. At the head of the column, Noone twisted in his saddle to see.

  Tommy handed back the flask, nodded in thanks.

  “Rabbit,” the trooper whispered, tapping his chest. “Bye-bye.”

  He moved on ahead, retook his place in the line.

  “The hell’s he saying about rabbits?” Billy said. “I’ve not seen a bloody one.”

  “Not rabbits—Rabbit. That’s his name.”

  “What sort of a name’s Rabbit?”

  “Ask him. I doubt he even knows himself.”

  Billy put away his flask. “Well, you ain’t drinking no more of my water now your lips have been on his.”

  Tommy left the lollies in the saddlebag, buckled up the strap.

  The troopers saw the signs before any of the whites: a flurry of birds overhead, flocking for the east; a darkness creeping over the ranges, though there were hours until dusk. The party bunched to a standstill. They sat watching the land in the west. The horses twitched irritably, neighing and stepping about. Tommy stared at the horizon the same as the rest but saw no trouble at first. And yet. The ranges were dim and hazy, the air thickening, becoming opaque, a shadow slipping over the foothills like an early sunset fell.

  The dust cloud swept over the ranges in an immense orange flood, engulfing them in a roiling, tumbling wall of dirt and sand and earth stretching a mile into the sky and many more wide, pluming upward and outward as it moved. And it was moving, quickly. To the naked eye it seemed almost motionless, like some terrible monolith newly raised from the ground, but anytime Tommy picked out a landmark it was consumed almost immediately, and lost.

  “We have an hour,” Noone announced. “Pope—what do you say?”

  The old man nodded. “Hour, Boss, that big bugger come.”

  “Might only have dust in it,” Locke said. “We could ride right through.”

  “Or it might not,” Noone replied. “Might be a sandstorm, blind the horses, strip the skin from your bones. You’re welcome to stay, Raymond. Please do. But the rest of you, back to that shit-pile of a house we found this afternoon.”

  Locke began protesting but Noone didn’t wait. He turned his horse sharply, gave it both spurs; the horse bared its teeth and took off like it had been shot. Noone didn’t check who was following, though all of them did. Pushing their horses desperately, frantic backward glances as they rode. Tiny little figures on the darkening plain, the wall of earth behind them, its shadow lengthening, swallowing all before it, and gaining. Like the advance of the end of the world.

  18

  They huddled all together in the filthy little room, mouths and noses covered, eyes closed against the dust that gathered steadily upon them, coating their shoulders, their hats. Outside, the wind growled and swirled and strafed the building with stones, spattering like hail through the open window and collapsed section of roof, a cacophonous drumming overhead. Dust seeped through the walls. Grit shrapneled between the mismatched slabs and the men flinched and grunted when they were hit. Otherwise no one moved. They sat on the bare earth floor, heads bowed, cross-legged or with knees drawn, all facing the same way, their backs to the west and the brunt of the wind. Dark as night inside the house. A world of black and gray. No telling who was who. Tommy was beside his brother, he knew that much. They had entered the house together, then sat down side by side, their knees and shoulders touching—how long ago was that? How many minutes, hours, had passed? The storm seemed to come in cycles, and for a while Tommy expected each cycle to be the last, then he gave up expecting and simply sat. He worried about the horses, about Beau and Annie, tethered in their three-walled barn. Open to the east, mercifully, but with every lull in the wind he heard their petrified screaming and doubted whether the barn would hold. The house too: the roof was being stripped piece by piece, the shingles peeling and flipping away, the hole widening all the time. Tommy could see nothing through it, a strange and murky darkness, no hint of breaking light. He closed his eyes again, held himself tightly with both arms, leaned against his brother. After a moment, Billy leaned back.

  Slowly, imperceptibl
y, the worst of it passed. Less anger in the wind, the patter of grit becoming more like rainfall, a hesitant half-light creeping into the room and giving the swirling dust a warm and pinkish hue. The air was choked with it, all but unbreathable, and the men fell about in racking coughing fits as they stirred. Rising ghostly from the silt, dirt tumbling from their shoulders, they blew out their nostrils, wiped their eyes, spat on the ground, and for a while simply stood there, looking about in a kind of wonderment, like the survivors of some great collapse.

