Blood & Dust (3 page)

The window disintegrated. The cop crouched, shouted for them to follow suit. The timbers
shuddered under the impact of bullets. Metal pinged where slugs tore through the garage.

The dogs barked like Gatling guns. One gave a short, sharp yap of surprise. The barking stopped.
The shooting continued.

Kevin's ears felt as if they were going to burst. He kneeled, hands over his head as glass rained
across the floor. Through the door to the garage, he saw a chance.

'The Cruiser,' he said, pointing. 'We could take the Tojo.'

'You finish it?' his father asked.

'Nah, but it'll get us to town, no worries.'

Hunter hadn't returned fire yet, just sat behind one of the fridges. He checked his automatic's
magazine for the second time and swore again before slamming it back home. 'Wouldn't get a mile.'

'I got the keys.' Kevin stood, a hand in his pocket.

'Son, wait!'

Kevin was thrown to the floor. Try as he might, he couldn't stand up. His whole body felt numb.

His father appeared over him. 'Kevin? Son?'

The gunfire ceased. A piece of glass shattered like a chime.

Kevin couldn't talk.

'Get him in the back,' Hunter said. 'Safer there.'

His father dragged Kevin into the office by the shoulders. Kevin felt nothing, puzzling over the
view of the wrecked servo from this angle. Broken glass and tins everywhere, motor oil splashed over
the floor, a fridge light fritzing like a bad strobe. His father, upside down, looking scared.

Hunter said, 'Help me move these two.'

'No. We can drive him to- We can do a deal. We can-'

'There's no coming back from that wound. We gotta see to ourselves now. Don't forget your missus
up there at the house.'

'Damn it, he's my son!'

'Help me bring those others in here, before the bastards start lighting us up again.'

Don't leave
, Kevin said, or thought he said, but his father left, following Hunter. The
room wavered, darkened, and he was choking, like a mouthful of Coke had gone down the wrong way and
was coming out his nose.

His father returned, huffing as he dragged the biker beside Kevin. 'Use this bikie's blood, like
you did on your mate.'

Hunter hauled Dave in. 'Your kid's a lot worse off; a lot worse. Me and Dave, we got a little
something extra going on, gives us an edge. I'm sorry, sport, but I could really use you with that
shotty out here. They'll come in next time, I reckon.'

'Let 'em. I'm not leaving my son.'

A shout from outside drew Hunter's attention.

'Stay here. Keep that gun handy. I'll see what they want.'

Kevin had no idea where the shotgun was. His father kneeled over him, both hands pressing on his
chest, and Kevin could see the scarlet leaking out through the fingers. Despite his father telling
him to 'stay with me', he felt the world spin like some crazy show ride and the darkness pulled him
down, right through the floor. He thought he heard screaming; and somewhere far away his mother was
saying he was only young, he had plenty of time…

His eyesight is blurred beyond seeing, his body a cloud, but he can hear real good.
There's a constant background rumble of bikes and there are two men shouting, but he can't make out
the words. He thinks there's a lot of swearing. A gunshot, answered by many, like hail on a tin
roof.

And then he hears his father, right next to him, and he blinks and blinks until he can see him,
crouching with the shotgun pointed at the biker, who's on his back and looking at his father with
what is, if anything, amusement. No sign of Hunter; still out the front, then, trading bullets with
the gang.

'I seen what you did for this copper here,' Kevin's father says, gesturing at Dave. 'You can do
the same for my boy.'

'So I fix him up, and then what? You gonna shove that spike back in me?'

'There's a car in the garage and I got the keys. It's all yours, I don't give a damn. Just save
my boy.'

Taipan holds his bound hands out.

Kevin's father puts the shotgun down and hefts a pair of pliers. Must've grabbed them when he
dragged the biker in. Cunning as a shithouse rat, his old man. He ducks back, quick smart, as soon
as the wire snaps.

'What about me feet?' Taipan asks. 'And these?' The handcuffs rattle.

'When my boy's safe, I'll get you out of here. You've got my word on that.'

Taipan snorts, drags himself to lean over Kevin. 'He's plenny far gone. This ain't gonna be
pretty.'

'Just do it.'

