by Lisa Henry
Gio slung his backpack over his shoulder, and his vest over his arm. He slammed the door of the LandCruiser closed and snorted. His eyes narrowed. “Yes, Sarge.”
Jason couldn’t read his expression. “Gio?”
Gio straightened up. “Sorry, Sarge. Understood.”
He followed Jason inside the station, and they finished up the rest of the shift in near-silence.
Taylor was a dead weight in Jason’s arms as Jason carried him upstairs. He was getting too big to carry, but Jason didn’t have the heart to wake him. He snuffled partly awake when Jason set him down on his bed and started carefully tugging his shirt over his head, and he wriggled out of his shorts himself, but was asleep again before Jason could get his pyjamas on him. It was hot enough that he didn’t need them anyway. He could sleep in just his underwear. Their last trip to Charters Towers, they’d gone to Target, and Taylor had insisted on getting boxer briefs the same as Dad’s. Although Jason’s didn’t have dinosaurs on them.
He eased Taylor’s socks off as well, and spread the sheet out over him.
Jason leaned down and kissed Taylor on the forehead before turning the light off and leaving him to sleep.
He headed for the kitchen next, to make up Taylor’s lunch for tomorrow. From the kitchen window, he could see across the yard to Gio’s house. His kitchen light was on too, but Jason couldn’t see him moving around.
Jason opened the fridge to hunt down the butter. He made Taylor a Vegemite sandwich for big lunch, along with an apple and some rice crackers. He threw in the revolting string cheese Taylor loved, a box of sultanas, and some SAOs—again with Vegemite, since Taylor refused to eat them any other way—for little lunch. In the morning, he’d add two juice boxes from the freezer, which would keep everything cold until it was time to eat.
He put Taylor’s lunchbox back in the fridge, and then remembered too late that Taylor had asked about money for tuckshop. He went through his pocket, pulled out a dollar coin, and set it on the lid of the lunchbox so Taylor would find it in the morning. That’d be enough for an icy cup anyway, which was usually what Taylor wanted.
It was late by the time he’d finished up and then showered and changed. He slung his uniform pants and shirt over the end of his bed in case he was called out overnight. He’d throw them in the washing machine tomorrow.
He checked the house was locked up, that his phone was charging, and then crawled into bed. He reached for the book on his bedside table, but the words couldn’t hold his interest, so he gave up and rolled onto his side and jammed his pillow under his neck.
Alana smiled at him from out of the frame on the bedside table.
Jason closed his eyes and drifted slowly off to sleep.
By his second week in Richmond, Gio was certain of one thing only: he was never going to get the hang of this place. Something of his worry must have shown on his face when they got the radio call that Thursday morning, because Sergeant Quinn’s mouth twitched in a grin before he looked away.
“Can you say again, VKR?” Gio asked.
“The elderly caller has a snake in his bedroom.” The voice on the radio sounded half-apologetic, and half-amused. “Unknown what sort of snake it is.”
Gio stared at the radio for a moment while he waited for the punch line. And waited. And waited. Finally, he sighed. “Show us proceeding.”
Sergeant Quinn’s smile grew.
Gio shot him a worried look. “It’s not a gee up, is it?”
“Nope.” Sergeant Quinn flicked the indicator on, and slowed at the intersection of Wills Street to give way to traffic. Which, being Richmond, was a ute, a kid on a bike, and a blue cattle dog with only three legs. “If it’s any consolation, if it was a gee up, they wouldn’t do it over the radio.”
“That’s no consolation at all!”
Sergeant Quinn laughed, his eyes bright. “Are you scared of snakes, Gio?”
“Yes!” And Gio wasn’t too proud to admit it either. “Isn’t this a council job?”
“Nope.” Sergeant Quinn turned the steering wheel, hand over hand before letting it go again as they rounded the corner and straightened up. He had strong hands, with tendons that stood out, and long fingers with blunt nails. Sunlight glinted off the gold of his wedding ring. “The council doesn’t have any snake catchers. Their ranger, he’ll take care of cattle, but he won’t go near snakes.”
“Smart bloke,” Gio muttered, tearing his gaze away from the sergeant’s hands.
Sergeant Quinn laughed again. “It’s okay, I won’t make you go in first.”
