Scrublands(108)

There is little to see; if this was a machinery shed, it housed no machinery; there are no burnt-out tractors, no incinerated drill-presses, no blackened ploughshares. Martin looks at the detritus, sifting through its patterns with his mind, trying to visualise what was here. Slowly, the corpse begins to give up its secrets. Martin sees the twisted metal poles, aligned in rows: the remnants of table legs. He scrapes through the ashes with his shoe: a piece of yellow metal. He bends down, picks it up: a brass fitting, like something from a garden hose. He looks up again. Along the remains of one wall, piles of long rectangular ceramic pots, blackened but impervious to the fire’s heat. He’s walking across to examine them when something unexpected seizes his attention: a dark stain on the ground. He crouches, places his palm against the soil. It’s not his imagination: the ground is damp and cool to the touch. Water. Water out here, where there is no water. And against the darkness of the moist ground, something new, the luminous green shoots of tiny plants.

‘Hey, Codger. Take a look at this.’

The old man shuffles over.

‘Are these what I think they are?’

‘Looks like it, young fellow. Baby dope plants.’

Martin stands, surveys the remains of the shed around him. A hydroponic operation, PVC pipes incinerated, together with wooden tables and rubber hoses. The shed must be thirty metres by twenty: a lot of plants, a lot of money. And a lot of water.

‘Did you know about this?’

‘Not me, young fella.’ The old man’s face is guileless, hiding nothing.

‘Where does he get water from out here? Are there bores?’

‘Nah. Only one place that has water out here: Springfields.’

‘Harley Snouch’s place?’

‘That’s right. It’s a fair way along the tracks, but only a kilometre or two as the crow flies.’

‘So Snouch has been supplying water? Selling it, or taking a cut from profits.’ A sense of elation is welling inside him: Snouch is part of a hydroponic drug operation; his threat of defamation against Martin evaporates, as empty as Riversend’s river. ‘Gotcha,’ he says aloud.

‘Don’t be so sure, Martin. Young Jason could’ve just stolen the water.’

‘Stolen? How?’

‘We all do it. Snouch’s dam is spring-fed, never runs dry. It feeds water out to troughs in the scrub, water for the bush cattle. Pretty easy to tap into it, feed some water into our own troughs. We started doing it back when the drought began. Old Eric turned a blind eye, and once he was gone and the place was empty, it was open slather.’

‘What about Harley?’

‘He ripped out the obvious taps, the bastard. Soon as he arrived. So most of us put in more discreet ones. Not so hard to do.’

Martin looks about him. Gotcha starts to lose its certainty. He thinks of the day of the fire, he and Robbie and Snouch retreating through the blazing homestead. There had come a point when Snouch’s hose had failed, when the fire reached the pump house. ‘But an operation like this, that’s a lot of water. Wouldn’t he hear his pump working overtime?’

Codger shrugs. ‘Maybe. And his electricity bill must have been a beauty.’

Martin is alerted by a sound, the crunching of a footstep on metal sheeting. The men turn.

Jason’s petite girlfriend is standing before them, but there is nothing petite about the shotgun she’s wielding. It’s pointed at Martin. ‘What do you cunts want?’ she hisses. She looks a mess: face dirty and blackened, eyes bloodshot, clothes torn and filthy. She’s wearing a black singlet, ripped jeans, boots, tattoos on her arms. An extra from a post-apocalyptic blockbuster.

‘It’s okay, Shazza—we don’t want trouble,’ says Codger, his arms spread in a non-threatening gesture.

‘Who’s he?’

‘Martin. You remember, from the fire. He’s not a cop.’

She considers this for a moment. ‘You got any water?’

Martin can hear the need in her voice, see her cracked lips. ‘Sure. In the car. In the back.’

‘Lead the way,’ she says.

Martin and Codger leave the shed, returning towards the car, arms raised. Codger falls behind Martin, dropping back towards the woman with the gun. ‘You don’t need the gun, love. We’re unarmed, don’t mean any harm. We want to help.’ His voice is calm, measured, reassuring.

‘Don’t be a dickhead, Codger. No one’s going to help us.’

‘Where’s Jase?’

Behind him, Martin hears a stifled sob. He stops walking, tenses, fearing the blast of the shotgun. But there is no response from behind, no insistence that he walk on. He turns slowly, arms held high. Shazza has stopped, the gun lowered, a tremor moving through her.

‘Let’s get some water, love,’ says Codger. ‘And you can tell us all about it.’

At the car, the woman still grips the gun but no longer points it at Martin. He springs the boot and Codger reaches in, takes a one-litre bottle, opens it and offers it to Shazza. She takes it, gulping greedily. Codger gets another bottle, drinks some himself, hands the bottle to Martin. He drinks too. The three of them, drinking water together amid the ruins. And without prompting, the woman starts talking.

‘We came back after the fire, saw there was nothing left. Came back again last Sunday, with a tent and some supplies, to see what we could salvage. But there was nothing left. Nothing. We didn’t know what to do. Jase said we’d just have to start again, borrow some money to build a little shack. Take it from there, a day at a time.’