Unbidden Page 18

  But that was forgotten in her sudden anxiety at Warlock’s hovering presence.

  “Is it good, the music?” he asked, enunciating the words.

  “You want a listen?” She reached up to pluck away the headphones again.

  “We both can,” he said quickly, before she could finish. He went behind her chair and leaned in closely, his chin nearly resting on her shoulder as his right ear touched the headphone in her left. It made her feel pleasantly nervous.

  “That’s good,” he said. “It’s a Buzzcocks cover, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know.” She’d never heard the name. She blushed. It sounded rude.

  His warm breath tickled her neck. It was strange-smelling, but pleasant, like the herbs mum used for cooking. It also reminded her of a medicine she had taken when she was very young. She found the smell reassuring.

  “Do you want to hear another one?” she asked.

  “Sure.” Warlock leaned in closer. He was not overly concerned about the gunfire any more. He hadn’t seen anything when he’d found the nerve to look out the window. The shooting had stopped some time ago. Like Lauren, he had heard Mick arrive back in the helicopter. Let the old coot and Doug handle it. Perhaps it was a minor thing. Maybe a cow had run amok or something.

  The only thing Lauren was concerned about was the soft down on Warlock’s cheek touching hers. She thought she could feel the sparks jumping between them.

  The study door burst open.

  It was ajar to begin with, but she and Warlock jumped apart from each other as if caught in a more intimate moment. They were not reassured by the pale, tight expressions on Janet and Scott as they trooped into the room, nor by an unsmiling Doug who followed behind. He arrived in time to see Warlock poised over the girl. A black fury overtook him.

  “Get away from her!”

  Warlock threw his hands up. “I wasn’t doing anything!”

  Shoving the boy and his mother aside, Doug made a direct beeline for Warlock, locking a hand around his throat. He bent Warlock over backward until it was only the chokehold that kept him from falling.

  “It’s not going to happen here. Not again. Not here,” Doug said.

  Warlock clung to Doug’s arm to keep from being throttled, his face changing from red to purple. Lauren saw with burgeoning fright that the other man held a gun.

  “He didn’t do anything!” she cried out.

  Doug threw Warlock down.

  Scott made a break for the door. Janet, witnessing Doug’s proficiency with a gun firsthand, reached out to restrain her son … or failing that, to take the bullet.

  Doug was over to their corner in three quick strides, kicking the door shut, nearly breaking the bones in Scott’s hand as the doorknob was torn free from it. Lauren rose from her chair, but a firm grip on her shoulder sat her back down again.

  It was Wayne. He was hunched over and shakily wheezing for breath, his throat and face mottled from his near-strangulation, but he looked determined. She saw he was wielding a knife, about to go after the man who had attacked him. But Wayne didn’t look the other man’s way. His stern, almost regretful gaze remained on her.

  ***

  Surprisingly, Doug and Scott had suffered few injuries between them from the dog attack. The worst Doug had sustained was a chewed boot and a cranky knee from the brisk shaking his leg had received. Scott had suffered only a few cuts and scratches. The only real damage was a bite to his backside that he was loathe to let his mother inspect in front of everyone else. She continually slapped his hands away as he kept trying to hitch up his pants. He finally relented on the condition his bum didn’t face anyone except her; he glared at them while bent over, his pants bunched up in front to cover his privates. The puncture marks were big and round, but not too deep. With Doug’s consent, they moved to the kitchen so Janet could get to the first-aid kit. She swabbed the affected area with a cotton ball soaked in Dettol. Scott smarted from the indignity more than the pain. He tried to pull away, but she hauled him back.

  “Aren’t you finished?” he whined.

  “Not until I put a plaster on it.”

  “Aw, don’t do that. You said it stopped bleeding.”

  “If you keep arguing, it’ll need bandages after I’ve finished smacking it.”

  Hearing their banter almost fooled Doug into believing things hadn’t turned out too badly. The social niceties needn’t change much. But when Janet finished administering to her son, she moved both children back under her protective wing, the three of them watching Doug and Warlock with anxious hostile eyes, ready to run when – not if – the men turned on them.

