I CAUGHT MERV TODD as he was locking up, handed over the iPod, managed to persuade him to give Danny a few days’ work, said we’d sort it when I got back to town. Ten minutes later I was rattling down the red dirt road that led to Jojo’s shack.
Jojo’s shack. The phrase said more about our relationship than I wanted it to. My park ranger boyfriend was as sweet as cherry pie, in or out of the bedroll, but we both had other things in our lives. Two serial non-committers. I still thought of it as his place, not ours. I spent most of my time at Moonlight Downs, he spent most of his out in the desert; at present he was working on the establishment of a bilby sanctuary somewhere in the del Fuego.
I turned into the drive, caught a glimpse of a figure on the veranda. My heart leapt: Jojo? I came closer. Saw a woman in a turquoise dress, and my heart settled and warmed. Hazel Flinders.
A warm embrace, a whisper. ‘Em.’
‘Haze.’
‘You said I was welcome anytime.’
‘Any and every.’
We linked arms, walked inside, chatted as I made tea.
‘How long you stopping?’
‘Just tonight—back out to Moonlight in the morning.’
‘What brings you in?’
‘Deliver some paintings. That gallery you told me bout, in Sydney…’
‘Ubinger’s?’
‘That lady come all the way out ere to see me; she want more of my work.’
‘Said she would, Haze. They know quality when they see it.’ It had taken a lot of persuading. She was intensely shy about her art, but a few weeks ago we’d bundled up a few of her paintings, sent them off to a dealer I’d met down south.
‘Talking about a solo exhibition.’
‘Not surprised.’ Hazel’s paintings were extraordinary: they didn’t just talk about country, they manifested it.
‘She want me to come down the big smoke.’
‘When?’
‘Sometime.’ A note of uncertainty. ‘Anytime, she said. Pick a date, they’ll arrange a show. Reckon I oughta go?’
Hazel: so strong and self-assured in her own world, so ill-at-ease in the whitefeller one. ‘Nest of snakes down there, Haze. Tell em you need a police escort.’ I nodded at the car.
She smiled, frowned. ‘That’s the other reason I come in. See how you’re getting on in this kurlupartu job.’
‘It’s about to get interesting.’
‘Don’t like the sound of that.’
‘Heading out bush tomorrow.’
Her eyes lit up. ‘Comin out Moonlight way?’
‘Opposite direction. Back down the Gunshot.’
‘Oh?’ She turned her head to the west. ‘Maybe you’ll catch up with that feller of yours.’
‘Doubt it. Jojo’s fallen in with a bunch of bilbies. Those little marsupial fuckers are seeing a lot more of him than I am.’
We parked ourselves on the veranda, cup in hand, back to back. I heard a car come rumbling down the track, and Bandy Mabulu’s purple panel van pulled up in front of us. It was getting on for dark, but I could make out a figure I took to be Danny huddled in the passenger seat.
I got up and leaned against a pole. ‘Bandy.’
‘Em.’
He climbed out of the car, looked back down the track, a tense glance: making sure he wasn’t being followed.
‘You know Hazel Flinders, Bandy?’
‘Sure. Moonlight girl. How are ya, Hazel?’
She grunted a reply.
‘Everything okay, Ban?’
‘We got a problem.’
‘We?’
‘Me and the boy.’
Hazel rose to her feet. ‘Better leave you to it.’ She went inside, clearly not wanting to get involved with police work.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked Bandy. ‘Go back and get a plasma TV off Merv this time?’
‘Worse—his car.’ Bandy squirmed, watching my expression. ‘It’s them bloody Crankshaft boys—Danny just come along for the ride. Cops caught up with em out on Brumby Road—they made a break for the bush, but somebody must have spotted Danny. They come sniffin round half an hour ago. Didn’t know nothing for sure, but thirty seconds with Danny and they’d know. Boy couldn’t lie to save himself.’
‘Which cops?’
‘Fat one was doin all the talkin.’
Harley.
I lowered my voice. ‘Bandy, I really don’t know if you’re doing him any favours, hiding him away like this. What if I take him back down the station straightaway, explain…’
‘They’d lock him away for years! I know them buggers. He’s already on a good behaviour bond.’
He strode past me, almost pulled me towards the end of the veranda. Dragging me out of earshot from the boy. I caught his ragged eyes in the window’s light. ‘He wouldn’t survive, Em. I can feel it.’
‘We’re not talking Devil’s Island here, Bandy. I don’t know what else he’s got on his sheet, but the worst that’ll happen is a spell in the Juvie Detention Centre; half the boys in town have been there.’
‘But he’s not strong, Danny. Place like that, break him in half. He’s been so strange lately—yellin in the night, runnin away—Christ knows what he’s been takin…’
I crossed my arms. ‘Had some pretty good role models, hasn’t he?’
‘Orright, I know. I haven’t been the perfect father. And as for his mother…’ He shrugged, helpless. ‘But that’s why I’m desperate to see he doesn’t go the same way.’
I was moved by the sight of him standing there, feet squared, hat scrunched up in his hand. ‘Sorry Bandy, that was unfair. You’ve done a great job—it’s just hard for a young boy—this bloody town…’
‘Like a glob of sump oil in yer throat,’ Bandy nodded. ‘That’s why I wanner get him out bush.’ He gazed at me with pleading eyes. ‘Only one place I’d feel safe about him being right now, and you’re heading there in the morning.’
I heard a noise behind us: Danny was standing at the foot of the stairs. How much he’d heard I wasn’t sure, but one glimpse of that haunted face—you could almost see the blue lights spinning in his irises, hear the silent siren in his ears—and I was gone.
What were Cockburn’s parting words?
No hitch hikers.
I wondered how he’d feel about a fugitive from the law.