  Billy dug out his water flask, rinsed his mouth, spat. He handed the flask to Tommy and he did the same. The group slowly reassembling, each man brushing himself down, little bursts of chatter breaking out here and there. Noone struck a match and lit his pipe, then wandered to the open window and considered the view. Tommy dabbed water on his cuff, wiped his eyes, but the cuff was so dirty it only stung more. He winced and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and from across the room heard Sullivan laughing, “And there was you wanted to ride right through the fucking thing,” to which Locke grumbled a reply that Tommy didn’t catch.

  He followed the others outside, through the back door, and stood in the ruined scullery, surveying the yard. The soil lay in contoured mounds and was piled in thick drifts against the rear of the fireplace and the west-facing side of every structure or wall. The barn was still intact. Beau and Annie were in there, skittish but seemingly well. One of the other horses had broken free. She’d cleared the yard but gone no farther than the nearby scrubs, where she pranced about madly like the earth was on fire. Two troopers went to bring her in: the old man, Pope, and the bearded one they called Mallee. They walked slowly, casually, like they’d seen all this before, extending their hands to the storm-crazed horse and talking the animal down; the horse moving slowly also, lifting and stretching out its hooves, a dreamlike fluidity in all Tommy saw. He wandered into the yard and looked east, trying to make out the storm but he could not. There was no tail to it, no wall of dirt like there had been at the front; a lingering darkness and that was all. He turned and saw Billy in the barn with Beau and Annie, stroking both horses—might have been anywhere, at home in the stables even, a lifetime from this place—and then he noticed, as his gaze slid across the yard, a nearby dirt drift and buried within it, camouflaged by the soil, a wounded but still-living kangaroo.

  Tommy squatted down beside her, looked into her eye. The pupil was black and very wide, around it a damp brown film and a gathering of blood. The eye rolled side to side. Her mouth hung open and her breathing came rapidly in short little pants. Her tail twitched. Thudding into the soil. Little arms hanging limp and wizened like the arms of an old man, dirt and dust piled over her like a blanket had been pulled. Tommy hushed her. Told her it would be alright. He didn’t know what he was saying. He wiped his hand over his filthy, sweat-stained face and glanced again at the scene: Rabbit and Jarrah milling about the yard; Sullivan and Locke laughing together by the door; Billy petting the horses and Noone pacing thoughtfully with his pipe; the mare prancing in circles through the scrub and Pope and Mallee waiting for her to calm; the crumbling house and barn and the desolate nothingness all around; and then at the roo blown in by the storm and dying here before him in the dirt . . . all of this he saw in a strange tableau, like a painting on a wall, and his eyes filled at the hopelessness of this world in which they found themselves, a world he wanted no part of and yet here he was, orphaned and alone, a brother slipping away from him and a sister dying in her bed, and he—

  The waddy flattened the kangaroo’s head without Tommy having realized anyone else was there. The club whipped past his face, sucking the air behind it in a fierce whooshing sound, and he only just recoiled fast enough to avoid the worst of the blood and cranial tissue thrown out by the blow. The club withdrew. Rabbit was standing over him, eyes shining, face painted in dust. He rested the waddy on his shoulder and smiled, then something caught the trooper’s eye and he glanced down the length of the kangaroo, to the belly, where first the ears, then the face of a joey came wriggling from its pouch.

  Rabbit swung the waddy blade first and near-decapitated the baby roo. He wiped the blood on the mother’s hide, then collected up her tail and said, “Good tucker these buggers,” before adding, as if sensing Tommy hadn’t fully understood, “Yum yum!”

  Rabbit dragged the animals to the house, the joey’s head bobbling, a bloodstain lengthening in the soil behind the roo. Jarrah greeted him excitedly. The other two troopers bringing in the mare clapped in brief applause. Rabbit dumped the roo by the scullery, and he and Jarrah set to work with their knives. The joey was freed from its pouch and hung for bleeding by its tail. The mother’s belly was slit, the innards removed and set aside. Locke began gathering palings and breaking them for firewood, and through all of this Tommy hadn’t moved. Still on his haunches in the middle of the yard, trembling faintly, his eyes very wide, a trace of blood spatter on his dust-streaked face.

