Only Killers and Thieves(88)

She threw herself from the horse without warning and with only the blanket to break her fall. Tommy didn’t even see her land. He felt movement behind him and thought she was checking the terrain again, then something in Beau’s gait made him turn. Kala wasn’t there. She was lying on the track a few strides back, dragging herself to her feet. Tommy reined up and brought the horse around, saying, “What happened? Are you hurt?”

She looked at him but didn’t answer, hobbling to the trackside, the blanket in her arms. He swung down from Beau and let go of the reins. The horse dropped its head and sniffed the dirt. Kala shuffled into the fringe of scrub, watching Tommy over her shoulder as she went. He reached out toward her, calling, “Wait! There’s a camp, I was taking you to a camp!” but she didn’t stop, limping through the spinifex, until Tommy ran after her and she spun around to face him and screamed.

They stood watching each other, fifteen yards apart. Surrounded by wiry grass hummocks, flies buzzing, no wind. Silence save the noises they made. Their breathing. Beau snuffling at the ground. Kala jabbed her finger at the horse. Tommy didn’t move. So she bent and picked up a rock and launched it at his head.

“Hey!” Tommy shouted, the rock flying by.

Kala picked up another and brandished it, ready to throw. Tommy held up his hands, then lowered them again, conscious of his bandage, of how he’d got his wounds. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.” He checked the ground behind him, took a step back. Kala did the same. They were many miles from Bewley and many more from Broken Ridge, the middle of the journey just about. Nothing else out here. Nothing around them but flatland and bush. Her direction was west, he realized; she was heading for the interior again. With only a blanket by way of provisions. And all on her own.

“I can help you,” Tommy said. “Please—I want to help you.”

Kala threw the rock. Tommy ducked out of the way. She yelled at him. Her voice trembling, her eyes wide. She waved the blanket, pointed to the sky, gestured at the surrounds. He didn’t understand. They watched each other in silence.

“I’m sorry,” he said weakly. He swallowed, raised his voice: “For everything. I’m so sorry. Please.”

His eyes filled. Kala blurred. Blinking away tears, he thought he saw her nod. He wiped his eyes and she was moving, refolding the blanket and backtracking into the scrub. This time he didn’t follow her. Fighting to keep it all in. He watched her turn and break into a weaving run. She looked back only once. When she was almost out of view Tommy returned to Beau and mounted up, and from the higher vantage was briefly able to pick her out again. A small, dark figure in the sunshine, moving swiftly through that land. And then nothing. He swept the terrain but she was nowhere, gone. He looked about hopelessly. She didn’t reappear. The immense and total silence of all that empty bush. He drew a breath of hot air and let it out again, clicked Beau forward, and moved on, still watching for her as he rode, couldn’t help himself, until the first speck of Bewley appeared in the distance, upon the sun-bleached plain.





35



He entered the town at walking pace, keeping to the center of the road. A man and boy loading a dray paused to watch him pass. Few other people about. The street mostly empty, the storefronts bare. Quiet. Lonely sounds of a dull hammering and the clang of the blacksmith’s iron, which only amplified the silence more. He walked his horse in the direction of the general store, more out of habit than design. Dismounted. Tied Beau to the rail. The horse bent his head to the trough and drank the dusty green water it held. Tommy looked along the street. He shielded his eyes from the sun. Outside the Bewley Hotel two men were watching him, leaning on the rail, and he wondered if they were the same men who had called his mother a whore. He stared at them. They spoke to each other and one of them laughed. Tommy spat into the road and looked away. Across the street, the verandah of Song’s Hardware was empty and the door was closed. Tommy glanced again at the men—still watching him—then turned and walked up the steps and into the general store.

The bell tinkled above the door. Spruhl looked up from his newspaper. He was red-faced and lightly sheened with sweat, and his shirt had stains on the chest and under the arms. He pushed his glasses up his nose, straightened, and attempted what Tommy supposed was intended as a smile.

“Master McBride. I am so very sorry to hear.”

Tommy stalled, nodded grimly; he’d not counted on people knowing yet, when of course they all probably did. Word traveled quickly. Quicker than it ought.

“A terrible outrage,” Spruhl was saying. “Those animals deserve the worst.”

Tommy scanned behind the counter and along the dusty shelves.

“You got any water?”

“Of course,” the shopkeeper said. He fetched a jug and a small glass and filled the glass to the brim. Tommy came to the counter and drank it in one.

“Thank you,” he said, setting the glass down.

“Is my pleasure. Can I help with something else?”

“Sausage. Biscuits. Maybe a piece of cheese.”

Spruhl glanced at the meat cabinet, but didn’t move to serve. He worried his little hands. Tommy said, “How’s our credit here these days?”

The shopkeeper’s redness burned. His eyes fell to the desk. “Was different then, you understand. I didn’t mean harm. But your father had not paid and I—”