(a novel of 55,000 words by Frits Kruithof).

PREFACE:

A small town perched high on an Australian mountain range has become the perfect hideout for an organized gang of career criminals. This is hardly a fitting place for a respectable woman to raise her nine-year-old son and yet it is a place where exciting things happen often and character-molding experiences are impossible to avoid.

The characters and situations in this story are fictitious and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

CHAPTER ONE: THE GANGLAND EXECUTION OF DANIEL ROBERT BADDEN.

"God! It’s so dark! There’s no lights anywhere! Are you sure this is the right road?" asked Danny, in a squeaky, uptight voice that disclosed a high level of anxious concern.

"I drove this road a thousand times," said the Chief. I worked here, lived here. I know it like the back of me hand, day or night. What are yuh so scared of?"

"Ahh, nuffent. I ain’t scared . . . Do yuh fink your uncle will buy them TVs?" He looks admiringly over his shoulder at three large cardboard boxes in the back of the station wagon they are traveling in.

"Sure, he’ll wan’ ‘em!" said the Chief reassuringly.

"They’re brand-fucken-new still in the box, you know--not some ol’ rubbish nicked out of some poor bastard’s home. They’re part of a heist. Do yuh reckon he’ll pay good money for ‘em?"

"Yair . . . well, he pays better’n any one else I know. He’s loaded. He’s got his own fucken forest, his own sawmill, two fucken bulldozers . . . he’s even got a back hoe that can dig holes fifteen fucken foot deep. He’s always buyin’ stuff--especially if the price is right. And even if he doesn’t want somethin’ for ‘imself, he buys it anyway if the price is right ‘n’ gives it to one of his nieces or nephews. He likes doin’ stuff like that. He’s a real generous bastard."

"God, how long is it gonna take to get there?"

"What’s yuh big fucken hurry? What’s yuh big fucken worry?"

"I’m just a bit jumpy since the Apache got outa jail."

"The Apache? He got out ages ago!"

"Yair, but he thinks I’m a dog . . . but I never told the cops nuffent."

"Well, I saw the Apache about six months ago. He was havin’ a few drinks with the boys: a kind of farewell party before his flight back to the mainland. I think he was planning to stay up there permanent like. He said Tassie was givin’ ‘im the shits . . . Well, we’re here."

The Chief drives through an open gate and along a driveway until they come to a house. There is a late-model car parked out front, beside which the Chief parks his station wagon. He then turns off the headlights and the engine.

"Come in, meet me uncle, ‘n’ have a drink. After that, we can talk business."

There is a low light inside the house, which emanates through the front windows and out onto the veranda. A TV can be heard. The Chief opens the front door and motions Danny to enter first. Danny obliges him. The Chief follows, shuts the door behind them and locks it with the quick and imperceptible press of a button.

Someone is sitting in front of the television. This, presumably, is the uncle, but he has his back turned to them, so his identity remains a secret until he swivels around 180-degrees in his chair.

While the lighting is poor, and Danny has never met the Chief’s uncle before in any case, he is nevertheless certain the figure seated in front of him now is not the uncle.

That is simply because it is the Apache. Of course it’s the Apache! It is Danny’s worst nightmare: the encounter his fear had tried so hard to warn him about. His fear had known it all along, had tried to protect him, had known what his conscious reasoning didn’t know: that this encounter was bound to take place sooner or later.

Danny squeals like a dumb, trapped animal and turns to run, but the Chief grabs him round the neck in a viselike headlock. Danny cries out in terror, jumps, kicks and thrashes about in a frenzied attempt to break loose--but all his efforts are in vane.

Even in his prime, Danny was never more than a runt, but he now has the scrawny wasted physique of a chronic heroine addict. The Chief, by way of contrast, is stout and powerfully built.

The Apache rises out of his seat, moves toward them, and begins to speak.

"They say every dog has his day. Well, that’s certainly true, because this is your day, your very own dog day. This is the day you die."

"NNNNOOOOOO! YOU CAN’T MEAN IT! IT WASN"T ME WHAT DONE IT! I NEVER TOLD THE COPS NUFFENT!"

The Apache is big and powerful: is six feet tall and two hundred pounds of muscle. He punches Danny very hard in the stomach--hard enough to temporarily immobilize him.

"You turn police informer, turn dog on me, and I get eighteen months--what do you expect me to do about it? Do you want me to say it’s okay? Do you want me to tell the world it’s okay for anyone to do that to me and I won’t do anything about it?"

"But I couldn’t go to Jail," said the winded Danny in a near whisper. "I couldn’t go cold turkey. I couldn’t go off the smack. I didn’t mean no disrespect."

The Apache picks up a twelve-gauge, double-barrel, shotgun. He opens the action and loads a cartridge into each chamber.

"We’re going for a little walk," he said, closing the action with a hard metallic clunk.

"NNNOOOO!" Screamed Danny, kicking and thrashing about wildly. But the Chief is too strong and maintains an iron grip around his neck. He drags Danny out the front door, around the side of the house, and then tries to manhandle him into the cab of a four-wheel-drive vehicle.

Danny effectively resists this but only temporarily, because the Chief then tightens his grip around the addict’s scrawny neck until he loses consciousness. The Chief is then easily able to get the now unresisting Danny into the cab.

The Apache drives the trio about a mile to a remote part of the property where a backhoe stands waiting. That machine has already completed the first half of the task it was brought here to carry out.

The Chief drags the still unconscious Danny out of the vehicle and drops him on the ground next to a recently excavated hole, which is exactly fifteen feet deep.

"I don’t even like doing this," said the Apache, "but what else can I do? The cunt gave me no alternative. This is the only thing that can happen now."

"The cunt had it comin’," said the Chief in sympathetic agreement. "He’s a dog, the lowest of the low. There’s nuffent lower than a fucken dog."

They wait till Danny regains consciousness. After a matter of minutes, he seems to awaken from a peaceful slumber, but his face fills immediately with terror upon seeing the shotgun pointed directly at him. He begins to beg for his life and then he begins to cry like a small child.

"You’re gonna have to die like a man even if you never lived as one," said the Apache. From a distance of about six feet, he aims the shotgun at Danny’s side and fires off a round. This removes about a half-pound of his flesh. Danny is screaming with pain. Terrified right out of his brain, he is begging and crying hysterically.

The Apache then takes aim at Danny’s head and fires off the second cartridge, which removes the top of his skull and puts a definite end to him. A supreme team of the finest surgeons in the world could do nothing to save Danny now. He is well and truly past it.

With his foot, the Apache pushes the now lifeless corpse over the edge and into its deep resting-place. It is a resting-place, which had been dug for him already days earlier, which had been planned for him already months earlier, and which, in a prophetic, metaphorical sense, had been waiting here for him all of his life. This hole dug deep into barren ground will set the stage for the final act in a life filled with failure and regret.

CHAPTER TWO: A ROOF OVER ONE'S HEAD.

"You bloody bastard," said nine-year-old Josh, "you’re always pestering me."

"Well, I’m just saying you can’t be a member of our family. You’ve got brown eyes. Everyone else has blue eyes. It defies the laws of genetics. That’s a science, and it proves that you must have been adopted".

"You are the one who was adopted, you big bully bastard." Josh was angry. Goaded past the point of losing his temper, the normally placid Josh picks up a feather duster and hits his thirteen-year-old brother, Theo, hard on the arm.

"Okay, you’re in for it now. You’ll have to be punished." Theo pushes Josh hard enough to cause him to fall back onto his bed. He then sits on his chest, and places a pillow over Josh’s head. Theo holds the pillow down tight with both his hands and applies a considerable force.

Josh can’t breath and is at the point of losing consciousness when their mother, Kathy, enters the room. In an instant, Kathy grabs Theo by the hair and drags him off Josh. She wails into him furiously with closed fists. Then, checking herself, she stops abruptly and begins to assail Theo with words instead.

"YOU LITTLE ROTTER!" she shouted. "I finally caught you in the act. You are the one responsible for giving Josh night sweats. You have been putting the fear of God into him. He would never tell me what you were doing, but you’ve been suffocating him . . . just for fun! YOU DIRTY LITTLE ROTTER!"

Kathy’s fury boils over once more and causes her to raise an angry hand against Theo but he is now forewarned. He maneuvers quickly around her and runs off. He is out the front door in a flash and off--off to the library no doubt. That is just the kind of place where bookworms end up.

"Why didn’t you tell me he was doing this to you? He’s been doing it for years, hasn’t he? He’s been doing it forever! Oh my God!"

Josh is sullen and remains silent.

"What is this, a code of silence? You don’t make things any easier for me by saying nothing. Life is just one problem after another. I came up here to tell you that your father should have been home by now. That’s another problem because it’s rent day. You’ll have to go to the local and bring him home as soon as possible."

"Why am I always the one who has to go," protested Josh. "Theo never goes. Theo never does anything. Theo is never even here."

"Yes, I know, but he’s always at the library, that’s why I have to ask you."

Complying reluctantly with his mother’s request, Josh sets off to the local pub, which enjoys his father’s frequent patronage. It is a familiar route, a route he has taken so many times before.

"I’m the fall guy," he said, muttering to himself. "I get to do all the dirty jobs . . . like dragging a drunken father home while other kids are walking behind us and poking fun. Theo would never do that no matter what."

Kathy has timed things just about right in her estimation. At this time of day, Arthur will have had time for one or two drinks and that’s all. She figures she can afford to lose that much out of the family’s weekly budget, because that will still leave enough to pay for all their living expenses and the rent.

The latter matter has become a crucial one in that the landlord is at the point of having lost all patience. He has issued a stern and unequivocal warning that he will accept no further missed or late payments for any reason whatsoever. Instead, and with the help of a few of his hefty mates, he will simply throw the Fleming family out on the street.

Upon entering the pub, Josh is surprised to see his father already falling down drunk. He should never have reached that stage but, unbeknown to Josh and Kathy, Arthur has been in the pub all day. He was sacked that morning and given his severance pay, which he has been using to shout the bar.

"Oh I've got some money left," said Arthur, in a tone of invincible bravado. "What can I buy with this?" he asked, holding up two five-cent pieces.

"You can’t buy nuffent for that," said the barmaid. "You’d best go home and sleep it off."

Josh rushes out of the pub alone and in a panic. He is too disgusted with his father to be willing to even help him walk home. And in any case, he knows there will be hell to pay when Arthur meets Kathy. He sees little advantage in bringing that conflagration about sooner rather than later.

Upon his returning home alone, Kathy’s face is immediately filled with fear and concern. More than that, it is just as if an air raid alarm has been set off inside her brain. It is in a heated state of panic that she begins to question Josh.

"Where is he?" she demanded, in a tone so aggressive as to befit a cross-examination.

"Dad’s drunk. He’s been drinking all day. He got the sack this morning. He’s spent all his money except for ten cents."

Those few words explain the situation fully and precisely but do nothing to reassure Kathy; on the contrary, she now appears deathly worried. For a brief instant her face turns a pale white.

She then becomes so distraught in fact that she cannot help but break down and cry in front of Josh, who is deeply embarrassed and upset at seeing his mother in such an emotional state. He has never seen her cry before.

"What's wrong Mum?" he asked, with tears welling up in his own eyes.

"It’s not just the rent. It’s more than that. I feel like I'm being punished for something I did that was wrong, very wrong, and yet I can't even imagine what that might be."

"But you've never done anything wrong, Mum."

"Maybe, but I’m the unhappiest woman in the world, because everything gets worse and nothing gets better. No matter how hard I try, God will never let me have the normal nice things that everyone wants and most people get."

In the midst of this singular display of heartfelt candor the phone suddenly rings. Taken by surprise, Kathy makes a quick and seemingly pointless attempt to pull her self together by straightening her hair and wiping her eyes. This, presumably, is intended to keep the party at the other end of the line from knowing she is, or has been, crying.

"Hi, Mum . . . Do I want a house? Are you kidding me . . . Do I want a house for free?" Kathy listens with intense concentration for a period of a minute or two, then, holding her hand over the speaking end of the receiver, she conveys a furtive message to Josh:

"It's your Grandma Wilson. We are saved!"

Kathy then refocuses her attention upon whatever it is Grandma Wilson is telling her.

Having heard his mother’s last words, Theo comes to listen in on the proceedings, which now appear to be of considerable interest to him.

A few minutes later Kathy hangs up the phone. She is almost trembling with excitement.

"They closed the mine at Sugarloaf Mountain," she said. "We have a house--no, we own a house free and clear. From here on in we will always have a rent-free roof over our heads. We are leaving tonight. We are leaving as soon as possible and without your father, so pack up your things and get ready to go."

"I'm not going to live out in the middle of nowhere," said Theo, defiantly. "I can't live that far away from a proper library. And in any case I already have an arrangement with Grandma and Grandpa Fleming: if anything happens to threaten my education or my bursary, I am to go and live with them. And that's sure as hell what I'm going to do."

"Okay, fine, have it your way. It's probably for the best in any case."

In a flurry of haste, Kathy packs her meager belongings and loads them into their twenty-year-old car. Josh, obligingly as ever, follows suite; packing his toys, clothes and school books into cardboard boxes and plastic garbage bags, which he then also stows in the trunk of their old bomb car.

Theirs is not literally a fly-by-night departure, because, being mid summer, it is still light until 9 p.m.; but they do nevertheless leave owing money, and to more than just the landlord. They also leave before Arthur returns or without even knowing when or if he returns. Kathy is too angry and resentful to care and Josh has gradually come to grow indifferent toward his drunken distant father.

It is a two-hour drive from Launceston to Sugarloaf Mountain; a period offering Kathy ample opportunity to explain the sequence of events that has led up to their new-found status as home owners.

"Your great uncle Charlie was due for retirement anyway, so he and your grandma Wilson are moving to a beach-house somewhere in Queensland."

"So they are giving us their old house," said Josh.

"No, not exactly. They are giving their old house to Aunt Liz, because she’s been living with them for the last couple of years already, so it's sort of like her house too."

"But if we have to live with Aunt Liz, we won't have our own house," said Josh, who was suddenly assailed by a daunting depth of disappointment.

"No! They have another house for us. Our house is at 47 Cadmium Avenue. It's the old Vesperman house. I've been there a thousand times visiting Carol--my best friend in grade school. I haven't seen her for more than ten years. She married a few years later than I did, but she married well by all accounts."

"What does marrying well mean, Mum?"

"It means marrying someone nice, someone who will work hard to buy a house for you and clothes and a car and all the things you need in life."

"Someone who doesn't get drunk all the time like Dad."

"Yes. I'm afraid so, Josh."

It is already growing dark when Kathy and Josh begin their ascent of the mountain range of which the Sugarloaf forms but a short jagged segment. This leaves Kathy still another twenty miles of driving; twenty miles of laboring the car in second gear up a steep and winding road, twenty miles of dodging a multitude of furry, nocturnal creatures. Within the first five minutes of traveling this mountain road, they encounter six kangaroos.

"I'm going to count them, Mum," said Josh, in a mood of considerable excitement. "It’s going to be so much fun living in the bush with all these animals. There are just so many. I’m going to count them and we'll see how many there are between here and our new house."

It takes the best part of an hour to complete this last leg of their journey; during that time Josh counts twenty-eight kangaroos. But the accuracy of his count is placed in jeopardy by complicating factors; these are the many other mammals he encounters that are not kangaroos. They include wombats, devils, possums and other furry friends. He is not even sure of what distinguishes a large wallaby from a small kangaroo.

He wonders also whether he should maintain a separate count for each type of animal. This would necessarily complicate matters. It might even cause him to become so confused as to make errors in his primary and most important count.

The problem is further complicated by animals he has never ever seen before and cannot even identify let alone count. A native cat is the first such creature. It fails to fit within the statistical parameters he is using, and this brings his efforts to a temporary halt.

"What sort of animal is that, Mum?" he asked.

"It's a tiger quoll," said Kathy. "Some call it a native cat but it isn't really a cat at all but a smaller relative of the Tasmanian devil."

CHAPTER THREE: SUGARLOAF MTN.

Kathy parks the car at a familiar address. It is an address so familiar she could scarcely fail to find it in a pea soup fog. With the car standing motionless now but with the engine still idling, she can smell foul fumes and heat. They are the fumes that billow when leaking oil drips onto an excessively hot engine.

The car has earned a much-needed rest. As Kathy cuts the engine, the front porch light is simultaneously switched on to illuminate the whole front yard. The screen-door opens and Grandma Wilson's portly frame emerges.

"Drive straight around to your house," said Grandma, poking her head inside the driver's open window. "You can park in the garage, or in the yard if that's easier for unloading the car. Charlie 'n' me will walk round and show you through the place so as to settle you in for the night."

Driving or walking that short distance takes an almost equal amount of time. Grandma unlocks the front door, reaches inside and switches the porch light on. Kathy struggles to extricate a large bundle of blankets and linen from the rear passenger seat.

In her haste, she has packed too many items into one huge and cumbersome bundle, which she can barely carry let alone see around. And that problem is aggravated now that night has fallen. She awkwardly maneuvers her burden across the lawn, up the porch stairs and through the front doorway.

Gran guides Kathy to the first door on her left, which is the front bedroom, or master bedroom, though it isn't especially big at 12’ x 12’, and no bigger, in fact, than the second or middle bedroom. The master bedroom contains a double bed, onto which Kathy offloads her burdensome bundle of blankets and bedding.

Because there is no hallway, the bedroom doorway leads straight out to the living room, which appears stark and uninviting due to its lack of furniture. There are pieces torn out of the linoleum revealing floorboards and the dust of ages beneath. The wall between the kitchen and living room has been removed to make one big room of 15' X 24'.

At the living room end there is a wood-burning stove and a single lounge chair. The kitchen has a table with two wooden chairs, and an electric range with an oven that doesn't work because the element has burnt out. There is also a toaster, electric kettle and a quantity of cups, plates and cutlery.

The middle bedroom has nothing in it. The walls are only partly painted; the parts left unpainted, form shadowy boundaries outlining furniture that stood there once like immovable objects to be painted around.

There is a single bed in the back bedroom, which Josh claims as his--the very first room of his own. It is a narrow room at 12 x 7 but seems twice that size now that he won’t have to share it with his big bully brother.

There is no flush toilet in the bathroom--or anywhere else for that matter. The toilet is situated in an outhouse in the back yard. It is an old-style, Australian ‘dunny’, incorporating a ten-gallon pot, which is emptied once a week. It is certainly primitive and it smells offensively but that is the crude reality of it.

The house is a standard, Tasmanian miner's house of the WW2 era; is 900 sq. ft in size and is clad with cheap weather-board siding, which was roughly hewn from eucalyptus hardwood by the mine's own sawmill. Most of that wood came out of the surrounding forest except for the floorboards, which are smooth and straight, store- bought and of much higher quality.

Upon the mine's closure, the houses were offered to their occupants for a token $1 as part of a severance package. At face value, a three-bedroom house at such a price would appear to be a gift of real worth.

But, unfortunately, there is a catch: The miners can't live in these houses if they have to move elsewhere to find work; therefore, they cannot have both a house and a job but are forced instead to choose between one or the other.

Virtually the only way to remain living in one of these houses is by going on the dole. But such a life of leisure has a downside, because it entails an eighty-percent reduction in income.

