Only Killers and Thieves(8)

*

Midmorning they found their first carcass. The dogs stopped their weaving through the spinifex and pointed themselves stiffly at the scrub. Steadily the five horses approached, no faster than walking pace in this heat. There was no shade, no respite from the sun, the wind only made it worse. All of them were sweating. Dark stains on their shirt backs, faces glistening beneath the brim of each hat. Joseph had his shirt open, and the sweat stood in beads on the scars that climbed ladderlike up his chest. Tommy couldn’t stop staring at them, couldn’t help but guess what those scars meant. They looked like notches: a tally carved into the skin. The thought chilled him. He counted four scars—did that mean four men? And what about those troopers yesterday? How many must they have had? Were their torsos, their entire bodies, riddled with marks?

Tommy was pulled out of himself by Father swinging down from his horse, handing off his reins to Arthur, and walking toward the dogs. Flies hung over the clutch of scrub in a rolling dark cloud, diving and lifting and diving again. The dogs yapped, then fell still. The others waited. Wafts of spoiled meat carried on the air. Tommy took off his hat, wiped himself down, swatted the flies. He glanced at Billy, looking miserable on Jess—Tommy knew how her gait would be hurting his backside; there was no pleasure in riding that horse. He offered what was meant as a conciliatory smile. Billy snorted and looked away.

With his sleeve covering his mouth, Father leaned over the carcass like a man over a ledge, then came back shaking his head.

“No good. Maggots are already in there. Must be three days old at least.”

Arthur handed back his reins. “Dingos get into her yet?”

“Aye,” Father said. He mounted up and took the notebook from his shirt pocket, licked the tip of the pencil and made a mark.

“Not blackfellas, though?” Arthur asked him.

“Nope. Drought. Which is something, I suppose.”

They moved on. Tommy looked at the cow as they passed. She was sprawled on her side in the dirt, hide hacked open, innards dragged out. There were pockmarks in her skin from the eagles and crows, and both eyes were gone. Flies lay upon her like a newly grown pelt; as one they rose when the horses went by, a shadowlike swarm hanging, then descending again as soon as the party was clear.

The next carcass was more recent, not yet a day old. Father inspected it, then came back and unbuckled the strychnine flask from his saddlebag.

“You two muzzle the dogs. Joseph, open her up.”

The young stockman frowned at the instruction. Arthur explained, mimicking a blade with his hand, pointing at the cow and the flask Father held. Joseph shook his head. He turned and stared off into the scrub and Arthur reached out and slapped him on the arm, but Joseph didn’t respond.

“Problem?” Father asked.

“Might be,” Arthur said, glaring at Joseph as he fidgeted on his horse. This wasn’t the first time he’d been like this. Tommy remembered him refusing to shift grain sacks, not long after he was first set on, claimed they were too heavy to lift. There’d been days he’d missed the sunup, gone off wandering and come back hours late, then whenever Father got into him, Joseph would just stand there and take it, not a word in return, like it was nothing to him, like he didn’t care. He had a long and empty stare that slid right off you, but there was always something brooding in him. Mostly against Father. The two of them had been at odds from the start.

“Bloody hell, Arthur, will you just tell him.”

Arthur drew his bowie knife and offered it hilt first. Joseph glanced at the knife, then away. Arthur said, “Well, I ain’t bloody doing it, and he’s not gonna ask the boys. So it’s either you or the cow, mate—which’ll it be?”

Joseph chewed on his tongue, then reached out and took the knife. They all dismounted. Joseph threw Father a look as he went by. Father shook his head and went after him, directed where to make the cut. Joseph lifted the hind legs, sawed the carcass sternum to tail; the innards came sluicing out. Joseph stood aside, holding the knife, blood coating his forearms, and Tommy found himself counting the scars on his chest again.

“Tommy! Wake up, son!”

Father was unscrewing the strychnine. Tommy took a muzzle from Billy, caught hold of Red and pinned him between his knees, wrestled the muzzle on. Red didn’t like it but knew what to expect: both dogs had been with the family since they were pups. Tommy tied the buckle and held Red back, Billy did the same with Blue, all of them upwind of the cow. Father motioned for Joseph to lift the hide, and when he did so, Father tipped in the powder, then quickly jumped away. Joseph let the belly flap closed, walked back to his horse. Already the flies were gathering—the dingos would soon catch the scent. But strychnine was totally odorless: before they knew what they’d eaten, they’d be dead.

They poisoned two other carcasses as they rode across that featureless scrubland broken only by lonely gum trees or thin pockets of brigalow, all of it drenched in a hard and endless sun. There was a gentle incline to the landscape, sloping down toward the distant creek, and from here they could just about glimpse the ranges in the west; a low, dark outline crouched upon the horizon like a storm cloud touching the earth. It was a week’s ride to those ranges, across unsettled country where few men had ever been, no telling what lay beyond. Father had a surveyor’s map showing their selection and the surrounding land, everything to the north, south, or east. The lines went only so far west, then faded into nothingness; the interior blank, like some vast uncharted sea.