Coming Rain (20 page)

Clara screaming as she ran. Her father looked to where she was running across the
paddock from the homestead. Flicked the opening lever with his thumb. Again, extracted
the spent shells, reloaded. Lifted the gun to his shoulder and shot Swift and Bill.
Sky had retreated into her birthing kennel. John kicked
it over and shot her in the
back of head as she cowered from him. One of the yearling pups had crawled away on
its belly to the limit of its chain. Her tail between her legs. John stepped forward
and dragged her closer and shot her too.

Clara reached him and pushed him; stood, bent over and panting, her mouth open staring
at the slaughter. The bodies of her dogs in the kennel lines. The blood and matter
of such familiar coat markings. He had shot each of them in the head so she no longer
recognised their faces.

She began screaming at her father.

He recovered from her push, stepped forward and hit her back-handed across the face.
Hissed words to her she had never heard him use. She staggered and immediately stopped
screaming, opened her mouth and eyes wide, looked at the ground. Silent. Blood coming
from her nose.

‘I left you her,' her father said, his voice soft now. Pointed with the gun barrels
to the bitch Dee who had curled into a ball as if trying to make herself invisible.
She was unmoving and terribly still except for spasms of trembling coming through
her.

‘You only need the one dog, girl,' he said. ‘And she is barren so when she dies you
will have to buy another. Won't you?' Her father broke the shotgun open and allowed
the barrels to point to the ground. ‘You always kept far too many dogs young lady.'
He turned and walked towards the dressage yards.

Clara fell to her knees and began a dreadful wailing. There were no intelligible
words coming from her except please. And, don't Dad.

*

Jimmy was standing on the veranda, a hand shading his face. He was holding a towel
in the other hand and watching where the shooting came from. His face contorted,
mouth open in horror. He began waving the white teatowel as he realised what was
happening.

John Drysdale reached the handling yard.

The shooting and screaming had unsettled the black filly. She was tossing her head
and racing around and around the circular yards, her feet throwing up sawdust. She
saw him, smelled the blood, stopped and turned away from the old man and cocked her
hips as if in warning that she would kick him if he came close. He stepped to one
side and shot her in the belly with both barrels.

The blast threw her onto her side and she tried to stand. The pink coils of her intestines
had come out of her and she stepped in them. Staggered, gave a high-pitched noise
and fell to her front knees. Nose to the ground.

John reloaded. He levelled the shotgun and shot her in the head. ‘Good,' he said.
He did not like to see an animal suffer unnecessarily. He didn't even know if his
daughter had named the young horse yet. Spoke again to himself, language he never
used. ‘Where's that fucking cunt kangaroo with the straw hat? Gwen is it?'

He did not see Jimmy as he came up behind him. Only heard, ‘Sorry Mr John,' as Jimmy
hit him over the back of the neck with a length of wood.

Drysdale sprawled forward and Jimmy stepped over him and hit him again, this time
on the side of the head above his ear. He kicked the shotgun away and knelt next
to the old man. ‘Sorry
Mr John but you
gila gila
. Oh my good God Miss Clara I did
not know he do this. I am very sorry. He go crazy your father.'

His accent was strong as he took a roll of bandages from his pocket and tied Drysdale's
hands behind his back. Rolled him onto his back and looked to where Miss Clara was
still kneeling and wailing.

CHAPTER 49

The dingo listened and heard the vehicle start and drive away. The sound of the motor
faded and soon there was no sound of them at all. The quiet of the country without
the men in it returned. Her breathing slowed.

Her heart too began to slow its beat. She would wait another hour before she emerged
from the gully. She had taken her mouth from the young dog's mouth and licked her
lips. Licked his mouth and looked at him. His fear and trembling. She crawled out
of the deep fold in the land, lay down and waited in the covering at the edge of
the scrub. Watched the red male and closed her eyes. Rested her chin on the ground
and waited.

He joined her and they lay as still as they could until the dog crows found them.
The black feathered demons began hopping and flapping in the bushes above them. Cawing
and calling waahdong
,
their judgment; their mocking of her and her kind. The thought
of emerging into the open country from the cover of the blue and smoke bush daunted
her but at the same time
she knew they would have to move. The damned dog crows were
telling the world they were there. The old man with the car and the rifle would soon
see these things and return. She rose and ran at the black feathered devils, snapped
at them.

