Ghost River (14 page)

The tip was a few miles upriver. Any time it rained, rotting garbage washed downstream.

‘Some of the older fellas on my shift had been in the war. I heard bits and pieces about the tunnels from them. They'd been on the drill that put bomb shelters in.'

The next betting slip Ren picked up was smudged with dirt. He thought it had a number six in the right column, but couldn't be sure. He passed it to Rory for inspection.

‘Why would they have dug bomb shelters round here?' Ren asked.

Rory threw the ticket into the fireplace. The pile in front of them was almost gone and Rory had found only the one ticket worth any money.

‘It was the Americans. They were holed up at Victoria Barracks, down from the river. They had military speedboats tied up with the idea that if the Japs attacked they'd jump in the boats and head upstream. Couldn't get above the falls, of course. The story is they built a warren of tunnels connecting two bomb shelters for the American command and every politician in the state. And fuck the rest of us good and proper.'

‘You believe the story?' Sonny asked.

‘Why not?' Rory shrugged. ‘It's worth believing. An adventure.'

‘But if there were shelters down there, wouldn't somebody have found them by now?'

‘They didn't want to be found. Then or now. They would have dug in some hidden entrances. Wouldn't have wanted ordinary jokers fronting up and crowding them out. We're talking top secret here.'

‘These fellas you worked with,' Sonny said, ‘did they tell you exactly where the shelters were built?'

‘I never asked them. But like I said, it had to be this side of the falls.'

Ren didn't want to offend Rory or his story but he couldn't understand why he and Sonny hadn't heard about any tunnels before. ‘Hey, Sonny. You reckon if they built air-raid shelters Tex would know about it?'

‘S'pose so.'

‘Who's this Tex fella?' Rory asked.

‘He's the leader of these fellas who live down the river. They're our … friends.'

‘Would this be Tex Carter? Blackfella and ex-boxer? That him?'

Tex had deep brown leather skin. But he'd never told the boys that he was a blackfella. Or that he'd been a fighter.

‘Maybe,' Ren answered. ‘He lives down there with some others like him. They're drinkers.'

‘Be the same fella. Knocks around with a big old boy.'

‘Tallboy,' Sonny answered.

‘That's the one. Blackfella too, that one.'

‘And Tex was a boxer?' Ren asked.

‘Yep. And a beauty. Lightweight. I seen him fight at the stadium. Like Gene Kelly, on his feet. And quick hands. Could have been Australian champion, maybe world rated. Until he got himself well and truly fucked.'

‘What happened to him?' Sonny asked.

‘He went out west one time before a big fight. From memory, I think he was visiting family. He took a couple of bottles of beer with him onto the mission where they were living, which weren't allowed. He got caught in possession of the grog and was convicted. Boxing board took his licence away from him for five years. Poor bastard. He was a clean living kid who never touched the drink. Once they'd done him over like that he hit the piss. Fought in the tents after that. Did some time away for hurting a fella in a street fight. How's he holding up?'

Ren was about to answer
not so good
when Sonny waved a race ticket above his head and hollered, ‘Number six. Ten units each way.'

‘Pay dirt.' Rory smiled. ‘You just hit the jackpot, son.'

‘How much?'

‘I'll have to do the sums.' He got up from the couch and hitched his pants up. ‘I'm not feeling too good, boys. I'm going for a sleep.'

Sonny couldn't get the smile off his face.

‘Maybe my luck is changing, Ren.'

CHAPTER 11

Ren was over the measles and soon returned to the river with Sonny. It was the winter school break and after the morning paper round the boys would go home for breakfast and meet in the lane. While neither of them were convinced about Rory's story of the tunnels, it didn't stop them searching for them. The old track leading to the river had been destroyed by the bulldozers. On the way to the river, on their first morning in search of the tunnels, they stood on one side of the compound fence and watched the workmen ready themselves for another day of destruction.

Sonny grabbed the weave of wire in both hands and shook the fence. ‘Cunts.'

‘Yep. Cunts.'