And then, from far, far away, there's a tearing pain in Kevin's throat. It sparks a moment of
extra clarity, of seeing past the bobbing black hair and cheek of the biker to the ceiling, dusty
cream and water-stained in one corner, and his father hovering by the door, naked fear on his face,
shotgun clenched in his bloody hands as his tense gaze darts between Kevin and the front of the
servo where things are quiet again.

'What in the bloody hell are you doing?' his father asks, voice low and hoarse as he takes a step
closer.

'I told you it wasn't gonna be pretty. You should just let him go. Sometimes, death is better,
eh.'

'He's only eighteen.'

'More than some.'

'Less than most.' The shotgun barrel motions the biker to continue.

Kevin's consciousness flickers as his body turns icy; he can just make out Taipan's whispered,
'It won't hurt for long
- unless you survive.' The biker pushes up the sleeve of his leather jacket, the action clumsy,
restricted by the handcuffs. There's a faint, moist ripping noise and Taipan holds his bleeding
forearm over Kevin's mouth. Kevin tastes warmth, a salty heat flowing through him like rum. It
hits his gut: fish hooks are tearing at his insides, through his lungs and behind his eyes, all
the way to his fingernails and toenails. He thinks he hears a didgeridoo moan, deep down under a
cockatoo screeching that might be him or might be something else again, a squealing fanbelt,
perhaps.

An explosion shakes the floor and the walls. A blast of heat and fumes. Figures - silhouettes
against the flames - grapple and grunt. Gunshots crack amid the popping and banging, and something
heavy hits the floor. Then the white glare of daylight blinds him, and when Kevin's eyes have
recovered, he sees the back door is open and the filing cabinet is on its side, papers spilled
everywhere.

Smoke billows, thick and greasy. A shape passes across the doorway, and he thinks that Dave has
been dragged out but there's still a body there on the floor, reflections of flames on leather
boots. Kevin hauls himself away. He wants to hide in the dark, but there is no dark, just the hungry
waves of heat from the fire and the scouring burn of sunlight outside the door. He scrambles toward
the lesser of the two deaths. Outside, groaning under the lash of the sun, he finds the cool relief
of darkness, folds it around himself like a blanket, sinks into it like a bed made of dough. A
cockatoo shrieks, and rumbling explosions and collapsing timber shake the ground, and that
didgeridoo moans, moans like a man caught in a nightmare in which his world is coming down around
his ears.

Finally, as the darkness takes him, it all fades away, drowned in the slow, desperate thudding of
his heart.

One minute, Reece was covering the mechanic and Taipan, ranting at the dumb bastard
for having let the rogue off the hook, for having let him do
that
to his son. The next, he
was on his back and the building was an inferno and it was all he could do to haul Dave's sorry arse
out of there. He found some cover amongst the car wrecks, enough to confirm Dave was still alive,
but the building was aflame and he needed distance. It took everything he had - courage and muscle
power - to heft his mate and get him over the fence and up to the house. It was only when he lowered
Dave to the ground that he realised he'd been giving the fireman's lift to a corpse. Somewhere along
the line, the Night Riders had fired a parting shot and Dave had taken the hit. Not even a red-eye
could come back from a headshot.

A thin, middle-aged woman, face tight with fear and fury, emerged onto the landing and stepped
cautiously down the stairs. She clutched a rifle but seemed uncertain whether to point it at Reece
or the departing bikers. Together, they watched the gang flee, a roar of bikes flocking around a
very smart Monaro, heading north.

The garage went up, the hot flash and detonation making them both cringe, and she lowered the
weapon and all her defiance crumbled as she said two names through quivering lips: Thomas and Kevin.
'My boys.'

Reece shook his head and reached for his smokes, and a series of new explosions rolled across the
flat and he felt the heat and smelled the noxious smoke, and her eyes reflected the red of flame and
black of smoke and showed nothing but despair. He asked if he could use her phone, since his was
still in his vehicle, but she'd already called for help; the police were on their way. But not
his
police, he told her, and she let him go for it.

Message delivered and orders received, he washed his face in the kitchen sink, then returned and
sat next to the woman and offered a cigarette. She ignored him as she clutched the rifle, the butt
on the step, her forehead resting against the barrel as she watched the roadhouse burn.

'You hit any?' he asked.

