Warrior in the Shadows (21 page)

3.7

Alfie was disturbed by the summons back to Cairns. He'd just begun to renew his routine in the cave: eating, sleeping, walking in the hills, and spending more and more hours communing with the spirits that filled the air of the dark hills. A young Aborigine boy, dressed in tattered shorts and T-shirt, had come to the foot of the cave and shouted the message up to him before turning away and running as fast as he could. Alfie took his time walking into town to check his message at the bar. He leaned on the bar and made his phone call to Jay Burrell and listened to the tension in the man's voice.

Something was bothering him.

He didn't bother going back to the cave; all he had with him was the clothes on his back and that was enough. He kept a room well stocked with clothes and other accoutrements of the outside world in Jay Burrell's sprawling house. So he caught a ride back down to Cairns on the daily bus.

Jay had sent his buffoon Tim to pick him up at the bus stop. Alfie saw him well before the burly white man saw him, and reminded himself to steer clear of any provocation.

Tim pulled the sedan close to the curb when he finally saw Alfie standing patiently in front of the Cairns bus station.

"Get in, blackie," Tim said. "I don't have all day."

Alfie got in the left-side passenger door and sat beside Tim without a word.

"You got nothing to say?" Tim blustered, unnerved by the slow look Alfie gave him.

Alfie ignored him, and drew inward in silence, still making the transition from the man who lived in a cave to the Alfie Woodard of the outside world. He wasn't going to let the juvenile maundering of the young man interfere with him. He didn't say a word to Tim, even after they arrived at Jay's beach house. Alfie remained silent until he went into Jay Burrell's office.

"What's so important that you need me back here?" he said.

"There's a man maybe come looking for you," Jay said.

"How do you know?"

"A contact in Minneapolis tells me he dropped out of sight suddenlike after you left. I checked up on him. He's a serious fella, this one."

"What do you know of him?"

Jay handed him a manila folder.

"Have a look," he said. "This is the guy you left standing on your trail."

Alfie sat in an armchair, crossed one leg over the other, and began to flip through the sheets in the folder. One piece of paper had the Central Intelligence Agency letterhead, but the bulk of the file was information retyped by someone who had read the original file.

"Ex-CIA Special Operations?" Alfie said, amused. "What a world we live in."

He pulled out a photograph of Charley Payne, the name written on the bottom of the 5© 7, and studied the face.

"Too right, that's him," Alfie said. "He was a good fighter, this one."

He gathered the thin sheaf of papers together, spending a moment lingering over the photograph, then tapped the papers together into a neat and orderly pile and set it on the edge of Jay's desk. He leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers across his belly.

"So what do you want me to do?" he said.

"What do you think?" Jay said. "This has to be sorted."

"Fine," Alfie said in a calm, almost bored voice. "I'll kill him once he gets here. How is he supposed to find me?"

"This one has got connections. They could be pointing him right at me. You've developed a reputation and an unmistakable calling card, my friend. Those jobs in Paris, Amsterdam, Bangkok, and Caracas… your ritual draws a lot of attention."

"You wanted attention, attention you got. You've always wanted to send a message. I don't think the message was ambiguous. Do you?"

"You may have to change the way you do business."

"I think it may be better if we ended things."

Jay stood up, alarmed. "What do you mean?"

"It's the end of things, Jay. With me. This last thing… I've been getting a feeling. Getting me own kind of messages. It's the end of things. I don't want to do this anymore."

Jay sat on the edge of his desk and swung one leg back and forth nervously.

"Don't tell me that the famous Alfie Woodard is getting cold feet on me," he said.

"Nothing to do with it, mate. It's just time for me to stop and turn my attention to other things. I've got another life that needs tending to. I've done enough for both of us."

"I need you, Alfie."

"You need what I can do… and you've been grooming muscle-head over there to take my place in any event. Give him a chance to stretch his wings a bit, maybe he'll surprise you. He's got potential, if he'd learned to shut his mouth and get on with it."

Tim, who'd been standing in a sullen silence by the door, opened his mouth, then shut it.

"Like that," Alfie said.

"Piss off," Tim said.

Jay spoke quickly. "I need you to sort this out. After you get this cleaned up you can go back to your cave in Laura and do whatever it is you do there. But this is your mess and it's followed you home. You need to sort it out."