That is a prospect, which fails to appeal to most--instead, it causes a frantic scramble to sell up and move out. With home ownership having briefly reached a spectacular, one hundred percent, the townspeople are now preoccupied with the forlorn burden of offloading their glittering gifts for whatever small dollar sum they can get.

"These houses are a real steal," said Gran, "and, for that reason, there are other parties interested in buyin' 'em: Grant Lloyd is tryin' to buy as many as he can so he can rent 'em out and make money as a big-time landlord . . . Do you remember him?"

"No, I don't think so," said Kathy, looking pensively at the hodgepodge of paint-work. Her attention is then further focussed upon a line of thick paint that serves to underscore the boundary between the painted parts and the unpainted parts.

She runs a finger along that line and notes it is raised more than an eighth of an inch. It is the layered accumulation of successive, sporadic efforts, of timesaving, moneysaving slipshod shortcuts.

"He was the maintenance contractor for the mine. That miserly old skinflint! He used to paint the houses with cheap paint, but he now has ambitions to become a slumlord. He offered Reggie Vesperman $100 for this place.

Reggie was disgusted and told Charlie he could have it for $300--the price of traveling expenses to a mine in Western Australia. Reggie didn't have no cash, so he was happy to sell it to Charlie.

There's some who's gonna be fightin' over these houses, but at least you and Liz have already got one a piece . . . Oh, when you see Liz later, try to talk some sense into her. Can you believe she is writing letters to all sorts of criminals in jails all over Australia?"

"Yes, I can." said Kathy, matter-of-factly.

"It costs her a fortune just for the postage, because she has to buy sheets of stamps and send them to these jailbirds, who can't pay for their own stamps. But worse than that, she has to pay double postage: they mail letters to her--which have got her stamps on them in the first place--and then she puts each of those letters in another envelope with another stamp and another address.

They are using her but she can't see it. She can't see it at all. She has always been drawn to riffraff ever since she was a teenager. That first boyfriend of hers, Danny Badden, has been in and out of jail for almost twenty years now."

"Badden was a bad one," said Kathy, shaking her head from side to side. "I remember him well. He was a real loser--no, worse than that, he was a real weasel, a real low life. He was just the kind of guy to interest Liz."

"Oh, you girls! I wish you would get along better. You haven't even seen her for years. I really wish you'd have more respect for Liz. She is your older sister, you know, and your only sister!"

CHAPTER FOUR: THE VOLUNTEER POSTMISTRESS.

Grandma Wilson and Uncle Charlie waste little time before moving to their retirement home on Queensland's Sunshine Coast. They are gone, in fact, within a week of Josh and Kathy's arrival.

Kathy has been understandably preoccupied with settling into her new home, but there is a limit to how long she can delay before visiting her sister.

The two are not inclined to see eye to eye on too many subjects. They appear to have little in common--more than that, if the truth were to come out, Kathy doesn't really like Liz all that much, doesn't like the big sister she thinks of as her big dumb sister.

Their lack of having things in common even extends to their appearance--they don't look at all like sisters. Liz looks very much like her father whereas Kathy doesn't look a bit like him, but she does resemble her mother and to a degree which strikes the notice of most people.

But not withstanding their many differences, Kathy has nevertheless made a date, has set a time for tea and scones with Liz and her two daughters, Judy and Sally.

Upon entering the house, Kathy cannot help but notice the furniture. She not only has a lot more of it, but it’s better quality too. That’s hardly surprising since Liz has a long history of greediness and selfishness. It is little wonder indeed that she would end up with most of the furniture and mostly the best furniture.

But it is precisely the furniture than can make the plain box shape of a room come alive and look good. This makes not only the interior of Liz’s home, but her whole house look much more appealing than my crummy, slummy-looking place.

That was the harsh but simple reality that was now staring Kathy unflinchingly in the face. The old Vespeman house, left almost bereft of furniture, was showing many of the hallmarks as well as the earmarks of slum-dom. No matter how you looked at it, it was cheap and nasty.

On the one hand, this should not have been a problem, because Kathy had lived in such houses before; but, on the other hand, she had never owned one before. This was, therefore, a step up after all. Yes indeed! It was definitely a step up. She felt almost convinced of the strength of this line of reasoning, and so she almost believed it. Almost, but not quite, because things had also been better in the past and the future then had looked more promising.

When she and Arthur were first married, everything seemed rosy. They had a beautiful, four-bedroom home overlooking all of Launceston and part of the Tamar valley. That house was even grander than the fancy houses his two elder brothers owned.

Arthur's eldest brother was an accountant who earned lots of money. His other brother was a high school teacher. Arthur, by contrast, had flunked out of high school. Imagine that: he, the son of a high school headmaster, a headmaster who was ever willing and available to act as his personal tutor. He could tutor Arthur in math, in science, in history, in anything, because he knew everything about everything.

But, according to Arthur, his father was a pompous know-it-all. His impatience at their tutoring sessions was like a never-ending expression of contempt for Arthur's lack of intelligence, was like an endless series of knuckle-rapping punishments.

Kathy and Arthur lived in their hillside mansion for only six short but glorious months. After that, she fell pregnant, with Theo, and was unable to keep working. The rent on that up-market address was high. To pay it required both their incomes. For that reason, they had to move out and find something crummy but affordable.

With Kathy's thoughts and focus of attention now returning to the tea party, she notices that Liz has graced her kitchen table with a fancy embroidered table cloth, and sitting atop this are plates of scones and cakes and an extra-large pot of tea.

Liz seems ebulliently happy. She will soon steer the conversation in a particular direction and keep it focussed on a subject close to her heart. This, the exciting good news she must share with Kathy, concerns her newfound popularity, which is evidenced by the many men friends she now has--in prison. She can talk of little else:

"Unlike what most people might think, they are really a great bunch of guys. I write directly to three of them, but I also redirect their letters to prisoners in other prisons. They are really grateful that I can do that for them."

"I bet they are!" said Kathy, with a none-too-subtle admixture of cynicism in her tone of voice.

Liz appears unperturbed, is still smiling effusively. With the excitement of a child, she hands a letter to Kathy with an implied invitation for her to read it. The letter is surprisingly well written considering its place of origin. It is signed 'Peter'. The spelling is almost perfect, with only words like 'to', 'two' and 'too' being always spelled as ‘to’ and often inappropriately so. The lettering is straight, smooth and neat.

This forms a sharp contrast to what Kathy was expecting. She had once, years ago, read a postcard, which Danny Badden had sent Liz from Melbourne. The lettering on that had strongly resembled a monkey scrawl, while the spelling and grammar were equally atrocious.

Kathy was always a much better student than Liz or anyone else in her family for that matter. She was earning straight A's in grade school and junior high, but strangely perhaps, she dropped out half way through the ninth grade.

"Peter is even interested in coming to live up on the Sugarloaf when he gets out," said Liz, to her still highly skeptical sister. "When I told him the Copper Road was the one and only road in and out of here, he said, 'That's fascinatin', darlin'!' --he always calls me that--and he wanted to know more about it.

He wanted to know absolutely everything about it. He was really very interested in what I had to say. I think he's really very impressed with me. He said more than once that I was clever. He always listens to me, to what I have to say. He is such a gentleman."

"But why do you have to redirect all these letters and pay double postage?"

"Well, they aren't allowed, you see, and so they can't write to each other at all--that's where I come in. They need my help and they can't do anything without me."

"But if these criminals aren't allowed to write to other criminals in other prisons, then what you are doing has got to be highly illegal."

"But why do you keep on calling them 'criminals'. They really are nice guys and Pete is innocent anyway--the cops just have it in for him."

"Oh Liz, how could you be so naive! This is such foolish nonsense!"

"You don't like my friends! You have never liked my friends!" Liz now appears hurt. She has descended quickly from a state of euphoria to looking embarrassed and upset, deflated and depressed. "Why don’t you like my friends?"

"They are not your friends, Liz!"

"You are always against me and anything I do. You are such a wet blanket!"

"Liz," said Kathy, now more sympathetically, "these guys are criminals because they are in jail. Now, you probably have to commit at least ten crimes before you even get caught. At that point they only sentence you to probation in any case. By the time you are actually put behind bars, you have to be a habitual criminal, a REAL BAD GUY! For heaven's sake! You can do better than this. Are you so desperate for a man that you have to resort to playing in front of a captive audience."

Liz now grimaces with apparent pain--an apparent pain of considerable intensity, which, after a brief instant, is transformed into an angry outburst.

"Who are you to talk! WHO ARE YOU! You are just a snob! You marry the headmaster's son just to climb up the social ladder, and he turns out to be no better than a worthless deadbeat."

It is now Kathy's turn to be cut to the quick. She is suddenly reminded of something, and assailed by feelings of embarrassment powerful enough to be physically painful. Is it only the truth that hurts? Had she really seen her husband, Arthur, as a means to an end, as her ticket out of the working class, as her transport down off the mountain?

The simple answer to that question was a resounding 'Yes'. She had indeed. What's more, she had been entirely conscious of all of the above, because it was simply a deliberate strategy, which she saw as the best possible option available to her at that time.

And yet her plan, as carefully considered and calculated as it was, must have contained locked deep within it a fundamental flaw, because it simply didn't work. Seemingly powerful forces had raised insurmountable obstacles to block her every attempt at forward or upward movement--had thwarted her at every futile turn and had now dragged her all the way back to the harshest possible reality: the point of zero progress, the very place she had started out from.

At fifteen, Kathy had been unable to cope with the humiliation of having to wear a worn out pair of tennis shoes to school. She had to wear those for the simple reason that she had nothing else to wear. They were the only shoes she owned at the time, and, as tennis shoes, they were in no way similar to the cool and fashionable Reeboks and Nikes, which would become popular decades later.

Kathy's radical solution to her footwear problem was to simply abandon the promising prospect of school in favor of dropping out and getting a job. With the money she earned, she would buy a whole wardrobe full of new clothes, and shoes too, fancy shoes, high-heeled shoes and even stiletto-heeled shoes.

Real prosperity was unknown to ordinary, average people until after World War II. During the fifties, some of that post-war prosperity even found its way onto the Sugarloaf, but Kathy's father could easily spend the highest-priority share of that money on alcohol.

Her father was her mother's first husband. Uncle Charlie was her mother's second husband and not a real uncle or any kind of blood relation to Kathy or Liz (well, probably not, but who can ever be sure of something like that without a DNA test}. A characteristic of babies is that you can normally tell who their mother is, but as to who their father is--that could be anyone’s guess.

In any case, at their mother's insistence, they addressed him as 'Uncle Charlie' but their real father had died of kidney failure, which stemmed from Cirrhosis of the liver, which, in turn, resulted from his long-term abuse of alcohol.

In a teenage Kathy's estimation--an estimation that was not to change appreciably in later years--alcohol was like the linchpin of mining. It was like an essential oil, which lubricated the myriad moving parts, the gears and wheels of the mine's complex infrastructure.

The miners, as she saw them, were always either mining or drinking. That's virtually all they ever did and it was all just as simple as that: If they weren't mining, they were drinking; and if they weren't drinking, they were mining.

The wages of mining, in her estimate, were roughly equivalent to the wages of sin. In her grandfather's time, it was death from the black lung: The women, typically, would nurse their forty-year-old invalid husbands, who would then die at about the age of forty-five. In later years it was mostly the alcohol that hurried them into an early grave.

The simple dollar value of the wages of mining was actually considerably above the average wage at that time. And yet this numerical quantity seemed abstract, irrelevant and even meaningless, because there was rarely any spare cash available to buy such nonessentials as girl's clothing.

Kathy's father was from the old school. He knew that real men were "bloody good drinkers", who could hold their liquor. Real men were always head of the household and would never take orders from a mere female.

Using these same standards as a yardstick, Uncle Charlie was not even a real man, and yet he did at least have his health and savings enough for a beachside retirement. He was softer and gentler than most of the others, though some said he was cold, aloof and even anti social.

He was not anti social in the sense of committing crimes against the community; he was anti social merely in being unwilling to go to the pub and socialize with the beer-swilling brigade. But the meaning of the term ‘anti social’ had become blurred in their minds.

His rejection of them was viewed as offensive because it contained an implied insult (i.e.) that there was something wrong with what they were doing, with the way they lived their lives. And there was the further implication that, by not participating in their ‘improper’ behavior, he was trying to assert his superiority over them.

But who was he to talk. He didn't even put money on the horses on a Saturday, the way normal men do. He didn't even smoke. He was without normal vices. He was like a Sunday school teacher. And that's probably why he allowed himself to be henpecked. He was a Nancy boy at the very least, and, perhaps deep down, he was some kind of homo? That probably explained his lack of masculinity and why he was such a misfit that he found it necessary to avoid people.

He did in fact spend most of his spare time at home in the garden or the workshop where he indulged his hobby of carpentry. Kathy didn't even know him very well, but there seemed little doubt that he had bestowed upon her mother an immeasurable gift--a future.

CHAPTER FIVE: THE SERPENT IN THE RAINBOW.

On the other side of Cadmium Avenue--the side opposite the Fleming house--you will find the last row of houses on the north end of town. Beyond that point lies a forest not inhabited by human beings but inhabited only by the wild, primeval creatures of the southernmost temperate rain forest. It is a wilderland literally encompassing hundreds of square miles.

The lane behind and to the north of that last row of houses continues for miles in both the easterly and westerly directions, and it serves to provide two points of entry into that primeval world. A five-minute walk is all it takes to escape all evidence of human habitation and shroud oneself in the tranquil beauty of that primeval forest.

It is exactly this call of the wild, which exerts an attractive force upon Josh, an attractive force of considerable power. It is inevitable, a predictably short period of time, barely a few days, before he is drawn into that forest to satisfy his curiosity and go exploring on his own. He heads west along the north lane, on a slight downhill gradient, and continues on that path for nearly a mile before he comes to a creek.

It is a creek of a size substantial enough to rival a river. On both sides of it the ground is dead flat for a grassy stretch of maybe a hundred yards or so. On the other side, flat grassland gives way to an expanse of thinly timbered terrain, which slopes gently at first but then more steeply until reaching an almost vertical cliff face, which cannot be climbed without ropes and specialized equipment.

Each contrasting aspect of this panoramic setting is beautiful indeed, but taken all together, there is a power here to arrest the senses, to inspire awe, to make one contemplate the beauty and meaningfulness of life.

There are water lilies too, who's flowers grace this place with color, and who's leaves tease and belie the eye as to what mysteries might lie or even lurk beneath. Josh is suddenly struck with the idea that goggles would allow him to see under those lilies.

Goggles would constitute the perfect tool for such a task and the perfect solution to such a problem. But his excitement quickly turns to pangs of regret when he remembers his goggles have been left behind and are now lost and gone forever. They had become just another casualty of the many, hurried relocations (dislocations) he was required to take part in.

That was an especially poignant pity, because goggles were the very things that might enable him to see platypus, which are said to be still common in this creek. He might lie motionless on an air mattress, keeping his be-goggled head under water while breathing through a snorkel.

Thus equipped, his gaze might easily penetrate the depths of cool water and allow him to observe the antics of--not only platypus, but turtles, fish and any other freshwater denizens inhabiting that mountainous region.

Caught in the midst of his tranquil imaginings, Josh is taken totally by surprise by a group of about six or more boys, who seem to just materialize out of nowhere all around him. The boys are mostly about twelve years of age and considerably bigger than himself.

"Who are you?" asked the biggest one, a fat and ugly looking boy.

"I'm Josh Fleming. I'm new in town."

"How old are you?" asked the same boy.

"I'm nine," said Josh, smiling pleasantly.

The ugly boy is carrying a box of matches. He lights one and inserts it, still burning, into one of the front pockets of Josh's jeans. Josh wonders whether he should slap the match with the palm of his hand to put it out. Such an act of defiance might anger the ugly boy, so Josh waits to see what effect the lighted match has. It goes out. It cannot burn when smothered in denim.

Josh makes no attempt to thwart the ugly boy's malicious intentions, and, on seeing his matches wasted, the latter soon loses interest in the game.

"He's nine!" said the ugly boy. "He's your age, Jeff. Go 'n' pick 'im!"

Jeff takes a swing at Josh but misses. He then takes another swinging punch at Josh but only lands a glancing blow. Josh is at a serious disadvantage when it comes to boxing--no, worse than that, he can't really box at all, because he can't bear to hit someone in the face with a closed fist.

Instead, and as is his wont, he resorts to wrestling. He quickly wrestles Jeff to the ground and pins his shoulders. Josh is actually slightly bigger and also has better physical coordination, which makes him a much better wrestler than Jeff. But he lacks the killer instinct that might allow him to really hurt someone, and this renders him effectively defenseless against someone who is not handicapped by scruples of that sort.

Having pinned Jeff's shoulders to the ground for more than a three count, a fearful Josh gets up and nervously walks away in a gesture to signal an end to the proceedings. But Jeff runs after Josh and, from behind, hits Josh hard on the side of his face with the knuckles of his closed fist. This causes the entire group of urchins to spontaneously roar and cheer with pleasure and excitement.

"HE KING-HIT HIM!" shouted one at the top of his voice.

"HE KING-HIT HIM!" cried another. The boys seemed thrilled to bits and jubilantly happy. A king-hit, it seemed, was like the very coolest thing in the whole wide world, and for that reason Jeff, by performing that one simple act, had achieved a kind of instant celebrity status.

But what was regal about it exactly? That was something Josh couldn't understand. What was it that made it royal? It seemed like a mystery to him. A mystery so impenetrable it might only be understood by Merlin or perhaps King Arthur or the initiated members of the inner circle, those schooled in, and party to, the logic of arcane alchemy.

Why is it regal to punch someone in the face while they are looking the other way? Perhaps this type of punching was once the sport of kings, just as horse racing is said to be the sport of kings today. The king, presumably, would run along behind someone and then punch them in the side of the face without issuing any kind of warning, regal or otherwise.

But why would a king bother to do something like that if he could pay soldiers to do it for him instead? Josh's mind boggled in the futile effort to penetrate the abstruse complexity of an esoteric form of thinking that was altogether foreign to him.

To guard against further blows, Josh wrestles Jeff to the ground once more and pins his shoulders.

"That's not fair! Give him a fair chance," said two more of the urchins, who then grab Josh by the shoulders and lift him up and off of Jeff. "Right, start over again," they said.

The next bout sees Josh pin Jeff again, and this continues for six more bouts. After each of his victories, the urchins lift Josh off Jeff and demand a restart.

At this point, Josh feels the urchins will not stop until they achieve the outcome they want, which is a win for Jeff. But a win for Jeff can't happen without Josh being hurt by the knuckles of Jeff's flailing fists. When the fearful realization of this penetrates deeply though his thin-skinned sensitivity, Josh begins to cry.

"He's cryin' like a fucken sheila!" said one of the urchins. "He’s cryin’ like a fucken sheila!" shouted the entire group in a noisy uproar of ridicule and contempt.

But all of a sudden that noise dissipates into total silence. The group of urchins begins to look around them with a strained and focussed view, some turning their heads almost like owls and then, in unison, they quickly and quietly melt away.

