Kick Back

Forty-four

The first shot came when he went outside to collect more firewood. The sound was hollow and deep, as if muted by the misty rain, but there was no mistaking the heavy calibre or the fury of the bullet smashing through the logs in his arms. The force of it spun him against the back wall of the house. The logs tumbled out of his arms. For a moment he felt helpless, pinned like an insect.

A second shot smacked into the wall next to his neck. He thought automatically, He’s pulling high and to the left. He’s shooting uphill and failing to compensate.

Wyatt threw himself onto the ground as a third shot slammed into the wall. There was the same powerful sound, the same double echo in the nearby hills.

Rifle shots were not uncommon here but it was usually Craig or his father, taking random pot shots at rabbits and foxes with their small-bore rifles. Soon Craig’s father or one of the other neighbours was going to notice the sound of a heavy calibre weapon and wonder who was making war at ten-thirty on a Sunday morning.

Not the cops-they wouldn’t come in like that. Not Finn’s Sydney connections-even if they knew where to find him they wouldn’t come so soon, so rashly. Sugarfoot Younger? In his pain and tiredness Wyatt had thought that Sugarfoot was dead or gone. He’d forgotten the dumb instinct and obsession that drove the useless hoon.

Dragging himself along by his elbows, Wyatt made for the side of the house. Multiple shots are easier to pinpoint than a solitary shot, so he knew where Sugarfoot was. Wyatt had one advantage: his house and sheds were on a slight rise. With no high ground to fire from, and wary of crossing open ground to the house and sheds, Sugarfoot would have positioned himself in the pine tree plantation.

But he would take some finding. He had plenty of cover. Wyatt’s property was almost completely surrounded by trees: the pine plantation, an uncleared tangle of scrub and blackberry bushes, and the neighbour’s apple orchard. The drive-way at the front of the house ran down an avenue of golden cypresses to the small Shoreham road, hidden by hedges and earthen banks. If Sugarfoot circled the house while closing in on it, Wyatt would have trouble keeping track of him. If he circled at a distance, he’d effectively keep Wyatt boxed in.

There was a flurry of wind and rain. Wyatt shivered. The tracksuit and slippers gave him no protection. The wound was bleeding again. He considered his options. If he made a run for it in the car, he risked a bullet. If he stayed in the house he’d have no flexibility. Better to go after the punk.

But his.38 was under the bed, in a holster strapped to the springs of the bed base. There was a little.22 rifle, but it was in the barn. Not that he intended going after Sugarfoot through undergrowth with a rifle he’d not fired for two years and then only at pigeons with birdshot.

He manoeuvred along the wall until he was behind a clump of bamboo. Beyond the bamboo was an old, unused dairy. If Sugarfoot had moved to the south-west edge of the pine plantation he would have a clear shot at the open ground between the house and the dairy, but Wyatt was guessing that Sugarfoot would station himself where he could get Wyatt if Wyatt tried to enter the house through the kitchen door.

Wyatt knelt, waited a beat, and ran at a crouch toward the old dairy. There was no point in zig-zagging, not if Sugarfoot was firing from the side. He heard a thudding, and realised it was his body straining-not shots, not his footsteps on the soft ground. He passed the bamboo, and splashed through the sodden area around a leaking garden tap. He felt the wound tearing. His slippers and tracksuit were splashed and soaked with water and mud. He wiped raindrops from his eyes.

He got to the dairy, his heart pounding, just as the shot came late. It hit somewhere on the other side of the dairy. It told him that Sugarfoot had him pinned down.

The only escape was to strike out in a straight line away from Sugarfoot, using the dairy as a screen. Then he could circle around the house and go in through the front. Sugarfoot would be expecting him to advance, not move away. Sugarfoot also had farther to travel if he anticipated Wyatt and circled around to meet him, and by that time Wyatt would be in and out of the house again, armed this time.

He set off at a lope, twenty steps running, twenty walking, remembering his old army training. His main obstacle was a high, tightly sprung stock fence topped with barbed wire. There was little give in the wires. They pulled cruelly at him as he pushed through to the other side.

Again he walked and ran, conscious of pain and the blood spreading over his hip. He circled left, dodging tussocks of grass and treacherous hollows where cows and horses had left deep imprints in the muddy soil. Once he slipped, his left leg sliding away beneath him on a fresh cow pat. He recovered, clutching at his side, and ran on.