Alfie nodded in amiable agreement. "No arguing with that, mate. I need to get it sorted. But there's something about this, something I've felt coming for a while. This man, he won't walk away."

"You think he'll be working with the cops on this?" Jay said.

"Not his way," Alfie said with assurance. "He won't want police, but he might bring some of his spooky friends. He'll need someone to help. He won't know the ground here."

"I can pay to have the airport watched, but he could be flying into Brisbane and making his way up here by bus."

Alfie leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes. For a moment he felt the pull of his dreamy state and he fought that off for the moment. "No need, Jay. He's probably already here, maybe even had a look at you, if it's you that he's tracking. All we need to do is keep our eyes open and he'll come right to us. Maybe we'll dangle me."

"Dangle?"

"He may know something about you, but he's seen me. If he sees me again, he'll recognize me. Count on that."

Jay gestured at Alfie's beat-up bush khakis. "Even like that?"

"Even like this."

Tim snorted in disdain. Alfie looked over his shoulder at the big man and grinned.

"You'll never amount to anything till you learn some things, Timmy my lad," Alfie said. "You think everything is just as it appears at the moment you look at it. You never bother to think that maybe, just maybe, things and people are not always what they appear to be. When you start to understand that, you'll know something. Then you might really be dangerous."

"Piss off, Alfie," Tim said defiantly. The absence of censure from Jay emboldened him. "You and your bloody bush doctor bullshit. If you hadn't been playing that game in the States we wouldn't have this problem now."

Alfie laughed and shook his head. He put his bush hat on and slid it forward so that it shaded his eyes and relaxed back into the armchair.

"You'll get your chance, Timmy," he said.

3.8

In their hotel room, Kativa sat across from Charley, the small table between them. She sat on the edge of her seat, in marked contrast to Charley, who slouched in his chair with the easy insouciance of a well-fed cat.

"So what now?" Kativa said.

Charley sat forward and flipped open a large-scale road map on the table.

"There's not much to Laura," he said.

"It's not much more than a stopping-off place for people on their way up to the Cape," Kativa said. "There is a settlement there, but it's not in the main town on the road, it's off behind it in the foothills. That's the Ang-Gnarra tribal lands."

"You know your way around up there?"

"Yes," Kativa said. "I spent a lot of time there. There will be people we can ask about this man."

"They'll speak to you, then."

"I hope so. If he's up there, you better believe the natives will know all about him. You said you had a photograph?"

"He's hard to forget," Charley said. He took out the 8 © 10 black-and-white and handed it to Kativa. "Here."

Kativa slowly studied the photograph. "He looks familiar, somehow," she said. "He certainly won't be hard to find if he dresses like that."

"I don't think that will be the case."

Kativa nodded. "I think you're right. We can go to Laura, show that photograph. Someone will recognize his face."

"How far is Laura from here?"

"It's the better part of a day's drive, much of it over dirt track, but that truck should handle it just fine."

"How are your contacts there?"

"I know a few people there. Peter, who owns the bar, he knows everyone in the area. He often holds mail and takes phone calls for people. If anyone would know, Peter would."

"Then let's go talk to Peter," Charley said. He gathered up the stray papers and replaced them into the folder. "Let's hit the road."

* * *

The road to Laura was long, bumpy, and dusty. When they arrived, they got out of the truck and Kativa looked around while Charley stretched the kinks out of his back. Laura was the same as she had left it: sleepy, dusty, almost ominously quiet in a midday silence under the somnolent heat of the tropical sun. There wasn't much to the town: a battered collection of peeling white-painted buildings, the centerpiece a two-story building with a sign out front that said QUINKIN BAR AND HOTEL. A dusty semitrailer was parked directly across the street from the bar. Kativa led Charley into the cool dimness of the bar. It was a small place, dominated by the battered wooden bar with a tarnished brass foot rail, a few scattered tables, and a stairwell that led upstairs. A young Aboriginal girl tended the bar where a dusty man in a bush hat and khakis, a driver by the looks of him, nursed a beer. In a corner of the bar was a table where two ancient, wrinkle-faced Aboriginal men sat together and watched Charley and Kativa with interest. The bar was otherwise empty.