Josh looks in the direction opposite to that in which the urchins depart. He can see two figures approaching in the distance. In light of the level of avoidance behavior just demonstrated to him, Josh thinks it prudent to hide in some nearby bushes. As the pair approach more closely, Josh can see they are big boys, almost men, about fifteen years of age.

They have two tattoos apiece on each arm, are carrying air rifles and a small birdcage, and both are smoking cigarettes. Josh observes them from a distance close enough to make a positive identification of them. One is dark and one is blond, and the latter is also the bigger of the two. The dark one is carrying the birdcage.

Josh watches motionless and without making a sound until after they have passed. He then heads for home. He walks quickly, but keeps his eyes peeled all the time so as to avoid another encounter with the urchins.

CHAPTER SIX: THAT'S WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR.

Upon reaching home, and safety, Josh becomes preoccupied with thinking about the two tattooed boys. They fascinate him for reasons he is not fully conscious of or able to explain.

He wonders who they are and where they live. Perhaps they live very close to where he lives? It is a small town in any case. Perhaps he will see them again soon. Perhaps they will like him?

That was not an unreasonable thing to expect. After all, he was definitely a likeable person. He knew that, because it had been brought to his attention on a number of occasions.

People had noticed just how likeable he really was and had said so. They had even said so in words that were so explicit as to leave little room for doubt: "You are the nicest boy I've ever met," was just one such comment. Yes, it was said to him repeatedly: "Josh is such a nice boy." Yes, it was true. It was not just conceit on his part.

It was on an evening just subsequent to his encounter with the urchins and the tattooed boys that Josh saw a particular movie on TV. It was about rich people who were traveling on an ocean liner.

The passengers had to climb a huge, covered stairway in order to get on board. The deck of this enormous ship was an incredible height above the water line. In the estimation of Josh it seemed a hundred feet or more.

That night Josh dreamed he was to travel on just such a liner. He climbed the long stairway to get on board, and began walking along the deck, but he accidentally slipped over the railing and fell a hundred feet to the water below.

The two tattooed boys were also standing on the deck, and, on seeing him fall, were so concerned that they decided instantly to rescue him. They both dived over the railing in magnificent, parabolic swan dives befitting Olympic champion divers. And they saved him gladly because he was such an important person in their estimation.

It was barely a few days later while driving through town with his mother that Josh sees the tattooed boys in the yard of #99 Wolfram Street--the very last house in that street. Wolfram Street is the next street, is the street south of, and perpendicular to, his street (Cadmium Ave).

Josh is determined to go to their place soon with the vague and possibly dubious intention of befriending them, and, within a couple of days, he does just that: He goes to where he saw them last, to the place he surmises is almost certainly their place of abode.

Upon approaching #99, he is reassured about the correctness of his assessment of the situation when he sees both boys there again doing something in their backyard. He walks through the open back gate and walks straight up to the pair.

"Who the hell are YOU?" said the blond one in apparent anger at being taken by surprise.

"I'm Josh, I live on Cadmium Avenue, I'm new in town."

"What the fuck!" said the dark one. "Are you fucken crazy, or just fucken stupid?" He is certainly angry too, but unlike the other, he gives direct expression to his anger by whacking Josh over the side of the head. Josh grimaces momentarily but is undeterred. He stands his ground.

"What are you doin' at our place?" asked the blond one. "You plannin' to knock somethin' off?"

"No, I'd never do that. I just thought I should come over and say hello and maybe make friends."

"How old are you?" asked the blond one.

"I'm nine."

"Are you fucken stupid or something! We are fifteen! We don't hang around with little shits like you."

"But I was thinking, I saw you smoking--"

"And?" The blond one grabs Josh by the collar.

"I thought you might like some smokes."

"You mean a little kid like you can get us some fags. How the hell can you get us fags?"

"Easy, if you give me the money for a Coke, I can go to the gas station, buy a Coke and spend up to ten minutes drinking it. During that time, the guy will be in and out, and I will be able to steal you two twenty-packs of cigarettes--any brand you like."

"So, what if you get caught and we lose our money?"

"But I probably won't get caught anyway, because I'm only nine."

"You're only nine. Big fucken deal! So what?" said the dark one.

"So the guy at the garage will never suspect me."

"Don't use big words, you little shit!" said the dark one, raising his hand in preparation to whack Josh once more, but the blond one intercepts the blow.

"Give him a go."

"What if he pisses off with the money and doesn't come back?"

"Oh I'll come back alright, because I know you'll murder me if I don't."

"You're darn, fucken right about that! Here is twenty cents. Turn that into two packets of Lucky Strikes and it'll be your lucky fucken day."

Josh heads off on his assignment in larceny. The gas station is situated on the Copper Road but within a short section of central business district.

It does, in fact, take him all of ten minutes to down the Coke, during which time he sticks two packets of Lucky Strikes down the front of his shirt. In just half an hour he is back to deliver the booty.

"It was easy," he said, proudly holding the cigarettes up in open display for the two big boys to see.

"Lucky Strikes! You fucken beauty!" said the blond one. "From now on you don't touch this kid. Alright!" he said, looking angrily at his brother (stepbrother} "Or I'll smash yuh fucken face in! Alright?"

From what Josh learns subsequently from Liz and other people in town, the blond one's father married the dark one's mother, but the mother subsequently ran away leaving her son in the care of his new stepfather.

The stepbrothers appear to suffer from an overall lack of empathy: they are not warm or friendly but emotionally distant and indifferent to anything of a personal nature. They don't even tell Josh their names, nor do they ever use his name. They simply refer to him (if they absolutely must refer to him at all) as "that kid from up the next street."

Josh, in turn, comes to think of the stepbrothers simply as 'the Steps' (plural) or individually as 'the blond Step' and 'the dark Step'.

"Next time, I wanna try one pack of Temple Bar and one pack of Camel," said the blond Step. "Get them for me and bring 'em back next Saturday."

"Sure thing!" said Josh, smiling amiably. He then heads for home, with another twenty-cent piece in his pocket in readiness for the purchase of another coke. But he is pleased about so much more than that. He feels good about the whole wide world and everything in it. THIS IS HAPPINESS!

He has been successful in cementing the foundations of an important new relationship. He had accomplished it all himself. He had taken the initiative. He had brought it about entirely by his own efforts. He had ventured something and he had gained something, but exactly what that something was he couldn't rightly say. He only knew that it felt good.

The following Saturday morning, Josh delivers the ordered merchandise directly to the blond Step. He doesn't even have to think about which brother he should give the cigarettes to. There is never a question in his mind about that, because the blond one is clearly the alpha male, the dominant one.

Having now delivered a total of eighty cigarettes, Josh is given a promotion. Over the subsequent weeks, and in addition to his primary duties, Josh now also carries their birdcage. It is a small carry cage made only for transporting birds from one aviary to another. It is about 6" x 6" x 18" in length.

By carrying this cage, Josh also confers an indirect promotion upon the dark step. This not only relieves the latter of the burdensome bother of having to carry it but also the humiliation of having to perform such a servile task. Josh is also contributing to the overall efficiency of the operation by allowing the dark Step to concentrate on his shooting.

The Steps have built an aviary of sorts and have been trying to stock it with any wild birds they can wing with their air rifles. Their strategy is to shoot a bird exactly in the wing so it can't fly, but, according to their line of reasoning, it will still be alive and able to recover from its injuries in good time.

Green rozellas are their favored quarry, because of their showy coloring in shades of bright green splashed with blue and red, but these (and other birds as well) must be very difficult to 'wing' if only for the simple factual reason that their aviary stands empty. Notwithstanding this, they are not as yet discouraged and set off optimistically with Josh in tow on yet another expedition.

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS.

Since leaving Arthur, her erstwhile breadwinner, Kathy has applied for and has been receiving temporary unemployment benefits. But she is now adamant about making their separation a permanent one, has written Arthur explicit letters to that effect, and is now seeking a sole parent's pension.

This will provide her with the security of receiving uninterrupted payments over the long-term without having to search for a job, but to qualify for this she must go to the Social Security office, submit to an in-depth interview and answer all sorts of probing questions.

She anticipates having to answer countless, difficult, sensitive and highly personal questions--even questions as to why Theo is no longer living with her. That is decidedly a sore point; is something she feels ashamed and guilty about.

In her mind, she is already preparing answers to ward off and counterattack unfair but hard-hitting accusations of her being an unfit mother. She is also chafing under the distinct, humiliating sense of going to Social Security with begging bowl in hand.

The only more denigrating prospect conceivable to her would be asking Grandpa Fleming for help. It would have to be a cold day in hell before she asked that smug, superior bastard for anything.

She anticipates an insufferably long and tedious day of snide innuendoes and insults; capped off by four full hours of driving in an old bomb car, which is now at imminent risk of breaking down and leaving her stranded way out on the highway somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Like a nervous clairvoyant, she can see the entire day mapped out in front of her.

If the above, ill-perceived itinerary is not burden enough already, she must also do as much grocery shopping in Launceston as possible. She must do that to take advantage of the lower prices (lower than on the Sugarloaf) even though the savings will not compensate her for the cost of petrol, but her shopping there might at least enable her to break even.

The interview proves to be less humiliating than she had feared. The lady from Social Security is kindly, sympathetic and non-judgmental. But the interview is nevertheless tedious and takes all of two hours.

Adding this two-hour period to four hours of driving removes a total of six hours of potential shopping time from Kathy’s big shopping day.

In light of this she is really up against it; is up against odds that are well and truly stacked against her. She almost runs her legs off in a vain attempt to get everything on her list before closing time, but she doesn’t quite make it. She is able to get most of it (she gets about ninety percent) she also gets a splitting headache.

It is said that the Devil defecates on the same spot. It is also said that good as well as bad things are inclined to occur in sequences of three. Perhaps for those exact reasons or perhaps for other reasons, Kathy’s twenty-year-old clunker does, in fact, break down half way home.

This leaves mother and son stranded thirty miles out of Launceston and thirty miles from home. Kathy is distraught. The cost of fixing the car is sure to be way beyond her means. The cost of towing it alone is almost certainly beyond her means.

Adding to the stress brought on by this day of tedious travel, humiliation and frenetic shopping is the damnable frustration of just standing around waiting in the heat and the dust and the grime of an exceptionally hot November day. Why does this have to be the hottest damn day in November? It seems so unfair.

A hapless Kathy despises her predicament so much she could just scream. There is little worse, she feels, than being stuck in the middle of nowhere and having to stay put and wait hour after hour without moving forward or backwards, or finding any kind of comfort. This entire day has been unbearable. What else can go wrong?

An expensive, high-powered sports car flies past them at a very high rate of speed before screeching to a near panic stop. It then undertakes an abrupt U-turn, squealing its tires again in the process. With a throaty roar of its dual exhausts, it turns full circle and parks right behind Kathy's 1955, FJ Holden.

Kathy is alarmed by all the noise and commotion and yet she is also surprised and pleased to see the owner of such an expensive car bothering to stop and render assistance. Two men get out of the white, E-type Jaguar. One man is big and the other is small.

"Breakdown is it?" said the big one in a friendly voice.

"Yes, it just stopped. The engine just cut out and the car just rolled to a stop."

"We can check for spark and check the fuel filter for a blockage," said the small one, who raises the hood and does just that.

"Well, it's not somethin' simple so I'm afraid it's somethin' a bit more complicated," said the small one, "but neither of us are mechanic enough to be able to fix it right here and now."

"Where do you live?" asked the big one. "We can maybe give you a tow."

"I'm afraid I live a hell of a long way form here--Sugarloaf Mountain."

"That's where we’re goin'. That's where we live. On Wolfram Street."

"Well, we live on Cadmium Avenue. I'm Kathy Fleming and this is my son, Josh."

"I'm Peter Stevens," said the big one, and this ere's me mate Peter Piggot."

By coincidence, they are both named Peter, but that is where the similarity appears to end, at least at first sight: Peter Piggot is a slight man of no more than 120 lbs. He looks sleazy because of his big, long nose, which makes him look like a rat, but his words are kindly and sympathetically spoken. He is also older, maybe sixty-something, somewhat grandfatherly in appearance, and this makes him appear less threatening to Kathy.

Peter Stevens is a big powerful man of about 240 lbs. who looks to be about fifty years of age. Kathy feels intimidated by the sheer size and apparent strength of Stevens, feeling he could overpower her effortlessly, force himself upon her, undress her, rape her, do whatever he wished, even without help from his companion, and there would be nothing she could do to stop him.

The big man also has an ugly scar on his face, which makes him look scary and somewhat like a pirate; this impression is reinforced by a very large gold earring he is wearing, which is heavy enough to stretch his earlobe.

To further bolster his sinister appearance, his arms are embellished with enough tattoos to rival the Illustrated Man--and yet he has a jovial tone of voice, words his sentences diplomatically, and has a relaxed and pleasant demeanor.

These latter traits are apparent signs of character, in Kathy’s estimation, and they weigh substantially on the positive side of her ledger, and, in conjunction with the fact that she is in desperate need of help, she decides to accept their offer.

There is a time for everything. I believe this might just be my time to trust two strangers.

"Where abouts on Wolfram Street do you live?" she asked. "It's funny that I haven't seen you before."

"We live at the top end, but we only moved in last week. I live at No. 4 and me old mate the Piggot here lives at No 8. We can tow you all the way home without even going out of our way."

"Is towing possible or feasible?"

"Sure, we've done it plenty of times. I'll tow and the Piggot will operate your car. He'll be the brake man."

From the trunk of his car the Pirate grabs what looks like a child's skipping rope.

"Is that strong enough?" asked Kathy, anxiously.

"Don't worry, luv, we'll get you and the boy home before nightfall. Then we'll send a mechanic over to fix your car," said the Pirate.

"I don't have much money at the moment," said Kathy, nervously.

"Don't worry, luv, not everything has a price tag. You can pay us back when you have some extra cash to spare . . . if that'll make yuh feel better, otherwise it's on the house."

I probably need my head examined! "Thank you kindly!" Kathy accepts their offer. She feels the probability of a positive outcome to this towing venture is slightly in excess of fifty percent but she is also too tired and upset to care anymore.

The Pirate opens the passenger side door and pushes the front seat forward.

"Take a seat, young Josh," he said, and Josh wastes little time seating himself in back of the 2+2 coupe. Kathy sits up front.

"Mum, this is a Jaguar E-type!" squeals Josh. "I've never even been in a Jag before, and this is a V-12, the most powerful of all."

"He knows his cars," said the Pirate. "It's a smart boy you've got there." The compliment pleases Kathy so much as to even give her a brief respite from her splitting headache.

The Jaguar, with its automatic transmission, accelerates smoothly up to 60 mph and then holds closely to that speed.

Kathy is concerned. "Isn't sixty too fast for towing?" she asked as she turned her head to see if her car was still connected by that flimsy rope and following along behind them.

"No, sixty is the perfect speed. It puts just the right amount of tension on the line. It prevents backlash."

Having reassured her on that point, the pirate casually proceeds to roll a cigarette while steering the Jaguar with his knees. Kathy closes her eyes in horror, but it is a horror blunted by extreme fatigue.

This takes her beyond the point of merely feeling horrified--instead, she is consumed by a sense of unreality, a sense of this just being a dream, and, if that is so, why should she bother to worry about it at all?

The first ten miles of towing are carried out on straight, high-speed roads. It takes next to no time to reach the town of Pritchard, which marks the beginning of their final twenty-mile ascent of the mountain range.

Kathy is amazed that her car is still connected, and is even more amazed at their rate of progress: they have reached Pritchard quicker than they would have if she had driven her car in the normal way.

Upon reaching the outskirts of Pritchard they must also take a ninety-degree turn onto the Copper Road, which begins at this point and ends at the township of Sugarloaf Mountain. The Jag starts to slow down steadily.

"See, I'm not touchin' the brake," said the Pirate, pointing down at his feet. "The Piggot does all the brakin' and I do all the towin'. It's as simple as that."

The final twenty-mile leg of their trip in tandem is mostly uphill, which exerts a steady pressure on the towrope. That makes for easy going. The downgrade sections, however, demand very heavy braking from Kathy's old car, because it has to do the braking for both cars.

The last descent before entering town is so steep the Holden must be disconnected from the Jag and sent down alone and in angel gear (neutral) because towing is considered too dangerous at this point even in the estimation of the two intrepid Peters.

This is also an opportunity for Kathy and Josh to get out of the Jag, stretch their legs and see what is going to happen next.

"Oh, my brakes are on fire!" she shrieks on seeing her car's wheels. All four of them are smoking ferociously. They are absolutely billowing with smoke. Kathy is once again almost horrified. "My brakes are probably completely burnt out!" she shrieks.

"Can't be helped," said the Pirate matter-of-factly. "I'll get the mechanic to take a look at the brakes when he checks out your engine."

"I don’t mean to sound ungrateful but, you see, I don't have any money and this will no doubt cost the earth".

"Don't worry, he owes me a favor."

After removing the towrope, the Pirate maneuvers the Jag around and behind the Holden. The Piggot then takes his foot off the brake and begins to coast away in angel gear.

His speed is very slow to begin with but it gradually picks up. After a minute or so the Holden is traveling fast enough to give the impression it is driving just normally with the motor running.

But it hasn't reached its flat out speed as yet and is still a long way from that point. The car continues to accelerate to greater and ever greater rates of speed until Kathy shakes her head in disbelief.

The car is going so fast now as to suggest the motor is running at maximum rpm. By the time the Holden approaches the narrow bridge at the bottom of the hill, it appears to be doing all of one hundred miles per hour.

Kathy now fears that the slightest bump might cause the car to become airborne. At that point, with the wheels off the ground, it would be unable to respond at all to steering and that would cause the Piggot to totally lose control of it.

The bridge is one she would normally cross at no more than twenty-five mph. There are huge boulders on all four sides of it, boulders bigger than a car but smaller than a house. Terrified, she closes her eyes thinking the Piggot will soon be a dead man and her car a total, disintegrated wreck.

"OH WOW! FAR OUT!" Josh is shouting with exhilarated pleasure. This suggests a favorable outcome to Kathy who then opens her eyes again. The Piggot has successfully negotiated the bridge. Kathy is much relieved on that score.

She is also much pleased at knowing she is now but a stone's throw from home. A costly towing fee has been sidestepped. A financial catastrophe has been averted. She has not lost her car after all, and maybe it can even be fixed at a reasonable price?

The Piggot gets most of the way up the next hill before coasting to a stop. With his foot applied to the brake he sits and waits for the tow car to catch him up.

The Jag is once more positioned as lead car. The two Peters reconnect the cars in tandem with their trusty little length of skipping rope. They then complete their towing task and deposit the Holden right in front of the Fleming house.

"Thank you very much for all your help," said Kathy. "You have almost saved my life."

"Don’t mention it Luv," said the Pirate tipping an imaginary hat to her and smiling jovially. The two Peters get back inside the Jag and depart the scene.

Upon getting inside the house, the first thing Kathy does is take two aspirin. After unpacking the groceries she is feeling surprisingly good. This shopping day brings a new influx of food; a greater quantity of things to choose from; to supply the varied range of ingredients needed to make a superior meal. Kathy and Josh sit down to a dinner befitting a celebration.

