Tommy shook his head. “I still see him, dream about him: Noone.”
Arthur spat a thin string of saliva hissing into the flames. “Mate, I dreamed about that mission station for years after.I told you what happened to the family, remember?”
The two of them talking outside the bunkhouse, Tommy fourteen years old, glimpsing a world he could never have imagined, realizingthat Arthur had a life of his own.
“’Course I do.”
“Yeah, well, you were too young for the whole story back then. That place . . . there was blood and bodies everywhere, notelling who was who, and I’m picking through it all trying to figure if any of ’em’s mine, the missus and the littl’uns, Inever did find ’em in the end. So maybe they got took, maybe they’re still alive, this was thirty ago and I still don’t know.After, my head was gone, just like yours is now. Only difference is, I didn’t have nobody else.”
Tommy didn’t know what to say to that. The fire threw out a spark.
“So don’t try telling me I don’t know what it’s like. But fuck it, eh, what can you do? Can’t change what happened, that’sfor damn sure. Either forget about it or bury it or whatever else works, but quit your bloody sulking before you get us bothkilled.”
Meekly, Tommy nodded. Staring lost into the flames.
* * *
They reached Cunnamulla late on the fourth day and camped a good distance from town, watching the lanterns burning, listening to the singing and piano music from the hotel bar, imagining the revelry and the beds awaiting the drinkers when they were done. Before dawn they looped around to the western fringe of town and once the place had come to life rode in from that direction, pretending they were traveling east, a lie they repeated to the waitress in the roadhouse, not that she seemed to care. They each had two breakfasts, courtesy of Cal Burns’s money clip, and afterward headed for the livery stables along the road. A shopkeeper sweeping his doorway paused to watch them pass; Tommy touched his hat brim and, after a moment’s hesitation, the man nodded in return.
Outside the stables Arthur unstrapped his battered old saddle and dumped it in Tommy’s arms. “Remember what we talked aboutnow.”
“I remember.”
“Just, don’t tell ’em too much, all right?”
“I remember, I said.”
herman’s tack & livery comprised a large barn with a small tack shop annexed on one side. The shop door was already open. Hesitantly, Tommy steppedinside. An empty bare-wood counter, bits and bridles on the walls, plus a photograph of the local gun club: two dozen grim-facedriflemen scowling in a row.
Tommy dropped the saddle on the counter, called out hello, peered through the archway into the main barn, a smell of straw,shit, and tan in the air. He noticed a handbell on the counter, rang it, a voice called, “Hang on, hang on,” and a momentlater a bald, round-bellied man, presumably Herman, came waddling through the archway, sliding up the shoulder straps on hiscoveralls and fastening a button at the waist. He spread his thickly haired arms on the counter and said, “Help you?” as ifTommy had just that second walked in.
“I’m after a pack saddle, three nose bags, and a sack of grain.”
“All right.”
Tommy nodded at the saddle. “For this, I mean. To trade.”
Herman frowned at the ragged offering then stared at Tommy a long time, taking in the unwashed clothing, the restless gaze.He flipped the saddle over, the buckles and stirrups jangling, and winced like he’d swallowed bad milk.
“Had it long, have you?”
“A while.”
“I’ll say. Well, she’s not pretty, but I might can fix her up. I’d take this plus five pound from you—how does that sound?”
Tommy didn’t haggle, terrible deal though it was. He pulled out the money clip and peeled off the notes and Herman’s thickeyebrows rose. “So what are you,” Herman asked, pocketing the notes in his coveralls, “just passing through?”
“Heading east, after work.”
“What kind of work?”
“Sheep, cattle, anything like that.”
Herman coughed and spat, like the idea offended him. “What you wanting a pack saddle for, if you’re planning on stopping towork?”
Tommy’s innards churned. “That’s my business. Can you fetch the things?”
Herman leaned and looked past him, through the open door. “Them your horses and blackboy out there?”
“Aye.”
Herman snorted. “I seen fatter corpses, he can’t be much use. And there ain’t a packhorse among them—which you planning puttingit on?”
“I’m not asking for advice. Can you just bring the saddle and grain?”
“Well, hell, I’m only trying to help ye.”
“The saddle and grain,” Tommy pleaded, his voice shaking.
Herman’s eyes narrowed in a squint. “You got a name, fella?”
Fighting the urge to run, Tommy glanced over his shoulder at Arthur and felt the weight of the debt between them. He’d beenright about having carried him these past five years: Tommy owed Arthur his life. And now here they were, fleeing inland,yet again because of him; they would never make it to the Cooper Creek without supplies. He dug his nails into his palms andsteadied himself. Took a step toward the counter and said, “I already paid you. Either fetch my things or I will, howeveryou prefer.”
Herman held his stare a moment, then shrugged and went into the barn, Tommy leaning after him, making sure he didn’t takeoff. When he returned, his arms laden, Tommy snatched it all off him and hurried outside, Herman watching through the doorwaybehind.
“We need to get out of here,” Tommy whispered to Arthur.
“What happened? What did he say?”
“Nothing exactly, but still too much.”
In the general store Tommy stood at the counter, his leg jigging restlessly, waiting for the shopkeeper to fill his list. A thin man in a dark waistcoat and bow tie, with a limp mustache and hair parted fastidiously to one side, he labored between the shelves and balanced the scales like he was weighing gold dust not flour.
“Can’t you hurry it up there?”
“You short on time, young man?”
Tommy glanced out of the window. “Long day’s ride ahead of us, that’s all.”
“Well, a few more minutes won’t hurt.”
“We’re headed