"Here now," the truck driver said. "Fresh company."

"G'day," the bartender said. "Get you something to drink?"

"Two Castle lagers," Kativa said. "As cold as you've got them."

"Can do, mate," the bartender said. She produced two icy bottles from the cooler behind the bar and set out two frosted mugs. "Fancy, eh?"

Kativa and Charley poured their beer into the mugs and drew gratefully from them.

"Is Peter about?" Kativa said.

"No," the bartender said. "He's off today. Can I help you?"

Charley took the 8© 10 photograph out of his bag and slid it onto the bar. "Do you know this man?"

It was apparent from the look on her face that she did. She straightened up from her friendly lean across the bar and stepped back.

"I know of that fella," she said. "He won't like you showing that picture around."

"You know him?" Kativa said.

"I know
of
him," the bartender corrected. "Precious little and that bit more than I want to. That's Alfie Woodard, that's the name he goes by. He stays up in the hills. You want to know more about him, ask them fellas there." She pointed at the two old Aboriginal men sitting at the table in the corner, their faces puffy and folded with age, framed with bushy white hair. "You ask them fellas what they know about Alfie Woodard."

"Thank you," Kativa said.

"Don't be thanking me," the bartender said, her arms crossed tightly across her chest. "I'll thank you never to mention it to Alfie Woodard."

Charley and Kativa looked at each other for a full moment, then Charley shrugged and went over to the table where the two old men sat.

"Excuse me," he said, holding the photo out. "Do either of you know this man?"

The old man closest to him turned rheumy eyes, the whites a faint yellow, at Charley and appraised him slowly. Then he looked at the photograph for a full minute.

Then he laughed.

"That fella won't like that you have a picture of him, no he won't," the old man said.

"You know him?" Charley said.

"I know that man, and I knew the boy before he got took away."

"Took away?"

"Government took him, put him with white people because he had a white father that ran off. Did something bad to him, all that did."

"Do you know where he is?" Charley said.

"He stays in the hills."

"Where in the hills?"

"White fellas better off not going in these hills looking for this fella. This man do something bad to you, he know you looking for him, carrying a picture of him."

Charley eased into an empty chair at the table. The other old man nodded and grinned as Charley sat, Kativa standing by his shoulder.

"I need to talk to this man," Charley said. "Can you help me find him?"

The old man who'd done all the talking looked into Charley's eyes, a direct and knowing gaze Charley found unsettling.

"My name is Robert Kramer," the old man said. "That's the white man's name I was given. You didn't come here to talk to this man."

Charley bit the inside of his cheek, took a long slow breath, and said, "I just need to talk to this man."

The other old man laughed.

Robert Kramer drew himself up and said sternly, "Best not to lie to a Man of the Law, fella. Not your Law, not your concern, but not good to be lying. You come to kill this man, it's all over you. We can see it, any of us who walk the Dream."

Charley glanced over at the bar to see whether the bartender had heard any of that. It seemed as though the bar had shrunk around him into the narrow view of a telescope: Charley, Kativa, the two old men, the bartender whispering something to the truck driver. Charley heard a hum, a deep background hum just barely over the threshold of his hearing, and he had a little fugue where it seemed as though he were dreaming with his eyes open and it was as though he'd been here before when he said, "You're right, Robert Kramer. I've come to kill this man because he's a bad man and I want you to tell me where he is."

Both old men laughed at that, a deep rich sound that caused the bartender to look over, and then quickly away.

"You're in Quinkin country now, white fella…"

"My name is Charley Payne, and…"

"It's not your name in the Dream, Charley Payne," Robert said. "We've seen you coming. That's why we're sitting here today, me and my mate. We've been waiting for you."

The other old man nodded and smiled. There was a big gap in his smile where several teeth were missing. "Waiting for you," he said. "We sure have."

"Maybe we shouldn't talk in here," Charley said.

"Nobody's listening to us," Robert said. "The girl at the bar, she knows better, that trucker is too pissed to pay attention to anything that's not in his face."

"We just want to find…" Kativa said.

The old man cut her off with a glare. "I know who you are, girl, and I know the part you're to play. This is men's work, you best sit somewhere and let the man listen and talk." He turned to Charley and said, "You have to listen to make sense of the Dream, and you're here to learn about that."