The house they pulled up to was an old railway cottage with fibro walls. A cracked concrete path began at the sagging chain-link fence and cut a line through the patchy dry grass of the front garden. Three steps led up to the front door of the enclosed veranda. The wooden louvers were open to let the breeze through.
Sergeant Quinn took his heavy torch with him when he got out of the car. He pushed the squeaking gate open, and a lizard scuttled across the path in front of them, a flash of silver in the sunlight.
The occupant of the house—Jim Brown, Gio remembered from the details Comms had given over the radio—was waiting for them at the front door. Wisps of white hair stood out from his scalp like a halo of dandelion fluff. Toothpick legs protruded from his baggy shorts. The skin of his tanned, wrinkled torso appeared tough as old leather.
The steps groaned and shifted as Gio followed the sergeant up them.
“G’day, Jim,” Sergeant Quinn said, taking off his hat. “This is Gio.”
Gio shook the old man’s hand.
“It’s through here,” Jim said, and led the way.
The house seemed dark at first, and the air smelled stale. It took a moment for Gio’s eyes to adjust. There was a calendar hanging from a hook in the hallway, with the corners curling up. There was a bookshelf underneath it. One shelf was stacked with faded National Geographic magazines. The other two shelves were full of rocks.
Jim caught Gio’s gaze. He reached out a bone-thin hand and picked up one of the pieces, then held it out to Gio. “You know what that is?”
Gio took the rock. It was an odd shape. It was striated. It looked more like plastic than a rock, but it was heavy. “A rock?”
“That’s petrified wood,” Jim said. “My daughter Trish found that back in ’82. It’s a good one.”
Gio ran his thumb over the ridged edges of the wood, marvelling at the texture, and then handed it back to the old man.
“Used to take the kids fossicking all the time,” Jim said, setting the petrified wood down again carefully. Then he nodded towards a closed door at the end of the hall. “I’ll get a shovel.”
Gio glanced at the door warily. There was a rolled-up towel wedged under the bottom of the door, presumably to keep the snake from vanishing elsewhere into the house.
“Any idea what sort it is?” Sergeant Quinn called as Jim vanished for a moment into one of the other rooms.
The old man reappeared a moment later, clutching the promised square-headed shovel. “I didn’t get a good look at it, but it’s brown.”
The sergeant took the shovel and passed his torch over to Gio. “Where’d you see it last?”
“In the bottom of the cupboard,” Jim said. “Gave me a hell of a fright.”
“I can imagine.” Sergeant Quinn put his hand on the doorknob, and drew a deep breath. “Okay.”
He pushed the door open.
Gio followed him through, his hand instinctively going for his firearm. Which, really? Like he was going to shoot a snake? He shifted the heavy torch from his left hand to his right instead. The weight of it was almost comforting.
Jim’s cupboard door was ajar. Gio hoped the snake was still inside, and not waiting under the bed or something, to strike out at him when he moved too close. Did snakes even do that, or had he been watching too many horror movies?
“Give us a bit of light, Gio,” Sergeant Quinn said, edging nearer to the cupboard.
Gio stood shou
lder to shoulder with him, angling the torch so that a shaft of light illuminated the nest of shoes in the bottom of the cupboard. Shoes, and—Gio’s breath caught in his throat—a loop of shining flesh coiled around the top of a boot. The torchlight gleamed on the scales.
“Shit,” Sergeant Quinn said. “Okay, so that is not a python. That’s either a brown snake or a taipan.”
“Taipan,” Gio repeated, his voice flat, although a brown snake wasn’t that much of a better option.
“Don’t worry,” Sergeant Quinn said with a smile. “I won’t let you die before bingo night.”
What?
“Okay,” Sergeant Quinn said. “You’re going to hold the torch there, and open the cupboard door for me.”
Gio’s stomach clenched. “I’m not liking this plan, Sarge.”
Sergeant Quinn flashed him that quick smile again. “The hospital’s only about four minutes away if we go lights and sirens.”
“Who’s gonna drive if we both get bitten?” Gio asked, inching forwards slowly. He couldn’t see the snake’s head, only that shining loop of scales. He had no idea how big it was, and no idea how it was actually situated in the bottom of the cupboard.
