Only Killers and Thieves(66)



“He’ll thank you for it,” Noone said. “As will your brother. As will the girl.”

The revolver was still there in his outstretched hand. Tommy stared at the glinting metal for what felt a very long time. The injured man wheezed dully, his eyes searching the canyon and the sky like he knew not where he was. Again Kala screamed. Tommy snatched up the revolver, marched across camp, shoved his brother aside, and fired a single cartridge cleanly into the man’s failing heart.





23



Silence followed the gunshot. Sounds of breathing and boots scuffing the dirt and Kala sniffing back her tears. Tommy lowered the revolver. His own breathing came quick and hard through his nose. His chest heaved. The man lay dead against the wall, steadily bleeding out. Nobody moving, all of them watching Tommy, as if waiting for something more. Billy weakly pushed him. Tommy slammed the revolver into Noone’s hand, then grabbed his saddle pack and bedroll and walked out of camp, back along the ravine and down through the sloping tree cover to where the horses were tied. Beau was standing in the rocky glade, lips slopping as he chewed, his wise and kindly face, and at the sight of him Tommy sank to the ground and clutched his head in his hands, fingers gripping his hair so hard the tips were white, his eyes filling with tears. He had killed a man. He had taken a life. He didn’t believe the native had killed his parents, and he didn’t believe in Noone’s notion of any black will do. How was that justice? Where would it ever end?

“Bloke was dying anyway,” he mumbled, and this was surely true. If Tommy hadn’t finished him, then Billy would have, or any of the others up there. Would have taken their time about it too, maybe toyed with him awhile first. It was a mercy he had performed and that was all, and to hell with bloody Noone. He’d been smiling when Tommy gave back the revolver, like he’d proved himself or some horseshit. Fuck him. Fuck Billy too. Fuck all of them and their—

Footsteps scraped through the scree and dry leaves above, coming down the hill. Tommy rose and wiped his eyes and face, spat, went to where Beau was tethered. The horse watched him. Tommy stroked his nose, let him nuzzle his hand.

“Don’t suppose you saw our Billy down here last night?”

Beau sniffed his palm.

“No,” Tommy said quietly. “I didn’t think you had.”

The group arrived and readied their horses in silence, the atmosphere oddly downcast, like something had been lost up there. Rabbit clapped Tommy warmly on the shoulder and as Noone helped her into the saddle Kala’s eyes were on him too.

Billy sulked alone. He untied Annie and stood waiting at the edge of the trees, and when all were ready they walked their horses out of the cover and onto a narrow track leading across the hillside and around the ravine in which they’d camped. Bulging headland on their right, rubbled downslopes below. A little way above him, Tommy saw the cave Sullivan had likely used. A dark and shadowy slit in the rock, and the woman still up there, he assumed. But then as they walked he noticed two wedgetails circling high overhead and he examined the country to the east. A beautiful country, bathed in golden dawn. He read the wedgetails’ position. They were over the foot of the same downslope the group now traversed, where boulders lay piled and mulga trees grew. And there, part-hidden among them, the woman lay broken on the rocks. Marks in the scree showed where she had rolled, must have been tossed from the cave. He looked to see if Kala had noticed, but she had not. She rode naked before him, prized and protected and favored by Noone, carried like a princess on his horse, and Tommy only feared for her all the more.

*

White clouds blew overhead as the party rode through the shadow of the ranges and into the sunshine of the western plains, the nothingness that lay there, as empty and unyielding as all they’d crossed before. The ranges hadn’t changed anything, hadn’t signaled a frontier or marked a shift in the terrain. They were their own anomaly. A knot in a vast sheet of lumbered wood. They were there, then they were not there, and the land went on and on.

Late morning the two riders hove into view and Noone brought the party to a halt. They sat watching the two small figures shimmering on the horizon and the dust rising from their hooves. The wind blew gently. The sun warmed their backs. The riders had been heading southeast; now they turned and rode directly to where the party stood. Noone clucked with displeasure. Glaring at the horses advancing across the open plain. He looked at his men with eyebrows raised, then shook his head and sighed. There was muffled laughter. Locke spat a string of brown saliva onto the ground, and though Noone addressed the group, he stared directly at him: “Don’t anyone shoot these bastards unless I give the word.”

On they came. Noone called for Jarrah to help Kala from his horse.

“Put her with the oldfella—Pope, keep your hands off.” He caught Tommy’s eye and corrected himself: “Actually, give her to the youngblood there. He’s more than capable of taking care of her, I’m sure.”

Jarrah lifted the girl onto Tommy’s saddle and he inched himself forward to make space. Beau stepped uneasily at the extra weight but settled under Tommy’s hand. He felt the warmth of Kala behind him, the heat coming off her skin. She didn’t touch him that he could tell, but kept herself back on the horse. He glanced once over his shoulder, then quickly away, no clear look at her face, saw only the presence of her there. Her bare legs dangled behind his legs. Dark feet dusted in a fine red dirt.

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