Kativa nodded in agreement, touched Charley on the arm, then went to the far end of the bar where she sat and ordered another beer.

"She's in this with me," Charley said.

"This is men's work, Charley Payne," Robert said. "Tell us about the Dream that brought you here to us today."

"How do you know about my Dream?"

"We dreamed the same Dream, Charley Payne. We saw you coming. You've been here before, in your Dreaming."

"What did you dream of?" Charley said.

"Timara," Robert said. "Been dreaming of Timara Quinkin, come to hunt the Imjin in his home. That's who travels with you, Charley Payne."

"That's right," the other old man said. "We've been dreaming of you hunting. Not today, who you're looking for. He's not here today, mate. He's down in Cairns, looking for you."

"How do you know this?" Charley said.

Robert Kramer spoke slowly and deliberately.

"We had a mate," he said. "Another Man of the Law. Tribal elder, his name was Ralph. Good mate, but he liked to look too long in the Dream, looked down ways it was best to leave alone. This was not that long ago. He was one of the strongest of us in the Dream, and people would come to him for help, good magic and spells to help them. But he started to think of himself as being something he wasn't, no, Ralph wasn't what he began to think he was. Started looking down the dark ways."

"Yes, he did," the other old man said. "Looked down the dark ways."

"He went down that path alone," Robert said. "We tried to warn him, but he was a Man of the Law, saw things his own way. Went way down that path alone, then he found this fella Alfie. A young man with money enough he didn't need to do anything but follow old Ralph around."

"Ralph liked that, you see," the other old man said. "He liked having company on that dark walkabout."

"Alfie learned all he could," Robert said. "He was a good student. Too good a student. And then one day, Ralph stopped coming around. No one saw him, knew where he went. Some folks say that the Quinkin took him for dabbling in what he did. But we Men of the Law knew better. Something took him all right, something that worked through that boy Alfie. Alfie, he's not a boy anymore, not easy for the Law Men to counsel. He went his own way, and we didn't have any more disappearances here. But in the Dream, we could see what happened each time he went away. That's how we know about you, Charley Payne. You were meant to come here. That's why we've been waiting for you, to help you put things right in a way we can't."

Charley sat rock still for a long moment, then finally nodded his head in acceptance.

"Okay," he said. "Maybe I'm crazy. But I've been dreaming, too…"

Robert laughed. "Crazy enough to fly halfway round the world because of a dream? That's crazy, all right." The old man leaned across the table and stabbed his finger forcefully onto the tabletop. "But here you are."

"So what are you going to do?" Charley said.

"That's not the way of the Dream, Charley Payne. We see you having a meeting with this man. And we have a way of seeing…" Robert said.

"If he's not there now…" Charley said. "I need to see where he lives."

The two old men looked at each other, then Robert said, "Knew you'd say that, mate."

"So you'll help me?" Charley said.

The two old men looked at each other, then back at Charley. They both nodded, then pushed their empty glasses away, stood up and pulled on their battered bush hats and left the bar, pushing through the door into the bright light outside. Charley followed them.

"Will you show me?" he said.

"Leave the girl here," Robert said. "We'll take a long walk. She'll be fine here."

Kativa had followed as far as the doorway. "It's okay," she said to Charley. "I'll be fine. I'll wait right here."

Charley tossed her the keys to the truck. "I'll be back in a while."

"Longish walk, mate," the gap-toothed elder said. "You'll want a hat and some water."

Kativa went back inside and returned with a liter plastic bottle of drinking water she handed to Charley. "Your hat is behind the seat in the truck," she said.

Charley went to the truck and got out the hat and seated the battered drover's hat on his head. Holding the bottle of water in his hands, he set off after the two old men. They were deceptively fast; their boneless shuffle in the dusty side of the road ate up distance faster than it seemed. Charley had to hurry to catch up to them as they turned off the main road onto a dirt track that led through a small cluster of manufactured homes and trailers, the yards littered with garbage and rusted automobiles. It didn't take long before they were walking up into the hills past the settlement. The old men were silent, only exchanging the occasional look with Charley. They wound their way up into the first sandstone escarpments of the foothills and Charley saw his first rock painting, of an emu and a dingo, on the walls of the artificial cave created by a fallen sandstone slab.