how it had been black as night and his brown face was lined and white eyes that he looked in me eyes with a glare and I knew we were tied together on the roading. Fear hit me like cold water gulped too fast and settled in me guts, wanting to loosen me stools. The face of Crow twisted sharp, it was cold and hard like broken brick.
‘Do it,’ Crow said.
Smoov was down on his knees in front of me, he looked sidewise up and the sweat beaded on his face and runned down his neck. He didn’t say nothing, like he knew what was inside me, what he’d given me the power over him to do. Crow said: ‘Carn, you barstid. Otherwise you got buckleys of havin it off with the girl.’
He spat the end of his durry into the red dirt. In the chaos a moment of still. The jenny’s throb and the clear blue sky and high white cloud. Wind blowed from the east, sun overhead and way, way up a flapple rode updrafted. Folks moaned and dogs barked and the brumby mob ran them down and crying mouths were crushed under wheels till they didn’t cry no more. There was no home, no quiet place to shelter the storm. It was just whatever wits you had and I wished it was different but it weren’t. I slit Smoov’s throat with the shiv and seen the white line of fat under the skin before the red blood bubbled out and Smoov looked up into me face and gurgled but no sound came. Blood ran over his hands where he tried to hold it in over his new grin. He fell over onto his front and lay still while the red dust turned black.
Then I was looking around, Crow was nowhere. I scanned for a way out and I locked eyes with Isa.
She’d seen what I done.
I reached out to her but she turned and ran and I ran after her. She went straight into the path of the Brumby King humming up on the camp and in a second she was gone and the Brumby King was gone in the dust and smoke and I was left in the wreck of the camp with just the show gear, me typewriter and all the notes and Smoov’s linkmaker that I rummaged from his rags. I shot through and cast in my lot as a rider.
Chapter 8
I crawled out of the camp on me belly through the scrub, cutting myself up on the sharp rocks and stones. Search lights swept around above, the trucks rolled in the distance and the air was full of howling sound. I breathed in dust and sweated fearstink thumping heart. Sucked into this pathway like dust in the slipstream and swirling eddies in the air and rumblings in the ground. You can’t say where that dust is going but it’s pulled along even though one minute ago it was just sitting by the side of the road
Isa lost, almost like she was sucked up by the air around the Brumby King. Nothing but the smell of smoke and the ash of me thoughts that I sifted through to find the things that’d gone wrong in me life. Core of an apple with a maggot. Isa wet where I touched her. It was all gone, the brumbies came and smashed up everything and I was roading lonely now. The dreams of a life with Isa on the show circuit were smashed up like Smoov’s showgear. Broken like the bone broken faces in the camp during the raid. And the only thing I could think was how I had to find Isa. It was the only way I could make things right again. She was missing, lonely too, probably injured and hurting and Wotcher only knows what that Brumby King wanted with her.
I came to a ditch and I crawled along it till it turned into a roadside drain. There was a bloke in there wrapped in a blanket, white eyes open and flashing the dark. We whispered at each other as the rumbling rigs passed by all around.
‘I don’t want no trouble,’ he said.
‘Me neither, can I share yer hideyhole?’ I said.
‘You can share but I got nothin for you to use.’
‘I’m the same.’
Thumping pounding of brumby wheels rocked the ground. A flash of light lit the hole and his eyes were open wide. He saw me tote and the typewriter case and I said,
‘It’s just a old machine for wordin.’
He shook with fear and I was shook too.
‘Do it,’ Crow said.
Smoov was down on his knees in front of me, he looked sidewise up and the sweat beaded on his face and runned down his neck. He didn’t say nothing, like he knew what was inside me, what he’d given me the power over him to do. Crow said: ‘Carn, you barstid. Otherwise you got buckleys of havin it off with the girl.’
He spat the end of his durry into the red dirt. In the chaos a moment of still. The jenny’s throb and the clear blue sky and high white cloud. Wind blowed from the east, sun overhead and way, way up a flapple rode updrafted. Folks moaned and dogs barked and the brumby mob ran them down and crying mouths were crushed under wheels till they didn’t cry no more. There was no home, no quiet place to shelter the storm. It was just whatever wits you had and I wished it was different but it weren’t. I slit Smoov’s throat with the shiv and seen the white line of fat under the skin before the red blood bubbled out and Smoov looked up into me face and gurgled but no sound came. Blood ran over his hands where he tried to hold it in over his new grin. He fell over onto his front and lay still while the red dust turned black.
Then I was looking around, Crow was nowhere. I scanned for a way out and I locked eyes with Isa.
She’d seen what I done.
I reached out to her but she turned and ran and I ran after her. She went straight into the path of the Brumby King humming up on the camp and in a second she was gone and the Brumby King was gone in the dust and smoke and I was left in the wreck of the camp with just the show gear, me typewriter and all the notes and Smoov’s linkmaker that I rummaged from his rags. I shot through and cast in my lot as a rider.
Chapter 8
I crawled out of the camp on me belly through the scrub, cutting myself up on the sharp rocks and stones. Search lights swept around above, the trucks rolled in the distance and the air was full of howling sound. I breathed in dust and sweated fearstink thumping heart. Sucked into this pathway like dust in the slipstream and swirling eddies in the air and rumblings in the ground. You can’t say where that dust is going but it’s pulled along even though one minute ago it was just sitting by the side of the road
Isa lost, almost like she was sucked up by the air around the Brumby King. Nothing but the smell of smoke and the ash of me thoughts that I sifted through to find the things that’d gone wrong in me life. Core of an apple with a maggot. Isa wet where I touched her. It was all gone, the brumbies came and smashed up everything and I was roading lonely now. The dreams of a life with Isa on the show circuit were smashed up like Smoov’s showgear. Broken like the bone broken faces in the camp during the raid. And the only thing I could think was how I had to find Isa. It was the only way I could make things right again. She was missing, lonely too, probably injured and hurting and Wotcher only knows what that Brumby King wanted with her.
I came to a ditch and I crawled along it till it turned into a roadside drain. There was a bloke in there wrapped in a blanket, white eyes open and flashing the dark. We whispered at each other as the rumbling rigs passed by all around.
‘I don’t want no trouble,’ he said.
‘Me neither, can I share yer hideyhole?’ I said.
‘You can share but I got nothin for you to use.’
‘I’m the same.’
Thumping pounding of brumby wheels rocked the ground. A flash of light lit the hole and his eyes were open wide. He saw me tote and the typewriter case and I said,
‘It’s just a old machine for wordin.’
He shook with fear and I was shook too.
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