Unbidden Page 13

  She knew her initial unease was a kneejerk reaction. Common sense told her the crime had taken place hundreds of kilometres away. And the latest theory, on the news, was that the hijackers had escaped the country by now. As Doug had surmised, it was the airports and seaports, large and small, that were being monitored.

  After Janet saw the three men exit the jeep – reports suggested a much larger crew – she breathed easier. They were the most unlikely bunch of desperadoes she had ever laid eyes on. Hardly vicious thugs. With the vast difference in their ages, they looked like the male line of three generations. Related, obviously.

  Only the youngest one looked somewhat dodgy with his long hair, tats and piercings, but he was so skinny and amenable she hardly believed he could be a threat. She bet her son could take him in an arm wrestle. The men’s dishevelled appearance also raised no suspicions. She saw for herself the proof of their accident. In a way, she was glad of their company. It made her feel safer.

  ***

  Scott was loudly clattering knives and forks against plates in his version of setting the table when his father entered the front door. At a glance, the man of the house was in his mid-forties, tall, with a permanent chap of sunburn on his brow and the bridge of his nose, sporting the same crop of hair as his son. He took off his sweat-stained baseball cap and used it like a rag to wipe the worst of the grime from his hands, before hooking it on a stocky hallstand beside the door, completing the ritual before he had a look at his visitors. Doug and the others stood, repeated the names, the handshakes. Rob Clarkson’s grip, like his wife’s, was direct and to the point. His taciturn expression lifted a little after Mick explained how the jeep came to grief.

  “That’s a relief,” he said. “I thought you might have hit one of my cows.”

  “Did you see the bloody hole in their truck, dad?”

  “I hope you mean ‘the hole in the truck with all the blood around it’,” Janet warned her son as she placed a steaming bowl of peas and corn on the table.

  “Yeah,” Rob said, “I had a look on my way in. It’s a one in a million that the bullbar didn’t stop it.” He looked to Mick as the one in charge. “If you want, we’ll get a torch and have a look at it. Can you get the hood open?”

  “No.”

  “Then we’ll grab a crowbar as well.”

  Rob and Mick went outside. Before Doug could think to follow them, he and Warlock were invited by Janet to sit at the table, anywhere was fine, dinner was being served. As much as he wanted to go with Mick, the inviting aromas pulled him in the other direction. Serving dishes were placed in the centre of the table, it being a case of help yourself. The family tucked in without waiting for their father. It surprised Doug. The Clarksons fitted the picture of a rural family so well, he naturally assumed they would wait for Rob to come back so they could say grace before eating.

  Janet insisted their guests had first turn, but she built up a large helping on her husband’s plate in lieu of his absence.

  The inspection of the jeep didn’t take long. Mick and Rob returned before the others had made a dent on their meat and three veg.

  “How’s it look?” Doug asked.

  Mick was to the point. “We killed it.”

  “I thought we might be able to patch it up, get you as far as town,” Rob said, “but it’s beyond what I can do here.”

  Rob sat at the head of the table as Doug would have guessed, but after a while he suspected it was as much from necessity as tradition. The grazier’s elbows stuck out while he ate, waving like a fledgling’s wings. Son imitated father in stabbing elbows. The boy had a whole corner of the table to himself.

  Over dinner Rob explained the current situation to his guests. All his station hands except one were on a cattle drive down south. The four-wheel drive on the property, a Land Cruiser, was currently in use by their remaining jackeroo, Danny. He was checking the southwest fences for breaks and wasn’t expected back until morning. Only then could Rob give them a tow to the nearest garage for repairs.

  Mick was surprised by the lack of ready vehicles and asked what the family would do in case of emergency. But they weren’t completely without means. There were two trail bikes available, a mustering copter, and an old pet mare that could be used as a last resort.

  Rob said it was a shame the three men hadn’t had their little adventure a month earlier. He was running a flatbed ute up until then, before it rusted apart on him. He hadn’t gotten round to replacing it yet.

