Annie clapped her hands for attention. ‘Well then, we’d better be off. We’ve left our friend Nina out there at the mercy of the crabs. Thank you so much for the use of your phone. You’ve both been so kind.’ Annie edged her way back to the front door.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to stay? We’ve got a spare bedroom. And there’s the couch . . .’ Bev indicated a small floral two-seater now occupied by a hulking, panting rottweiler.
‘No, really. Like Meredith said, we’re fine. We’ve got everything we need for the night. Thanks again.’
‘Here’s some nuts.’ Trevor shoved a cardboard box of macadamias in her direction, and then adjusted his scrotum through his scarlet satin boxer shorts. ‘One day they’ll be one of the nation’s prominent sources of bio-fuel, because their smoke-point is one of the highest of any—’
‘Thank you!’ sang Annie in a desperate attempt to fend off the recitation of the remainder of Trevor’s 101 Handy Macadamia Nut Facts.
She turned and bolted, her thongs slapping on the concrete front steps and down the path to the ute. She threw the box of nuts into the back and hauled herself up on the metal truck-tray, dragging Meredith up after her.
‘Are youse right?’ came the yell from the driver’s window.
‘Hang on tight ladies!’ came the courtesy safety warning from the passenger’s side.
With an ostentatious skid on the gravel that tipped the truck sideways and threatened to chuck both Meredith and Annie head-first into a rock garden populated with plaster jabiru, they were on their way. The vehicle blasted out the driveway and pelted back down to the dead end of Mangrove Creek Road.
Were they having an adventure now? The rush of damp night air blasted Annie’s curls from her scalp as the truck barrelled down the track. She knew that she, definitely, was. Annie couldn’t recall the last time she’d shared the back of a LandCruiser with a massive dead feral pig as she headed into the depths of a mangrove swamp at midnight.
‘Yahoooo!’ she screamed, and punched a hole into the dank darkness.
Meredith, standing next to her and gripping a metal bar, was silent. Pig blood was dripping onto the tray of the truck and she could feel the disgusting stuff, still warm, on her feet. The putrid smell of the dead brute made her sick to her stomach. Her hair felt as if it was being torn out, root by root, in the whistling wind. Her mind was paralysed, still back in the muffled hallway of the Baum farmhouse. All she could hear was the insistent ‘bong, bong, bong’ of a fake cuckoo clock chiming the death of a long-cherished dream.
‘Can I get you something, Davo? Chook?’ Nina was hobbling around the illuminated campsite, imagining she was back in her kitchen and able to rustle up a nice cup of tea and freshly baked Anzac biscuits for a couple of visiting Mormons.
In fact, what was on offer was half a bottle of merlot, hazelnut chocolate and the remains of a jar of jalapeno dip. The two men standing in silhouette in front of the headlights of the giant humming ‘pig-rig’ looked like they’d much rather sit down to a supper of fried evangelist and beer.
From what Annie had gleaned, they were professional pig shooters from the nearby town of Coaldale. The ugly, bristle-haired, seventy-kilogram boar hanging upside down off the metal frame was destined for dog food. It had been shot through the head with a bolt action Winchester 243 rifle. Annie had been excited to inspect the gun. She’d been handy with a rifle on rabbit-shooting expeditions back home. Nina could only marvel at Annie’s ease around these rough blokes who made the average AFL player look like a schoolboy.
‘We’re right! No probs!’ Davo spat into the dirt. ‘We might head back home. There’s another huge bastard out there somewhere, but he’s well gone now.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Nina as she nervously tried to peer beyond the wall of dense vegetation. ‘I don’t know how we’ll get back to sleep