Peter Temple: An Iron Rose

Whop.

The night turned to day.

Blinded.

Flare grenade. I backed away, left arm shielding my eyes.

The bullet plucked at my collar, red hot, like being touched by an iron from the forge.

I fell over backwards, twisted, crawled into the undergrowth, hands and knees, through the thicket, thorns grabbing, scratching face and hands, reached a sparser patch, got to my feet, ran into the dark, into something solid, forehead first.

I didn’t fall over, stood bent, stunned, looked back. The flare was dying, white coal.

‘Mac.’ Shout.

Bobby.

‘Mac. Deal. The tape, you walk. Don’t need you dead.’

What hope did I have?

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’m coming.’

I ran left, northeast, hindered by wet, clinging, growing things, hampered but not blocked. I reached the fringe of the cleared area, exhausted. Knew where I was.

Clouds opened. Moonlight.

The bullet hit something in front of me. Something solid, tree trunk.

Night-vision scope.

That was the fat tube on El Greco’s rifle. Light-enhancing nightscope.

He could see in the dark.

I threw myself into the denser growth to my right, crawled deeper, deeper, desperate, no breath left, ten metres, fifteen, more. Into, over plants, roots, through ditches of rotten leaves, mud, scrabbling, don’t want to die like this…

I fell into the sunken tennis court, fell a metre, head over heels, got up, dazed, winded, pitch-dark, sense of direction gone, ran, ran a long way, length of the court perhaps, knee-high weeds, swimming in porridge, fell, crawled, a barrier, a wall, the other side of the court, bits of rusted wire, hands hurting, sodden soil, tufts of grass coming away in my hands.

I was out of the court, on my stomach, all strength gone.

The end.

Fuck that.

I was being hunted. I was their victim. They’d had lots of victims. They knew about victims: they run, you find them, you kill them.

Dangerous is what you want to be. Go mad. Nobody wants to fight a mad person. Nobody wants fingers stuck up his nose.

A father’s words to a small and scared ten-year-old son.

Yes. I found the strength, crawled around the perimeter of the sunken court, turned north. Waited in the undergrowth.

Whop.

Fireball. In the tennis court. Night sun. Cold, white night sun.

I buried my head in the dank, wet weeds. Flare thrown from the edge of the tennis court, somewhere near where I’d toppled into the court.

Flare dying, fading.

Dark.

Dark.

And then light, cold silver moonlight through the flying clouds.

Bobby Hill, ten metres away, moving through the knee-high weeds, long-barrelled revolver at his side, not anxious, not hurrying, man out for a walk in difficult conditions.

Dark again. Lying on my face, I reached under my chest, found the gun butt, comforting feel, drew the Colt from the shoulder holster. Safety off. Hammer back.

Whop.

In the air, above me, intense sodium-like light.

I cringed, pushed myself down, didn’t move, Mother Earth, breathed wet soil, waited for the pain. You bowl these things, I realised, throw them, they float for a few seconds. Not parachute flares.

No pain. White glare dying away. Slowly, slowly. Dark.

I got up. Walked to the edge of the sunken court, slid down on my backside, stayed down, drew up my knees, rested my outstretched arms on them. Waited.

Look down. Another flare goes off, don’t look at the light.

Pitch dark.

The clouds tore, moon revealed.

Bobby Hill.

The length of a ute from me.

I saw him.

He saw me.

Handsome man, Bobby Hill: dense black hair combed back, nice smile, standing in knee-high weeds on a forgotten tennis court.

He was smiling as he brought the long-barrelled revolver up.

I fired first, at his middle, big bang.

The bullet hit him somewhere near the bottom of his fly, massive punch in the groin. His lower body went backwards, feet leaving the ground.

For an instant, I saw the expression on his face. It said: This is odd.

In my head, I said, Goodbye, Bobby.

From close by, from the thicket above the tennis court, El Greco said, ‘Bobby. Got him?’

I went up the side of the court again, crawled through the vegetation, Colt in hand, dark again, ground sloping, stopped for a second, heard the creek below me, full this time of year.

Flare behind me, to my left. El Greco had misjudged my direction. He was looking further up, thought I’d turned north. I holstered the Colt, lay still, crawled again, mud in my mouth.

Creek close, few metres, rushing water, making a noise no problem. I was in the thicket of poplars that lined the creek, dead branches poking at me, cheek torn open.

I fell head-first down the bank into the stream. Freezing water, couldn’t find my feet, taken downstream, banged into a fallen tree trunk, turned around, use of only one hand, swallowed water, Jesus Christ, I couldn’t drown after all this…

My feet found the oozy bottom, I got a hold on a branch stump, pulled myself along the tree trunk. Island in the middle of the creek, some moonlight. Hid behind the trunk until it went.

Another flare, even further over. El Greco thought I was trying to get back to the house, to the car.

Relief. I lay on a cold carpet of moss and caught my breath: I could get out of this.

I waded the second half of the stream, much shallower there, up the bank, into another poplar jungle, blundered into a barbed-wire fence, sound of sleeve ripping, climbed through it, caught, jacket ripped.

I knew where I was. I’d walked down here from the mill. The millpond was about two hundred metres downstream and there was a path of sorts along the creek. I could walk upright. El Greco couldn’t see me here, poplar thickets on both banks too dense.

It took me about five minutes to reach the brimming millpond. The moon came out and I could see what I had been hearing: water spilling over the dam wall, small waterfall.

Panting, I went over to the rusting sluicegates, looked down into the empty brick-lined millrace. It ran straight to the old mill, slight fall, disappeared around a corner to where the millwheel was.

If I dropped into it, I could run the hundred-odd metres to the shelter of the mill unseen, climb out, cross the bluestone-paved loading area and climb the embankment, get deep into the trees.

Safe.

Whop.

Sodium daylight.

In the poplars on the other side of the race pond, not thirty metres away.

El Greco.

Changed direction, come back. Probably seen me in the nightscope.

Frozen, I couldn’t move, reflexes not working. Tired. Tired.

I sank to the ground slowly, lay full length, felt for the Colt.

Gone. No Colt. In the stream. Oh Jesus.

The flare died. The millrace. Get into the millrace. I said this to myself. Get into the millrace and run.

I crawled to the edge of the sluicegate.

Just do this and you’re safe. He’ll have to go upstream or downstream to cross.

I turned and put a leg over, found a foothold, looked to see how far the drop was…

Whop.

Flare over the middle of the race pond, white light intensified by the reflection.

El Greco in the poplars, weapon at the shoulder, looking through the nightscope.

Drop. About to let go, fall into the millrace.

Bang, wink of red light at the mill end of the race. Bang on the metal sluicegate, felt the tremor of the metal in my hand.

Someone in the millrace. Shooting at me. Of course, two down the drive, two come from below. I knew there’d be more than two.

Bang, red wink, sound of bullet over my head.

I heaved myself back over the top.

Trapped. Finished.

My hand was on the sluicegate lever. Jesus. Heard Flannery’s voice in my head: Sluicegate’ll still work. Someone’s been greasing it.