  Doug and Mick shared a private look – crowded expressions that carried whole conversations. It was lousy news, but it could have been a lot worse. At least they were out of sight of any scrub cops and more than halfway to where they needed to go. All they had to do was sit tight till morning for this joker Danny to turn up and by lunchtime tomorrow they’d be sailing away.

  ***

  While Mick told a cock-and-bull story about how he, Doug and Wayne fitted together (they were all related, three generations, just as Janet supposed) Doug inwardly reminisced about the real deal. He met Mick on his first clock at Wacol, when he was nineteen. It felt like several lifetimes ago; like it all belonged to someone else. He was green then, a cleanskin. He’d been in trouble before but had never served a stretch, not even in juvenile detention. The way he eventually got there, though, was nothing to be proud of. There was no car chase, no rough and tumble. He’d been involved in lifting a few cars and some break and enter, but the cops didn’t have a clue about those. They nailed him with an outstanding warrant for passing a bad cheque, picked up while waiting in line for a random breath test. He’d asked to get out for a smoke and never made it back behind the wheel. Handcuffed and put in the back of the paddy wagon he swore off cigarettes, promising himself he’d never smoke again.

  Back then, he was frightened of prison. Everything he knew he’d learned from hardcore prison movies. Midnight Express was a quaint comedy in his clique. He knew enough not to show “scared” and he didn’t think he had, but after being processed and led to his home for the next twelve months he passed an old billet with round polarised specs carrying a cardboard box of toilet rolls. As they came abreast of each other, a low voice said, “Whatever you do, don’t say ‘yes’ to anything.” Doug looked around to see where the advice had come from, but the bespectacled old-timer’s head never turned. His lips barely moved. The advice could have come from the box of dunny paper.

  Doug’s cellmate wasn’t too unbearable, except for the fact he spoke with a falsetto, made worse by an impenetrable Kiwi accent. He was sweet on something that made him sleep most of the day and he seemed to prefer the top bunk, so Doug didn’t have to worry about fighting him for the lower one.

  Doug tried to settle in, expecting to be on display for a while. A lot of the inmates and some of the custard arses passed by his cell to have a peek at the new fish.

  One of the few possessions Doug was allowed to keep was a cheap radio-cassette player. On two occasions over his first day, a couple of Murris had popped into his cell, admired the cassette player and asked if they could have it. Both times, he looked them squarely in the eye and said, “No”. After each had given him a long considering look, they went away. One even welcomed him to the “family”. The third visitor Doug received was a large hulking white man with prickly hair growing out of the biohazard tattoos above his ears, short sleeves rolled up so they wouldn’t tear apart from his massive upper arms. He came in and complimented Doug on his nice radio-cassette player. Then he asked the inevitable question. After a slightly longer pause, Doug said, “No”. They fought. Doug couldn’t afford to let the other man get any blows in with those massive arms, so it became more of an upright wrestle.

  The Kiwi had watched impassively from the top bunk, not stirring even when they banged into it. The man had gotten Doug from behind in a sleeper hold while Doug reached back and pressed his thumb into a spot just below the man’s ear, doing a move a cousin working in crowd control once demonstrated to him at a family do. After th
at, it became a question of who dropped first. The other man did, cracking his melon against the shitter on the way down.

  None of it was supposed to happen like that.

  Doug was supposed to put up a good fight, the other man inevitably winning. The bully would own a new radio-cassette player and Doug would be recognised by the other inmates as someone who couldn’t be pushed around. Instead, the idiot spent two days in the infirmary needing stitches from his “accidental” fall. He also had plenty of friends inside the prison and a reputation to maintain.

  So Doug remained on display for the next fortnight, growing heartily sick of everyone eyeing him as if he was part of a floorshow about to start. It was near the end of that lonely time when the old billet with the specs approached him instead of just watching like the others. He’d held out a durry.

  “Care for a smoke?”

  Doug was hanging out for one. He’d finished off his last pack the day before. He went through them faster when he was nervous. He looked the old-timer squarely in the eye, and said, “No.”

