‘I’ve got an offer of state government support,’ he told me after we’d demolished another of his microwaved dinners and I was working on a scotch and water. ‘Well, a sort of expression of interest, you might call it. But it’s something, and maybe I can swing some of the waverers with it.’
He’d told me how the bank could be funded on the basis of the value of the properties the shareholders held and how capital could be raised and invested. That sort of talk bores me and I’d barely listened but I gathered that those coming into the scheme would be staking their futures on its success.
I yawned. I hadn’t done any investigating that day but I’d chopped some wood and scythed some long grass-the sort of things city slickers do when they visit the country. Do once. ‘Risky, is it?’
He shook his head. ‘Not if it’s done right. Unless we get some capital and modernisation into these farms, and kick the country towns back into life, we’re going under anyway. I have to make them see that somehow.’
Jacko had convened a meeting to be held in the school hall two nights away. He asked me if I’d go with him to meet some of his supporters.
‘I’m more interested in meeting your detractors.’
‘There’ll be some of them as well.’
I agreed to go and I filled in the daylight hours tramping around the farm, fishing without success in the creek and working my way through a few of the paperbacks in Jacko’s scanty library. In with the novels and non-fiction were a few expensive hardbacks which turned out to be school prizes for Kevin. He’d attended a boarding school in Canberra and had won prizes for geography and economics in his HSC year and for a few other subjects earlier on.
When I was sure he was well out of the way I sneaked into his room and looked it over. No computer, no rifles, just the usual young person’s detritus of clothes, sporting goods, magazines and keepsakes. A framed photograph lay face down on the chest of drawers, I turned it over, being careful not to disturb the dust that had gathered around it. It was a family picture-Jacko and Shirley as the proud parents of teenagers Debbie and Kevin. At a guess it had been taken two or three years back. Kevin’s expression was cheerful and hopeful, not the miserable scowl he wore nowadays.
Kevin’s sporting trophies-for football, basketball and tennis-lay in a jumbled heap in his closet along with a pair of football boots and a racquet with a couple of broken strings. It depressed me to look at them and I guessed they had the same effect on Kevin.
We set off in the Pajero shortly after 6 pm, Jacko and me to attend the meeting and Kevin to meet his mates in the pub. Father and son had had another argument and the atmosphere in the car was chilly. Kevin lolled in the back smoking. I didn’t care but Glen was fiercely anti and I wondered how long the smell would linger.
We passed the Western Holdings gate and began the descent towards the road that led into Carter’s Creek. The light was dimming and I squinted to adjust my eyes to it.
‘Something wrong, Cliff?’
‘No, just getting used to the light.’
I heard a derisive snort from the back seat.
‘Shut up!’ Jacko snapped.
The tension between the two had obviously been building and I hoped it wouldn’t break in my presence. I slowed for a bend. I heard a thump on the roof and thought it was a stone, then a hole appeared in the windshield and I heard a whistling sound and another thump behind me. I swore and swerved and headed for a clump of trees twenty metres ahead. I braked hard and threw up a cloud of dust.
‘Jesus,’ Jacko said. ‘Jesus Christ.’
We’d both been under fire in jeeps in Malaya. We knew what had happened and how close the second shot had come to us.
Jacko turned around. ‘Kev, are you…? Oh God, he’s hit.’
We jumped out and opened the back doors. Kevin lay slumped in his seatbelt. The front of his shirt was dark with blood and a thick trickle of it ran down the vinyl to the floor. His normally tanned face was pale and his eyes were closed.
Jacko climbed in, released the belt catch and lowered Kevin to the seat. He tore the wet shirt open and peeled it back. ‘Thank Christ,’ he said. ‘Shoulder. But he’s losing blood fast. Get going, Cliff. There’s a doctor in town. I’ll try to stop the bleeding. Go!’
I slammed the back doors, got behind the wheel and gunned the motor. My heart was pumping and my eyes watered as dust blew in through the hole in the windshield. I had the Pajero up to top speed within fifty metres and fought to control it on the loose dirt. Ease up, I thought. No point in killing all three of us. I dropped the speed and concentrated on keeping a steady pace.
‘How is he?’
Jacko didn’t answer.
I drove as fast as the road condition, the broken windshield and consideration for Kevin allowed. Jacko used my mobile to call the doctor, who said it sounded as if Kevin would need the helicopter ambulance service.
‘Do it!’ Jacko said.
As I drove I couldn’t help thinking that this took Kevin off my list of suspects. We got to town and Jacko directed me to the doctor’s house. He was waiting with a gurney and we wheeled Kevin inside.
‘How long till the helicopter gets here?’ Jacko asked.
The doctor, a youngish thin man with a beard and a harassed manner, shook his head. ‘Hard to say, Jack. They’ll be as quick as they can. At least the weather’s okay for night flying. Say an hour. Let’s get a good look at him.’
We helped to cut Kevin’s shirt away and remove the pads Jacko had made by ripping up his own shirt.
‘How many gunshot wounds have you dealt with, doctor?’ I asked.
‘This is my first. Stand back and let me clean it.’
The wound was seeping rather than pumping blood but Kevin had lost all colour.
‘Pulse is weak,’ the doctor said.
Jacko pounded his fist against the wall. ‘Jesus, when I find out who did this
‘Don’t forget the shot was probably meant for you or maybe me. Kevin was just unlucky.’
‘The bullet’s still in there,’ the doctor said, talking to himself, ‘along with some metal and fibres from the shirt. That’s a worry.’
Jacko snarled, ‘Can’t you get it out?’
‘This isn’t the movies, Mr Brown.’
He kept cleaning the wound and monitoring Kevin’s pulse. Jacko wiped his son’s face a few times as if he could restore life and colour to it. Kevin looked very young.
We heard the beat of propellers outside and Jacko muttered, ‘Thank Christ.’
We wheeled the gurney out and the paramedics took over. They lifted Kevin into the helicopter and began working on him. Jacko hovered, asking questions and swearing when he got no answers. Eventually one of the paramedics broke away and beckoned him.
‘Better come with us, mate.’
‘How the fuck is he?’
‘Blood loss and shock but he’s young and strong. Good chance, I reckon. Let’s go.’
Jacko climbed in without a backward glance and the helicopter lifted off, leaving me standing with the doctor beside the empty blood-smeared gurney.
‘Thanks, doctor,’ I said. ‘Where’s the base?’
‘Cobar. Won’t take long. He should be all right. I’ll have to report a gunshot wound. Can you give me the details? It’s Hardy, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right, but your report’ll have to wait.’
I pulled up outside the school where a group of people, men and women, were milling about. Some were smoking, all looked impatient. I’d met a few of them in my snooping about but most of them were unknown to me. One of the men I’d spoken to in the pub along with Ted Firth approached me.
‘What’s up?’
I told him and the news passed around and they pressed closer to get more details but they had all I knew very quickly. There was more smoking and clucking of sympathy and shaking of heads and they drifted away. I wondered who, if anyone, was missing. Running out of likely suspects, I was beginning to wonder about Jacko’s supposed friends, but there was no one to ask. I went back to my car and opened the door. The interior light came on and I noticed a mark in the upholstery of the back seat. I opened the back door and leaned in, trying to make sure I didn’t get blood on me. There was a hole in the backrest about dead centre and a couple of centimetres from the top. I probed it and scooped out a bullet. It had to be the shot that had broken the windshield and passed between Jacko and me. I examined it under the light. I’m no expert but it looked to be a different calibre again from the bullets that had killed Jacko’s horse and sheep.