Resumed the need to run east and, as she began to trot, she began to see before her
images of the man hunting them and how he would know their line of travel; how he
would know they had been steadily moving into where the sun rose. East. The need
to find water was once again growing and as they ran into more and more strange country
the knowledge of places diminished.

His moving car and his arms raised, forming, shooting and disappearing in the ground
before her as she ran.

She breasted a ridge and again saw below the long fence and how it stretched right
away to the bokadje line where the earth meets sky. The young dog caught up and stopped
with her and they lay panting and watching the fence and the darkening land, the
sun falling behind them. The crows seemed to have given up for a while and the afternoon
sun was coming down over the earth in a wide view for as far as she could see.

She came to a decision to cut through country. She knew of an abandoned township.
Water would have gathered there from the storms.

A wide looping backtrack and then they could follow ancient river lines, continue
into the interior where no men no cars would follow. Backtrack yet again to return
to the line of rocks that was the head of Winjilla Springs. There was the ancient
place to den. Fresh water close and rock caves. But first she would mislead.
She
stood, wheeled away to her right side and began to trot to the south.

The young red dog, frowning, panting, his injured leg beginning to touch the ground
a little, began, as usual and unquestioning, to follow her.

CHAPTER 50

Painter was staring in the direction of the shooting. ‘What the hell is going on?
Shooting off that shotgun boss? Something's wrong.'

Lew began convulsing and Painter rolled him onto his side. Pulled his rigid arms
together and down towards his knees. Took off his Jackie Howe vest and made a rough
pillow. He stood up and leaned back down with his hands on his knees as he stared
into Lew's swelling face. ‘No. No you don't. I believed in you son, don't let me
down now.'

Painter straightened, turned his back to look towards the woolshed.

‘Fuckin' kid,' he said. ‘Didn't even have a pair of shoes when I met you. Still shit'n
yellow.'

Thought about the location of his Bible. Next to his bed, on the floor. He could
see the shape of the woolshed. And above the corrugated-iron building, surrounded
by trees and the sky, a ghost shadow of the coming moon already rising.

He bowed his head. ‘The priest O'Donnell, son. Forbid
them not to come unto me: the
little children.' He put his thumb up to his nostril, blew snot onto the ground.
‘For something something suffer…enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Yeah, that's it.' Some
of the snot blew across his ribs and belly and he looked up. ‘O'Donnell? Some other
cunt maybe.'

An old man, bare chested with muscles like twisted ropes in arms and shoulders and
chest. He began walking and shadow boxing. Shuffling feet, bobbing and ducking his
head. Once he slapped both hands onto his chest. Across his back an entire crucifixion
scene.

More shotgun blasts, and then more. He looked again to where they were coming from
and then he heard a woman. It was young Clara and she was screaming.

His eyes became wide and he began to run towards the screaming. Calling out.

‘Hold on, hold on.'

CHAPTER 51

It had been a week. Perhaps ten days. Following the outlines of a raised gravel road,
Lew had driven John Drysdale's Series I Land Rover due east for two hours. He stopped
at a crossroads with a rock cairn, a black metal pole and signposts. Daybreak Springs
15 miles, pointing from where he had come; beneath that: Thompsons Find 5 miles.

He switched off the engine and did not move as he thought about the last week.

A night, a day and a night again till he woke. He didn't know how long it had been.
It had hurt when he breathed and it hurt when he tried to walk. His urine red with
blood.

Jimmy had said to him, Mr John he is not well no. He was standing at the front door
of the homestead.

Painter had gone too but was true to his word and had sent the doctor who drove out
from Gungurra that same day. Dr Fraser had wanted to move Drysdale to a Perth hospital
but Jimmy said, no, Mr John he don't want to go. Lew remembered the doctor examining
him. Saying he had concussion but there
was nothing broken apart from his nose. His
fingers on the grating ribs. Confirming that they were cracked but otherwise he was
all right internally apart from bruised kidneys. Spleen good. Liver fine. The doctor
bandaged and strapped his ribs; kept the strapping in place with two diagonal shoulder
bandages.