  The old-timer laughed and tossed him the pack.

  “Keep them. You don’t owe me anything.”

  The old-timer’s name was Mick and he was in the last year of a blue-bit. He thought Doug Mulcahy had “dash”. The kid didn’t behave like a scared mouse. Neither did he strut around like a puffed-up braggart, and he didn’t talk much. Mick considered that a plus because he liked to do most of the talking himself. To prove it he had a chat with someone who had a chat to somebody else who had a chat to the idiot and his bristly friends, and after that everyone stopped keeping an eye on Doug and he became a fixture like the chew ’n’ spew and the forlorn noise of the night trains drifting over from the Ipswich line.

  Some time later, Mick asked Doug if he could borrow his radio-cassette player. Doug said, “Sure.”

  This was what Doug had thought of when he remembered being welcomed to the family. From that time on he was part of a family unit that suited him fine – him and Mick.

  ***

  Over a dessert of canned peaches and ice cream, Mick’s endless invention had the Clarksons rapt. Doug kept half an ear on it so as to keep their stories straight.

  Frankly, he was more worried about what might come out of Warlock’s mouth.

  The Clarksons’ daughter, Lauren, looked a lot like her mother. Except she had the added incidental beauty that came to most girls her age, her skin seeming to glow with its own interior light. Only the tip of her nose peeling from the sun was as alabaster as her brother’s. The burnished blonde, coppery hair was a gift from her mother. She had more of her father in her physique though, the strength visible in her thicker wrists and ankles. She would have been at home on the coast, likely a strong swimmer.

  Doug wished he could wipe away the starved shine she had on her face for Warlock’s fables. It only encouraged the punk. He’d gone from having seen some of her favourite bands in concert, to actually meeting them, to knowing them personally, to jamming with them sometimes, to being in a band himself, to being a minor star with his first independent label release coming out soon.

  The boy, Scott, was keeping Doug to himself. He wanted to know about the accident with the roo, and every other gory thing that had ever happened to him.

  ***

  What had happened to the storm? The heavily-laden horizon once again surrendered to a clear sky, while the night weighed on Doug regardless. He was uneasy about their current situation. He worried about what came next.

  The front garden was a pleasant antidote to a dry, dusty road trip – a large quad of uniform green lawn with orderly pockets of fruit trees and flowerbeds hemmed by borders of whitewashed stones. Doug could discern the scent of a lemon tree. The lawn was thick and springy underfoot. In such a hit-and-miss climate, he idly wondered how the wife kept such a large garden so uniformly lush.

  He and Mick stood a short distance from the house, not close enough to be overheard, not too far away to appear to be scheming. Neither of the Clarkson adults were smokers (and if either of the kids were, they weren’t telling). Doug used that excuse to go outside with Mick for some privacy.

  Inside, Mick had been the raconteur, but outside was a different matter. He was quieter now, more taciturn, but the mood wasn’t grim. Their anticipation was greater than their anxiety. This was usually all it took to kiss and make up: to be off on their own having a smoke, with only each other for company, past misdeeds forgiven.

  “We’re nearly there, Doug.”

  “Don’t remind me. I’m busting thinking about it.”

  Mick clapped Doug’s back, counterpointing it with a short ill-tempered laugh, then a long raucous cough. In the midst of his coughing fit he bitched about having to suffer another day’s delay, but there was no real vitriol in it. One way or another they would be away first thing in the morning.

  Then came what Doug dreaded.

  “How do you figure we do this?” Mick asked.

  “There’s no way in hell I’m going to allow us to be towed into town.”

  Mick shook his head, picturing it.

  “Can you see the three of us hauling a crate of stolen opals through the main drag of some shithole asking directions to a bus station?”

  Doug knew that wasn’t about to happen.

  “And what about our little mate, Wally? They’d cop one look at him and have the frigging law down on us!”

  “True.”

  Doug looked at Mick squarely, not wanting to lose the fragile sense of good fellowship just returned.