And they had reason to celebrate. They had made some definite progress that day in straightening out a potentially complicated and sticky situation with Social Security. The uninterrupted payments now flowing from that might even allow for the saving of a small nest-egg sum of money, which might well see them through a rainy day at some time in the future.

"I'm glad we have at least a measure of financial security now," said Kathy, "and I'm grateful for all the help we received today in getting the car home. I'm grateful for the kindness of strangers, and yet I still don't like being indebted to people."

"Why not, Mum?"

"Because not everyone is nice, and so you can't just trust everyone."

"But the two Petes are nice."

"Maybe and maybe not. They might seem nice, but you can't be sure about something like that when you first meet someone, because it always takes time to really get to know someone."

"How long does it take, Mum?"

"It can take a very long time, sometimes years and years. You can think you know someone and then they go and do something awful, and that will force you to reappraise your assessment of their character."

"What is character, Mum?"

"Character is whether a person is really and truly nice deep inside or not. You see, a lot of people pretend to be nice, but they aren't really and truly nice."

"Why do they pretend to be nice, Mum?"

"Well, they pretend for different reasons. Some pretend to be nice so they can win your confidence. That's what a con man does. The term 'con man' is short for 'confidence man'. Now a confidence man must give the appearance of being nice in order to win someone's confidence. After he has won that, he can trick or cheat them or steal their money.

There are other people who pretend to be nice because it flatters their vanity to think of themselves as being nice. And they will be nice too but only for as long as it flatters their vanity. At other times, they will show you that they really don't care about you. People like that are phonies and it is their vanity that makes them that way."

"Do you think the two Petes are phonies or con men . . . I think they are really nice."

"I don't know. Maybe they really and truly are nice. I hate being so suspicious of everyone, but you just have to be a bit careful."

CHAPTER EIGHT: AN AFFORDABLE MOTOR MECHANIC.

The following morning sharp at nine there is a surprise knock at the front door of the Fleming house. It is surprising if only because this is actually the first time anyone has knocked at the front door--Liz and Grandma always used the back door whenever they came to visit.

Kathy experiences an anxious sense of foreboding, the fearful expectation of something bad, of bad news rapping at her front door. As she walks toward it, her imagination scans every conceivable scenario at frenetic speed in an effort to forewarn her or perhaps provide council or reassurance, or an explanation as to why someone might have reason to be calling at her place.

Upon opening the door, she sees a man standing on the porch, someone she has never met before. She wonders who he might be and what he might want, but she says nothing, preferring instead to wait for the caller to supply that information.

"Hi! Kathy?" said the man, pronouncing her name with an accentuated, rising inflection and thereby effectively stating it in the form of a question.

"Yes," she replied, cautiously.

"I'm Tom. I'm a mechanic. Peter Stevens sent me to check out your car."

Kathy now realizes what this is all about and yet the realization does not cause her to stop worrying.

"I don't have much money, so make sure you tell me how much it's going to cost before you go ahead and fix anything."

"Sure. Sure thing." His tone of voice is reassuringly friendly.

He walks to his van, which is parked just behind her car, and takes out a toolbox.

After raising the hood of her car and making a brief inspection, he turns the engine over a couple of times, but it won't start. He then works on the engine for about an hour, during which time Kathy sees him go back to his van from time to time to get more tools or whatever else he might need.

At this point she hears the engine start and it continues to run normally. Her mood is now quietly optimistic, so she goes outside to be appraised of the situation.

"What was wrong with it?" she asked.

"Faulty distributor. Worn out."

"How much will it cost?"

"Nothing. It's on the house."

Far from being pleased, Kathy is alarmed and probably more put out than she would have been had he said 'two-hundred dollars'.

"But it must cost something! I don't like feeling obligated," she protested.

"It's okay, I owe Pete a favor."

"Yes, but I don't want to owe Pete a favor."

"Well, it's only an old, second-hand Holden dizzy--they're a dime a dozen. The job is only worth about five dollars in any case."

"How about the brakes?"

"They're fine."

Kathy is totally incredulous at this apparent reversal of everything she has come to learn about life in general and mechanics in particular. But she decides to go along with "the pretence"(as she sees it) by giving it a twist of her own:

She insists on paying the mechanic the paltry sum of five dollars but she also insists on his writing her a receipt. She then makes the further proviso that he must write 'paid in full' upon the front of the receipt.

Politely and obligingly, the mechanic does precisely as she asks. He even does it with a smile, but his smile is besmirched with obvious embarrassment.

Kathy feels pangs of guilt in being so defensive and even rude to a guy who is almost certainly good-natured, but she offsets that guilt by imagining there are far worse things in this world than mere rudeness.

At thirty-six years of age, Kathy is more than attractive; she looks ten years younger than her actual age.

That night in particular, and for the next several days, she is seriously expecting the Pirate to come knocking on her door at any moment. He will then, presumably, in an attempt to redress an unwritten and unspoken obligation, proffer a suggestion. This would be, from his perspective at least, the most appropriate and realistic way for her to pay off the sizeable debt she has unwittingly incurred.

But that doesn't happen, and, as the days pass, the chance of it happening appears to steadily diminish--so does her anxiety on that score. It isn't until a period of a week or more has elapsed that a visitor finally calls. But it isn't the Pirate--it is sister, Liz. She knocks at the back door. She is all smiles and excitement.

"I heard you met Peter Stevens. He's really nice isn't he?"

"Yes, he seems that way. It was certainly decent of him to take the time and trouble to tow my old car for thirty miles, and even risk damaging his very expensive car in the process . . . You know him then? Is he one of the guys you were writing to in prison?"

"Yes, he's actually the main one."

"How can he afford a car like that if he's not long out of prison?"

"He's well to do. He comes from a really good family from Vaucluse in Sydney. They are all really high class and important people."

Is the Pirate a nice guy? I could maybe believe that at a stretch. Does the Pirate have an upper-class background? The saints preserve us! How could anyone believe such a thing? How could even dumb, dopey Liz believe something like that?

It boggled the outer, far-reaching limits of credibility. In an outward expression of her inner thinking, Kathy responds by rolling her eyes up high into their sockets. It is all too much for her to swallow and digest.

But Kathy is nevertheless grateful and genuinely pleased at what the Peters have done for her. She is gradually coming to view their spontaneous helpfulness as an expression of genuine concern for another human being in trouble and not an insidious means of imposing invisible strings of obligation upon her.

By contrast to such an irksome scenario of sexual harassment, things are now looking rosy: she has a car to drive, a secure long-term pension from Social Security and fifty dollars set aside. It may not have been much but it was nevertheless reassuring. It was like a small piece of solid ground to stand on.

CHAPTER NINE: A HUNTING WE WILL GO.

The following Saturday, Josh goes once more to visit the Steps. Safely tucked under his shirt are the two obligatory packets of cigarettes he must deliver in order to satisfy the conditions of his unwritten contract with them.

Because the Steps are eager to trial different brands, on this particular occasion he is bringing one packet of Marlboro and one packet of Benson & Hedges.

His willingness and ability to steal these cigarettes has demonstrated his usefulness and has earned him acceptance. His usefulness has even made him something of a junior partner in the firm of Bird-wingers Inc, for which he receives no tangible form of payment, but he is now nevertheless the officially designated birdcage carrier.

It is a crisp and sunny mountain morning. The temperature is just nudging sixty degrees. The trio sets off walking south down the town’s most westerly road: the side road that connects Cadmium Avenue, Wolfram St and Iridium Road.

Continuing south beyond that point is a dirt road that wends its way through some thinly wooded terrain and ends up coming out again at the Copper Road. That region is thinly wooded because it was extensively logged at some point in the past--probably to provide a portion of the lumber needed to build the town.

It takes about twenty minutes before they get within shooting range of green rozella's. With most shots fired, on this and other occasions, the birds simply fly away.

"I can't believe I missed all them birds. The gun just ain’t powerful enough." Said the blond one.

A little later, it seems the dark Step has hit one. It flies downward and into a lower tree. That loss of altitude suggests its ability to fly has been impaired. This is confirmed when they are able to get as close to it as five feet without scaring it into taking flight.

"Beauty! Finally got one. Take your shirt off and throw it over it," said the blond Step to the dark one."

The latter is reluctant to comply with that request and delays doing so, but the parrot's head is beginning to droop in any case and continues to droop until, mere seconds later, the bird falls dead to the ground.

"Fuck this!" said the blond Step. "This is givin' me the fucken shits. You're a piss-weak fucken shot, you are."

"No I'm not. I'm as fucken good as you any day," said the dark one.

"You're fucken hopeless! You can't shoot for fucken shit! And we're gettin' fucken nowhere with this!"

"Well, let's fuck off home then." said the dark Step.

They continue walking along that track until they reach the Copper Road. At that point they turn north and head for home. In the distance Josh thinks he can see the group of urchins who had once given him grief, but he isn't sure, because they are at such a distance and continue to maintain such a distance that he cannot make a positive identification of even one of them.

Halfway home they see a car parked on the side of the road with a 'For Sale' sign on the windscreen. The price isn't displayed but it is obviously an expensive car. It is a Holden, like Kathy's but it is a Kingswood, which is a much bigger and newer model. It is possibly a HT, a HK or a HG model. Josh is unable to differentiate between these because the basic body shape is the same in each case.

This means it could be as much as eight years old but it might also be as young as three, and the latter seems the more likely estimate because of the condition and shine of the paint work.

"Let’s ask if we can go for a ride in it," said the blond one.

"Yair, here, hold my gun." Josh ends up holding both guns, but must first place the birdcage down on the ground at his feet. The guns feel really big and heavy. From the perspective of a nine-year-old, they appear big and powerful and expensive.

They are actually a handful for Josh to carry, but he doesn't mind--on the contrary, he feels good, he feels proud, he feels good and proud, he feels like a big guy.

Holding those guns makes Josh feel older than his years, precocious, cool, superior. He is not just a little kid any more. He is better than that. He is more important than that, and the feeling this gives him is pleasing indeed.

He is engrossed in the task of feeling good until a lady comes walking down the sidewalk toward him. She is old in his estimate but not quite elderly--she could have been anything from fifty to seventy-five years of age.

"Off with you!" she snarls, in a rude and aggressive tone of voice, which takes Josh totally by surprise and strikes some fear into him. Her hostile outburst also has a shattering effect on the fantasies of coolness, which he was reveling in right up until that moment. He is taken aback by the intensity of her anger.

He wonders if she is serious about expecting him to leave the area. It is a public place after all, so he has a right to be there, but she is an adult, and he would have to obey her orders if they were issued forcefully enough.

"Off with you! Maiming little birds!" she reiterates.

But, to his relief, she doesn't stop walking but begins to pass him by. Her failure to press the matter further gives Josh the feeling it will be okay for him to remain standing where he is.

"How would you like to be shot and then locked up in a cage," she said, turning her head to look back at him. Josh is unable to provide an adequate answer to that question.

Thus placed on the spot, he is unable to think. He is unable to formulate any kind of verbal response. All he can do is choke up and gulp nervously. He feels increasingly relieved as the lady continues on her way down the road and out of sight.

In a matter of a couple of minutes, the Steps return.

"Fuck the cunt! He asked to see our driver's licenses. Do we have driver's licenses? No fucken way!"

The blond Step pulls his hunting knife out of the scabbard on his belt and runs it with full force along the entire length of the car, cutting deep into its neat paint-job.

Josh is now terrified. He feels like running away. He feels like running for his life but he is still burdened with the task of holding two big and heavy air rifles.

He feels certain the man in the house is now looking out at them through a window; will see what's happening, and will come running out in a rage. Josh fears he will be blamed and maybe beaten up by a huge and ferociously angry man.

After the briefest period of time, which Josh experiences as dragging on for about ten minutes--but which was likely closer to twenty seconds--the Steps unburden him of their weapons.

Without further ado Josh picks up the carry cage and begins to walk quickly away. He walks a good distance ahead of the Steps, thereby creating a margin of safety by placing them between himself and the owner of the car. This has a mitigating effect upon his galloping anxiety.

But nothing happens. Perhaps the car owner had failed to anticipate such a negative reaction on the part of the Steps. Perhaps he had no idea his refusal would lead to vandalism. That would explain why he didn't even bother to look out the window so as to keep tabs on them.

Perhaps he was so trustingly naive that the possibility of damage being done to his car might never even have entered his head. If that was true, it was also conceivable that he might not even subsequently make the connection between the Steps and the vandalism but might simply view the occurrence as a random act.

CHAPTER TEN: IT’S ALL IN THE PLUMBING.

The following Saturday, with two packets of cigarettes under his shirt, Josh is once more on his way to visit the Steps. His route after leaving the gas station causes him to go past the house of Peter Piggot who lives on the same street as the Steps but at the other end--the top-end, the eastern end.

The Piggot has a double block, or at least a vacant block next to his, on which he parks a couple of trucks. As Josh walks past on this particular occasion he sees the old man outside and doing something to one of these trucks.

"G-day, young fella," he said, looking up from whatever task he was engaged in.

"Hi. Are those your trucks?" asked Josh.

"Yes. The white one is a five-tonner. I use it for pick up and delivery. The green one is a two-and-a-half tonner. I use that one for going bush and gettin' firewood--it's a short-wheel-base Blitz."

"Wow! It has the biggest wheels--even twice as big as the wheels on the five-tonner."

"Yes, that's because it's four-wheel-drive and made for gettin' into the back country on some of the roughest trails . . . How's yer mum's car runnin'?"

"It's going good now. It's running just perfect."

"How's everything else goin’?"

"Mum reckons our plumbing's bad. We have two bad leaks in the bathroom. And we need a new water heater. We've been having cold baths with just a kettle full of boiling water to warm it up a bit."

"It just so happens I have a spare water heater at the moment."

"Really? WOW!"

"Yes, and I can let her have it at a good price too. And I can install it for her too if the old one can't be fixed. I can even upgrade her plumbin’ while I'm at it. I've done lots of that sort of work. Is she home now?"

"Yes, she's doing the laundry."

"Well, I'll just get me toolbox and we'll take a walk over there and talk to her about it. "

At the back of the Piggot place, and every other house in town for that matter, there is a lane. These lanes existed already from the time the town was first built and they were on the drawing board even prior to that. They were intended for the use of the night cart:

In the absence of modern sewerage, the night cart would collect human excrement in ten-gallon drums. But it was no longer actually a cart. It had been a cart pulled by a horse as much as fifty years earlier, but the name had stuck, had stayed the same, just as the antiquated mode of waste removal had stayed the same.

The vehicle now being used was a five-ton truck, specially designed and built with many small compartments in back to house each container separately so as to stop them moving and sloshing about. This truck was also reputed to be the most powerful on the road at that time, because it had all of sixty-four pistins.

The dunny man would remove an empty and disinfected drum from the truck and take it to the back of the dunny, which had a small door made specifically for the purpose of exchanging new for old. He would first remove the old container and then replace it with a new one.

He also carried a lid with a lever, which he would lock tightly over the old drum to guard against spillage--the dunny man’s bane. He would then shoulder that load, that heavy burden, carry it back to the truck and insert it into the compartment left vacant by the clean and disinfected can he had just delivered.

This exchange would take place once a week and the waste would be dumped at a remote location. These primitive toilets were located at the far end of each back yard--far enough from the house to be out of smelling range.

That, in all its crude simplicity, is what the lanes were originally designed for. But once established they could also be used for other purposes. You could walk along them, ride a bike, drive a car or even drive a truck along them.

In particular, it provided a convenient alternate route of only half the road distance between the Piggot backyard at 8 Wolfram Street and the Fleming backyard at 47 Cadmium Avenue. The distance was less than a quarter mile.

There were few if any trees growing along these lanes--or in most people’s yards or gardens either for that matter. Shade trees were not really needed in any case, because the climate on Tasmania’s mountains is already cool enough in the considered estimation of most.

Trees were more likely to be a source of excessive, destructive heat rather than a source of cooling shade. They were a decided hazard in that they might readily allow fires to spread from the adjoining forest into the town, and this might lead to the serial destruction of whole rows of houses. That was the big danger, the danger of potential devastation. That was the principal thing to watch out for and guard against.

The forest, occupying literally hundreds of square miles of wilderness, was home to untold billions of trees that very few human beings would ever even set eyes upon.

The townspeople didn't want or need any more trees, because there was already an unlimited number of them just a hundred yards to the other side of the town’s fire break--and people don't usually value what they have an overabundance of in any case.

Entering the Fleming backyard via the back, lane gate, Josh and the Piggot come upon Kathy who is in the process of hanging washing on the clothesline.

"Hi there!" said The Piggot, in a loud voice, the tone of which seemed incongruously bold when contrasted with his smile, which seemed ingratiatingly sheepish.

"Hello." said Kathy, in a polite but unenthusiastic low voice.

"Young Josh tells me you are havin' some problems with your water heater. I can take a quick look at it for you and tell you if it's fixable if you like."

Kathy seems flustered, seems embarrassed and somewhat reluctant to have the Piggot involve himself in the matter.

"Do you know about electricity?" she asked, giving skeptical emphasis to the word "know".

"Yes, a mate of mine's an electrician, and he taught me the trade."

"But, I really don't have much money to be spending on repairs at the moment."

"Don't worry. I'll just have a quick look at it. A matter of five minutes and it won't cost you a penny."

Kathy seems reluctant or at least hesitant about even allowing an inspection. Much to the surprise of Josh, who expects her to be pleased as punch, she doesn't really seem pleased at all; but after a short silence, she relents, says okay, and leads the Piggot to the bathroom followed closely by Josh.

The Piggot switches the power to the water heater off.

"I'll just check the sacrificial anode," he said, and he loosens a screw at the top of the heater, which enables him to pull out a long rod.

"This is the sacrificial anode. Can you say that young Josh--‘sacrificial’."

"sac ri fish ull," said Josh, in four distinct syllables."

"You've got a smart boy there, and that's just as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow."

This compliment brings an irrepressibly effusive smile to Kathy's face.

"Why thank you, yes, he is a smart boy, and a good boy too."

"The sacrificial anode is somethin’ what needs to be replaced from time to time. In the process of electrolysis, it accumulates all the junk, the trace elements and impurities in the water. If it never gets replaced it becomes fully corroded. The corrosion then begins to accumulate on the functioning anode until it too is totally corroded and destroyed. That's what's happened here."

"Oh darn, so it's not fixable then?"

"Not really. It's better to replace the whole heater with a good second-hand one."

"Darn, I thought so, and that will no doubt cost a ton of money?"

"Not really. I got a good second-hand one you can have for twenty dollars. I was gonna install it for an old mate o’ mine-- old Harry. But ‘e ‘ad a heart attack, so they sent ‘im to the big cardiac hospital in Melbourne, but the doctors thought ‘e was too old and frail to survive a major operation like that, so ‘e stayed in Melbourne wiv ‘is daughter, but ‘e died a few months later. ‘e ‘as no further need of it and it's in good condition. It’d be a shame to let it go to waste. You might as well get some use out of it. You and Josh."

Despite the elaborate nature of the explanation--or perhaps because of it--Kathy still has a dubious look on her face. Her facial expression is so stiff and serious as to suggest she is not one little bit happy with this ‘deal of a lifetime'. More than that, she seems worried, and Josh wonders why, but then she finally relents.

"Okay, fine, then let's do it."

