Unbidden Read online

  Doug nodded, swishing the sip of coffee around the inside of his mouth to thin out the taste before he swallowed, wondering how he could dump the rest without anyone noticing.

  Scott had no such qualms about being polite. He shovelled a tall peak of dripping cereal into his mouth, then spat it straight back into the bowl.

  “Scott!”

  “It’s gone off! It tastes sick!”

  Doug managed to get the remainder of his sip down in a fairly dramatic swallow. “I’ll have to back him up on that one,” he said, struggling not to pull a face.

  Janet picked the jug up from the table, sniffing inside the top.

  “You’re right. It’s gone sour.”

  “It’s worse than that!” Scott insisted.

  Lauren protested. “It can’t have gone off. I just milked it.”

  “Did you make sure the bucket was clean?”

  “Yes!”

  Clearly unconvinced, Janet took the jug away and set it down on the counter beside the bucket. Janet peered into the larger container. No sour odour. Then again, there wasn’t the good clean smell of fresh milk either. She took another whiff. What she got was closer to the flat synthetic tang of plastic. The milk’s surface in the bucket had no reflective lustre to it either, showing only dullness. Something about it made Janet tip the bucket slightly, then at a steeper angle. She uttered a small noise of surprise.

  She went and got a spoon. With Lauren watching on, she began to dig a hole in the milk. She scraped the spoon against the rim after each shovelful to be rid of the sticky chunks adhering to it. In only seconds, the milk had coagulated into pudding.

  Janet kept expecting every next spoonful to break through the skin and reach the spoilt milk below, but her excavation continued almost all the way down.

  Just short of the bottom, the spoon finally broke through, and a dark pool – so concentrated it appeared black – surged up around the handle. A large dark bubble rose out, filling the cavity. It burst, spraying the inside of the bucket with a fine red spatter. The flecks shone brightly against the solidified milk.

  Lauren fell back from the bucket with a disgusted cry.

  “Oh, Christ!” Janet said. “That’s it. Lauren, radio your father. Tell him what happened.”

  Janet dumped the spoon in the bucket, then took both bucket and jug outside, setting them down beside the back door. They would keep there for Rob. She refused to have them in the house any longer. She strode off toward the barn, unconsciously wiping her hands on her pants.

  Scott nearly knocked his sister over in his rush to see what was in the bucket. He took one look inside, happily shouted, “Shit!”, and sped off after his mother.

  At a more leisurely pace – an innocent bystander’s gait – Doug made his own inspection. He recoiled from it at first. It was too much like another bloody cavity he’d seen in a woman’s chest. He wished he hadn’t forced down that sip of white coffee.

  Doug bent and worked the spoon back and forth to see what else stirred up.

  ***

  Mick struggled to listen in on the call from the homestead, but the exchange – including Rob’s replies – was near-impossible to catch above the whirlybird’s din.

  Seeing Rob’s face suddenly change to worried, Mick became equally concerned, his fingers brushing the solid, comforting gun grip under his shirt. He caught a fragment of chatter about the hired hand, Danny, then Rob confirmed to the caller they were on their way home.

  “Everything okay?” Mick asked.

  Rob appeared distracted. He started to reply at normal volume, before remembering he had to shout. “No. A few of the animals are sick.”

  “What was that about your worker?”

  “He’s not back yet.”

  Mick felt uneasy. He had the impression the grazier was holding back. “This problem … is it serious?”

  “Maybe. The animals might’ve been poisoned. I dunno yet.”

  Mick relaxed a little. Rob wasn’t elaborating, and the fact that he didn’t want to speculate out loud made his story ring true.

  Mick returned his hand to his lap and set his gaze on the rushing landscape below. He felt some sympathy for the man beside him. An outbreak of something like anthrax or foot-and-mouth was deadly serious. It could ruin a cattle station. It also meant the grazier would be too preoccupied with his own troubles to ponder on any suspicions about his guests.

  But it didn’t pay to be complacent. Mick leaned over and shouted in Rob’s ear: “Doing any burning-off?”

