“You called your sons William and Thomas?”
“’Course I did, what else? Now, Thomas is a proper McBride: only eleven but there’s a natural way with him, good on a horse,roping, all of it. Takes after his uncle, I reckon. Reminds me of us at that age.”
Tommy drank, swallowing hard, pushing down the lump in his throat. To hear Billy speak of his children, of Tommy’s niecesand nephews, of the boy Billy had named after him and who was skilled on a horse . . . of a family, blood relations, stillout there somewhere, after all this time. He said, “I had no idea, Billy.”
“No, well, it’s not always as perfect as it sounds. Nothing just landed in my lap. Most places up north folded in the drought—youmust have heard how things was. It was close for a while there. I worked my arse off to keep us afloat. And our name’s notdone me any favors along the way, neither, I can guarantee you that.”
“Aye, well, you and me both.”
“Where did this Robert Thompson come from anyway?”
“Saw it on a gravestone, outside St. George.”
“You nicked the name off a dead bloke?”
Tommy shrugged. “Figured he didn’t need it no more.”
Billy laughed, they both drank. “See, that’s what I was thinking. It might be we can put all that into the deal, clear yourname for good. Then you could properly be yourself again, move on.”
“I know it might not seem much, but honestly, I’m happy here as I am.”
“You belong up north, though, Tommy. This rain, the hills and valleys, it’s all wrong. A tiny hut, no family to speak of,I mean your dog’s nice enough but . . .”
Tommy leaned forward, glancing up and down the verandah.
“What you lost?” Billy said.
“She normally beats me round here. Reckon you must have scared her off.”
“I have that effect on females. Even dogs.”
Billy lit a cigarette, offered Tommy one. Another splash of whiskey in each mug. They drank and smoked in silence until Billysaid, “So who’s this Emily you were talking about? The one with the two lovely pies?”
Tommy smirked, took a drag of the cigarette, glanced at him sidelong. “She runs the little bakery in town.”
“I saw her! Pretty blond thing? I saw her through the window this afternoon!”
“That’s her. We’ve been off and on about a year now. Well, not off exactly, just . . . her husband died, we’re taking it slow.”
“For a year?”
“I’ve not always been well.”
“As in sick?”
“I’m fine, we’re fine. She would have been up here now if it wasn’t for some suspect-looking bastard snooping around town.I told her to stay home.”
“Hey now, don’t blame me for your woman troubles, it ain’t my fault you—”
Billy’s head erupted in an explosion of blood and bone, smacked hard against the house wall then rebounded and came to resthanging with his chin against his chest. The back of the head was missing, a smooth round hole at the front, a trickle ofblood beginning to seep. His whiskey mug slid from his grip and thudded on the deck and turned a slow circle through the spillage;he was still somehow holding his cigarette. Aghast, Tommy stared at him, while in the distance, across the gully, throughthe rain, a single crack of gunfire reverberated in the hills.
Chapter 37
Tommy McBride
Billy’s body slumped forward, arms hanging low. The cigarette finally fell. Half-lidded eyes, staring; the bullet hole in-between.A thin red bead ran along the bridge of his nose and dripped like sweat from the tip.
On the far bank of the gully, squatting drenched among the ferns and trees, Percy rodded another ball into that great Hawken rifle, and took aim again.
Tommy watched his brother tilting, the bead of blood hanging, the mug rocking lightly on the deck. Lost in a kind of reverie,numb, dimly registering the fading rifle report and the silence that followed in the hills. Then at the last a jolt of clarity,a premonition, and he hurled himself to the floor just as a second gunshot fizzed overhead and tore through the wall behind.
Percy tutted irritably. Tipped in a measure of powder. Dropped another ball in.
Around the bench Tommy scrambled, through the pool of spilled whiskey, past Billy’s knees, legs, stockinged feet. He shoulderedthe door open and fell into the front room, and was showered in splinters as another shot hit. He kicked the door closed behindhim, scrabbled on all fours for the kitchen archway, a cacophony of glass breaking as the front window was blown out.
Percy peppered the house, laughing. Like taking potshots at the fair.
Out of range around the archway, Tommy cowered with his back against the kitchen wall. Desperately scanning the room for a weapon, but there were only knives in the house. The nearest firearm was in the stables, the shotgun on the table, he’d seen it there earlier on. Idiot. Stupid to assume he was safe. But then he’d not counted on Billy, his arrogance, thinking he could come here, that Noone would not know, all the while leading him directly to Tommy’s door.
Percy wiped the rain from the scope lens, then settled his sights again, smirking at Billy keeled over on the bench. “Chickenshit,” he mumbled through his chewing tobacco, a wet brown squelch between his teeth. He roved the front of the house slowly. The other brother was hiding in the back. Meaning he’d either run for the stables or take off on foot over the fields. Percy knew which one he would wager. He placed his bets on the corner of the building and waited to see if he’d won.
At the back door Tommy paused and looked the room over, rain hammering the roof overhead. It was finished now, all this. Thelife