The Piggot investigates two water leaks and writes something down on a note pad.

"I'll draw up some plans tonight and I'll come over tomorrow mornin' about nine, if that's agreeable for you. I’ll ‘ave to turn your water off for about three hours, so you'd best fill up some containers to carry you over between nine and noon."

"Sure. That's fine," she said.

Next morning, prompt at nine, the Piggot arrives with two assistants--friends of his presumably, who are there to carry the water heater into the house and into the bathroom. Their size and obvious strength make them particularly suited to the task.

The Piggot effects a brief introduction and the men acknowledge Kathy with a simple nod of the head. The two men, like many others in town, are known by nicknames, are known as ‘the Apache’ and ‘the Enforcer’.

They had other names too of course, regular names like regular people. They even had other aliases, but a complete listing of those would unnecessarily complicate this story.

The Apache, as we already know, is a husky bloke: is six feet tall and 200 lbs. in weight. He has the muscles of a body builder and he does in fact work out. He is about forty years of age. The Enforcer is younger (about thirty). He is shorter but more heavily built, weighs about 240 lbs. and has arms like tree trunks.

These two men remain on the premises, only for the short time it takes them to carry in the water heater. The Piggot takes a screwdriver and a monkey wrench out of his toolbox and is then ready to start work. A highly curious Josh stays in the bathroom to take note of each step in the plumbing proceedings. Kathy goes to the kitchen to see to her daily, household chores.

The old man turns off the electricity to the water heater, disconnects the wiring from its power source and drains the old hot-water tank. He then slides it across the floor and out of the way.

He replaces a length of corroded water pipe and then slides the new heater into place. He then effects a series of connections, and tightens them firmly with a wrench. The task is then basically finished, so he goes outside to turn the water back on.

Upon returning to the bathroom, there are no leaks whatsoever to be found. That is a gratifying state of affairs, which allows the Piggot to proceed to the next step. He opens the hot-water faucet, but, because the tank is still empty, no water comes out.

All the water is flowing into the tank and must first fill it to the brim before it can overflow and exit through the faucet. It takes about three minutes before that happens. The Piggot then turns that faucet off and the power to the hot water on, after which a quiet hissing sound can be heard issuing from the tank.

It was just 11 a.m. when the Piggot was able to poke his head through the kitchen doorway and say:

"All done."

"Oh, already! Is everything okay?"

"Yes, the water will just take a couple of hours to heat up before you can take a bath or shower."

"Wonderful!"

She hands him a twenty-dollar bill but doesn’t ask for a receipt.

"If you're sure you can spare it," said the Piggot, in a tone of maudlin concern that sounded irksome and inappropriate. It wasn’t the words so much as the tone of exaggerated sentimentality with which they were spoken.

This instigates in her a twinge of embarrassment, as if receiving a small, pinprick jolt of electricity. Her smile is twisted and contorted to suggest her teeth have been set upon edge, as if in response to swallowing a mouthful of unripe rhubarb.

"Yes, I’m sure I can spare it," she said, firmly.

The old man takes the money, then roughly pivots, swivels and drags the old heater outside, apparently without a thought as to whether it might suffer some damage in the process--it is past that.

"I can pick it up and dispose of it on my next trip to the dump," he said and bids them both ‘adieu’.

Josh and Kathy return to the bathroom immediately to admire their new water heater.

"It's a beauty, isn't it mum?"

"Yes, a real beauty it is. You know--I'm sure it's not second hand. I think it's absolutely brand new. There's not even a scratch or a dent or a spot of rust on it. It doesn't add up."

"What doesn't add up, Mum?"

"The price of it. It doesn't make one bit of sense . . . And those two men who carried it in, they give me the absolute willies."

"What do you mean, Mum?"

"They scare me. That Apache has that super-short kind of crew cut they often wear in prisons--it’s hardly an eighth of an inch long--and the look on the face of the other one: he has a facial expression like some kind of vicious brute."

"But they carried the heater in for us, mum!"

"Yes, I know. Aren't I terrible to be so suspicious? But it's just a kind of feeling I have . . . and yet it’s really just prejudice, and that’s not something I should be teaching you. Not everyone with super-short hair is a criminal. You really can’t generalize. I should really try never to talk like that."

"I think the Apache and the Enforcer must be nice, because they helped us," said Josh.

His crossing paths with the Piggot, and the subsequent installation of the water heater, has delayed Josh in visiting the Steps. He has kept their cigarettes hidden in his bedroom in the meantime but is now anxious to deliver them without further delay.

Upon approaching their back fence, he encounters an enraged diatribe of foul language. It is the Steps' father. He is working on one of a half-dozen old bomb cars, which are scattered and strewn like refuse all over their unkempt backyard, side yard, front yard--junkyard.

The Steps' father is apparently being thwarted in his efforts to fix something, and responds to the resulting frustration by altogether losing his temper. He is going virtually berserk:

"YOU FUCKEN, FUCKEN, FUCKEN, FUCKEN . . ."

He repeats the word over and over and over, and his voice grows more furious and out of control with every curse-word uttered. In simultaneous concert with his swearing, he is hitting some object under the hood with a hammer, and this metal to metal impact seems to increase the apparent ferocity of his rage, or at least the level of perceived threat it is able to elicit in Josh.

"YOU FUCKEN, FUCKEN, FUCKEN, FUCKEN BASTARD!" Bang, crash, bang, crash, bang! "YOU FUCKEN, FUCKEN, FUCKEN, FUCKEN, FUCKEN CUNT OF A THING!" Clang, clang, bang, crash, bang!

In response to a protective instinct or intuition perhaps, Josh is too frightened to enter the yard, neither does he wish to be seen by the father. He decides instead to hide behind the fence and wait a while--perhaps to see what happens next, perhaps to wait until the degree of assessed threat has receded to a level below the threshold of what he can cope with.

In any case it doesn't take long before the father stops what he’s doing and goes inside the house. Just seconds later, and in apparent response to his going in, the Steps come out. Josh eagerly seizes this window of opportunity and walks quickly over to meet them.

"I've got your smokes," he said.

The blond Step takes the cigarettes but with an expression of indifference on his face. The novelty of free cigarettes appears to have worn off. His mood seems subdued. He appears distracted and is looking elsewhere at something.

"Hey, that's an anteater!" he said.

There is a spiny anteater (an echidna) walking along the perimeter of their fence. It probably entered via the back gate but it now appears to be trapped, blocked by the fence and looking for a way out. As the boys approach it more closely, it reacts defensively by digging itself into the ground, leaving only the spines on its back exposed.

"That's such good protection," said Josh, excitedly, "nothing can hurt it or get past those spines."

The blond Step grunts and then walks over to an old shed, which serves as a workshop of sorts. He grabs a five-gallon drum of gasoline and pours some into a jar. He then comes back and pours the contents of that jar over the echidna. After that, he strikes a match and sets the harmless creature alight.

In that flash of an instant, Josh is assailed by a raging dissonance of conflicting thoughts and feelings: He cannot believe what he is seeing. He is taken totally by surprise at this sudden and unexpected turn of events. He is horrified half out of his head. He cannot bear to see the defenseless echidna suffer such an agonizing fate but feels altogether powerless to do anything about it. He turns and runs home in terror.

That night Josh dreams he is exploring the forest by himself. The Steps are not with him. He fears another encounter with the urchins. Sensing their presence, he turns and finds himself suddenly surrounded by them.

The fat ugly boy is facing him; he is once more carrying a box of matches. He strikes these one by one and inserts their burning ends into the pockets of Josh’s jeans. They go out once again just like before.

The blond Step then enters the picture. "Where are my fucken fags?" he demands. Then he turns to the ugly boy and says: "That won't work without this." He pours a jar of petrol over Josh and the ugly boy strikes another match. This has the combined effect of transforming one more hapless victim into a living, breathing fireball.

Josh wakes in terror. He is soaking wet but not with gasoline. He has suffered an intense night sweat; the sticky discomfort of which forces him to get out of bed without delay. He turns on the light and quickly changes his pajamas and underwear, hanging the wet ones over a chair and on a hook on the back of his bedroom door. He hopes they will dry out before his mother notices and begins questioning him.

A week later, it is once again time for Josh to visit the Steps but the prospect sickens him to his very stomach. They will no doubt be expecting their cigarettes soon enough, and yet he feels disinclined to take the trouble to steal for them today or any time soon.

He doesn't know what he will tell them when he sees them next. He has been unable to think of a plausible excuse. Perhaps he can avoid them, avoid seeing them, but for how long? The problem is weighing heavily on his mind.

Perhaps they’ll get real nasty and beat me up. But what if they were to set me on fire? Would they actually do such a thing? I can hardly believe it, but I would never have believed they would set an echidna on fire either.

Why did he get involved with these big boys in the first place? Had you asked him at that point, he wouldn't have been able to tell you. That's because he didn't even know, but he did know now at least that it had been a mistake; a big mistake; a huge mistake.

In a perplexed and conflicted state of mind, Josh is walking the streets and lanes in aimless circles until he comes past the Piggot's place. He then suddenly sees this as his most likely alternative destination. He enters the yard through the back gate and walks toward the house, but before reaching it he sees the old man at work in a small building.

That building is a carpentry workshop, which is located behind the house. It has two big windows, through which Josh can see the Piggot. Josh stands in the doorway until he catches the old man's attention.

"Hi, young fella, what's happenin' today?"

His tone of voice sounds friendly to Josh, who takes this as tacit permission to enter the workshop.

"Arr, not much . . . gee you have lots of machines."

"Power tools. Yair, I use 'em for makin' furniture mostly but also for carryin’ out repairs on anyfink made of wood . . . or sometimes metal too for that matter."

"What's this one?" Josh points to a tall contraption with a narrow blade.

"That’s a band saw. It can cut around sharp angles and tight curves. The one next to it is a compound miter saw. It's used to cut across the grain; mostly to cut planks to length, but it can do fancier things too. That one over there's a bench saw. It's used mostly for cutting along the grain."

"Gee, you have so many. They must have cost you a ton of money."

"Yes, they are fairly pricey."

"What's this little one?"

"It's a router. It's used for cuttin’ all sorts of grooves. I can teach yuh about them as long as yuh remember what I teach yuh. So let me ask you a question: What's this one?" The Piggot points to the first one.

"That's a band saw."

"Very good. I asked yuh that because I don't wanna go to the trouble of teachin' someone somefint and then have them forget it, because that would be a waste of my time. Learnin' somethin' from a teacher is a real privilege, but not everyone understands or appreciates that.

I coulda been a master carpenter but no one would teach me. I never had that privilege. I coulda been trained to become a master craftsman, but they never tried to build me up. They always only tried to knock me down. My father never gave me nuffent but a smack across the mouth. The Pirate and me met in the borstal when we was eight years old--a year younger than you."

"I'm nearly ten."

"Well then, I was nearly two years younger than you are now, but I was already uncontrollable. I stole whatever I wanted and I never give a damn what they might do to me. Borstal was easy, was not a problem. I could take care of me self there. But prison, when I first went in, was different. I couldn't take the measure of them older crims.

Yuh have to be sure yuh never go to prison. Yuh have to be sure yuh never steal nuffent. And yuh have to be sure to study hard at school so you can be a doctor or a teacher. Then you can have a good life, a nice house, nice furniture and a washing machine . . . You know the Apache?"

"Yes," said Josh, thoughtfully.

"He hasn't even got a washin' machine! Can you believe that? How can anyone live like that year after year, live like a damned animal!"

All of a sudden the Piggot's face is drawn into an intense expression, which seems to take him someplace else or at least suggests he has seen something interesting or important. He walks toward the doorway in an apparent effort to get a better look.

His face fills quickly with anger until he appears infuriated. He then composes himself, turns and walks toward Josh. With an index finger placed across his lips, he whispers "Shhhhhh" to signal the boy to keep quiet. He takes hold of an old chain from a chainsaw, which is hanging from a nail on the wall, and creeps stealthily out of the workshop.

Josh remains inside, and yet his curiosity causes him to peek with just one eye around the edge of the doorway. He is surprised to the point of amazement at seeing none other than the blond Step squatting next to the Piggot’s car.

He has a five-gallon drum with him and a hose, which he is sucking on the end of. He is obviously in the process of siphoning the car’s petrol tank and has the considerable audacity to be doing this in broad daylight.

The old man is able to walk about twenty silent paces before the blond Step looks up--just in time to receive one savage slap in the face. As savage slaps in the face go, it is definitely toward the far end of the spectrum; a chain festooned with sharp chisel teeth will see to that.

The Piggot pulls no punches but strikes with an unbridled ferocity. There is not the slightest trace of squeamishness to be evidenced in his facial expression. To Josh, the old man’s highly aggressive behavior seems totally surprising, seems to come out of nowhere, seems out of character when seen coming from the softly spoken, kindly and avuncular person he believes the Piggot to be.

The blond Step squeals with pain and fear. He attempts to stand up but loses his footing and falls arse backwards, hitting the back of his head against the side of the car and bending his neck to a maximum degree in the process. The Piggot swings the chain once more and connects with the Step's defensively outstretched arm.

Then, all within a time interval of a second or so, the Step scrambles for it, turns on his haunches, and crawls away on his hands and knees. At that point he is finally able to stand up and run for it. He scurries straight over the back fence in preference to using the gate. That is where the dark Step is now waiting.

"You crazy fucken old bastard! You cut me! My old man is gonna FUCKEN KILL YOU!" he screamed, with hysterical vehemence.

The Piggot approaches the back fence still menacingly wielding the chain and the Steps run for it. He then re-enters the workshop, which is equipped with a telephone extension. He picks up the receiver, dials a number, waits a few seconds and then says:

"Yair, it's me. I know who's been siphonin' our gas. It's them arseholes at the far end of our street. I gave one a good hidin' but his father will be up here in about two minutes flat and I don't want to use a gun on him if I can help it." He hangs up the phone and turns to Josh.

"There's gonna be some commotion here soon. You'd best go home now and stay there. Stay home tonight too. Don't come back here, or go out nowhere else neither, until tomorrow."

Just as Josh departs, the Pirate arrives accompanied by the Apache and the Chief. The four of them enter the Piggot's house. The Pirate has a revolver tucked into the waistband of his shorts and the Piggot has located, and is loading, a 20-gauge shotgun.

"Open the front door," said the Pirate to the Chief, "and take a seat in the front room. If he comes in unarmed work him over, give 'im a good hidin'. If he's armed, say somethin' about that so I know, and I'll get 'im round the corner with this," he points to the revolver.

"You keep watch at the back door," said the Pirate to the Apache, "and do likewise. The Piggot 'n' me'll be waitin' behind the bathroom door."

Soon there is a loud commotion, which first takes the form of a tirade of verbal abuse at the front door.

"Where are yuh, yuh rat-faced little cunt!"

Then the screen-door slams. This is followed by a succession of loud thudding, thumping sounds and the metallic clanging of a heavy metal object hitting the floor.

Everyone rushes into the front room. The Chief is a short, nuggety bloke but a deceptively brutish bastard. Though short at five foot five, he is built rough but solid like a brick shithouse.

He has taken a monkey wrench away from the Steps' father, has him virtually pinned against the wall and is working him over furiously with a barrage of bone-crunching blows, which are emanating from both of his fists and both of his knees.

He lands a rapid succession of devastating blows. The Steps' father is able to absorb maybe six to eight of these heavy impacts before losing the ability to stand, at which point he crashes heavily to the living room floor.

His loss of consciousness has rendered him unable to break his fall or even mitigate his rate of descent, and this causes his head to bang with considerable force against the linoleum covered floorboards.

About two minutes elapse before he regains consciousness and begins to groan. The Chief and the Apache then drag him limp and semi conscious to his feet, holding him in an upright and almost standing position. The Pirate then turns the tables by using the intruder's monkey wrench as a weapon against him.

He hits him repeatedly around the face, hits his nose and the side of his head--not hard enough to knock him out but plenty hard enough to break the skin, cause bleeding and bruises. In the process he also inflicts enough pain to gain the intruder’s clearly focussed and undivided attention.

The Pirate then issues an ultimatum. "Now get this--I'm a goddamn fucken fortune teller and that means I can predict the future. Last night, in me crystal ball, I saw you and yuh boys leavin’ town." The Pirate then hits the Steps’ father across the nose again before continuing to speak. "In yuh hand you was carryin’ a newspaper with today’s date on it." He hits him again. "That means you are leavin’ town tonight. Now that’s exactly what you gotta do to observe and respect the prophecy, otherwise you’ll bring so much bad luck down upon yuhself that you’ll wish you was never born." He hits him again.

"Please don’t hit me no more," cried the Steps’ father.

"If yer not gone before midnight tonight we'll take you for a one-way trip to Dead Man's Gulch, which is out in the middle of nowhere. Then we'll crack yer skull with rocks and dump you over the cliff." He hits him again with the monkey wrench. "After two or three days of devil's feedin' on yuh worthless carcass, there'll be nuffent left of you. You'll be turned into pure devil shit and you'll never be seen again. You'll be nuffent but devil shit, but that'll still be an improvement on what yuh are now." He hits him once again.

By now the Step’s father looks a pathetic sight. He is an abject figure. He has been worked over systematically and his head is covered with cuts and bruises. He has been psychologically as well as physically beaten. There is no defiance left in him.

"I'll go--me and the boys too. We'll be gone even before midnight! I'll be gone in two hours. I'm not fucken kiddin'! I really mean it! We'll be gone in no time. I promise. You'll never see us ever again. We'll never come back--Aaaaahhh!"

The Steps' father screams with pain and fear as the Pirate administers, for good measure, two punishing punches to the offender's mid section.

"Okay, get him out of here," said the Pirate. Obligingly, the Apache and the Chief drag the half-limp body outside.

Next morning a fire truck passes the Fleming house at a considerable rate of speed. Its blue lights are flashing, its sirens are blaring noisily and its engine is revving hard.

From a near state of torpor engendered in him by the dull routine of breakfast as usual with Kathy, Josh is instantly activated by the noise, the lights, and especially by the broad bright streak of red crossing his field of view through the front living room windows.

He stands up immediately in a full state of readiness and alert. In his excitement, he is all set to depart the scene and chase the brigade without further thought or ado. He is past the point of being able to give consideration to anything as unimportant as eating.

"Finish your breakfast first," said Kathy in a stern and forceful tone of voice.

Josh reseats himself obediently but grudgingly. He now hopes to escape the cruel restraint imposed upon his impatient curiosity by hurrying his breakfast, by gulping his food down as fast as he possibly can.

"Don't wolf your food, you'll get indigestion," she said, instantly blocking his second avenue of escape. Josh is no match for Kathy. Her maturity often puts her two steps ahead of him but it seems she is always at least one step ahead of him. After a period of nearly five minutes, which seems like forty-five minutes to Josh, he is finally free to go.

He proceeds in the direction the fire truck was heading in, and it isn't long before he looks up above the rooftops and sees a dark cloud of smoke. It appears to be at the very end of Wolfram Street. Actually, as he draws nearer, the smoke seems very near the Steps' house. Two or three minutes later, he is right upon the scene and can hardly believe his eyes.