  “No way! There’s a fire ban over half the state. It would take bugger-all for the whole lot to go up.”

  “Then what’s that?”

  Rob tracked the aim of Mick’s pointing arm. High above the horizon was a tall smudge of russet smoke, stalled in the act of dissipating into the haze of the upper atmosphere. It wound down in a column, concentrating into a black blunt nub on the ground.

  Rob recognised right away that the cause wasn’t a brushfire. He pressed the whirlybird down toward it.

  Mick got there quicker through the binoculars. It was a good thing Rob didn’t ask him what he saw burning. Mick couldn’t find the voice to speak, let alone shout.

  Soon enough, Rob saw for himself.

  Below them, punching out dense black smoke, were the fiery remains of a Land Cruiser. Perhaps it had been white once. It was difficult to tell now.

  “A derelict?” Mick asked, without much hope.

  Rob’s reply, thick and harsh: “No.”

  ***

  After a hectic few minutes, the last of the spot fires were out and the blaze in the Land Cruiser fully extinguished. Rob plugged any leftover smoke wisps and flareups with squirts of the fire extinguisher he’d brought from the chopper.

  Mick was kicking dirt over a persistent ribbon of smoke issuing from a trodden patch when he heard a loud bang. He spun round to see Rob launch a second kick at an empty jerrycan that was near the smouldering wreck. The can spun away, the lid nowhere to be seen and the plastic spigot sticking out.

  The vehicle sat by itself, so there was no pretending this was a road accident. There was no hint of a collision or a rollover. Except for the fire damage the Land Cruiser appeared intact. But it was also improbable the engine had simply caught alight. They both had seen the black rag fused to the panel below the fuel intake, highlighted by an inverted fan of soot – unmistakable as a road arrow. It certainly narrowed the possibilities.

  As Rob stalked away, Mick went over and gave the jerrycan a gentler tap with his foot. It responded with a hollow bong. No sloshing sounds. Completely empty. He moved over to the Land Cruiser. Blocking his nose with the back of his hand, he peered through the oily clouds that continued to pour from the vehicle’s windows despite the blanketing of foam it had received. He tried not to breathe in too much.

  Beyond the busted windows, the filthy smoke fluttered and parted like slow-moving drapes to reveal glimpses of what lay inside.

  “Don’t worry,” Rob said. He was looking about the landscape, having dismissed the Land Cruiser. “It’s empty.”

  The grazier suddenly moved off in a trot, stopping several metres away in the direction the Land Cruiser was pointed. He cupped his hands around his mouth and cried out a sharp, long “Cooo-eeeee!”

  The idea of making such a sound seemed hackneyed to Mick but, as cries go, it certainly did carry. It rolled over the far fields, resonating in a way that wasn’t quite an echo. Rob turned about and strode past the rear of the gutted vehicle, striking out at the same distance. He repeated the call.

  Both of them went unanswered.

  He returned to Mick, expounding a theory that Danny stupidly might have refuelled the tank with a lit cigarette in his mouth, and had in fact tried to stop the flames pouring out of the vent with the rag now fused to the side of the vehicle. When he found he couldn’t extinguish it, he panicked and shot through. It might take a while, but once he got his courage up, Danny would come home with his tail between his legs.
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  He said it all in angry uncertain tones as he searched the terrain for tracks leading from the wreck. Mick thought Rob had only volunteered such a tall tale to make it sound more convincing to his own ears. It sounded very crook to Mick. The grazier’s anger for his employee had given way to worry.

  That was fine. Mick had enough fury for the both of them. That stupid prick had trashed their ticket out of here. Mick felt a need to say something, anything, to keep from yelling. “Would you expect him to do something like this?”

  “Well …”

  Rob wouldn’t have betrayed a confidence normally. He’d only laid bare as much as he had because he was preoccupied, still trying to sort it out for himself. “He grew up in a bad home. Not much schooling. But he’s a good worker … and he always behaves himself around the family. I can’t see him doing something like this on purpose.”

  Rob gazed about the landscape for the umpteenth time, but there was nothing new to see in it.

