Pay Dirt

THIRTY

Wyatt wheeled the Suzuki out of the shed. He could hear the flat whump whump of the helicopter now. He shook the bike- fuel sloshed in the tank. He climbed on, pushed hard on the kick-start and accelerated across the yard. A minute later he was on the track leading back into the ranges behind the farmhouse.

He had advantages on a bike. He hoped they’d be enough. It was faster than walking and he could go where a car couldn’t go. The cops would be blocking the roads but they couldn’t throw a cordon over paddocks and creeks. That was what Wyatt was relying on. That and speed.

He looked back over his shoulder briefly, almost losing the bike in an erosion channel. The helicopter was apparently closing in on the farm. Wyatt hoped they’d concentrate on the house and sheds and not the hills behind it just yet. He was a small shape, dressed in dull khaki overalls, but he knew it was movement that attracts attention from the air, not shape, size or colour.

He righted the bike, his eyes darting from the ground surface under his wheels to the shape of the land ahead. He didn’t want to tie himself to the track if he could save time by heading across country. Using his eyes and his mental map, he began to plot his route out of the hills. He knew what to avoid-the dry creekbeds with their treacherous sand; stone reefs like stakes embedded in the wind-blasted hillsides; foxholes and rusty fencing wire in the long grass.

In other circumstances he might have enjoyed his flight across the forgotten back country. They said land like this was bland-blindness, Wyatt thought, taking in the purples and greens, the tortured shapes. The sun was mild on his back. The spring wildflowers were out and the sky was cloudless. He risked another glance over his shoulder. The farmhouse and sheds were out of view. There was no helicopter yet.

But the reversals of the past hour wouldn’t let him alone. He thought about Leah’s STD call to her contact, her trips away from the farm. Snyder puzzled him. Snyder had been too keen to go back to the farmhouse. He felt more certain about Tobin. Given that the other aspects of the plan had been duplicated, it was reasonable to suppose that Tobin had been used to shift the van. And it was Leah who’d brought Tobin into the team. He’d find her. He’d find both of them.

He began to pick a way out of the worst of the stone reefs and hidden gullies. Before him lay undulating farmland. It was fenced, immense paddocks of grassy slopes dotted with ancient gum trees. Sheep had spread across one end of the closest paddock, several hundred of them grazing head down in the long grass. He opened a gate, closed it behind him and set out across the paddock, mindful that snarls of fencing wire might be caught in the grass. There was a gravel road at the far end of the paddock. He intended to travel along it for a few kilometres then cut across country again.

Something passed across the sun behind him. It threw a shadow that was gone as suddenly as it was there. Wyatt didn’t look back or increase speed. He changed direction slightly. A few seconds later he was wobbling in low gear at the leading edge of the sheep.

Wyatt had built his life on blending in so he wouldn’t be noticed. It was automatic. Now he was doing it again. He steered in and around the sheep, stopping occasionally, waving an arm. He’d never done anything like this before. He didn’t know anything about sheep. But they seemed to be doing the right thing. They were fat, their bellies full, and they moved hurriedly a short distance and appeared to forget about him again, yet bit by bit they were bunching up. Now and then some of them streamed away from the mob, wild-eyed and mindless, but he had no trouble heading them off. He hoped it looked right from the air. He lacked one essential prop, a dog, but he hoped he looked as though he belonged here.

Then he did something he’d seen a farmer do a few weeks earlier, when he was pipe-laying north of Belcowie. Standing the bike on its stand, he charged into the mob, wrestled a sheep to the ground, and leaned down to examine its hindquarters.

When the Brava helicopter stopped circling, dropping to just above the ground fifty metres away, the pilot and passengers saw a farmer start in surprise, a sheep propped butt down against his knees. The surprise changed to anger. He shook his fist at them. Bugger off, he seemed to be saying. You’re spooking the sheep.

Wyatt saw faces grin at him. Then the rotor tilted, the tail lifted, and the chopper left him in peace.