He is suddenly overpowered by the intense sense of impermanence he feels. The Steps’ house has seemingly disappeared into thin air--into carbon dioxide gas. His mouth gapes when the full realization sinks home: it actually is the Steps' house, which is gone, which has really and truly burnt to the ground.

A crowd of people has gathered around the still smoldering ashes. The fire truck forms a focal point for questions from a group comprised mostly of older ladies. The Chief is talking in a loud voice. He is providing the throng with his professional assessment of the situation, the professional assessment of a thug.

He is known as 'the Chief' because he is the chief of the town's fire brigade, and not because he is in some way affiliated with American Indians.

Accompanying him, however, and complicating the confusion his nickname can cause, are the Apache, the Enforcer and the Red One. They are not actually Indians either and yet the nicknames of two of them suggest otherwise. But they do have at least two things in common: they are all members of the volunteer fire brigade and they are all career criminals.

"If they called me a couple uh hours earlier, I could uh maybe done somefint," said the Chief, standing with one big-booted foot upon the fire-truck's running board, "but it's TOO FUCKEN LATE NOW!"

Josh walks past the group to get a closer look at the devastation. What was an entire three-bedroom house has now been reduced to two brick chimneys amidst a small pile of charcoal. It seems almost miraculous that fire can bring about such a total nullifying transformation as to cause the total disappearance of something.

A little further afield, Josh sees the Piggot talking to a stranger, or at least someone Josh has never seen before. But he has heard his name mentioned several times; he just can't put the name and face together at this point. The other man is Grant Lloyd.

Josh approaches tentatively, but doesn't go right up to them, because he doesn't want to intrude upon a conversation between two adults. Instead, he waits, at a distance of about twenty feet, until they have finished. He is, however, easily able to overhear their ongoing conversation.

"This is what comes from rentin' houses to riffraff," said the Piggot, in an angry tone of self-righteous disapproval.

"No it isn't. What are you talkin' about--they didn't burn the house down! Why would they? Maybe someone like you burnt it down--someone who doesn't like renters."

"So what if I did?" The Piggot's irritated tone has now changed to one of casual indifference.

Lloyd smiles beamingly. "Then you did me the biggest favor anyone has ever done me in my whole life. The house was insured . . . for twenty thousand bucks. With that much money, I can buy every vacant house on the Sugarloaf. If you really did burn this house down, you've made me a rich man."

The Piggot is visibly upset; more particularly, he seems startled, stung, and flustered with embarrassment.

"You better get them fucken ol’ bomb cars towed out of here and clean this place up or yuh gonna make this town look like a fucken slum."

Lloyd says nothing, he just laughs loud and right in the Piggots face.

"You shouldn't be rentin' them houses." The Piggot reiterates. "Don't yuh know yer bringin' all sorts uh undesirables into town."

Lloyd laughs some more and then finally stops to say: "You've got to be some kind of comedian. But I'm gonna buy all them houses and rent 'em all out . . . and to whoever I damn well please. You might be an ex con but yuh don't fucken well scare me . . . not one little bit."

Lloyd's last words are likely true. The Piggot, at 120 lbs, is hardly a frightening figure. Lloyd departs the scene, leaving Josh free to go and talk to his mentor.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Apparently they moved outa town last night, but they musta left food on the stove or somefint 'n' caused a fire."

"Will they be coming back to town to rent another house?"

"No. They won't be coming back, and that's for sure. They'll never be comin' back."

Josh was wholeheartedly pleased by that prospect, pleased at being unburdened of a fearful dilemma.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: BUSH BASHING IN THE BLITZ.

Because of their unscheduled move to the mountain, Josh has missed more than a month of school. What he has missed specifically is the last six weeks of the fourth grade, the last six weeks prior to the Christmas/end-of-year vacation period.

To redress this deficit in his schooling, Kathy has resolved to teach Josh herself. This is at a time long before the benefits of home schooling have become widely known. But this does not reduce by as much as one iota the favorable impact it has upon Josh.

Today, she is teaching him Roman numerals.

"Okay, name each numeral and what it stands for?"

"Well, 'I' is one, 'V' is five, 'X' is ten, 'L' is fifty, 'C' is 100, 'M' is 1000."

"And what about 'D'. How much is 'D'?"

"'D' is . . . fifty . . . no, 'L' is fifty . . . Oh, 'D' is five-hundred."

"Excellent! So what is MCLXVII?"

"Mmm . . . one thousand, one hundred and sixty seven."

"You are just too good, Josh!" she said, in an effusive expression of enthusiastic praise.

"Can I go out now? Poppy Pete said he'd take me with him, bush bashing in the Blitz wagon this afternoon."

"Oh, so it’s ‘Poppy Pete’ now, is it?" She giggles. "Okay. Just be very careful if he's using a chainsaw or something dangerous."

"He never uses a chainsaw when I'm there. He can't breath proper."

"He can't breath properly," said Kathy, correcting his grammar.

"No, Mum, there'll be no chainsaws. We'll be just going for a drive."

Barely a minute after Josh departs, the phone rings and Kathy answers it.

"Hello."

"Hi Mum! It's me, Theo."

"Hi Theo, how is everything?"

"Good! I got 100% respectively for math, science and geography. I got 98% for history and 97% for English--which is my weak subject."

"Well, that's real good Theo."

"Is that all you can say?"

"Well, it's very good! Extra good, I guess."

"You guess . . . Why don't you love me, Mum?"

Kathy sighs with anguished resignation. "Oh, but I do love you Theo."

"You don't love me the way you love Josh. I can tell that just from the way you look at him. You never look at me like that."

"Well, Theo, you make it difficult for me. I would rather you only scored an average of 80% at school. I wouldn't even care if you failed all your subjects, as long as you had a kind heart. But you don't. I'm sorry to say it but you don't have a heart at all.

You have been suffocating Josh within an inch of his losing consciousness and you have been doing that for quite some time. He would never tell me about it--I had to catch you doing it--but it explains his night sweats and his anxiety. You are four years older than him and twice his size. I hate to say it, Theo, but you are a bully and a coward, and that makes you very hard to love."

Theo hangs up the phone.

Josh has a real climbing task ahead of him before he is able to seat himself on the passenger seat of the Blitz wagon. Having reached that point, his backside is more than five feet off the ground.

The short-wheel-base Chevy Blitz of WW2 vintage came standard from the factory with 10.00 X 20 tires, but this particular (highly modified) vehicle has radial tires with aggressive, lug treads.

These large tires also happen to be the standard size used on semi trailers, and each tire can safely support a weight of two tons when inflated to its normal operating pressure of 110 lbs. per square inch.

On the lightweight Blitz, however, they can be run at such low pressures as to appear half flat. This gives them a footprint more than two feet long and one foot wide, which provides unsurpassed traction. The off-road mobility of this expensively modified truck is simply phenomenal.

With some difficulty, Josh is able to reach out and grab the handle of the open door without falling out, and he slams it shut. The Piggot has brought food and drink for a barbecue picnic. He pulls out the choke, fires up the engine and allows it to run for a short, half minute or so before taking off slowly out of the vacant lot and into the back lane.

Heading west initially, they turn right and then right again at the first two lane intersections they come to. They are then traveling east along the north lane. By this time the truck's engine has warmed up enough to allow a shift up into second gear, then third and finally fourth--or top gear. At 25 mph, the truck is already revving hard enough to make this seem like its comfortable top speed.

The bush track traverses level ground at first and its surface is reasonably smooth, which necessitates only an occasional change back to third gear. A little further along they encounter a couple of creek crossings, which are easily negotiated in second gear and high range; a couple of miles further, however, the trail grows steep and rough enough to require the use of first gear.

"Is your seatbelt fastened?" asked the Piggot.

"Yes." Josh pats his waist to draw attention to the belt securely surrounding it.

"You'll need it from here on in . . . for a while at least."

Driving at fast walking pace up the first hill proves to be quite a rough and bumpy ride, but the Blitz is able to bounce and clamber its way up in two-wheel-drive. A mile or so later, the track deteriorates further.

"See the hill up ahead?" said the Piggot.

"Yes. Oh WOW! We can't drive up that, can we? We'll have to get out and walk up."

The hill was the most formidable Josh had ever seen on a track intended for motor vehicles. It had a gradient of about 45 degrees and was strewn with loose rocks and boulders. It was like a giant sleuse box: a box that miners would fill with dirt and gravel, and then run water through to wash out the gold.

You could compare that sleusing process with very high rates of natural erosion in areas of extreme rainfall and very steep terrain; and that's also why the steepest trails are normally the roughest.

Before attempting this formidable ascent, the Piggot engages four-wheel-drive and low range. He then takes off, with the engine revving freely, at a super low, caterpillar rate of speed--or less than one mile per hour.

The Blitz moves steadily forward, up and over rocks and boulders, skipping and chipping and hopping and clawing its way up. Josh is tossed from side to side, but is held firmly by his seat belt.

Half way up this prodigious climb, the Piggot deliberately stops the truck. He places one foot on the clutch and one foot on the brake. He then attempts a hill start.

But having now lost momentum--an important factor in maintaining his forward motion--the wheels break traction. They don't exactly spin like a car; they just slowly rotate. Josh watches the front wheel on his side revolve slowly like a huge disk.

At this point the Blitz seems stuck half way. Josh looks incredulously at the Piggot. He is hoping to get an explanation as to why he should have stopped at such a critical point in their precarious climb.

The Piggot motions him to observe two toggle switches on the dashboard, which he flicks to the 'on' position.

"Diff locks," he said, and the Blitz begins to move forward once more and continues to do so until they are up and over the summit. "You can't get up this hill without diff locks. There's not a four-wheel-drive-vehicle on the market that can get up this hill without diff locks."

"What are diff locks?" asked Josh.

"They stop the wheels from slippin', or at least they can't slip till all four wheels lose traction and are spinnin’ at the same speed. That way you get maximum traction, maximum off-road performance."

Beyond the steep obstacle they have now just traversed, the road improves rapidly until they are once more running at a steady twenty-five mph. After traveling a further distance of about five miles, the Piggot stops the Blitz and turns the engine off.

"I gotta look for somefint. Yuh can climb down and stretch yuh legs if yuh like." The Piggot pokes around the bush for the best part of ten minutes. "Naa, this aint it."

They drive off again, and then stop about half a mile further down the track. Another ten minutes of poking through the bush bears fruit.

"Aha! There it is," he said, and returns promptly to the Blitz to reverse it back into the bush. It is not until they climb down from the truck once more that Josh notices a large sheet of green canvas covered with camouflage netting.

"Help me clear this net away," said the old man.

Working together, they remove a quantity of netting. After that, and with the help of a jimmy bar, the Piggot begins extracting pegs, which pin the canvas to the ground through reinforced, brass eyelets. The extraction of half a dozen such pegs enables the old man to lift a large enough corner of the canvas so that he can get under it. He climbs down through that opening and disappears.

Moments later he pushes out a cardboard box. It is about one foot in both width and breadth and about three feet long, and it has a picture of a chainsaw on it.

"Slide that up onto the back of the truck," he said.

The box is fairly heavy, but not too heavy for Josh to lift over his head and slide onto the back of the Blitz. He then goes back to see two more boxes waiting for him and ready to load.

Josh loads a total of six boxes. They appear never to have been opened. They appear new. They are all still neatly stapled shut. The make and model denoted on the box is identical in each case, so they presumably contain the same make and model of chainsaw.

Looking under the canvas sheet, Josh can see more boxes. Exactly how many there are altogether is hard to say, but there appear to be at least a lot, and maybe even more than that.

Exactly how deep the hole is or where it leads to could be anyone's guess. It might be an entrance to one of the mountain's myriad mines (which can run deep) or its even more numerous exploratory sites (which are mostly shallow).

The Piggot stakes the canvas firmly back down into the ground, striking the pegs with a club hammer. After that, Josh helps him drag the camouflage netting back into place.

"You need to keep mum about this," said the Piggot. "Do you know what that means?"

"Yes. It means I should tell no one."

"That's right, and you should really mean it. A smart boy tells no one nuffent. A smart boy doesn't try and brag about the fings he's got or the fings he's gettin' . . . cause a smart boy knows braggin' is for losers. I learnt that the hard way! And while a smart boy can learn from his mistakes, a very smart boy can learn from other people's mistakes. That's what I'd like for you to be able to do.

Now I can tell you, if you brag, people won't be impressed no how--they'll likely be jealous that you have somefint they don't, and maybe they'll tell the cops on yuh just out of envy and spite.

The cops won't do nuffent tuh you about this business here, 'cause you're just a kid. You’re not even involved in this, 'cause you ain’t gettin' a share of the money, but don't brag anyway about doin' interestin' fings. Don't tell no one nuffent, not even yer mother."

"I promise I won't tell anyone, not a living soul."

"I believe yuh, son, I do fink yuh made of the right stuff. There’s some crims yuh can trust--like the Pirate, the Apache and the Enforcer. Their word is good. Then there’s crims who's word ain’t worth a damn--there’s enough uh them dogs to fill all the kennels in the world. Then there's straight people too who's word is good . . . and then there's no shortage of the other sort either."

They return to the truck. With some difficulty, the Piggot climbs the side ladder to get up on the tray and straighten things out up there. He stacks the boxes neatly right up front near the cabin and covers them with a sheet of plastic. With the load now properly secured, he then raises the tailgate to hide all from the potentially prying eyes of the curious.

With that much accomplished it was time to do something about the hunger pangs the pair were each beginning to experience. Josh searched the vicinity for a dead branch with an abundance of tinder-dry leaves still attached; this would serve as superlative kindling. He found a suitable one soon enough and in next to no time the Piggot had a fire crackling noisily and giving off the pleasing aroma of burning eucalyptus.

In the forest there is no shortage of kindling, sticks, short logs or anything else needed to kindle a vigorous campfire and keep it burning effortlessly.

Within a period of time that seemed like ten minutes to Josh there was tea to drink and barbecued sausages ready to eat. Josh was given the task of spreading butter on slices of bread.

To add a taste of spice, there was a choice of tomato sauce or mayonnaise. Josh chose the latter, which was his favorite in any case, but in that cool forest setting, it tasted even better than usual.

Even though the food is plain and simple, it tastes better than just about anything Josh can remember eating. More than that, it causes him to feel happy and carefree. He feels as if encompassed by a protective blanket, which fosters a reassuring sense of warmth and wellbeing in him.

He enjoys the Piggot's company very much. The Steps would never have given him anything good to eat. They would have given him nothing. They would only take from him and use him. Josh is suddenly struck with the realization that old people are much nicer than children or teenagers.

That’s the good thing about death, or at least our human awareness of it; as you get closer to it, it helps to make you a nicer person.

In the cool forest at midday Josh is wearing a cotton turtleneck, a woolen sweater and a light jacket. He is also wearing Jeans, socks and boots. On Sugarloaf Mountain, the weather in December remains cool until after Christmas. Summer is short; is two months long, is January and February only, but even then the mornings are cold, with temperatures inside the house often dropping to fifty degrees or less.

Freezing temperatures occur about once a week during this short summer. Sleet can fall any month of the year but temperatures rarely drop low enough to turn that sleet into snow--even in the depths of winter--it might only happen once in twenty years.

Winter weather on the Sugarloaf is much the same as summer--at least in terms of temperature; it differs mostly in a marked reduction of daylight hours, higher rainfall and an increased fierceness and frequency of the prevailing winds.

The average difference between January and July temperatures is less than the average difference between morning and afternoon temperatures.

It is a climate to suite those who value free and ambient air- conditioning, who experience sixty degrees as being pleasantly cool--or pleasantly warm for that matter.

It is also a climate highly conducive to the performance of physical work; allowing even strenuous labor to be carried out without producing too much of a sweat.

"I'm glad I'm out 'ere on a beautiful day like this," said the Piggot. "It sure beats sittin' around at home with an ashtray full of bumpers, bored stiff and smoking all day and all night. I gotta give up smokin' before it kills me.

I always enjoyed it out in the bush. I used to come out ‘n’ get firewood with some uh the boys. We got nuffent but brown peppermint, nuffent but the best, and we got it by the five-ton load. Them was the days, but I can’t cut it no more--me emphysema has seen tuh that."

CHAPTER 12: A MAN! A MAN! MY KINGDOM FOR A WORTHLESS MAN!

Liz has invited Kathy and Josh over to her place for tea and cakes with Peter. Josh is pleased enough at any prospect of spending some extra time with the Pirate. At this point, Kathy has no objections to having tea with the Pirate either and accepts the invitation without giving the matter any further consideration.

Liz has been speaking in glowing terms about Peter. She has been talking of little other than Peter this and Peter that. Liz is so obviously and ebulliently happy, Kathy can’t bear to throw cold water over her hopes and dreams . . . and who knows: perhaps the Pirate is not such a bad guy in any case?

Upon entering her sister’s front yard Kathy is surprised to find Josh and herself being menaced by two strange dogs who's behavior seems highly territorial yet inappropriately so. The dogs respond with an immediate sense of outrage at the transgression Josh and Kathy have unwittingly committed. They have clearly assumed ownership, have taken control of this piece of real estate and have done so in what seems like a very short space of time.

Kathy experiences a momentary sense of unreality, followed by a powerful sense of being dispossessed, of having no further rights pertaining to this property which was once the familiar front yard of her family home. She now feels like an outsider and a trespasser, but it really isn’t her place any more in any case--it is now Liz’s place in its entirety.

One dog comes right up close to Kathy. It is whining, whimpering and snarling all at the same time. While it appears to be begging, it also appears to be doing so in a demanding, aggressive and even sinister fashion. The dog seems psychotic to Kathy, and the importuning threat it presents causes her to stand motionless.

In apparent response to this perceived threat, Liz comes running out the front door and to the rescue.

"They won't hurt you," she said, smiling with apparent amusement and amazement that anyone could possibly be scared of two such exemplary hounds. She escorts the fearful visitors inside.

Upon entering the living room, Kathy is surprised to see--not Peter Stevens but someone else (Peter Briggs) whom she has never seen before. She thinks it imprudent to openly comment upon this anomaly.

Briggs, having an entirely different surname, is also very different in many other respects when compared to Peter Stevens, the Pirate. Briggs is smaller, is more slender, is much younger--is thirty-something--is youthful looking. Kathy is loathe to admit it but her sister’s new boyfriend is actually quite handsome.

Briggs has a bottle of beer in his hand and there are numerous empty bottles strewn around the room. He is watching football on TV with Sandra--Liz's younger daughter. Judy, her elder daughter, isn't home. She is at the pub--a place where she is beginning to spend more and more time.

Liz makes the introductions, and there is a nodding of heads and the uttering and muttering of an assortment of brief and perfunctory greetings.

"Liz and I grew up on Sugarloaf Mountain," said Kathy, aiming her words at Briggs. "Have you lived here long?"

"No, I was stayin' at the Whale Beach trailer park. Then me sister come up here to live. So I come up too tuh have a look and that's when I met Liz and she invited me tuh move in with her and the girls. Before Whale Beach I was movin' around a bit, here and there. I know a few of the blokes in town, but. The Sugarloaf is okay, I suppose. Not much to do, but."

"Josh likes to go out 4-wheel-driving in the forest," said Kathy.

"I go out in a short-wheel-base Blitz with Poppy Pete," said Josh.