  * * *

  The roos were skinned and butchered and cooked on the scullery fire, smoky from the dust, hissing with each drip from the joints and cuts piled on the rusted grate. Another fire was lit inside the house, beneath the open section of roof, flames reaching high into the cavity and shadows flickering across the room while the group ate. The whites took the joints and prime cuts; the blacks favored the organs and tail, the latter cooked in an ember pit dug in the ground. Before serving themselves, the troopers offered the organs to Noone, Pope bringing them forward on a pair of roof-shingle platters and presenting them so he could make his choice, and Tommy watched Noone take out his bowie knife and slice small pieces of liver, kidney, and heart, leaving the tail and intestines intact for his men. Something almost ceremonial in the act. The other troopers watching him too, patiently waiting in a huddle at the open end of the room, all of them shirtless now, and barefoot. No such courtesy among the whites: having each helped themselves, they sat apart along the wall, scoffing at their supper, tearing at the meat.

  Noone nodded to Pope and the old man withdrew. He sat down cross-legged in the circle near the fire, placed the platters in the center of the group. Tommy waited for the scramble, the fight for each piece, but there was none. One by one the troopers took their allotted share. Conversation rippled between them, now and then a muffled laugh, picking at their offal and eating with a cordiality so at odds with all Tommy had expected and heard. He’d imagined them ripping raw meat straight from the bone, no different from scavengers or carrion birds. Yet here they were fine dining. Might as well have been in some restaurant in town.

  “You should eat,” Billy said quietly, leaning in close.

  “I ain’t hungry.”

  “You must be.” He noticed Tommy watching the troopers across the room. “Don’t watch them if it puts you off. Here, try this.”

  Billy reached for the platter, fetched Tommy a boned joint that looked to have been part of the ribs. The meat steamed and dripped its juices on the floor; Tommy dropped it into his lap, shook his hand against the burn. Sullivan laughed at him. He sent the rum down the line. Locke, then Billy, then it was Tommy’s turn. He waved the bottle away. Billy pressed it on him but Tommy refused.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Billy whispered. “It looks bad if you don’t.”

  “I don’t care how it looks.”

  “You sick or something?”

  “You know I ain’t sick.”

  “Best not be.”

  “Or what? You’d leave me behind?”

  Billy frowned at him. “What’s that mean?”

  “You never wanted me here, so fine, leave me. Pick me up on your way back through.”

  Billy stared at him a long time, clicked his tongue, said, “Don’t be so fucking soft.” He took another swig of rum, handed it back to Locke. Sullivan was making eyes at the overseer to offer the bottle to Noone. Locke wouldn’t do it. Sullenly he shook his head. From his seat by the front doorway, Noone took bites of each organ from the end of his knife
and watched the brief exchange. He was smiling. Nibbling the joey’s heart. Firelight and shadow dividing his face. Sullivan sighed and reached for the bottle, passed it across to him, and Noone took a very long drink, his eyes resting on Locke the whole time.

  “We shouldn’t even be here,” Tommy whispered. “All we told him was lies.”

  “Shh,” Billy hissed. “Shut up about that.”

  “What if he finds out?”

  “He won’t. Eat your fucking food.”

  “Look at us, Billy. We don’t belong here.”

  “Aye? And where would you rather be? Home? Where’s that now, hmm?”

  “Don’t be like that.”

  “I mean it. At least we’re doing something. And here’s not so bad.”

  Tommy looked around the room. “Oh, you reckon?”

  “We’ve shelter, fire, food . . .”

  “Quit acting what you’re not.”

  Billy shook his head and gnawed on his bone, then an idea struck him and he looked up again. “Hey, when’s your birthday anyway? What’s the date?”

  Tommy whispered it sadly: “Today.”

  “It’s Tommy’s birthday!” Billy announced. “My little brother’s fifteen!”

  A small cheer went up. Billy slapped him on the back. Sullivan crawled over the dusty floor and pressed the bottle of rum into Tommy’s hand and told him he had no choice but to drink. He did so, then sat there shyly while Sullivan began slurring “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow,” and the others steadily joined him, even Noone, even the troopers, a mangled attempt at the words. A chorus of voices echoing around the walls and spilling out of the little house. Aglow in the darkness. Alone on the plains.

  19

  They were most of the next morning recrossing that same stretch of terrain over which they’d fled yesterday, now littered with debris from the storm. Trees bent and broken, tumbleweed strewn about, a flotsam of deadwood and plants uprooted by the wind. No wind this morning, though. The day hot and clear and still. Their tracks had been covered by a fresh dusting of topsoil and they rode into virgin land. Untouched plains before them, the ranges inching closer, and in the wake of the horses a single trail of overlapping hoofprints, stretching mile after mile back to the house lying empty and abandoned once more.