‘Stinks,’ Evan winced.
‘No it doesn’t.’ Apart from a faint odour of urine and something rusty and sweet, blood maybe, it just smelled to him like sweaty dog. ‘Must be fresh.’
In the bottom of the drum he could see blood pooled around its head. And it suddenly dawned on him. ‘God, no.’ He shuddered.
‘What?’
‘The dog that was howling. It’s him.’
‘He musta climbed in! And he couldn’t get out and he died upside down,’ Evan nodded.
‘Nuh-uh. Someone stuck him in there, he was already dead. Jesus. Let’s get him out.’
They tipped the drum on its side, and the dog’s rear end slid out. Hal grabbed its back legs and hauled it all the way out.
‘See? No rigor mortis yet. Means he hasn’t been dead for that long. Maybe an hour.’ They eased the carcass onto the grass, where it lay, its brown coat warm. Dead as a stone.
‘Look at all that blood.’ Evan shuddered.
A dark crust of blood had formed around wounds on the dog’s skull. Hal could see it had been hit there with something hard. Then, under the matted blood on the dog’s snout, he saw the gleam of a hook coming out of its cheek. Just thinking about it made him feel sick.
‘Don’t look.’ He tried turning his brother away.
‘None a your business what I look at.’ Evan shook his hand off and kept gawking.
What sort of man would do this to a poor dog—even a tough-looking German shepherd? The very thought of him—it had to be a him, he couldn’t imagine a woman doing it—made Hal shiver like a lizard had crawled over his skin. He had to do something.
‘Come and help me bury him.’
‘OK.’ No arguments from Evan, for once in his life.
They dragged the dog to the nearest willow tree and laid him under it. Hal wanted to dig a hole, but the ground was rock hard and they had no shovel. So they scraped together small branches, twigs, handfuls of leaves and arranged them over the dog like a makeshift shroud.
‘You wanta say a prayer for him?’
‘Nup. Do you?’
Evan nodded, shut his eyes and clamped his hands in prayer. Hal bowed his head too, just in case.
‘You were a good dog, whoever you were. Somebody did something rotten to you, but Jesus will be waiting for you in heaven, with angels, and all the other dogs—’
‘Godsake, dogs don’t have souls,’ Hal mumbled.
‘Course they do.’ Evan prayed on.
Hal wanted the prayer to end. Not just because he didn’t believe in God—he didn’t anymore, all his prayers unanswered, especially those about leaving Sydney—but because he had a strong feeling someone was watching them, sneering quietly at their little ceremony.
As Evan rambled on piously, Hal’s eyes darted about the willows, up and down the ridge and the gully, ears straining for footfalls. The cicadas had stopped. Something creaked. A caravan window rattled. His arms prickled with goosebumps in the heat, though he could see no one.
He pulled his watch out of his pocket. Five past eleven? No way. It had stopped again. He squinted up at the blazing sun, high overhead.
‘Eleven thirty—let’s go.’ He nudged Evan.
‘For thine is the kingdom, the power and…’
‘Dad’ll kill us!’
‘He will not. Forever and ever Amen.’
‘Daddy’s boy,’ Hal whispered, pulling his brother away from the leafy mound where the dog lay. If not buried, at least covered. Hidden from cruel eyes.
The screen door clattered shut. Mick Goodenough rubbed his greying bristles, and grabbed three tin bowls, bracing himself for the glare and the dogs’ boisterous welcome. He squinted into the noon sun and stepped out, bowls balanced on his thick arms. His service shoes crunched dead grass and bindyeyes down to the chicken-wire compound in the corner. Two German shepherds clamoured at the gate for their roo meat, tails rattling the wire.
‘Katie—Willyboy—sit.’
They sat. Watching, waiting, tongues lolling, oh so polite. Not like the other one.
‘Where’s Charlie?’ The younger dog was not in the doorway of his hutch. And with food on offer…Hiding somewhere?
He whistled. ‘Charlie? Come and get it.’
Mick set the bowls down and opened the gate to receive their slobbering embrace. One missing.
‘Charl-ee! Get out.’
The woman from the pound had shown up at the cop shop with the big squirming pup in her arms the day after he’d arrived. ‘I hear ya like shepherds, Constable Good-Enough.’
‘That’s Good-no,’ he’d said, resisting the urge to pick up the gleeful pup, along with the obligation. ‘As in No-Good, backwards.’
But she was on a mission. ‘That’s Charlie. Take him or they’ll put him down today. You’ll hardly know he’s there.’
‘I’ve already got two!’
‘Same as owning two.’ She thrust the pup at him and ran.
Six months later Charlie was still twice as much trouble as the other two put together. An Alsatian cross. Crossed with what, the pound lady couldn’t say. Something that objected to taking orders and wouldn’t be taught, something that liked to roam and would come home when it suited him, not before. Damn thing wasn’t so lovable you’d shoot him.
‘Charl-ee! Out. Now!’
Damn thing was gone. Again. Mick lived on the north edge of Moorabool a mile from the town centre and the police station. Saturday, a week and a half before Christmas. Silly season. Punch-ups and domestics, drunk-drivers, break and enters when it came time for present-shopping. And his shift started in ten minutes. Sarge would be delighted. One more reason to complain about him to Superintendent Dennison, who had never exactly relished his role as Mick’s supervisor.
At the back of the cage he found two broken strands of wire, denoting a Charlie-sized hole in the coop. A spectacular effort, even for an escape artist like Charlie. He must’ve slipped into the yard that backed onto Mick’s, behind the Presbyterian Fellowship Hall with its wide open gate. Dog on the run. Charlie was smart enough to avoid the semi-trailers. So far.
Mick dug the phone out from under the Sydney Morning Heralds on the kitchen table, dialled the station and explained to Peter Petrovic that he’d be in as soon as he rounded up the dog.
‘Thank you, Constable Goodenough,’ came Petrovic’s droning monotone. ‘I’ll let Sergeant Bradley know. In due course.’
‘Peter, it’s not Joe Public. You don’t have to use cop-speak on me, pal.’
Eighteen-year-old Petrovic had started a fortnight before Mick, fresh out of Goulburn Police Academy and, in spite of the twenty-five-year gap in age and experience, had got it into his head that Mick was the junior cop. In fact, they were both probies, Mick for the second time around—at least until Bradley and Dennison saw fit to make him a constable.
‘Certainly Constable Goodenough, I’ll pass it on. Is there anything else I can help you with today?’
Mick hung up. He wound the broken wires together, shut Willyboy in the yard and clipped the choker lead on Katie. He walked her around to the highway, and they jogged across, no cars in sight, convection currents snaking off the asphalt. Mick found the gap in the barbed wire where Charlie would have entered. He let Katie off the lead, and she jumped through. He swung his leg over the top and strode into the fields after her.