  “C’mon,” Rob said. “We’ll do a fly-past and make sure we got every spot fire. Then we’ll follow the fence line back to the house, just in case we catch Danny legging it home.”

  He left the rest unspoken – that they also might find Danny injured or dead.

  Mick was certainly hoping.

  Chapter Ten

  Janet snapped off the surgical glove, flicking a milky glue-like substance away as she did. Doug jumped back, but a fat fleck of it managed to tag him on his pants cuff.

  “Sorry.” Janet’s voice was muffled behind a particle and dust mask. She slipped it off her face, parking it under her chin, leaving an imprint of perspiration around her mouth. “I’m stuffed if I know what’s wrong. I’m no vet, but Karen’s showing none of the typical signs of disease.”

  Janet never said, but Doug guessed she was referring to the milking cow as Karen. Karen the cow. Janet stepped back to take in Karen at a glance. “Which could be a good thing. I’ve seen and know all the serious illnesses.”

  Earlier, she had moved the milking cow from the barn to the adjacent cattle run, using the narrow walls to keep the jittery animal from moving away as she poked and prodded at her through the run fence. At Janet’s feet was laid a small kit of instruments, the bovine equivalent of a doctor’s bag. Some were simply kitchen tools modified for certain tasks, like the bent spatula head with the ninety degree kink in the handle. Doug hadn’t yet seen it used and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  Karen the cow certainly looked lively enough to Doug, shuffling and bumping against the walls of the cattle run, frequently mooing her displeasure at what was going on. It was hard to believe she had produced such nasty milk. He kept thinking they should be looking for a cow that was plainly unhealthy, if not near dead.

  But he had scant concern for the animal’s welfare. He was more worried about what Janet planned to do about it, unable to keep his eyes off the beads of sweat on her upper lip. “What happens now?” he asked.

  “Get the vet out and hope no-one goes calling the DPI.”

  Doug tensed. More people involved.

  Janet continued. “But Rob knows more about cattle than me. Maybe he knows what this is. It’s got me stumped.”

  Good, Doug thought. They would wait for a second opinion. But if the husband’s diagnosis was also dire, how would it affect the trip into town?

  Janet patted Karen’s flank and murmured soothing words before releasing the animal from the run into a larger pen. That was the extent of her outward concern. She was even able to spare a polite, if tired, smile for Doug. Just another day on the farm.

  “You’re taking things well,” Doug said, hopeful.

  Janet’s smile diminished a little, became more honest. “You get used to it. Flood, fires, drought, debt. I learned to cope from an early age.”

  “How’s that?”

  She studied Doug for a long time, perhaps figuring whether to deem him trustworthy. Or maybe it was that he was just someone passing through, and what she told him wouldn’t hurt anyone. “I lost mum and dad within a fortnight of each other when I was Lauren’s age. Mum went second. After she died, I went down to the chook pen like always and collected up the morning’s lay. It was during shearing season … I grew up here, if you haven’t guessed.”

  “Sorry,” he said, ill at ease. “And yes, I guessed.”

  “Rob grew up on a station, too, but his father was one of the hired hands. He gained all this when he married me. He deserves it, though. He works hard.”

  She paused and looked elsewhere, thinking on the distant past, or maybe not so distant. She looked back at Doug again. “What was I saying?”

  “About what you did after your mother died.”

  “Oh, yes. We still ran sheep then, and there were the shearers to take care of. I fried forty eggs and half a pig before I found time to cry.”

  She smiled again, a reflex.

  “I know Rob thinks I’m a little cold-blooded, but it’s just not the end of the world if it doesn’t do what you want it to do.” She spared a glance toward the house. “Though some of us think it is.”

  Doug spoke before he thought. “Lauren?”

  Janet almost snorted. “You saw, did you? Well, I suppose we weren’t hiding it too well. Scott plays up to see what he can get away with. But Lauren … well, she’s reached that magical age where they take a good long look at their folks and say to themselves, I’ll never be like that. It’s very rewarding for a parent.”

  Trying to think of a suitable reply, Doug could only say, “Uh-huh.”

