Catherine Jinks TheRoad (18 page)

Silently, Graham passed the phone to his brother. With one eye on the road, and one hand on the wheel, Chris fiddled about with the little black box of circuits (using his thumb to press buttons) until he finally had to concede that Graham was right. The bloody thing
wasn’t
working.

Being McKenzies, they didn’t instantly start to blame each other for dropping it, immersing it, or forgetting to top up the power. Instead they both sat musing for a while, trying to grapple with the question of what had gone wrong. Alec was the one who finally spoke up.

‘I was thinkin it might be magnetic,’ he said.

Chris checked the rear-view mirror. Graham turned. They saw that Alec was plucking at his bottom lip.

‘Eh?’ said Graham.

‘I was thinkin it might be magnetic fields, or something. You know. Interference.’

‘Right,’ said Graham, and shifted around to face the windshield again. Chris made no comment. He wasn’t one to judge, but he was beginning to make the cautious assessment that Alec wasn’t too bright. First he had let his truck run low on fuel, then he had started to blame a dead phone on mysterious ‘magnetic fields’. In Chris’s opinion, that was little better than blaming an overheated engine on UFOs.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ Graham remarked easily. ‘We should be there soon. Eh, Chris?’

‘I don’t know. The markers have all been shot to buggery. What do you reckon, Alec? You’re the local. Is it much further?’

At first Alec didn’t reply. Chris heard the rustle of fabric and the creak of pressured seams. Another glance at the mirror revealed that Alec was gazing intently out the window, still worrying away at his bottom lip.

‘I dunno,’ the truckie sighed at last. ‘But I guess we’ll find out soon enough.’

On the ridge behind Thorndale, where parched shrubs were scattered very thinly over the stony, hard-packed earth, Mullet followed a confusing tangle of scent trails.

Clearly, the boy that he was pursuing had been all over this hillock. He had slid down a shallow incline on a piece of corrugated iron. He had dug up stones, and picked tiny red berries from the branches of a thorny saltbush. He had drawn pictures in the dirt with a stick.

The freshest trail, however, didn’t wander about like a magpie looking for food. It headed straight up over the ridge and into a hole that had been dug there towards the eastern side. This hole was large and deep – large enough for Mullet to squeeze into – but he hung back, panting. The loose earth in front of the hole was newly turned; it was scored with lines and gouges. A small, ill-defined handprint had been left in the dust.

Pebbles clattered and rolled as the man made his stumble-footed way down from the top of the slope. Awkwardly he came to a halt, unbalanced by the weight of his gun. One foot was braced against a large rock. The other was wedged into a handy fissure.

He studied the hole carefully, bending a little to squint inside. But its dark maw was impenetrable.

‘Mmm,’ he said, straightening. Then he gave Mullet a nudge with the barrel of his gun. ‘Gittim. Mullet! Gittim, boy!’

Mullet sidled away. He didn’t like the hole.

‘Mullet . . .’ the man said threateningly. Mullet knew that tone, and knew it meant trouble. But he couldn’t bring himself to enter the hole.

‘Mullet!’ An angry bark. ‘Cummeer!’

Head down, tail down, Mullet slowly advanced. The man seized his collar, dragging him towards the mouth of the hole. Mullet resisted. He didn’t like small, dark places. He scrabbled frantically, pulling against the pressure of his collar’s choking grip.

Finally his master was obliged to lay down the gun and force Mullet into the hole with both hands. Mullet, however, would not be forced. He was a slippery, muscle-bound dog. Time and time again, when the man pushed him into the hole, Mullet wriggled and convulsed and come surging back out. The man swore. He grabbed the dog’s collar and tail. He threw him at the hole and gave him a boot in the rump by way of encouragement. As Mullet tried to back up, the boot remained where it was, pressed with great strength against the base of his spine. So Mullet had to curl around on himself, twisting his spine like spaghetti, to squirm his way into the light again. It was very uncomfortable. He found it difficult to breathe. Perhaps for that reason, he lost his head – and when his master’s hand came down, reaching for his collar, Mullet snapped at it.

The hand was quickly withdrawn. A moment of silence followed. Sheepishly Mullet emerged from the hole, and stood panting, nervous, ready to run. But the man didn’t kick him. Instead the man picked up his gun, aimed it, and fired.

Mullet’s legs were knocked out from under him.

The sound of the shot echoed across the silent landscape. Mullet twitched, blood pumping from the scarlet wound in his dusty white coat.

‘Fuckin dog,’ his master muttered, before squatting down to peer into the hole. ‘Nathan?’ he said, raising his voice. ‘Didja hear that? If you don’t come out, I’ll do the same to you!’

He waited, muscles tense.

But nothing stirred or whispered inside the hole.