Only Killers and Thieves(83)

“Meaning what?” Tommy asked him. “You want us gone? Fine, we’re gone.”

“No!” Sullivan said, laughing, slapping a hand on the desk. “I want you to bloody stay! There’s potential in the pair of you. I’m going to give you a chance. I can’t grant you a formal lease, but you’ll be selectors in all but name, run the place as your own. Course, you’ll need cattle and men, a few horses maybe, we’ll get to all that once the rains have passed. You can pay back what’s owed over time, same terms as your old man. Assuming you’d be interested, that is?”

“Yeah,” Billy said quickly. “I mean, thanks.”

“What do you get out of it?” Tommy asked.

“The debt gets paid, plus my own people on my own land. It’s not hard, son.”

“And how are we meant to feed our cattle when you’ve got the river dammed?”

Sullivan sniffed, took a drink. “That dam’s been there for decades. Ned knew the conditions. Same as I’m offering you now.”

“What if we don’t accept?”

Billy leaned forward, looked across. “Will you shut your bloody mouth?”

“He ruined us,” Tommy said, pointing over the desk. “That debt was a noose round Daddy’s neck—you saw how he was. Even scuttled us in town when Daddy couldn’t pay, starving us out by the end.” He looked at Sullivan. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“I was his proprietor, Tommy: like it or not, your father worked for me. I gave him chance after chance . . . him and your mother had no right carrying on the way they did. Bloody well turned on me in the end. Lack of basic gratitude, of well-earned respect. And I’m sorry to say it, boys, but I’m starting to feel something similar from the pair of you.”

“No, we’re grateful,” Billy told him. “For everything. Thank you.”

Sullivan wagged his finger slowly at Tommy. “I’m not so sure about your brother here, Billy-boy. Makes me wonder if I’m not being a touch hasty, if I’ve judged the pair of you wrong. I take you in, care for your sister, petition Noone on your behalf, even pay his bloody fee. Hell, I just rode half the colony to get justice for your family and—”

“That was for you, not us,” Tommy said. “Joseph wasn’t even there. You’re the one that wanted the Kurrong dead. That’s what you paid Noone for.”

Sullivan leaned back in his chair. The leather creaked. He drained his glass.

“Now we’re getting to it. Alright, Tommy, let me make this crystal fucking clear. You two owe me. If you’ve any sense between you, you’ll see your debt paid. You don’t seem to recognize the position you’re in. It’s a good life I’m giving you, better than you could make on your own. But if you turn down this offer, there won’t be another in its place. I fucking own you. I could have you arrested, locked up, hanged for false testimony and what you did to them blacks. I could put you to work slopping out the dunnies and shoveling horseshit, and no one would even wonder where you are. If you run I’ll have you hunted down—you’ve seen what happens to them that cross me; don’t make the same mistake yourselves.”

“He didn’t mean nothing,” Billy blurted. “Tell him, Tommy.”

“Yeah,” Tommy mumbled. “It came out wrong.”

Sullivan considered him a long time, sighed, and said, “Well, good. I’m pleased to hear it. We can’t work together without trust. I think that’s where it broke down with your old man. Trust. Too many things unsaid.”

“We trust you. We’re grateful. Honestly, we are.”

“I know that, Billy. But it’s him whose word I need to hear.”

Tommy scratched at his dressing with his thumb. He nodded his head.

“You sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Then it seems we have a deal.”

“Thank you,” Billy said. “I mean it. We won’t let you down, I swear.”

Tommy looked up suddenly. “When’s Noone leaving?”

“Noone? Tomorrow, I expect, day after maybe—why?”

“What if he left Kala, as a housemaid or whatever, help us around the place?”

“You mean that young gin?”

Tommy nodded. A smile spread on Sullivan’s face. “Christ, if you wanted to fuck her you should have. You’ve missed your chance by now. Besides, you know the kind of state she’ll be in, once those troopers are through?”

“He’s selling her. You could buy her for us.”

“We don’t want her,” Billy protested. “She ain’t no good.”

“But you could do that? Buy her? Talk to Noone?”

“Tommy, that’s enough! I’m not buying some fucking gin!”

Sullivan was shaking his head. “Noone would never let you have that girl.”

“He’d let you.”

Sullivan seemed to be mulling on it. Hurriedly Tommy added, “I’ll agree if you do it. Be your agent, or whatever you just said. Those are the terms. Or else no.”

He held Sullivan’s eye. The silence hung and hung.

“Well, well, at last the runt gets ahold of the tit.” He let go a deep sigh. “Alright, young Tommy, I’ll talk to the inspector, see what I can do.”