  UNBIDDEN PART III: THE SLEEPING & THE DEAD

  Chapter Eleven

  The whirlybird arrived home.

  Rob entered the house to find his family sitting stiffly, almost formally, on one side of the lounge. His visitors, Doug and Wayne, stood on the other side like ushers for some sombre occasion. They appeared poised to impart some terrible, terrible news.

  “What happened?” Rob asked. He was feeling slow and unprepared, thinking Danny had either been found dead or badly hurt, or that it was some other disaster of equal magnitude. Then he realised what his guests were holding in their hands and that only added to his puzzlement. A fleeting thought passed through his head that some of the animals had been put down … before the truth slammed home.

  He lurched forward. “What is this? What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Rob heard a click close to his ear and felt something hard jammed between his shoulder blades. He tried to turn round, but a firm prod made him turn frontward.

  “The day’s just full of surprises isn’t it?” said Mick, flat and joyless behind him.

  Doug felt sorry for Rob. He was clearly an amateur at this game. His face was a blunt forecast. He could not have signposted his intentions better had he announced them out loud.

  “Rob –” Doug began.

  Too late. Rob wheeled round, making a desperate grab for Mick’s gun. Mick anticipated him easily. He pistol-whipped the grazier in three swift downstrokes. Rob grunted, as if he had merely tripped on something, before crashing down on his head.

  His family did not cry out. In their own ways, they were as tough as their father. There was a collective, sharp intake of breath, speech cut off in pain. Doug would have preferred honest screams to the small, birdlike noises they made.

  Bleeding and half-concussed, Rob was still intent on rousting his former guests. He dazedly picked himself off the floor to have another go at Mick.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” Mick said.

  Janet looked as if she desperately wanted to go to her husband, but that meant letting go of her kids. “Rob, don’t! They haven’t hurt us!”

  Rob nearly got to his feet, raising his fists.

  “Don’t hurt my dad!” Lauren shouted.

  Mick struck him again. Lauren’s cry and Scott’s shout of “Dad!” accompanied their father to the floor.

  “Turn it down, Mick,” Doug urged.

  The eyes behind Mick’s specs flashed.

  “What do you want me to do? Give him a kiss and a cuddle?”

  Incredibly, the semi-conscious grazier was trying to get up again. Mick shoved him down with his foot. Rob sidled out from under it with all the headlong speed of a turtle. He pressed up to start a new, arduous climb to his feet.

  Scott threw off his mother’s protective embrace. She grabbed for him, missed. Doug reached for the boy too, fingers skating over his bare back where the shirt should have been. Scott dived onto his father, both to shield him and press him back down. Rob struggled briefly before recognising who had hold of him.

  Scott was crying. “Stay down, dad! Please!”

  Rob heeded his son’s plea, nodding once before he crumpled to the floor, the fight gone from him. He could have been snoring fitfully except for his open, dazed eyes. Lauren was sobbing. Janet had a few tears fall, too, but they might as well have been leaking from stone.

&nb
sp; “I hope you’re satisfied. You’ve got us afraid. You must feel like heroes.”

  Making no sudden moves, she went to aid husband and son. Lauren, left unsecured on the couch, began to moan softly.

  The idiot sound of it made Doug want to break something.

  “Keep it together!” he snapped. “Take it easy and everything will be fine.”

  It wasn’t the ugly disbelief on the Clarksons’ faces that disturbed him, it was seeing the same on Warlock and Mick.

  ***

  Doug and Mick filled each other in on the morning’s events. The news of the Land Cruiser’s demise struck Doug hard. Warlock was more concerned about them catching the same blight that affected the farm. Doug and Mick both heaped scorn on the idea, but did agree that the sooner they left the place, the better.

  “How about the trail bikes?” Warlock suggested. “One of us could ride pillion.”