‘Where is the daughter?' Dr Fraser asked as he worked. ‘Clara, is it?'

Jimmy watching them. ‘She out riding doctor, be gone all day. It's hard on her y'know.
She not herself anyway after mother.'

‘What's been going on out here?' the doctor said. ‘Mr Drysdale has had, well, there's
the stroke of course. But what are these blows to his head?' He took off his glasses
to look at them both.

Jimmy stepped forward. ‘When Mr John fall down he roll around, hit his head. Mr Lew
fall off horse before, very bad luck same time and Mr John it just happen too. Isn't
it. Maybe he get big fright from Mr Lew falling.' Jimmy speaking in feigned stupidity
and innocence. ‘Ask Mr Lew if you want.'

‘Is that right Lewis?' the doctor asked, staring at him. ‘I may have to call in to
the police station about this.'

‘You don't have to. Just bad luck. All at the same time, Doc. Just happened mate.'
Lew said and tried to smile through his bruised face.

‘Yes. I see.'

The doctor left Jimmy with a bottle of pills and instructions to bring Mr Drysdale
into the Gungurra hospital if his condition deteriorated. Said the next one might
kill him.

Jimmy nodding and thanking the doctor.

Lew saw old man Drysdale sitting at the end of the veranda.
He had not been shaved
and saliva bubbled from a corner of his mouth. The stubble on his chin and throat
as white as smoke bush. His neck hung in loose wattles and his burnt face shining
red. His damaged eye was closed; fluid streamed almost constantly. He was holding
a handkerchief to his face with his right hand. Food stains on his shirt and trousers.
His left hand like a rubber glove, useless and livid. Held at an awkward angle in
front of his groin.

Drysdale, trying to say something but seeming instead to be yawning, hissed, winked
and turned away. He reached out with the hand holding the handkerchief, waving it
at Lew. Making angry noises. His head sagged and he appeared to weep.

‘You fucking old bastard,' Lew said softly. ‘What you did, you selfish fucking old
bastard.'

Jimmy was calling out from somewhere in the house. ‘Mr John where are you? You hiding
from me. Time for your tablets isn't it.' His laughter.

When Jimmy came, he was holding two white tablets in the palm of his hand and a glass
of water with two straws. A towel over his shoulder. He stopped and stared at Lew.
‘You better go Mr Lew, upsetting Mr John. I mean it,' he said and was not laughing
or smiling. ‘I mean it OK?'

‘Where is Clara, Jimmy?' Lew asked. ‘I want to see her.'

Jimmy giving him a hard look.

‘She no come out room, Mr Lew. Best you stay away for while. She not speaking to
anybody even to me. Best you go away now. Please Mr Lew.'

CHAPTER 52

By the time the dingo bitch smelled young goats on the wind her hunger had become
constant.

They had come up to the old township from the west and were safely downwind of the
herd of goats the old man kept. Her mother's hunting, the beginning of her knowledge
of the world. All the animals of the old men to be approached with much caution but
the reward was usually an easy kill. She waited for the young dog to catch up to
her. They heard singing coming from the stone house with the series of offset walls
and gardens spaced out towards the east. She knew there was water there; drinking
troughs for the goats. The smell of it coming on the wind.

The old man emerged from the stone house and the young dingo's tail immediately shot
between his legs. He whimpered and put his head onto the sand and began to backtrack.
It was the old bearded man with the car. The shooter who had slaughtered his clan.
Almost killed them.

He looked at the bitch in confusion. She too was lying flat on the sand, but she
was studying the movements of the old man. Saliva dripped from her tongue and lips
and once again the unceasing hunger made the whole world alive to her. She almost
whined but instead opened and closed her mouth and continued to pant. Would never
be so weak to her hunger as to become vulnerable. Again the schooling of her mother
and grandmother, the awareness in her body. What good to the whelp, the pack, dead?
Be hungry, eat, after the kill. Above them the sun rose and the day was hot.