Read Online Our Sunshine: Popular Penguins by Robert Drewe - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Drewe
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Scanlon who can’t not try some cleverness. Swings his horse around, unslings his rifle, swings back and fires at me. So I shoot him in the heart.
At the far edge of the clearing, Kennedy’s whipping out his revolver as he slides off his horse. Dan’s advancing on him and Kennedy fires over the horse’s rump and nicks Dan’s left arm. Now Joe and Steve start blazing away from the shadows, so the gully’s ripped by flashes, blasts, oaths and horse screams. It’s almost dark. I can’t get a clear shot at him. The panicky horse springs away and Kennedy fires into my face, so close I smell sizzled hair as the bullet parts my beard. McIntyre sees his chance, flings himself on his sergeant’s horse and makes a run for it. And Kennedy stumbles toward the creek and crashes into the cover of the wattle and swamp gums.
I follow him.
This one’s not an amateur. I’ve scooped up Scanlon’s Spencer repeater but the mechanism’s unfamiliar and I drop it in favour of my old shotgun. Kennedy retreats from tree to tree, stopping to fire, while I push him deeper and deeper into the scrub, trying to remember how many shots he’s fired.
He fires his fourth shot (I think) ducking on the run, fifth (probably) from behind a tree. And he’s aiming his sixth bullet (I estimate) when I hit him in the armpit with a blast of swandrops before he can fire.
When I shoot him in the armpit he drops his revolver and heads off again, crashing through the bushes in a shambling run. But at that second I don’t realise he’s dropped his gun. As he’s changing his mind, panting like a croupy draughthorse and swivelling around to surrender, half-raising his arms in the twilight, I mistake the blood all darkening his hand for that revolver with one bullet left – and I fire again. And the shot passes through the right side of his chest.
In the new silence I move toward him through the crackling speargrass. Although he loudly argues that this is not the case, anyone can see he’s had it. Hope he appreciates that it’s not a proper topic for discussion. Embarrassing for both of us, his wheezy scoffing at those loose-petalled wounds like open roses, his begging and looking up at me like that. As an act of charity I position the gun between the two blooming roses, against his heart, and shoot him truly dead.
W E BURN the police tent without speaking and go back to Bullock Creek. Tired in my bones and head and legs, I feel my organs are all shrinking and withdrawing. At the same time my outline’s flickering. Skin’s all shuddery; if you shook me I’d rattle like an old, loose-skinned kangaroo dog I once had. Rips from roos’ claws and pigs’ tusks letting in air pockets under Shandy’s fur. A twitchy Great Dane–dingo cross – in the end Shandy sounded like his yellow flanks were packed with marbles.
My skin won’t sit still on me.
The others: Dan’s cross we didn’t handcuff McIntyre – or shoot him; Joe’s too cut up to speak, just smiles a vague smile and shakes his head now and then; Steve – all the way back to the hut Steve’s gibbering how he’s hungry, rambling on about lamb chops, steak and kidney pies, corned beef and brisket casseroles. But when we get there he can’t even wait for meat to cook, so while the rest of us have big whiskies Steve sucks down five eggs instead.
‘You two don’t have to be in this,’ I tell him and Joe. ‘It’s still only the Kellys. You can put yourselves in the clear, leave now – free as birds.’
Steve’s poking his tongue around inside a shell for missed bits, and he grins up at me with yolk in his face-fluff. ‘A short life and a merry one,’ he says. You’d think this eggy kid was some rollicking highwayman in a book.
‘Well, tally-ho to you,’ I say. ‘It’s New South Wales, then.’
Tom Lloyd keeps watch while we four try to snatch some sleep. Takes a bit of whisky to settle the flickering skin. After three hours we load two packhorses, set fire to our
At the far edge of the clearing, Kennedy’s whipping out his revolver as he slides off his horse. Dan’s advancing on him and Kennedy fires over the horse’s rump and nicks Dan’s left arm. Now Joe and Steve start blazing away from the shadows, so the gully’s ripped by flashes, blasts, oaths and horse screams. It’s almost dark. I can’t get a clear shot at him. The panicky horse springs away and Kennedy fires into my face, so close I smell sizzled hair as the bullet parts my beard. McIntyre sees his chance, flings himself on his sergeant’s horse and makes a run for it. And Kennedy stumbles toward the creek and crashes into the cover of the wattle and swamp gums.
I follow him.
This one’s not an amateur. I’ve scooped up Scanlon’s Spencer repeater but the mechanism’s unfamiliar and I drop it in favour of my old shotgun. Kennedy retreats from tree to tree, stopping to fire, while I push him deeper and deeper into the scrub, trying to remember how many shots he’s fired.
He fires his fourth shot (I think) ducking on the run, fifth (probably) from behind a tree. And he’s aiming his sixth bullet (I estimate) when I hit him in the armpit with a blast of swandrops before he can fire.
When I shoot him in the armpit he drops his revolver and heads off again, crashing through the bushes in a shambling run. But at that second I don’t realise he’s dropped his gun. As he’s changing his mind, panting like a croupy draughthorse and swivelling around to surrender, half-raising his arms in the twilight, I mistake the blood all darkening his hand for that revolver with one bullet left – and I fire again. And the shot passes through the right side of his chest.
In the new silence I move toward him through the crackling speargrass. Although he loudly argues that this is not the case, anyone can see he’s had it. Hope he appreciates that it’s not a proper topic for discussion. Embarrassing for both of us, his wheezy scoffing at those loose-petalled wounds like open roses, his begging and looking up at me like that. As an act of charity I position the gun between the two blooming roses, against his heart, and shoot him truly dead.
W E BURN the police tent without speaking and go back to Bullock Creek. Tired in my bones and head and legs, I feel my organs are all shrinking and withdrawing. At the same time my outline’s flickering. Skin’s all shuddery; if you shook me I’d rattle like an old, loose-skinned kangaroo dog I once had. Rips from roos’ claws and pigs’ tusks letting in air pockets under Shandy’s fur. A twitchy Great Dane–dingo cross – in the end Shandy sounded like his yellow flanks were packed with marbles.
My skin won’t sit still on me.
The others: Dan’s cross we didn’t handcuff McIntyre – or shoot him; Joe’s too cut up to speak, just smiles a vague smile and shakes his head now and then; Steve – all the way back to the hut Steve’s gibbering how he’s hungry, rambling on about lamb chops, steak and kidney pies, corned beef and brisket casseroles. But when we get there he can’t even wait for meat to cook, so while the rest of us have big whiskies Steve sucks down five eggs instead.
‘You two don’t have to be in this,’ I tell him and Joe. ‘It’s still only the Kellys. You can put yourselves in the clear, leave now – free as birds.’
Steve’s poking his tongue around inside a shell for missed bits, and he grins up at me with yolk in his face-fluff. ‘A short life and a merry one,’ he says. You’d think this eggy kid was some rollicking highwayman in a book.
‘Well, tally-ho to you,’ I say. ‘It’s New South Wales, then.’
Tom Lloyd keeps watch while we four try to snatch some sleep. Takes a bit of whisky to settle the flickering skin. After three hours we load two packhorses, set fire to our
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