  The machines were out in the barn, two of them set up in empty horse stalls. One was adult-sized and the other was for an adolescent, like the rifles inside the house. Both were stripped back and generic from long use.

  “Great idea, Wally,” Mick said sourly. “Where do we put the bloody crate?”

  “Well, I dunno,” Warlock replied, wounded. “There’s the horse. We could take that, too.”

  “I’ve seen it. I don’t think that nag could make thirty kilometres let alone keep up with a trail bike.”

  “What about the copter-thing?”

  “The copter-thing?” Mick considered it. “Yeah, that might work. We’d need a week to learn to fly it … plus we’d have to ditch half the score to get off the ground. And even then there’s only room for two. Knowing what a brave and stand-up bloke you are, Wally, I’d bet you’d be willing to give up your seat for one of us.”

  Warlock was injured. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “You can’t, son. You’re a moron.”

  Doug mulled it over. “We might not have much of a choice, Mick. I saw a couple of old saddlebags in the barn. We could throw one over the back of a bike and use it to carry some of the load. The horse could carry some more … and Warlock doesn’t weigh much. It might mean ditching some of the opals though.”

  “No!” Mick shouted. He got right up into Doug’s face. “We’ve gone too far. We’ve done too much. If it’s going to mean anything, we’re not going to piss it away now. We’re close. We figure a way to make it out with everything.”

  Doug backed up a step and wiped the spittle from his eye. The Mick he knew was gone. He didn’t recognise this bloke.

  “Maybe we could get Rob to fly one of us somewhere, over to another property or town, and that one could bring back a car …” Mick started doubtfully.

  “Yeah!” Warlock enthused.

  But Doug didn’t like the idea. He twisted round and kicked the nearest stick of furniture. The glass cabinet’s insides clattered harshly.

  “No! Too untidy. It’ll divide us up, get more people involved. All sorts of shit could go wrong.” He was thinking about the last house.

  Mick calmed a little seeing Doug’s show of frustration. He looked thoughtful.

  “There’s an old ute on blocks in the shed. It needs some work, but our cow farmer here is a closet mechanic at heart. If I haven’t scrambled his brains too much maybe we could fix it up to a reasonable standard. It might take a few hours, though.”

  They looked over at the Clarkson family sitting on one of the couches, gone from hosts to hostages in the blink of an eye. Rob had his battered head leaning back while Janet dabbed at the swelling lumps and wiped away the last of the blood. Lauren was seated on the other side of her father, hanging onto his arm. Scott had his arm entwined in his sister’s. The kid never seemed to tire of glaring at his captors.

  At the mention of his name, Rob raised his head from the couch, wincing as if struck another blow. His eyes fluttering a little, he spoke with slow deliberation.

  “That ute’s weeks away from turning over … if ever.”

  Doug looked at him with something almost approximating compassion.

  “So what you’re saying, Rob, is that you and Mick should have it finished in no time at all.”

  Rob refused to be parted from his family.

  “No,” he repeated, “we stay together.”

  He was resolute. Doug was at the point of conceding that an uglier method of persuasion would be needed, when Mick took it in hand. The old man stepped over to the front door.

  “Come out here, Rob. It’s not too far away. Just outside the door for a chat.”

  “Don’t you touch him!” Janet shouted. Son and daughter started up their own chorus. Mick turned on them and shouted them down.

  “Why would we hurt him? We need him!”

  The implication was clear. Rob was indispensable, but the rest of them weren’t.

  The father glared at Doug and Warlock with open distrust.

  Mick laughed. “Wayne’s too wet to do anything except what he’s told and Doug’s too much of a Catholic. They’re both pussycats. Now me …” His face went dark. “Me, you don’t want to find out.” He gestured “you first” out the door.

  Rob started walking, his first steps cobbled together and went out. Mick followed, shutting the door behind them. He beckoned Rob to move along the veranda, out of sight of the windows. Once they were, Rob’s head rocked back and his nose began to bleed. He had no idea if it was a fist or a gun butt that had done it.