  “But I’m not going to force a situation here, Mick.”

  Mick looked back at him just as directly.

  “We’re going to have to take charge sometime, Doug.”

  “Alright, but we do it away from here, while we’re getting the tow. It might be Rob, but it’ll probably be the one that works for him … Danny? Either way, we’ll tie up whoever’s driving us, give him some water, and leave him somewhere obvious where they can find him.”

  “Aren’t you considerate?” Mick muttered.

  “You saw where we are on the map, Mick. We only need a few more hours by road, half a day at most. Then we’re away and we don’t look back.”

  “Yeah, and there’ll be a better fix on where to look for us, too. What if Rob or this Danny is found early? Then we’ve narrowed down our number, our description, and our range. They’ll be on us at the first sighting.”

  “No more killing, Mick.”

  Doug startled himself. He glanced at the house, reminding himself to keep his voice low.

  “I didn’t say that was the only way.”

  But his tone wasn’t placating. It had hardened if anything.

  “Like you said, we’re close. We don’t want to lose it now after all the shit we’ve been through. We survived a plane crash and a road accident for Christ’s sake!”

  “And Cutter.”

  “You don’t have to keep sticking that one on me,” Mick said ruefully.

  He took a short, vicious puff on his cigarette, turning half of it to ash in one go.

  “You’d have to admit, offing whoever takes us would make it a whole lot easier. Being merciful at this point isn’t going to soothe our consciences or make us sweeter to the newspapers. Let’s face it. We’re ‘mad dog’ killers now. A few more names in the obituary section aren’t going to make a hell of a lot of difference.”

  Doug had no argument against that, so he said nothing. Mick would only keep working at him, until he had Doug so turned around he’d gun down the entire Clarkson family right then and there … then go shoot their damn cows.

  Mick really knew how to ruin a smoke. With nothing to aim at, Doug flicked his stub away into the night, watching it perform a graceful, sparking cartwheel. Then he jerked forward, chasing it down to stamp it out properly, remembering some sign along their journey warning of a fire ban. He didn’t do it out of consideration for the Clarksons. He just didn’t want any more complications. He found it too e
asy to immerse himself in Mick’s way of thinking. Far too easy.

  “We don’t have to decide now. I say we behave like the perfect guests. Get a few hours kip and have a good homemade breakfast in the morning.”

  “I’d sleep easier if they were all tied up,” Mick replied. “I’d gladly skip the homemade breakfast. Plenty of time for that in the five-star hotels we’ll be living in, where my topless Filipino maid will be fixing breakfast for us.”

  Another lapse into silence. Doug was hoping Mick would let things ride.

  “And I don’t like leaving the crate out by itself in the jeep,” Mick said.

  The wreck was parked alongside the machinery shed, a couple of tin pans under it to catch the oil.

  “It’s safe enough where it is,” Doug replied.

  Mick suddenly twisted about, looking back at the house.

  “Jesus, Doug. I want to get going. We’ve already lost too much time. I can’t be one hundred per cent that Nystrom will still be there.”

  Doug considered going another cigarette.

  “He’s your mate, Mick. You know him better than I do. But what I do remember, clear as anything, is him telling us he’d wait three days.”

  Mick took a quick drag on his smoke, no pleasure in it.

  “He’s got a radio, Doug. He’ll hear about what happened at Mirribindi. What if he does a runner, afraid of being an accessory after the fact?”

  “He won’t know that was us. I didn’t tell him why we needed ferrying. Did you?”

  “No. But he’s not stupid, Doug.”

  “He’ll be there, Mick.”

  “Yeah, well what if he isn’t?”

  Doug couldn’t say. It was the only contingency they hadn’t planned for. He took a deep breath, deliberately held it before letting go.

  “Who am I talking to here?”

  Mick regarded him with sudden distrust. It broke Doug’s heart. He continued.

  “I’m the one that always needed pulling up before I do something silly. The Mick Morrison I know is always getting me out of a fuck up before I know I’m in one.”