“We’ll take turns,” Sergeant Quinn said, and it was such a ridiculous answer that Gio huffed out a surprised laugh. The sergeant’s eyes crinkled in the corners, his smile more protracted this time, and Gio’s heart tumbled over a couple of erratic beats that he couldn’t entirely blame on being in the presence of the world’s most venomous snake. “Come on. Open the cupboard for me.”
Fuck fuck fuck.
Gio’s hand shook as he reached for the cupboard, as high up as he could without overbalancing—how high could an enraged taipan strike anyway? The only thing he could remember about taipans was the fact they didn’t only bite once, they struck multiple times. Got their fangs in and just kept biting down. That, and the deadliest-snake-in-the-world thing. He kept the torch angled so that the light bounced off the scales of the snake.
“Okay,” Sergeant Quinn said, his voice low. “Okay.”
Gio tugged the cupboard open, and everything happened at once.
A shoe clattered out onto the floor, the snake moved, and Gio realised too late that he’d been expecting movement from the other end. The head of the snake protruded from underneath a crumpled shirt on the open side of the cupboard, and Gio hardly had a second to step back before the snake was following him at impossible speed. Shoes and boots shifted and tumbled in the cupboard in its wake, and how the hell big was it?
There was a dull knock of pressure against Gio’s left boot as the taipan struck.
Sergeant Quinn slammed the head of the shovel down, and missed. Then, regaining his balance quickly, he moved forward and stepped down on the back of the snake’s head.
“Holy shit,” Gio said, his heart thumping fast.
A good two metres of snake writhed angrily between Sergeant Quinn’s boot and the cupboard, and the tail was still hidden somewhere underneath the pile of Jim’s shoes and boots.
Sergeant Quinn brought the shovel down again. This time he didn’t miss, neatly severing the snake’s head from its body with a resounding thunk.
“Did it get you?” he asked, lifting his boot off the snake’s head at last.
Gio looked down at his boot. There were indentations in the leather, and a shining trail of fluid sliding like a thick tear down towards the tread. Venom. “I’m okay. It got my boot, not me.”
A bit higher though, and his uniform pants wouldn’t have provided any protection at all.
“Show me,” the sergeant said, and moved closer. He leaned the shovel against the cupboard door and went down on one knee. Gio tugged his pants up slightly, and Sergeant Quinn inspected the indentations in his boot. “Jesus.”
“Yeah,” Gio said as the light glinted on the venom. His heartbeat was quickening, as though his body was only now realising how close the snake had got to his skin, to his bloodstream.
Sergeant Quinn nodded, exhaling heavily. “You’re good.” He rose to his feet again, his hand resting briefly on Gio’s knee for balance. “Jim?” he yelled. “You got a garbage bag?”
Jim produced a garbage bag, and Gio held it open as Sergeant Quinn dropped the snake in. It was heavier than he’d expected. The weight of it strained the plastic. Gio closed the bag tightly once Sergeant Quinn put the head inside, and held it at arm’s length while he carried it out the back to Jim’s bin.
His heart was beating fast now, adrenaline still coursing through him.
A taipan. Shit.
Gio clenched and unclenched his hands until they stopped shaking, and then went back into the hallway and picked up the petrified wood, just to feel something solid in his palm.
He was relieved as hell when he and Sergeant Quinn headed back to the car.
“Two-eight-nine, VKR,” Gio said into the radio as Jim waved them off.
“Two-eight-nine, go.”
“Show us back on,” Gio said. “Job finalisation details when ready.”
“Two-eight-nine, go.”
“User 4028981, finalise as a job code six-zero-one,” Gio said, and then put the handset back in place. He glanced at Sergeant Quinn and caught him grinning. “What?”
“You can’t just leave them hanging like that,” Sergeant Quinn said, and took the radio. “Two-eight-nine, VKR.”
“Two-eight-nine, go ahead.”
The sergeant’s smile grew. “VKR, can you note on the job card that the taipan has been relocated from the premises?”
“Relocated?” the radio operator asked.
“Relocated to snake heaven,” Sergeant Quinn said. “Courtesy of a shovel. I’ll email the Comco the pictures.”
“Ew, that’s revolting,” the radio operator said, sounding impressed all the same. “Send them to me as well. And I’ll show you back on and patrolling, two-eight-nine.”