His run took him across the top corner of the paddock. On the other side was another fence, and then he was in the shelter of his golden cypresses.

He stopped. Ivan Younger’s white Statesman was parked at the side of the sunken road, fifty metres down from the entrance to his driveway.

He waited for two minutes, isolating sounds: a sheepdog alerted by the rifle fire, its owner shouting at it to shut up, a motor starting up somewhere. Almost eleven o’clock. Wyatt knew that some of the neighbours went to eleven o’clock church but it could also be someone deciding to investigate. Suddenly Wyatt knew how he would do this. He would kill Sugarfoot, dump him in Ivan’s Statesman in Frankston, then come back and commiserate with one or two of the neighbours about these bloody weekend shooters tramping all over the place.

The pain had eased a little now that he’d rested. He approached the house at a walking pace, keeping close to the cypress trees.

He paused at the final tree and surveyed the open ground that sloped down to the apple orchard. That’s when he saw him. Sugarfoot, wearing cowboy boots, stetson hat and long coat, was slipping from the edge of the pine trees and into the orchard about three hundred metres away.

Wyatt ran crouched over to the broad front verandah of his house. He had about a minute before Sugarfoot was stationed where he could see the verandah and the front door and windows. Tension gave him an acute sense of things. He saw, as if for the first time, the warped boards and nail heads on his verandah, the dusty cobwebs on the old lathe-turned posts.

The front door and the window to the left of it were always locked, but his bedroom window was partly open. He removed the insect screen and tugged on the bottom pane, tensing himself for shots from the orchard. The window resisted him, gripped by the old moisture thickened frame. Suddenly it protested like a shrieking bird and moved freely. Wyatt tumbled over the sill and into the room. The window exploded, coating him in shards and chips of glass. He rolled across to the bed and reached under it for his.38.

And blacked out.

When he opened his eyes he had a sense of weightlessness. He didn’t know if he’d been out for seconds or for minutes. The world tipped left and right.

He waited.

When he felt steady, he reached under the bed again and found the.38. It felt reassuring in his hand. It was chambered for five rounds only, unlike his large capacity Browning automatic-but double-action automatics tend to jam, or the clip may crimp if it’s slammed home. He’d fitted a fat, natural-rubber grip to the.38. The metal surface and moving parts were finely coated with a protective layer of oil, and the front sight was rounded so that it wouldn’t drag in the holster or catch on his clothing. The gun seemed to slide into his hand.

He switched off the safety catch and ran through to the laundry at the back of the house. Here there was a narrow broom cupboard where he stored old hats, coats, boots and shoes. He selected a green, quilted, waterproof jacket with a hood. He removed the sodden slippers and put on light, sturdy boots. Under a false panel in the bottom of the cupboard were several boxes of cartridges. He opened a box and poured a dozen loose cartridges into his pocket.

Now to get Sugarfoot. Once he was down in that belt of cover he would have the advantage. Sugarfoot’s rifle was unbeatable for long-distance pinning down and accuracy, but useless for snap shooting and close work among trees and undergrowth. Unless Sugarfoot also carried a pistol. Wyatt had to assume he did.

Another shot slammed into the bedroom. Sugarfoot was still in the orchard, still letting Wyatt know he was there. He had a clear view of the entire northern side of the house and would notice if Wyatt left by either the back or the front door.

Wyatt walked through to the bathroom. It faced south. He opened the window above the bath, knocked out the insect screen, and squeezed out. He moved slowly, conserving energy.

The land on the southern side sloped down to an area of scrub fronted by blackberry bushes. In the distance was Shoreham, then the sea, where black and grey clouds seemed to bunch up before scudding in over the coastline. Wyatt had been calmed by his rest in the house. Now he realised how cold and damp the day was.

A choked path wound through the blackberry thicket.

Wyatt made slow time, thorns catching at his clothing and tearing his skin. He emerged where the blackberries met the scrub and picked his way through it, dodging branches and whipping twigs and leaves.

At the bottom corner of the scrub he broke cover and ran doubled-over to the edge of the pine plantation. Sugarfoot might be back in the pine trees, so he paused before he advanced too far in. The trees were tall, planted close together in neat rows, their upper branches woven together, screening out the meagre light of winter. There was no undergrowth, and few inhibiting lower branches. Pine needles carpeted the ground. One could move through here almost unseen and unheard.