  Mick was impressed that Rob didn’t fall. Or perhaps he was too stupid. He didn’t collapse, but he did lose some height, so Mick hunkered down with him. “Let me make it plain for you, Rob. First – I didn’t bring you out here so your family wouldn’t have to see this. I did it because of Douglas. He can be a little soft when it comes to breaking up happy families.

  “Second – you and I are going to put your hobby ute back together and we’re going to do it fast, and you’re going to behave. I’m grateful for your hospitality – I even enjoyed the helicopter ride – but I’ll hurt you in front of your family if I think it’ll make you work faster. And if I think hurting your family will make you work even faster still … well …” He nudged Rob with the pistol. “You see my point. Best not to have them around while we’re fixing it up, isn’t it?” Mick gave Rob a friendly squeeze around the shoulders. “What do you say?”

  Rob raised his face to Mick’s and his gaze never wavered.

  “If you touch my family, I’ll kill you.”

  Mick smiled. “We’re agreed, then.”

  The front door opened. Mick poked his head in. “Rob and I have come to an arrangement, so we’re off to do some tinkering.”

  It was a chirpier, brighter Mick, the Mick that Doug fondly remembered.

  Mick nodded toward the Clarkson family and Warlock.

  “Can I safely leave you alone with that lot?”

  “I was thinking we might order pizza and rent a DVD,” Doug replied.

  It was good to see the old man laugh.

  ***

  Doug swept the house, severing every possible form of communication with the outside world – the phone, modem lines, the radio set.

  Before doing it he bound the family hand and foot, leaving Warlock to tether them to the furniture. Despite a strange predilection to set the Clarksons all in a row on one couch, the punk had done a respectable job of it – perhaps due to his experience of trussing Goth girls to homemade altars. The electrical tape from the machinery shed made it harder to botch the job.

  After double-checking their bonds, Doug went out and disabled the two-way in the trashed jeep. He did the same to a partly-dismantled radio set in the machinery shed. It was probably irreparable to begin with, but he made sure of the fact.

  Though he knew he was being overly paranoid he even made certain the remaining kennel dogs were well-secured, in case one of them was inclined to run off and do a “Lassie”.

  Then, while Warlock watched over those in the house, Doug assisted the mechanics as best h
e could, by stripping the tyres from the jeep and fitting them on the ute, changing the oil, other minor jobs.

  Eventually, there was only so much Doug could do without supervision so he left the others to it, knowing they would go faster without him in the way. Tempers were fraying. The heat was rising to an uncomfortable level in the shed, and the repairs to the engine were not going as smoothly as Mick reckoned they would.

  Doug should have preferred returning to the cooler, more tranquil house. But it also meant putting up with Warlock and a merciless group of eyes.

  ***

  The ute had much that needed fixing, but the biggest problem was Mick who, against his own will, had started to enjoy the farmer’s company. The sweltering heat and difficulties patching up an old engine made it easy to ignore their true circumstances. They could have been two mates in a hurry to fix a ute to attend a wedding. But whenever they found themselves close to talking amiably they broke off into formal, angry silence, limiting themselves again to only what was needed to get the job done.

  The slip-ups and silences became greater as the day wore on.

  In one of those periods Warlock arrived bearing a loaded tray. On it was a heaped plate of biscuits, bookended by two tall glasses of Coke with enough ice in each to clink against the bottom. Mick swore at the sight of Warlock, but in pleasure. His lower back crackling as he stretched, he enquired about the biscuits – ginger nut – as Rob wriggled out from under the ute.

  “Cheers,” Mick said to Rob and took a long draught from his glass. His face suddenly knotted and he staggered, spilling his drink. Ice clattered off the ute. He scrunched his eyes shut and massaged his forehead with unsteady fingers to loosen the powerful calipers gripping it. “Jesus Christ! A glass of Coke nearly did me in!”

  Some inkling made him look at Rob. The farmer was standing very still, dark calculation in his face, and maybe ill-concealed agitation at an opportunity missed.