At the end of the day, Gio sat on his front veranda with his feet up on the rail. The flies didn’t seem too bad today, or Gio was getting used to them or something. He twisted the cap off his stubbie and chased a droplet of condensation that slid down the side of the bottle with his thumb. He drank the beer slowly. It was only a light, so he barely got a buzz. He wasn’t on duty, and not on call tonight either, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t still be called out. There really was no such thing as off duty in a town where he was one of only two coppers. Gio would just add getting drunk to the to-do list for when he was back in civilisation. Right underneath getting laid. It’d been a while on both counts, and today’s close encounter with the world’s deadliest snake was making him acutely aware of the rut he was stuck in, or his own mortality, or YOLO or whatever. It was the sort of existential crisis that could be easily resolved by getting laid, and not by thinking about Sergeant Quinn’s smile and the way his strong hands gripped the steering wheel or the radio, or the sudden warmth that had flooded through Gio when Sergeant Quinn had touched his knee.
The sound of a screen door slamming drew Gio’s gaze to the Quinns’ house. Taylor was heading down the front steps, barefoot, squinting into the sun from underneath a bucket hat. He was swinging his cricket bat wildly as he skipped down the steps. Sergeant Quinn followed him at a safe distance.
Taylor struck out across the yard, weaving through the tufts of scrubby grass and finally jabbing the blunt end of his bat into the dirt, sending up a puff of red dust. He scraped the bat back and forth, marking out a crease.
Gio’s phone chimed and he glanced down. A text from Sophie. It was a picture of Chloe with a plate of spaghetti smooshed all over her face. The corner of his mouth tugged up as he studied it. Chloe might be a Cartwright, but she’d got the dark Valeri eyes and curls.
Gross, he sent back, and trusted that Sophie would translate it as adorable.
His homesickness wasn’t as acute as it had been in the first week. Maybe he didn’t miss the Coast anymore, though he missed Sophie and the family. He missed his dad.
The sharp thoc
k of the cricket ball against the bat—and Taylor’s crow of delight—pulled Gio’s attention back to his immediate surroundings.
“I hit it, Dad! Did you see that? That’s a six, right?”
“Yeah, mate.” Sergeant Quinn laughed as he headed over to collect the ball from where it had landed against the side of their house. “That’s a six.”
Another smile tugged at Gio’s mouth as he looked at them play. Sergeant Quinn bowled slowly, his form smooth, while Taylor swung wildly and was elated every time the bat connected. Gio watched them for a few minutes before he picked up his stubbie and walked inside again. He’d felt a little uncomfortable staring. He didn’t want to risk Taylor spotting him and asking him to play. That seemed like something Taylor would do, and the last thing Gio wanted was to intrude on his boss’s personal time with his kid. It was weird enough they lived in one another’s pockets, wasn’t it?
Fucking Richmond, seriously.
Two weeks down. One hundred and two to go.
For a small town hemmed in only by the boundless horizon, by the endless sky, Richmond was claustrophobic as hell. It was going to send Gio stir-crazy. It already was, probably. There was no other reason that Gio found himself drawn to the kitchen windows, where he could stare down unseen at the yard between the houses. Taylor had vanished from sight somewhere, but Sergeant Quinn was still standing in Gio’s view, swinging the cricket bat from side to side. Gio had to lean forward to get a good look at him, and the edge of the bench pressed against his abdomen. Gio shifted back a fraction, and slid his hand underneath the waistband of his shorts to ease the dull ache. He stopped himself before he moved his hand lower, to his dick. He reached for his stubbie instead, drained the last few mouthfuls of beer in one long swig, and set the bottle down in the sink where it rattled against a lone teaspoon.
Gio stared out the window, and licked the bitter taste of the beer off his bottom lip.
Yeah, it’d been way too long since he got laid, but reaching for his dick as he watched his boss? That was not going to lead anywhere remotely healthy. Jesus. The last thing Gio needed was his boss reporting him for sexual harassment or inappropriate behaviour or whatever. Was that even what would happen out here? Maybe country coppers didn’t believe in all that complaint bullshit. Maybe they sorted shit out the old-fashioned way, with their fists.