Bone Lands by Pip Fioretti

Author:Pip Fioretti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Affirm Press
Published: 2024-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Lonergan was out the back in the stable brushing his horse and looked out at us as we arrived. I led Felix into the neighbouring stall, took all his kit off and watched him and Dancer have a smooch.

‘I hope you weren’t expecting the same from me,’ Lonergan said.

I smiled, watching the stable cat join Felix and Dancer. It’d be nice to be missed by someone, greeted with pleasure when I returned, kissed and petted.

‘So yeah, nothing happened and then … nothing happened. Did patrols, cleaned out the stable, that’s about it. A fella called Beavins from Gowrie wanted to speak to you, but he never came back.’

‘Log it?’

He nodded. Back inside the station, I checked the filing trays, ran my eye down the incident book. Several spelling mistakes and an inkblot, but Lonergan was right, nothing had happened. Just the local business of producing wool, getting drunk, waking up the next day and doing it all again. I checked the mail. The personal letters from my father met their end in the stove fire, as usual.

‘I got the order to man the station. They say you’re suspended and to clear out,’ Lonergan said, joining me.

‘Yep.’

‘You didn’t kill them, for Christ’s sake.’

‘I did something else, so out I go.’

‘Tell you what, I’m going to miss Mrs Schreiber. Lived like a king out here.’

‘She stays. I’ll keep eating here – I’ll die if I have to eat at the Royal.’

I took Dancer and Felix on a ride south downriver, coolabahs and redgums lining the riverbanks and shading the road. The dappled sunlight hit the pitted dirt road. The water in the river was up. Grey herons waded along the shallows. Crested pigeons flew off in flurry of alarm as we approached. There’d be good fishing along here soon, for a brief moment, before the water dwindled and the mud hardened in the summer. Some days, after good rain, pelicans appeared, usually in threes, riding the updrafts above the river, scouting for fish, a long way from their coastal home and its certainties.

I found a low bank and let the horses have a splash in the water while I lit a fag and had a think about what to do next.

~

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