'A couple fell down,' she said, not taking her eyes off the pyre. 'They… they got up again,
though.'

'Jackets,' he said, indicating his own, and they swapped names before falling into uneasy
silence. He wanted to tell Diana Matheson that it was for the best. If Taipan had done what he
suspected to her son, then death was a mercy. But he just sat and smoked and wondered what he was
going to tell Mira when she arrived.

Reece waited with her while half the town congregated to watch the fire burn itself out. The
local copper, a green constable called Smith, came over, his eyes staring and the blood draining
from his face at the sight: burning servo, distraught hausfrau, bloodied copper sitting on the front
stairs with a dead body covered by a coat at his feet. The constable was keen and not too dumb.

City folk had a habit of thinking their rural cousins were a bit slow, but Reece knew from
experience that they could smell bullshit a mile off. Which was, he suspected, the real reason his
own outfit didn't like leaving the big smoke. When your whole world was founded on bullshit, you
wanted to stay where people respected it.

'I'll call for back-up,' Smith said, and Reece told him not to bother, he'd already called it in.
Smith took their statements, his hands shaking, the pen jerking like a needle in a seismograph
machine. It was a relief when a woman and her daughter rescued the widow from Smith's questions, and
Smith from the widow's rising anger. Who were those people, she wanted to know. What were the cops
doing?

Bikies, Reece confirmed for Smith's notebook. Amphetamines. Heroin. The works. He and his partner
had been tracking them, and the gang had rumbled them when they'd pulled in for fuel and a cuppa.
The hunters hunted, and Smith shared that look that said to lose a partner was a hell of a thing.
His sergeant was laid up in Charleville after a traffic accident and he still didn't have a
replacement. Probably going to close the station anyway, he reckoned, and Reece thought it was a
shame for the cop that they hadn't, because if the young constable got wind of the real story, well,
an accident and some sick leave was the absolute best he could hope for.

'Narc, huh?' Smith asked, and Reece said, 'Yeah, kind of,' more interested in getting Dave looked
after than playing nice with the plods. Smith, after several attempts to convince Reece to a) see a
doctor, and b) stay with him in the station's residence, gave him a lift into town.

In tourism brochures Barlow's Siding could be called quaint or historic, but in more general
conversation it'd be called a shithole. Two pubs sat at either end of the main street as though
keeping the place from blowing away in the next dust storm. He noted a post office outlet, a
half-dozen shops selling nothing you'd want if you had the choice, a takeaway with 1970s plastic
strips on the door to keep the flies out. The cop shop was a bungalow at the crossroads where the
statue of a Digger stood permanent watch atop the war memorial. The empty shops outnumbered the open
ones.

Smith pointed out the all-purpose general store, in case Reece needed painkillers or cough drops,
but Reece said he would be all right, a little flash burn on the face, some singeing, smoke
inhalation. He'd take a room at the hotel, not that he didn't appreciate the offer of a bed, but his
people would want their space when they arrived. Smith dropped him at the hotel with the better
rooms to wait for his people from Brissie. It'd be interesting to see how the firm handled it. What
smoke and mirrors bullshit would VS pull on this clusterfuck?

The bar was already filled with conversation, and in the time it took for them to realise who he
was and go quiet so they could listen, he'd heard enough.

How was Diana Matheson going to cope? Where were they going to buy their fuel now? It was an hour
to the nearest garage at 'Nancy' and the fella there was a half-arsed mechanic, not like Tommy
Matheson; even his son was pretty bloody handy by comparison, and not even twenty. It was a bastard
shame, so few young folk staying around as it was.

They tried to ask him, the copper from the big smoke, but he pleaded exhaustion and retreated to
his room for a drink, a room-service steak and a good lie down. Might as well make the most of it.
And with Mira coming out this far west of the ranges, it could mean only that things were going to
get worse.

At least the newborn had gone up in smoke. That was some consolation. Kevin Matheson was one
loose end they didn't need to tie up.

Kevin awoke to darkness and to silence. The world stank of diesel, ash, dirt. He
was starving and aching, his mouth dry and his eyes itching. A suffocating weight pinned him down.
He felt the grit under him, on top of him; dug into it with his panicked fingers. Gasped it in as he
realised he'd been buried alive!