"Ahh, the ol’ Piggot fence. I know 'im actually . . . met ‘im at the Pink Palace."

"The Pink Palace? What’s that?" asked Kathy.

"Risdon."

"Brisbane?" she asked, still confused.

"No--the lock up, the big house, the penitentiary."

"Oh! Risdon Prison.

"Anyway, the grapevine has it that: years ago, he deliberately got himself put in the Palace just so he could kill a man."

"Really!" said Kathy.

"'ken oath! The bloke was a psycho kid killer--worst kind of rockspider . . . abducted and murdered the Piggot's little six-year-old boy."

"Oh how absolutely terrible. What a horrible thing to have to live with. But that's probably why he has taken the time and trouble to make Josh his protégé and teach him everything he knows about carpentry and other things . . . because Josh is like the son he lost."

"Pretty smart old bugger 'e is, the Piggot. Taught me a fing or two. Anyway, he took care of that rockspider in the workshop-- big bastard he was too, twice the old bugger’s size. But ‘e got ‘im wiv a half-pound, ball peen hammer. Light as a feather, yuh can swing it fast.

The old Piggot fence snuck up behind ‘im ‘n’ swung the hammer at about a hundred-mile an hour. Cracked ‘im on the back of the head. The cunt was dead before ‘e hit the fucken ground. And no one in the workshop saw nuffent."

Kathy was incredulous. "But why would the warden put two such men in together knowing one had killed the other one’s son?"

"They had different names. The warden never knew. The Piggot’s wife divorced him years before and went back tuh usin’ her maiden name. She gave that name tuh all her kids too. Ten years later no one knew nuffent about his bein’ the father of that kid."

Kathy was still skeptical but she was now also feeling vaguely irritated and annoyed. Exactly why, she wasn’t sure. Briggs was using language that no gentleman would use in front of women and children, to be sure, but Kathy was also lost for words, and that was something she didn’t like.

She resented having the wool pulled over her eyes by plausible nonsense; it caused her to feel confused, to feel like a fool. This Peter Briggs was certainly some kind of smart arse who had an answer for everything. But child molesters are protected in prisons; that was something she knew for sure.

Briggs stands up and excuses himself to go to the toilet--a consequence no doubt of the large amount of beer he has been drinking.

"Isn't he handsome," said Liz, excitedly, as soon as he is out of earshot.

"Yes, handsome at least he is, but what else is he? I'm confused. Weren't you supposed to be involved with Peter Stevens?"

"Oh no, his girlfriend is Sylvia Briggs, Pete’s sister."

"Another Sylvia in a small town like this." Kathy was incredulous again and feeling a growing sense of irritation. "There are two Sylvias living on my street: Sylvia Johnson and Sylvia Johnstone--what's the probability of that?"

"I know of two other Kathys too," said Liz. "For some strange reason, People's names nearly always come in threes in this little township."

Briggs returns and switches the radio on. He has been waiting for this particular horse race and begins to hee haa with excitement as his horse makes its way through the field. He quickly becomes louder and more loutish in his vocalizing as his horse nears the finish line. He is whooping and hollering and clapping his hands with an earsplitting intensity.

Kathy feels uneasy. She senses their presence is neither required nor even desired.

"Well, we'll see you all a little later," she said. Standing up, she motions Josh to do likewise. They make a quick exit while Briggs is too distractedly preoccupied to even notice, let alone feel insulted. By a stroke of good fortune, upon exiting the house the dogs are nowhere to be seen.

"Do you think Poppy Pete really killed that man, the psycho?" asked Josh on their walk home.

"Of course not. He's a kind-hearted man and he’s very smart too. He’s taught you so much in a short period of time. You know the names of about a hundred different tools and what they’re used for. You know about tools that I’ve never even heard of before--like radial arm saws and compound-miter saws. Peter Piggot is too intelligent to go and hit someone on the head with a hammer.

I think Briggs was just mouthing off with some bragging bravado--men, or boys in particular, like to do that. They like to talk tough. But it’s usually just a bunch of baloney anyway."

I think your aunt Liz should never let Judy hang around in pubs and clubs. She'll only get into trouble doing that."

"Why, Mum?"

"Because people get in trouble when they go to places like that. The men drink too much and start fighting and the women drink too much and . . . they get in trouble. I would never go there.

And people can easily become alcoholics if they get too much in the habit of drinking . . . and they waste all their money, and then they can't even buy food or pay the electricity bill. But fools rush in where angels fear to tread."

"What does that mean, Mum?"

"It means, if stupid people didn't do stupid things, they wouldn't be stupid."

CHAPTER 13: THE SILENT SENTINEL.

A dilapidated old man sits on the veranda of a dilapidated old house. Despite cracked windows and peeling paint, the sheer elevation of this ramshackle abode enables it to stand proud of the Copper Road. From that elevated vantage ground the old man has a clear view of all vehicular traffic travelling between Pritchard and Sugarloaf Mountain.

An E-type Jaguar pulls into the yard and travels but a short distance up the steep, rough driveway. The Pirate gets out of the car, then reaches back inside behind the driver's seat to get something.

He carries three twelve-pack cartons of beer across the yard to the house, climbs the front stairs and walks gingerly across the rickety veranda. He watches carefully where he treads so as to avoid some of the bigger holes and gaps between the half-rotten floorboards.

"You better hope no tiger snakes come up through them holes 'n' bite yuh," said the Pirate.

"They don't worry me. I just dong 'em on the head with this stick." The old codger points to an old pick handle resting against the veranda’s railing and within reach of his easy chair.

That lounge chair he is sitting in and the matching one alongside of it are probably fifty years old. The thick, carpet-like upholstery is worn completely through in numerous places and both chairs are intensely weather-beaten due to their semi-exposed position.

The chair really does look like the most dreadful piece of old junk, it certainly has no monetary value whatsoever, and yet, notwithstanding all of this, it is still comfortable to sit in.

"They tell me you like to drink Victoria Bitter," said the Pirate, placing the beer on a small table that sits between the two ancient easy chairs. The old man is already sitting in one of those and the Pirate seats himself in the other.

"It's a real nice view you have from here. I reckon you could see every car that goes past."

"Yes, I do, and that's all I've got to do for entertainment nowadays is sit on the veranda and watch the cars go by."

"Well, believe it or not, I can tell yuh there are some kinds of entertainment yuh can get paid for. If I were to set you up with a CB-radio and show you how to use it, and if you were to call me on it whenever the cops drive past, I would be sure to show my appreciation. For a twenty minute warnin’ like that, I would gladly supply yuh with more'n enough liquid gratitude to make it worth yuh while."

"You got a deal!" said the old codger, leaping at the offer without a moment's hesitation. "I even know what cars the detectives drive too," he adds, in a spirit of eager enthusiasm and excitement. "I seen 'em go past.

The cars are new but not too fancy, with a burblin' V8 engine and two antennas--one normal car radio antenna in front and a bigger one in back, and a couple uh big blokes usually sittin’ inside.

I can see pretty much everything because of them two sharp bends--they have to slow up a lot to get around them and then you can hear the exhausts burble as they accelerate up the hill. I can tell it’s them just from the noise."

"Is there anything else you might need: cigarettes? Light bill paid?"

"Oh no, I'll be okay."

"I can see yuh smoke Champion Ruby. I'll get yuh some. I'll get yuh a whole box full."

"Okay." The old codger relents readily enough and accepts the promised gift--exhibiting but a fleeting trace of embarrassment, which is quickly transformed to pleasure; he smiles effusively and then giggles with a childlike pleasure.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The lumberyard.

Josh is running at top speed to get to the post office in order to mail a letter for Kathy. He is in such a hurry to get that task completed, only because he is extra eager to get to the Piggot's place.

Today, he will be traveling to Launceston in a truck and this will be his first such experience. He is understandably excited at the prospect.

At the post office, Josh sees Alan Barlow standing outside. Alan is a smallish man about forty-five years of age. He is asking everyone--every adult with a car at least--if they are traveling into Launceston today, and, if so, whether they might be willing to give him a ride. He needs to go in for an interview with Social Security in order to keep his dole payments coming.

Josh doesn't offer Alan a ride on the Piggot's behalf, because he feels that would be presumptuous, but immediately upon seeing the old man Josh makes mention of the fact that Alan is in need of a ride into town.

"The only time I ever put garbage in my truck," said the Piggot, with an acerbic smirk, "is when I’m goin’ to the rubbish dump."

Josh is taken aback. He is shocked that a nice guy like Poppy Pete might even be reluctant to help someone in need, let alone be totally and uncompromisingly dead set against the idea.

But with that much said, the pair are ready to depart. They climb into the cabin of the five-ton Bedford truck, which Josh finds much easier to get into than the Blitz.

But, like the latter, twenty-five mph appears to be its comfortable top speed. On the highway the Piggot winds it up to about forty-five, at which point the engine and drive train are seemingly screaming the distorted symphonics of an ear-splitting concerto.

The gearing is so low, the truck's speed would be little affected whether it was carrying a five-ton load or was running totally unladen--at least on flat terrain. But they won't be hauling a load anywhere near as heavy as that today.

Josh wouldn't be strong enough to lift heavy building materials. For that matter, the Piggot, with his emphysema, would not be suited to such a task either. All they are getting today is light but high quality, dressed timber suitable for making furniture or for doing fancy interior trim like wainscoting.

While that is the primary purpose of today's trip, their secondary task is to load up with some cheap groceries, which are currently on sale at special prices. Kathy has given Josh a list of such items, which will save her a considerable amount compared to the prices she would otherwise pay at the Sugarloaf General Store.

They attend to this latter task first and carry their groceries back to the truck, which, because of its size, is parked out on the main street rather than within the confined paint-lined spaces apportioned by the parking lot.

Climbing aboard, they stow their purchases within the truck’s cabin, where they will lie protected from wind and possible rain. Slamming the doors shut is then all that is needed to make them ready for departure.

But at just that point the Piggot suddenly and unexpectedly drops face down onto the driver's seat. Josh is taken by surprise at first, but quickly becomes worried when he thinks about the old man's medical condition.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm fine, don't worry. There's a big bloke wearing a blue shirt and blue shorts--which way is he heading?"

"Umm, a big bloke in a dark blue shirt and shorts and wearing big workman's boots. He's walking straight down the road, straight ahead in the direction we're pointing in."

"I owe him money."

"Won't he know this is your truck?"

"No. He won't. Where is he now?"

"He's going into the pub."

"Good. Is he right inside the pub now?"

"Yes, he's disappeared. He's gone right inside."

The Piggot sits up straight, looks around furtively and then starts the engine. He waits for a minimum break in the line of traffic before pulling abruptly out onto the road. In the process he causes two or three cars to brake hard in order to avoid a collision.

Though the truck’s engine is revving hard, the exit is nevertheless painfully slow, but at least they are safely away and creating a growing distance between themselves and the big bloke in blue. They are now headed for their final port of call that day--the lumberyard.

Driving the truck through the rear entrance, which has a one-way automatic tollgate, the Piggot goes straight to his area of interest and parks the truck accordingly. He obviously knows exactly where he needs to go in order to get the wood he wants.

That fancy, dressed timber is mostly thin and light in weight but long in length and it comes in a variety of types. Blackwood and Tassie Oak are two of the Piggot-preferred types. Huon pine is another but regrettably they have none of that scarce commodity on their shelves.

The loading, with a breather or two thrown in, takes all of two hours. The size of the load at that point is quite substantial when the limitations of the pair loading it are taken into account.

At this point, and in spite the excitement of this being his first trip to Launceston in a truck, Josh is growing tired of all the loading, which just seems to go on and on.

He is also becoming increasingly daunted by the growing conviction that they are still far from finished, because a lumberyard employee will now have to calculate a price for this huge and varied assortment of stuff and then write out an itemized receipt.

He expects this to be an extended and tediously boring period of waiting around with nothing for him to do but kick at stones lying on the ground.

But, fortunately, it doesn’t work out that way. By an odd coincidence, Peter Briggs is currently employed at the lumberyard, is on duty that day and he controls the front gate. Josh is surprised to see him, is surprised to the point of amazement at the sheer magnitude of the coincidence involved in this.

Peter Briggs further amazes Josh with his speed of mental calculation. He appears to total the sum instantaneously. With a nod and a wink, the Piggot hands him a twenty-dollar bill, which just happens to be the exact right amount. There is no need either to waste time writing out a receipt of any kind, let alone an itemized one.

Being a ten-year-old, Josh lacks a detailed knowledge concerning the price of things in general, because it isn’t necessary from him to know all of that. For that reason it is even less necessary for him to have a detailed knowledge concerning the exact price of the various types and grades of timber.

But he is nevertheless gut certain the Piggot received real value for money, a bargain, in getting such a load for just twenty dollars. Even in 1976, twenty dollars was not a great amount of money.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: THE CALL OF NATURE.

It is three o’clock in the morning. The Pirate has gone out on reconnaissance, has gone out on his own to reconnoiter. To use the vernacular, he has gone to "case a joint" with the hope of assessing its suitability as a prospective target for burglary at some future point in time. He is well inside the premises, in a back room where he hopes to find the safe.

The size of a safe plays a crucial role in determining what line of attack will be required to crack it. A big safe, for example, can’t be taken away to another and safer location.

A big safe will require a good deal of time with a blowtorch and plenty of water judiciously applied to keep its temperature within safe limits--no sense in having the entire contents destroyed by spontaneous combustion. No! That would never do.

The Pirate is distracted from his appraisal of the safe when he hears a vehicle approaching at speed. He quickly runs out of the building. The lack of blue flashing lights on the approaching police car confirms what he has already suspected--that they had deliberately refrained from using the siren for reasons of stealth.

The Pirate walks quickly down a lane alongside the building, takes off his gloves and puts them in the pockets of his leather jacket. He then unzips his fly and proceeds to urinate. The police have a flashlight shining on him in less than a minute and while he is still in the process of urinating.

"What the hell! He exclaimed in apparent surprise.

"What are you doing here?" asked the senior constable.

"Crikey, what does it look like? I was bustin’ for a piss. I had tuh stop and have one right away."

"You’re under arrest."

"Ahh, crikey, what for?"

"For loitering to begin with, then we’ll search these premises for your fingerprints and we’ll also search your car for burglary tools."

The car the Pirate was using that night was a ten-year-old Ford Falcon. It was one he purchased specifically for reconnoitering purposes. It was not a car to attract attention--unlike his E-type--and it had been carefully stripped and cleaned of all possible incriminating evidence.

Loitering is a mere misdemeanor, which carries a small fine. That is the only charge that sticks to the Pirate on this occasion.

CHAPTER 16: THREE LAND-CRUISERS, BRAND NEW CRUISERS.

They stayed at a friend’s house till the early hours of the morning, but there was no drinking allowed. It wasn't really a social event in any case. It was business.

It was the privilege of being well placed, of being situated in close and convenient proximity to the address at which they would carry out their next heist. Holed up in a house in Launceston, they would have the freedom to come and go in secrecy.

To kill time until 2:30 am, they drank coffee, smoked cigarettes and discussed the finer points of that night's felonious undertaking. There would be six of them in two cars: The Pirate, the Chief, The Apache, the Enforcer, the Red One and the new bloke from the mainland.

Because he is tall at six-three, but very skinny at only about 150 pounds, they decide to give him the nickname: ‘the Beanpole’.

It is but a ten-minute drive to the cyclone wire gate, which presents the primary obstacle blocking access to the desired prizes. The Beanpole’s expertise is not required on this occasion but he comes along anyway because, new or not, he is now a member of the group. Heavy-duty bolt-cutters make short work of the chains holding that high gate shut.

Beyond that now open gate a variety of motor vehicles sit parked, but three brand new Toyota Landcruisers receive the fine focus of the group's combined interest and attention. The Landcruisers are one-ton trucks with wooden drop-side trays.

The men begin their work in pairs. One hot-wires the ignition while his partner, with the help of plastic, self-fastening pins, quickly attaches a pair of false number plates.

Within minutes, the first Landcruiser is leaving the scene and is on its way down the road traveling at exactly the speed limit--the Pirate has placed great emphasis on that particular point. One of their two cars then follows. A minute later, the second Cruiser departs, and, a minute after that, the third Cruiser.

Their second car is the last to leave the scene. Unlike the four other vehicles, it will have two occupants rather than just one. The Beanpole will drive, but the Pirate will first carefully close the gate. He wraps the chain tightly around it and secures it with a new padlock, which he has brought with him specifically for that purpose.

This will likely keep the burglary a secret until the start of business that next morning, by which time the entire heist should be back on the mountain and safely hidden away. The gloves the Pirate is wearing will leave no fingerprints and will help guard against his identity being disclosed.

The heist reaches the Sugarloaf about 5 a.m. It is just growing light as the group reaches difflock hill. At the top of that hill the Blitz is waiting with two hundred feet of steel cable fastened to its tow bar. The other end of that cable is lying at the bottom of the hill.

In the pale glow of dawn, the Pirate has just enough light to be able to locate its looped end. He picks it up and attaches it to the tow hook on the front of the first Cruiser. He sends the Red One scrambling up the hill to start the Blitz and initiate the towing proceedings.

"Okay," said the Pirate to those around him, "the hubs are turned to 'lock', then engage four-wheel-drive, first gear, low range. Let the clutch out when you feel the tow cable tighten. Just let it idle. It won't conk out. The Red One's got the hand throttle on the Blitz set to just the right speed."

They get all three Cruisers up the hill without a hitch--and that is ironic indeed. It is barely minutes after the dawn and the prized booty is already hidden safely out of sight. Even a helicopter sent straight to this location at the crack of dawn would be able to see, and do, nothing at all.

The Pirate has already purchased a late-model Cruiser. It is only two years old but has been pulverized in a head-on collision. The extensive damage has enabled him to buy it at a nominal price. Being a write-off, there are, in fact, few useful parts remaining on it; but these nevertheless include registration, number plates, compliance plate with VIN number, ignition, door-locks and keys.

These items, when transferred to a stolen Cruiser, will effectively mask its illegitimate status by a factor of ninety percent or better. However, there is still a price to be paid for this type of 'insurance'. It will take time and effort and money too, though a hell of a lot less than buying one legally.

"You got two more Cruiser wrecks yet tuh buy and they have to be late models." said the Chief. "How long is that gonna take? It'll take forever! When am I gonna get some fucken money? I got expenses."

"Be patient," said the Pirate. "The Cruisers are nice--maybe not as nice as cash money, but yuh can't always have that. Yuh gotta diversify; take a bit off here and a bit off there but don't get too greedy in takin' too much off any one pile. We'll do another cash job soon but it's gotta be done careful like or you'll get caught, and what's the fucken good of that."

"I'm broke! I'm skint! The Mrs. is badgering me fer money. I got nuffent left from the last heist."

"You like to gamble, so does yuh Mrs., I like to gamble too, but there's no sense overdoin' it. I'll advance yuh a coupl’a hundred, but don't gamble it, just use it for food 'n' stuff."

"Fuck . . . Okay."

CHAPTER 17: Three guys down from Grenville.

Kathy hears a knock at the front door. This is only the second time such an event has taken place since their move to the Sugarloaf. Upon opening the door, she sees a man standing on her porch. He tips his hat to her while smiling broadly. Though broad, his smile is tight-lipped and resembles a smirk; there is the hint of something facetious about his attitude or maybe even his appearance.

