Ignoring the insult, Hal brushed his knees off, and scanned the embankment for a sign of Evan.
‘Wanna sandwich?’ the girl said, holding out a half. ‘Devon and sauce. Made it meself. It’s good, eh.’
Hal took it cautiously, half-expecting a trap. The girl just smiled. She had a nice smile, he thought, as he took a bite and mumbled, ‘Thanks.’ A nice face all round, even with the basin cut. He wondered how it could’ve looked so intimidating a minute before. They sat munching the sandwich, staring into the muddy trickle.
The girl broke the silence. ‘You’re new, eh?’
‘Suppose I am. Got here three weeks ago. Name’s Hal.’
‘Allie.’ She kept munching.
‘Uh-huh. What’s Ali short for?’
‘Alison. I changed it, but. When Mohammed Ali won the title? Alison’s a prissy name.’ She screwed her face up, made a baby voice, ‘Alison? Missy Alison Tenpenny…’
Hal laughed, spraying chunks of devon. She rolled her eyes.
‘Charming. Where’d you get them manners?’
‘Sydney,’ he shrugged.
‘Sydney—true?’ She was strangely impressed. He nodded. ‘I’m gunna go there one day. After Paris. New York. London. And Mozambi-kew.’
‘Mozambi-kew. Where’s that?’
‘Africa. Dur.’
‘Why d’you want to go there?’
‘For one thing, they make my favourite stamps in the world…plus the whitefellas are leavin’, eh.’
‘Oh. Right.’ He ignored the slightly accusing tone in her voice—not sure what she was getting at there—and pointed his sandwich up at the ridge. ‘You ever been inside that thing?’
‘Caravan? Nuh. Won’t catch me goin’ in there. They don’t like people comin’ inside.’
‘Who doesn’t?’
She looked at him like he was a complete dolt. ‘Them spirits.’
‘What, the ones you invented?’ Hal smirked.
She eyed him sternly. ‘Just cause I imitated them, doesn’t mean they aren’t there.’
‘Right.’ He tried not to look sceptical. ‘So what kind of spirits are they?’
‘Relations, and the other kind. Youse mob.’
Looking up to the caravan he spotted Evan’s face peeping out from behind it, arms frantically waving. Ignoring him, he turned to Allie, who had pulled from her bucket an oyster jar with string wrapped around it. Inside it, chunks of gristle and meat which she emptied onto the bank.
Looking over Hal’s shoulder, she spotted Evan waving and carrying on.
‘He’s worried about you. Better put him out of his misery.’ Her white teeth gleamed.
Hal lowered his voice. ‘See that old 44-gallon drum there?’ He pointed to the rusty drum twenty yards away. ‘We found a dead dog in it the other day.’
‘Dead dog? True!’ She gaped at the drum. ‘How’d he get in there?’
‘Someone killed him and put him in upside down. We buried him under that tree. Well, we covered him up with leaves and dirt anyway…’
Hal stared at the willow tree, then was on his feet, frowning. ‘That’s funny. He’s not there now. Someone must’ve moved him…Where is he?’
His eyes darted up and down along the cracked brown banks of the creek, and across the other side: tufts of yellow dandelions and purple thistles dotting the land with splotches of colour between the ridge and the broken line of scraggy willows. It looked to Hal like some worn-out rug tossed out to rot under the fierce blue sky. Then under the trees, he noticed a rectangular mound of reddish dirt. He trotted a few steps towards it and crouched down, studying it.
‘Wonder who put him here?’ he said. ‘Must’ve been the one who murdered him.’
Allie watched him, curious now. ‘Who d’ya reckon killed him?’ she said.
‘Dunno, but I’m gunna find out,’ Hal said, surprising himself. Until that moment he’d had no inkling that he was going to do any such thing. And now he’d said it. To a total stranger. To be honest, he liked the way her pretty eyes had gone wide. So he would, somehow, find out.
‘Hal? Come back!’ Evan’s cries were getting harder to ignore.
‘You got any more like him?’ she said. ‘Or sisters?’
‘Just him.’ Hal shrugged. ‘You?’
‘Five brothers. But all of them left town.’
‘Lucky you.’
‘Hal…NOW!’ Evan again.
‘Well.’ He slowly got up. ‘See you later, Allie-Gator.’ He grinned, apologetic.
She curled her lip: heard it a million times. Scurrying up the ridge, he turned to wave at the top. But Allie Tenpenny was busy tossing her line into the water.
‘Spirits,’ he muttered, as he hurried past the caravan to his irritating little brother. ‘Yeah, right.’ Unaware that through the cracked windows, a pair of hidden eyes followed his every step.
10
Dear Cheryl,
I’m sorry to have to tell you the sad news about Charlie who you had so much fun with last year.
Crouched over his letter, Goodenough glanced at the framed photo on the bedside table, of his young daughter beaming over the German shepherd puppy she was cuddling; Mick with his arm around her, proud as a father could be.
He’d taken it last year, the long weekend she turned fifteen, just after he’d got Charlie. Cheryl and the pup formed a special bond after he peed on her shoes and Charlie had followed her all over the place, like a gosling trailing a mother duck. He’d wanted her to take Charlie back with her, but her mother had had enough of shepherds. Instead he’d promised Cheryl whenever she wanted to visit him, Charlie would be her dog. All hers.
Sadly he suffered a tick bite just before Christmas and the vet had to put him down. He died in his sleep with no pain.
Goodenough was chewing over how to end this little tale on a cheerful note when the dogs started howling. He rushed outside and found them, hackles up, barking fiercely at the back fence. He shone his torch into the darkness of the yard behind his, casting the beam over the rear of the Presbyterian Fellowship Hall and its outhouses. The place was empty most nights except Thursdays and Sundays, when a group of the young faithful would turn up for Pathfinders Club. Tonight the hall should have been vacant.
‘Who’s there?’ he yelled. No response. ‘I’ll let the dogs out!’ The dogs duly erupted. ‘Don’t make me do it,’ he warned.
Running his torch over the hall again he saw nothing. Maybe a possum? At any rate, the dogs were settling. He tugged them away from the fence and opened the back door. They needed no invitation. Paws scrabbling on lino, they shot through the door and into the lounge room. Willyboy leapt onto the couch, while Katie flopped down by the empty fireplace.
‘Stay there.’ They weren’t budging.
He returned to his letter with new inspiration, winding it up with, Katie and Willyboy hope you’re looking forward to coming up in the last week of the holidays, because they are missing you awfully. They send their love. The dogs substituting for Mick’s complicated affections. He tore the page out of the notepad, folded it into an addressed envelope, licked a stamp on and left it on the dresser. Later, he’d drop it into the desk drawer on top of the pile of unsent letters. He’d get around to posting them. Or maybe just hand them to her. One day.