Wyatt stood against the flank of one of the larger trees, the.38 cocked in his hand. He stood for five minutes, listening, adjusting to the dim, resinous atmosphere.

It was midday now. People would be coming home from church soon. If they’d had a chance to compare notes about hearing heavy-bore rifle shots earlier this morning, they might now decide to do something about it.

Wyatt was in the corner of the pine trees that faced the back of his house. That put him at a disadvantage if Sugarfoot advanced along that flank from the other end and drove him back into the inadequate shelter of the scrub and the black-berries. He headed away from the house for a hundred metres and then turned north, making a long, slow circle around to where the pine trees ended and the apple trees began. He wanted to come in behind Sugarfoot.

Then he saw him. Sugarfoot had not wasted time doubling back from the orchard. Sugarfoot saw Wyatt, too. He stopped, swung the big rifle around, and fired. The sound was flat in that enclosed space. A wedge of bark flew off the trunk of a tree next to Wyatt. But it was blind firing. Sugarfoot didn’t have the time or manoeuvrability for a clear shot.

Wyatt turned, ran crashingly towards the orchard for several seconds, stopped, and slipped quietly to his left. He waited. If Sugarfoot circled around, expecting to intercept him, he would follow.

Suddenly Sugarfoot shouted, ‘You’re finished, Wyatt.’

The mug was actually giving away his location. Wyatt stood still, tracking the voice. As he’d expected, Sugarfoot had turned and was cutting through the pine trees toward the orchard. He set off after him.

‘You hear me, Wyatt? You hear me?’

Sugarfoot was now making no effort to be quiet. The cowboy boots drummed on the pine needles, the skirt of the long coat caught on the tree trunks. He was alternately shouting and muttering.

‘Cunt! Didn’t have to kill him. Ivan never hurt you. He fucking put work your way’

The voice dropped again, muttering and complaining.

Wyatt listened and watched. He had Sugarfoot pinpointed now, and began to stalk him. Sugarfoot had dumped the rifle. He was carrying a long-barrelled pistol. From this distance it looked like a Colt Woodsman; not a bad choice, light and accurate. But its slender modern lines and sculptured grip looked incongruous, for Sugarfoot was prowling like a Clint Eastwood caricature, the broad hat low on his brow, the long coat giving him the look of an avenger.

Suddenly he yelled, ‘You’re gutless, Wyatt,’ and swirled around, snapping off random shots.

It didn’t seem to be panic shooting. He’s asking me to face him, Wyatt thought. It’s his moment of glory, the poor thug.

Wyatt waited. Sugarfoot turned and again moved off through the trees, heading toward the border with the orchard. Wyatt followed. He was about twenty paces behind Sugarfoot now. The challenges were becoming more frequent. ‘What are you, Wyatt? Scared? Too piss-weak to show yourself?’

Wyatt began to close the distance. The pines were beginning to thin out and he could see Sugarfoot more clearly. He was facing away from him. Wyatt saw him put his hand to his mouth and cry, ‘You’re gutless, Wyatt. Show yourself like a man.’

Wyatt stepped out, steadied the.38 with his left hand, and shot Sugarfoot Younger in the back of the head.

He cocked the gun again, and waited. But Sugarfoot had pitched forward and dropped and hadn’t moved.

He released the hammer and lowered the gun. His energy seemed to drain into the ground.

When the voice called to him from the path running along the fence, he jerked as if awoken from sleep. He thumbed back the hammer, raised the gun, almost fired.

‘Mr Warner?’

It was Craig. He came closer. He hadn’t seen the body yet.

‘Mr Warner? What’s going on? Are you all right?’

He looked concerned. He’d been running. Then he noticed the body spread face down in the grass, frowned, trying to make sense of it, and turned a shocked face to Wyatt.

Wyatt lowered his.38 again. Craig saw the movement, saw the gun. He started to back away, mouthing something, and Wyatt realised it was ‘No, please, no.’ With a last wrenching look, Craig turned and began to run.

It was a bursting, fearful run, as if he expected the punch of bullets in his back. But Wyatt had begun to stumble back through the trees to his own house. He was galvanised by Craig’s expression of natural horror. It told him he’d lost everything here. All he had in the world was a short head start and seventy-five thousand dollars and far to run.