They slipped through the mill gates to the loading dock. Sonny kicked wooden palings out of the fence at the rear of the mill and climbed through. The boys beat a fresh path into the ground, grabbing hold of bushes and tree branches to stop them tumbling forward as they hiked the bank. ‘Can't see the old boys climbing up there,' Ren said, once they'd reached the bottom.

Sonny was picking blackberry thorns from the front of his jumper. ‘They'll have to take the stairs by the bridge any time they need to hit the street.'

Ren climbed onto a tree stump above the pontoon. ‘I reckon we start here and work our way along the bank, up and down, until we hit the bridge.'

‘We've walked here a million times before and never come across any tunnel.'

‘What are we doing here then?'

‘It's like Rory said, a good story is worth the adventure.'

They headed into a tangle of scrub and quickly found themselves up to their waists in weeds. Ren heard rustling beneath his feet. ‘You hear that?'

Sonny stopped walking, listened and nodded his head. ‘Be rats. I reckon they nest here at night and slip in the water for a swim. Fuck this. I'm not going any further with no weapon.'

He worked ahead of Ren, along the bank to the car graveyard above the camp.

‘Where you going?' Ren called. ‘Don't chicken out now.'

Sonny forced the boot of an old wreck and dived in, legs in the air. He came out waving a rusted golf club. Walking back he stopped on the track and practised his swing. ‘Four!'

He lay the club down and tucked the bottoms of his jeans into his black-and-white striped football socks.

‘You've never looked more like a goose,' Ren said.

‘I don't care. This'll stop them running up the leg of my jeans. If I were you I'd do the same.'

‘Hey, Sonny, how'd you know there was a golf club in the boot of that car?'

‘Just lucky.'

‘Bullshit. I bet you stole it off the golf course and hid it there.'

‘Good thing I did.' Sonny sliced the iron through the weeds.

Ren heard more scattering under his feet. ‘They must be close by.'

‘One of them sticks its head up and I'll belt it to death.'

‘You don't want one of them rats getting its teeth into you. Do you know there's enough poison on the tip of a rat tooth to kill a town full of people?'

Sonny lifted the club in the air, waved it like a sword and jabbed Ren in the stomach with it. ‘No, I didn't know that, Mr Peabody. And I don't care. One rat pops its head up I'll smash the teeth out of its mouth before it gets near me.'

The boys worked slowly towards the iron bridge, Sonny slashing and poking at the ground with his club, Ren creeping along behind him, his socks also tucked into his jeans. It was a hard morning's work. They didn't come across a secret doorway or manhole leading into a tunnel or bomb shelter, but they found a lot of rubbish. Bits of rusted machinery, old bottles and cans, and a KEEP OUT sign. Sonny decided the river men might like it.

‘Carry it for us, Ren. I'm gonna nail it to a tree at the camp.'

Ren tucked the sign under his arm. ‘Never thought there was this much shit in the world. And that most of it would be dumped here.'

Sonny made another discovery. He crouched so low in the weeds he almost disappeared. ‘Look what I got here.'

He stood up, holding a dead animal by the tail. It was mostly a skeleton, with tufts of dull fur wrapped around its leg bones and shoulders. Weeds were knitted through its rib cage. Ren took a step back. He'd seen plenty of dead rats before, and another time a bag of maggoty kittens in a sack that had been dumped in the lane. He'd never understood why, but he was more afraid of a dead animal than a living one.

‘It looks like a dog.'

Sonny held the skeleton in front of his face and sniffed the fur. ‘I don't think so. It's a fox. See this red colour along the back. And the teeth. They're longer and sharper than dog's teeth. Maybe we could keep it?'

‘Please yourself, Sonny. I'm not touching it. It could have some sort of disease.'

Sonny swung the skeleton from side to side. The back legs of the carcass fell away. ‘Maybe I could take the head home and make a necklace from the teeth the way Indians do.'

‘I bet it stinks.'

Sonny sniffed it again. ‘Smells of nothing.'