  Janet smiled crookedly. “The funny part of it is – I don’t want her to turn out like us, either. Like me, really.”

  “Is that so bad?” It came out lightly, but he meant it. He wasn’t flattering her.

  Janet shrugged. “I’d like her to have other options. I just wish she’d get a move on about it, that’s all. She goes through career choices like her brother goes through Band-Aids. She wanted to be a grande dame of the theatre … at least until you lot arrived. Before that it was a tornado chaser. A while ago it was either an astrologer or a rock star, or an astrologer to a rock star. I guess after you and your nephew take off she’ll be hassling us to get her a guitar again. Fine by me, as long as she doesn’t leave it too late and the only thing left to be is a farmer’s wife. That’s why we pay for tutoring, though it costs a bomb. Suppose we got our money’s worth. She hates us.”

  Doug dismissed it with a toss of his hand. “They’re supposed to hate you when they’re teenagers. It’s a law.”

  That earned him another smile. He was on a roll.

  “What about Scott?” he asked. “What does he want to be?”

  Janet laughed. “His father. What else? That kid belongs on the land. They’d lock him up anywhere else. Or shoot him.”

  She bent down and began packing up the cow-doctoring kit. Doug looked over her head at a blue sky as immovable as the ground beneath it.

  “You live out here all your life? Ever been anywhere else?”

  Not looking up from tidying the kit, Janet hooked a thumb over her shoulder, toward the house. “Through the front door. Down the hallway, third door on the right. Lauren’s now. It was the room I was born in. Let’s see … broke my arm in the shearing shed when I was nine … stole my first cigarette from dad and smoked it behind the barn when I was twelve … killed a brown snake in the saddle shed when I was fifteen … gave birth to my first at nineteen, down the hallway, third door on the right.”

  With the kit zipped up, Janet stood and looked about the property with a wise, detached gaze. Doug was compelled to look the place over as well. The large grain silo was the only hitch; it reminded him too much of a guard’s watchtower.

  He turned to find Janet focused on the house, considering it more crossly.

  “My family’s always lived here and now I live here,” she said at last. She started to walk away, stopped. She shook her head, embarrassed. “Sorry. I’m raving. We don’t get many people out here so I have a tendency to talk
a visitor’s ear off when I get started. I once bailed up a diesel mechanic for a whole afternoon. Poor man.”

  “I can’t believe he was that unhappy about it.”

  Her expression said, “I don’t believe you”, but she gave him a grateful smile anyway. Doug thought she looked more like her daughter when she smiled that way – the sun coming out after a storm.

  “What about you?” she chided him. “You can’t expect me to flash my dirty laundry and you keep your deep, dark secrets. Tell me about yourself.”

  Doug shrugged. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything. What do you do for a living? Are you married?”

  “Used to be.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Finally!” Then she became serious. “Divorced?”

  “Yes.”

  “I figured. I didn’t have to look at your ring finger to know. You don’t seem settled to me. Am I prying too much? Was it recent or a while ago?”

  “No, you’re okay. It was a long time ago.”

  “I could never divorce Rob. I couldn’t imagine being on my own. Any children?”

  “Yeah. One.”

  “And?”

  “What?”

  “Boy or girl?”

  “Boy.”

  Janet looked to the heavens. “It’s like pulling teeth. What’s his name? How old is he?”

  “Aaron. He’s nine.”

  “Aaron. Lovely name. Old Testament.” She considered him mockingly. “Is there anything else you know about him?”

  “No. Not much. I haven’t seen him for three years.”

  Janet was taken aback. “I was prying. I’m sorry.”

  He gave a conciliatory smile. “My fault. I should have lied.”

  “Doug, honestly, don’t ever think you need to lie to me.”

  He was stumped for a reply to that, but any uncomfortable silence between them was short. They heard Scott calling for his mother … then screaming for her.

  ***

  After feeding the dogs, Scott hovered around his mother and Doug, wanting to share in whatever dramas there were to be had. Disappointed by the lack of immediate disaster, he had wandered back over to the kennels.