We were slowing, Stedman turned off the highway, climbed a hill on a dirt road. My feeling of relief was gone.
‘So, can we do a deal?’ I said, trying to keep a whine out of my voice.
‘Deal’s done, mate,’ he said. ‘Just dropping in here to see about some business, take you home.’
We went up and down hills under a near-full moon, the road got worse, corrugations gave way to bumps and potholes that were too much even for the expensive vehicle’s suspension. The headlights gleamed on water in the holes, lit up the stringy trees on both sides.
A sick feeling was growing in me, acid rising. We rounded a corner.
‘Look for a fucking skull and crossbones,’ Stedman said. ‘From now. On the left.’
Inside a few hundred metres, the man next to him said, ‘There.’
I saw it in the lights as we turned, a tin sign nailed to a tree, crudely painted, white on black. It said: NO ENTRANS KEEP OUT TRESPASERS DIE. We drove along a pitted, wandering track, downhill for three or four kilometres, climbing for a few minutes, going to the right, then over a ridge and down steeply.
‘Here fucking somewhere,’ said Stedman, and the headlights picked up a parked vehicle, an old Dodge truck. There was also a white Valiant, rust patches on the boot. Stedman parked between them, lights on a corrugated iron building. He hooted, two sharp blasts.
Two men appeared, one short and broad, wearing a beanie, the other tall and thin, stooped, hair to his shoulders. The short one had a full beard.
‘Chokka and Jimbo,’ said Stedman. ‘Ferals. Fucking animals. Jimbo’s the proof that fathers shouldn’t root their daughters.’
He got out, stood with the door open, cold coming in, the sound of dogs barking. ‘Where’s the fucking stuff?’ he said, no greeting.
Jimbo turned and went from sight. Chokka walked over. He was wearing denims near-black with dirt, a filthy upper garment. Bits of dried food were stuck to his beard.
‘G’day,’ he said. He smiled. Tooth stumps.
Stedman closed the door. He walked away with Chokka, around the Dodge, out of view. I breathed out. This was just business, dodgy business, drug business almost certainly, but it didn’t involve me. The three of us sat in silence.
Jimbo appeared in the lights, carrying a bag, half-full, yellow, an agricultural-looking bag, fertiliser, poultry feed. He looked around. Stedman and Chokka came out from behind the truck. The threesome walked towards us, went behind the vehicle. The rear door opened, I heard the bag going in, the door thunked down.
Stedman got back in. ‘Totally scrambled, Jack,’ he said. ‘Apes would be fucking insulted to be related to these idiots.’
He engaged reverse. ‘Let’s go home,’ he said.
I breathed out, a full breath. It was going to be all right, there was going to be a way out of this.
My door opened, two hands grabbed my head, pulled me, I had no resistance, went sideways, fell to the ground, hands dragged me away from the vehicle, I felt a huge weight on my chest, someone sitting on me.
‘This is the end of this crap,’ said Stedman. ‘Fucking circle closed. Look in his pockets, Chokka. Keys.’
Hands groped me, found Linda’s keys.
I couldn’t breathe, I tried to fight, the weight was overwhelming, schoolyard bully weight.
‘Cheers, Jack,’ said Stedman. ‘The boys’ll look after you. Great tradition of hospitality out here, not so, boys?’
The men made spitty, guttural noises.
‘Don’t fuck him without foreplay,’ said Stedman. ‘Grease him up with the WD40.’
‘Bagga fucker,’ said Chokka.
40
They pulled a bag over my head, my shoulders, dragged me by my feet, twenty, thirty metres over hard- packed dirt, through a doorway, handcuffed me to something.
‘Have a sleep,’ said Chokka. He pulled the bag off me. ‘Getting up fuckin early, right, Jimbo?’
Jimbo laughed, a high-pitched nasal sound, somehow both childlike and chilling.
They left, slammed a tin door. Jimbo was still laughing and the dogs were still barking. I didn’t move for a while, lying on my back, hands held behind my head, elbows at eye level, fear and self-pity pushing everything out of mind, shutting down my brain. Then I began to feel the cold — fierce cold, the ground beneath me, the air.
Suit pants and a cotton shirt, thin socks. I would die of cold before any other fate could befall me.
I could see my breath. There was light from a small window, just four panes, smeared, cobwebs moving.
Light from where?
Moonlight, it was just off full moon. You didn’t always notice the moon in the city, it wasn’t a city thing, the moon, superfluous to city requirements.
What were they going to do to me?
Kill me.
I felt the thing I was handcuffed to. The leg of something, I could make it out, a bench of some kind, steel pipe legs. I wriggled away until I could slide the cuffs down to the ground. If I could lift the bench…
The leg didn’t terminate. It curved. The legs were one length of pipe, bent upwards to meet the top. I wriggled back and ran my hands up. There was a flange: the pipe was bolted to the top, two bolt heads.
I wasn’t going to escape. I was going to freeze to death or I was going to live until they came for me and killed me.
No.
I got my palms under the benchtop, pushed, I didn’t know what I was trying to do, I was trying, that was all that mattered.
I could not move the benchtop a single millimetre.
What else?
I squirmed around and tried to get my legs under the bench, use the strength of my legs to do I knew not what. I couldn’t. There was something in the way.
Think.
I thought.
I tried things, hopeless, pointless, stupid things, my wrists were painful, I thought I could see blood staining my shirt-sleeves. I ached everywhere.
At length, I stopped trying to free myself, lay, shivering, teeth clicking. A kind of numb peace came upon me and I slept, dreamed I was lying on the ground and someone was kicking me in the side. I tried to sit up and couldn’t.
I opened my eyes, felt another kick, higher, in the ribs.
‘Fuckin wakie wakie,’ said Chokka. ‘Bag him.’
Jimbo lifted my head by the hair, pulled a plastic bag down to my shoulders. I panicked, shouted, inhaled, exhaled, smelled my stale breath.
The handcuff was off my right hand.
‘Geddup, fucker,’ said Chokka. ‘Gotta shotgun here, any shit I blow your fuckin balls off.’
I stood up, my hands were cuffed again, behind me, someone pushed me. I walked, collided with something, the door probably, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible, feeling the plastic being sucked in, moist air in the bag, something jammed against my spine, a gun muzzle. I walked, stumbled on something, a hand pushed me sideways, changed my direction, no idea of distance covered.
My collar was gripped from behind, stopping me, the bag pulled off my head.
Air. So sweet, so clean.
Dogs barking, close, metres away.
The muzzle in my back.