‘The only reason you can't smell it is because your nose is blocked with snot.'

Sonny threw what was left of the skeleton into the weeds. They went on searching. Ren got a foot caught in a rabbit hole, tripped and fell, and landed on a solid object. ‘Something's under here,' he called.

Sonny turned and ran back to where Ren was kneeling. Excited that Ren may have found an entrance to the tunnels he attacked the weeds with the club.

‘Watch it, Sonny. You'll take my head off.'

Ren parted the bed of weeds and looked down at the face of a woman half buried in the ground. The tip of her nose was missing and her face was dotted with small holes. ‘Jesus!' he screamed.

‘What is it?' Sonny asked.

‘It's the Virgin Mary.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘From Catholic school, where I did primary. Pass me the club and I'll dig her out.'

Ren scraped around the edges of the statue with the iron club until he was able to pull it from the earth. One of Mary's hands was missing and the blue paint of her gown had mostly flaked off.

‘She's more a broken Mary than a virgin,' Sonny said. ‘How the fuck would she have ended up here?'

‘Maybe someone who gave up on God?' Ren laughed

‘Come a long way to do it. Could have left her on a street corner. You gonna keep her?'

‘Not sure yet.'

They walked on. Ren carried Broken Mary under one arm and the KEEP OUT sign in the other. He lost his balance several times and found it hard keeping his feet on the soggy ground. He'd had enough exploring for the day. When they reached the car graveyard he stopped and rested against the bonnet of an HJ Holden. He opened the door and put Mary in the front seat. A pair of older wrecks sat alongside, a VW beetle and a burnt-out Falcon. The graveyard was popular with car thieves, who drove the stretch of road at the far end of the mill to where they could strip a car clean without being
spotted.

Sonny noticed a team of roadworkers on the other side the river, climbing the sandstone steps above the falls. One worker drove a metal spike into the ground with a hammer, while another spied on the boys through a pair of binoculars. Sonny rolled and lit two cigarettes, passed one to Ren, jumped onto the bonnet of the wreck and bounced up and down. A flock of white cockatoos lifted from a tree down on the bank. The birds screeched at Sonny to cut it out. He went on jumping until he slipped, fell onto the bonnet and slid off the car. He sat up. The palms of his hands were grazed with rusted metal. And they were bleeding.

‘You'll need a tetanus injection for that,' Ren said. ‘Or you'll get lockjaw.'

‘You got it wrong. That only happens if a dog bites you. There's nothing locking my jaw. Listen.'

He cupped his hands to his mouth and yelled at the top of his voice to the workers, ‘Fuck off and leave our river alone.'

One of the workmen called back, ‘Fuck off yourself', and the others laughed.

‘I'll give them fuck off,' Sonny growled.

He was about to yell something back at them when it started to rain. Ren got into one side of the car, and Sonny the other, with Broken Mary seated between them. The rainwater mixed with flakes of rusting metal created blood-red streaks that ran down the cracked windscreen. Across the river two workmen carried a large box between them. A third man wheeled a piece of machinery on a trolley. They set to work, bolting a cannon-sized drill together and attaching it to a machine on the trolley with a length of hose. When they switched the machine on the roar was heard throughout the river valley. The men steadied the drill, driving it into the sandstone. They quickly disappeared in a cloud of dust.

Once the drilling stopped and the dust settled the boys saw that one of the workmen was on his hands and knees, clearing the hole. He forced something into it and climbed the steps, laying a length of wire as he went. The other workers picked up their equipment and followed him. The team disappeared over the side of the hill.

The windscreen had turned red and it was difficult to see what was happening. Sonny wedged his body out of the side window and wiped the windscreen with the back of his hand. ‘Where've they gone?'

Before Ren could answer they heard a loud explosion. Rocks fell from the sky like rain, bombing the river. A hunk of sandstone, the size of a large fist, crashed onto the bonnet of the car. Ren buried his head in his hands and didn't move until he was sure the rocks had stopped falling. Sonny opened the door, hopped out and looked across the river. Smoke and dust lifted slowly from the steps. Or what was left of them. Large branches and strips of bark had been torn from trees.

‘Why'd they do that?' Sonny cried. ‘There's no road going over that side of the river.'

‘Dunno. They could have killed someone.'

Sonny picked up the block of sandstone from the bonnet and studied it like a piece of moon rock that had fallen to earth. ‘I bet we could do some damage if we had that stuff. Explosives.'

‘
We?
'

‘Yeah. You and me. If they go blowing our place up, we could do the same to them.'

He hurled the rock into the bushes and picked up the KEEP OUT sign. ‘Grab your girlfriend Mary and let's get going.'

Scaling down the bank to the camp, the boys found the fire low and could hardly see the river men in the gloom. Tex sat in his car seat, wrapped in a blanket, and Cold Can was looking off into the distance. Big Tiny was laying under a tarp spooning beans from a tin can and Tallboy was pacing the fire. They had to have heard the explosion but didn't seem concerned about it. Ren sensed there was something wrong.

‘I've got something for you,' Sonny said to Tex, holding up the sign. ‘I'm gonna bang it into one of the trees here so nobody can come by without your permission.'

‘And look at this,' Ren added. He stood broken Mary in front of the fire and brushed the dirt from her face. ‘She is going to watch over the camp.'

Tex looked across at Mary and managed a wave of the hand. ‘She some angel?'

‘More like a mother,' Ren said.

‘Oh. Could use one of them about now.' Tex shivered so badly his bones rattled.

‘Fire's nearly out,' Sonny said. ‘You want us to build it up for you?'

Tex could barely nod his head. Sonny collected branches, threw them on the fire, and picked up a ratty blanket to fan the flames.

‘You're gonna get pneumonia or something, Tex, if you don't take better care of yourself,' Ren said. ‘It might be time for you to move back to the wheelhouse.'

‘Too late for that,' he croaked. ‘Tex is ready for the gun.'

Cold Can looked across the fire at Tex, his face fretting in the low light. He knew he wouldn't survive a week on the river without the old man.

‘You're not dying,' Ren said, with no good reason for saying so. ‘I heard that you were a boxer. A champion. You never told us that story before.'

‘Who told you that one?'

‘Sonny's uncle Rory.'

‘Oh.' He wasn't interested at all.

Sonny rolled a cigarette, stuck it in Tex's mouth and lit a match for him. The old man sucked hard until he drew smoke. Air whistled through his lungs. He laid his head against the back of the seat and pulled the blanket under his chin, knocking the cigarette from his bottom lip. Sonny picked it off the blanket and put it back in his mouth.

‘What can we do to help?' Ren asked.

‘Get on home. Take old Tallboy with you,' Big Tiny shouted. ‘Just been telling us he's fucken deserting.'

Tallboy stopped circling the fire.

‘Fuck up, Tiny. Don't be misrepresenting me. Telling the youngsters I'm a deserter. I got good reason for taking off. Here I was thinking you'd be happy for me.'

‘I am.' Tiny chuckled. ‘Because I know you'll run back here quick.'

Tallboy scuffed the ground with his heel. ‘Won't be coming back. Tomorrow is goodbye for all time.'

‘Where you going, Tallboy?' Sonny asked.

‘See my daughter. And a grandkid. She got herself a fella and a place. A caravan out back for me.'

‘How long since you seen them?'

‘Never seen the baby. And my daughter, not sure how long. Years.'

‘How'd you find her, after all this time?' Sonny asked.

‘She found me. I went for a feed at the Brotherhood. A fella there says a notice been going round from a woman
seeking information as to the whereabouts
of her father,
Michael John Garrett
.'

‘Otherwise known as the one and only Tallboy Garrett,' Big Tiny added.

‘Quiet down. This is my story, Tiny. There was a phone number for me to call. Welfare fella give me some coins for the call. I walked round the block a coupla times working on my courage before I called up.' He stared up at the web of girders holding the bridge together.