"Hi! I'm Darryl Broadbent. I just moved into town, just moved into the house across the road, number fifty-two, and so I'm sayin' 'Hello' to all me new neighbors. I come down here from Grenville with a coupl’a me mates.

Grenville’s up on the north coast. We heard about the cheap houses and we wasted no time. We all three of us bought houses here yesterday . . . gonna take over this town. Ha, ha, ha, ha." His laugh sounds a bit stupid to Kathy. She fails to see any kind of humor in what he has been telling her.

"We're gonna start a business fixin cars," he continues, "maybe buy a commercial premises, maybe buy the old warehouse . . . if we can get it for a song."

Kathy is not interested in the man’s plans for the future and is even somewhat offended by his bragging. She doesn't know exactly what to say to him. She feels awkward, ill at ease, and even intruded upon.

"Yes . . . well . . . good luck to you, but I'll have to excuse myself because I think I've got something burning in the oven." She shuts the door hastily behind her.

Three days later, at about noon or a little after, an Ambulance arrives at the newcomer's home. It is no doubt making an emergency response, because its lights are flashing and its siren is blaring.

After waiting a minute or two, both Kathy and Josh can wait no longer. Partly out of concern but mostly out of curiosity they cross the street to see what is going on. They arrive just in time to see the ambulance drive away.

They are told by onlookers, who are gathered about the scene, that the bloke from Grenville's two friends found him that morning, badly beaten and close to death.

Because his injuries are critical, the ambulance is taking him to Hobart, to the intensive care facility they have there at Hobart General, which is the largest and best-equipped hospital in Tasmania.

The incident is featured on the front page of the Launceston newspaper the following day. Kathy reads the story with considerable interest: The injuries were of a type consistent with being inflicted by a hatchet or tomahawk.

A police forensic team is sent to scour the injured man's home the following morning. They spend most of that day--not merely inside the house; they also rake through every square inch of the yard. They leave no stone unturned and do not leave the site until late that afternoon.

It is a little after 3:am the next morning when Kathy is woken by strange noises. They are strange popping sounds, like little explosions. She gets up and puts her dressing gown on. Because of the cold, she then puts a warm coat on and goes out the front door to investigate.

There is a house on fire across the road. It is # 52, the one owned by the Grenville bloke. The roof on that house is made of corrugated asbestos, and the intense flames beneath are heating it to such a point as to cause it to explode. Kathy calls 000 to report the fire.

The police forensic squad has had but one day to examine the house. By 5a.m, there will be little left for further investigation--that is also the time at which the fire brigade finally arrives.

The house is altogether burnt to the ground, effectively drawing the forensic investigation to a halt. The three men from Grenville never return to Sugarloaf Mountain. They simply abandon the two remaining bargain houses, which were not burnt down.

At a total cost of $8 invested in the purchase of a jimmy bar, the Apache and the Enforcer take possession of the two recently vacated houses. They decide to occupy these in preference to their own, thus laying a de facto claim to them.

They leave their own houses vacant but safe and virtually inviolable, because no one in town would dare trespass against them, and, if they did, they would soon have cause to regret it.

CHAPTER 18: A MERRY CHRISTMAS.

On Josh’s next visit to see the Piggot, he finds the Pirate there too having morning coffee. That is not unusual, because, like Josh, the Pirate is another regular visitor at that address.

On this particular occasion, the Pirate is absorbed in reading a newspaper article, which tells of a major safe-cracking burglary. The victim or target was the TAB (a legalized and government-run horserace-gambling concern). The safe was too big to be removed but was cut open on site with oxy-acetylene equipment.

"They say: It was the professional work of a highly organized gang of criminals, said the Pirate, reading a portion of the article verbatim. A hundred and forty thousand dollars was stolen.

"They sometimes lie about the amount of money involved," said the Piggot. "That way they can claim more insurance and make an actual profit on the deal."

"They sometimes do that. It's true. But they sometimes tell the truth too." The Pirate smirks and giggles. The Piggot smirks and giggles too. Josh is wondering what is so funny.

The Pirate then gets up from his seat. "Well, I'm off to the races in Hobart," he said, "but I'd better be careful of them city slickers from the big smoke. They might take advantage of a poor country boy like me."

"You had just better be very careful," said the Piggot. "Them city slickers'll get the better of a poor country boy like you, inexperienced in the ways of the world as you are."

"I'm just a babe in the woods," said the Pirate.

Josh is perplexed by the sizeable contradiction he is confronted with. He believes the Pirate’s words are clearly contradicted by a number of things. Firstly, by his gravelly voice; secondly, by the faded tattoos that cover almost every inch of his exposed skin; thirdly, by the sheer size of the man and; fourthly, by the cigar that is hanging out of his mouth while he is making these bewildering statements.

"Hey, young Josh," said the Pirate, "can you take that letter up to the post office and mail it for me?" He motions his head and stares toward a letter sitting on the table. Josh picks it up eagerly. The Pirate then hands him a twenty-dollar bill.

Josh is wondering what the money is for at first, but when assured it is for him, he is overwhelmed with excitement and amazement at the size of the gift and the magnanimity of the Pirate.

"Oh Wow!" he shouts, and starts to run. He is running to express his gratitude, he is determined to make the mailing of that letter his highest priority and, for that reason, he is out the backdoor in a flash.

"Hey, wait a minute!" shouts the Pirate, and Josh comes quickly back into the house. "Don't forget to come to the Xmas party on Xmas eve at three in the arvo at the Community Hall. There'll be ice cream 'n' ginger beer 'n' all sorts uh treats to eat and lots uh prezzies too."

"Oh wow!" said Josh, who then sets off once more to carry to completion the highly important errand he has been entrusted with. It is not until he gets to the mailing box in front of the post office that he even looks at the Xmas card he is carrying. It is addressed to James McAlister, Superintendent of Police, Launceston District.

Josh, however, is ambivalent about the Xmas party. He is worried before he even gets there. He anticipates another hostile encounter with the urchins, and that fearful prospect spreads a contagious blight over everything for him. Fear is the great spoiler of things in Josh’s small world.

Upon the appointed day and time, he resolves to force himself to go if only because it would be an insult to the Pirate if he didn’t. But his ambivalence manifests itself nevertheless in the tentative way he enters the community hall.

He sneaks in like a person who has no right to be there, a person who hasn’t paid the price of admission, who hasn’t been invited, who doesn’t have a ticket, who is a mere stowaway with no rights under international law.

All by himself he remains standing awkwardly and self-consciously near the front entrance like an unpaid usher but his face, and his whole demeanor, is constrained by fear.

He is also strategically positioned so as to facilitate a hasty retreat. He continues to stand there until the Pirate appears upon the scene. Seeing him and singling him out, he puts an arm round Josh's shoulders and walks him over to where a crowd of mostly boys is concentrated.

"Hey you fellas!" he proclaims in a booming voice. "This 'ere's Josh and he's a special good mate o’ mine."

Josh recognizes maybe two or three of the urchins mixed in amongst the crowd but they make no malevolent moves toward him, nor do they display any malicious facial gestures, nor do they subsequently attempt to bother him in any way, shape or form.

A short time after introducing Josh to the throng of boys, the Pirate departs the scene by way of entering a back room. After a further time interval of perhaps ten minutes or so, Santa emerges by way of the same door the Pirate had used to make his exit. With Santa now upon the scene, it is time for the children to get their presents. It is obvious enough to Josh that Santa is really the Pirate.

"Ho, ho, ho! Ho, ho, ho! You know, Santa has good reason tuh say 'ho ho ho'--you would too if you only had to work one day each year."

CHAPTER 19: ROBBIE THE RABBIT.

Robbie "the Rabbit" Raskins was drinking by himself in the Sugarloaf pub. With fewer patrons than normal in the place that Wednesday night, there was less chance of his finding a friend there, or even someone he was on speaking terms with.

He wasn’t popular, you see, but his sitting alone was not a condition of choice. He preferred company and he simply loved to talk. With a few drinks under his belt he decides to remedy his silent solitude by going to sit at the bar. This simple maneuver will enable him to talk to barmaid Sylvia.

Overly talkative even when sober, his intoxication amplifies that to a point past garrulousness; he takes hold of Sylvia's ear like a swine hound and won't let go. He is bragging mostly about his legendary astuteness, which is so highly developed, in his humble opinion, that nothing happening in town can escape its notice for long.

Sylvia is understandably unimpressed by Raskins, who is fool enough to have earned the nickname, "the Rabbit". But while she views his bragging as laughable, she is nevertheless willing, for reasons of her own, to listen to what he has to say.

"The Grenville bloke lost his wallet or had it stole," said Raskins. "He accused the Apache of stealin' it and pulled a knife. The Apache nearly shit. Ha, ha, ha. It was so funny. He was red in the face--like a red skin. Ha, ha, ha. He was upset. Fair dinkum! I seen it. He lost his com pose yuh, but then e' pulled 'imself together 'n' said:

'You got no idea who yuh dealin' wiv! Why, you'll go down a mine wiv a bag of lime!'

"That same night was when the Apache broke into the Grenville bloke's 'ome . . . so easy, easy, easy for a master cat burglar; so easy, easy, easy for a professional criminal--why he's a cat burglar! BURRRPP!"

Raskins’ burp is of an intensity to all but precipitate a Technicolor yawn and his apparent embarrassment in light of that prospect causes him to place a precautionary hand firmly over his mouth.

The effort he exerts to avoid transgressing against prescribed etiquette seems also to make him momentarily forget exactly where he is up to in his story and this postpones the telling of it by perhaps two or three seconds. After that, he is ready to continue his lengthy monologue and he does so with apparent undiminished enthusiasm.

"And then he worked the Grenville bloke over wiv a tomahawk. That's the mark of the Apache--get it? GET IT?" He repeats the question with the apparent hope that Sylvia will supply some form of verbal praise or facial response in acknowledgement and proper recognition of his considerable powers of deduction.

Barmaid, Sylvia Briggs (sister of Peter Briggs) in being willing to lend an ear to the ravings of Raskins, appears to be providing him with the kind of audience he desires most, needs or even craves: a receptive, female audience he can properly impress.

At this point Sylvia excuses herself to use the little girl's room. Being an employee she enters the back room, ostensibly to use the staff toilet, but, instead, she goes straight to the office telephone and calls the Apache, who just happens to be a real good mate of her current boyfriend, the Pirate, and even something of a friend of hers.

"The Rabbit is still shootin' his mouth off," she tells the Apache. "He's braggin' about how smart he is. He reckons he knows everything what goes on in this town and he's sayin' you're the one what sent the Grenville bloke to intensive care. He's still tellin’ this to anyone and everyone who'll listen to him."

At closing time, the Rabbit staggers outside into the invigorating, mountain air to embark upon the short walk, the quarter mile journey to his home on Cadmium Ave--which happens to be just a few doors down from the Fleming house.

Even with his walking at a slow, drunken, staggering pace, he is but ten minutes from home, or at least he could have been home in that short space of time had his journey not been interrupted.

The Apache and the Chief are waiting for him at a shadowy point at the far end of the parking lot and just out of sight of patrons in the pub. The two sinister figures intercept the Rabbit with friendly greetings, engage him in conversation and insist he accept their cordial invitation to share a drink.

They have brought good grog with them and tempt him with it, but he seems strangely reluctant at first. It is unusual for Raskins to refuse any kind of invitation pertaining to alcohol or to dismiss a potential audience who might listen to him blow his own trumpet.

The trouble with blowing one’s own trumpet is: while it might sound good to the trumpeter, it will sound like a bent and buckled bugle to most everyone else, and the sound a bent and buckled bugle makes resembles flatulence more than anything else in the world.

"Come n' have a drink with us," said the Apache.

"Arr, arr, arr, I dunno." Stammering, Raskins is hesitant. "I think maybe I had enough to drink already tonight n' so I’d best go 'ome."

"Whadayah mean? The night's still young. Yuh know it ain’t polite tuh refuse tuh drink with someone who’s offerin' tuh shout. Yuh don't wanna give offence do yuh?" said the Chief.

"No," said the Rabbit, in a timid, quiet voice.

"Well come on 'n' have a drink then . . . Try some o' this." The Chief hands him a bottle of green ginger wine.

Raskins takes a sip. "That's a good drop," he said and then he takes another good guzzle or two or three. He now appears less anxious. They invite him to go to the Apache's place for more drinks, and help him to get in the cab of the Apache’s Landcruiser pickup.

Raskins sits in the middle and continues to drink from the bottle of green ginger wine.

The Apache drives deep into the bush on a trail he knows well and can negotiate with headlights. They stop from time to time to ply Raskins with more alcohol until he passes out. It is another hour or so before they reach Dead Man's gulch. The Apache stops the truck, at which point Raskins is soundly asleep. They carry him out of the vehicle.

"This is gonna be messy," said the Apache, "but there’s no time available to plan anything fancy. The Piggot reckons it’s better this way in any case."

They lay Raskins out on the ground. The Apache goes to the back of the truck and takes hold of a rock, which he has put their earlier because it’s size and type make it perfectly suitable to carry out the gruesome task he has planned for it.

He hits Raskins very hard on the head with it, eliciting a half cry, half groan. He then hits Raskins on the head six more times with a furious, skull crushing force.

"I really don't like doing this," he said to the Chief, "but what else can I do? The cunt couldn't keep his mouth shut if his life depended on it, or even if my life depended on it. The cunt would keep on shooting his mouth off till I was back in jail and serving a life sentence."

"The cunt 'ad it comin' to 'im," said the Chief, in sympathetic agreement.

"Hold this flashlight while I get his clothes off," said the Apache.

"What the fuck for?"

"Because the devils won’t eat clothes--the Pirate and the Piggot reckon the devils will eat everything else within about three days. There’ll be no evidence left if we take his clothes, wallet, rings and false teeth. I’ll take all that stuff and wrap it up in his shirt. Give me that flashlight a minute."

The Apache goes back to the pickup and gets a couple of plastic garbage bags. He puts all of Raskins’ things in one of them. Then they drag the dead body to the edge of the cliff. The Chief then holds the flashlight while the Apache rolls the body over the edge.

They hear 'thump' 'crash' 'bang' as the freshly killed corpse hits rocks and bushes on its way down to the bottom. The Apache then returns to the murder scene and uses the flashlight to locate the murder weapon. He throws that too over the cliff.

"If they find the body, it won’t pass for an accident, ‘cause he ain’t got no clothes on," said the Chief.

True but they'll still have to figure out who killed him. If there's no evidence, they can't pin it on anyone. We just have to get rid of all trace of blood on our clothes and be careful not to get it in the truck. I'll have to burn all my clothes and even my boots. You should burn your clothes too.

We also have to figure out what to do about all this blood on our clothes before we get back in that Landcruiser. If the blood's dry it won't spread so much. If we rub all the wet blood with our woolen sweaters, it might dry out fairly quick. We can then put those sweaters in this other garbage bag and when we get home we can burn them along with our other clothes. After that, we just have to work at gettin' the Cruiser's cab spotless."

"Do yuh really fink the devils will eat ‘im right up in three days?" asked the Chief.

"I don’t know for sure. The Piggot and the Pirate both reckon so. We’d have to come back and take a look some time to see if there’s anything left."

"How the fuck yuh gonna get down there? And if yuh did get down, how the fuck would yuh ever get back up again?"

"I don’t know. Ropes maybe. We’d have to figure something." Said the Apache.

CHAPTER 20: THEY GOT SOME BLOODY GOOD DRINKERS.

After not seeing him for several days, neighbors of Raskins were surprised and concerned. After not seeing him for more than a week, they called the police to report him missing.

The Police came to search his house, but, finding no evidence of malfeasance, they simply filed the case away and paid no further attention to it until six months later. At that point they were obliged to return to Sugarloaf Mountain to investigate another death, the death of Alan Barlow in a house fire.

That tragedy had taken place within the context of a ferocious triple house fire, which was fanned by a furious land gale in the midst of winter. The houses in question were the last three at the far, western end of Iridium Road. They were located approximately where the Steps’ house once stood but on the next street down or immediately south of there.

Barlow’s was the very last house on the south side of Iridium Road. The fire had started there and had quickly spread west. The house next door was vacant, so it burned passively without occupants to protect it or fight on its behalf. But people living in the third house had been helpless in any case to do anything more than escape with their lives.

The land gale, fueled by the Roaring Forties, had caused the fire to spread so quickly that all three houses were destroyed before the volunteer brigade could get it under control.

Barlow was an ex-miner and an alcoholic. When he was a miner he only drank when he wasn’t working, but now that he wasn’t working he only drank when he had money to spend.

The forensic squad, in a statement to a Launceston newspaper, estimated that the fire had spread from an open fireplace and that Barlow had succumbed to smoke inhalation and was subsequently burnt to death.

Barlow lived alone. Without a wife to help make a home for him, his house was devoid of even the most basic trappings of twentieth century living. This was characteristic of the advanced stages of alcoholism on the Sugarloaf--and probably elsewhere.

As the amount of drinking increased, more and more money would necessarily be apportioned to it and this would also necessarily leave less and less money available for other, more-positive and potentially life-enriching purposes.

There were no funds remaining to pay for the cost of running a motor vehicle or effecting home repairs, or painting, or mowing the lawn or replacing worn out appliances or even paying essential bills like electricity.

At the more advanced stages of dereliction, electricity was likely to be disconnected for months at a time or even permanently. The alcoholic would adjust, would simply learn to live that way--would prefer to circumscribe his life rather than curtail his drinking.

For this very reason, the forensic team was able to rule out an electrical fault as a possible cause of this accident. Barlow had no appliances in working order in any case, no TV, just a battery powered radio. Those who had been inside his house could testify to the fact that the house had gaps and cracks and holes everywhere, which allowed the cold wind to come whistling through.

There were gaps almost half an inch wide around all the windows, which had received the inept attention of an alcoholic carpenter. Strips of wood had been removed in what looked like the first step in a misguided attempt at renovation, which never reached step two let alone completion.

These gaps were quickly filled with thick spider webs that would stop the flies getting in but not the wind. Many panes of glass were cracked and taped up. Some panes were broken right out and replaced with a sheet of plywood as a stop gap measure.

Some broken panes had received no attention whatever but were simply left the way they were. These even allowed rain to get in the house and flies and the often-furious wind.

The bathroom walls of this and other miner’s houses were lined with sheets of fiber cement (fibro). This material has the advantage of never rotting even if it gets wet; however, its brittleness makes it easily breakable.

There were three large areas of damage to the bathroom walls where someone in an alcoholic stupor had almost crashed right through. The large holes resulting from these ‘accidents’ would also allow the wind to come in along with huge huntsman spiders.

Even snakes were able to enter the bathroom through those holes despite their being up to five feet off the ground. Tiger snakes are excellent climbers, can climb the walls of houses and garages and can enter through the eves into the attic or crawl space between the roof and the ceiling. Tiger snakes are common on the Sugarloaf, they are also the third most poisonous snake in the world.

A wood-burning heater is expensive to buy new but old ones are cheap and readily available in Tasmania where they are widely used. They can be had for as little as twenty dollars. Such a heater has an air valve, which can regulate the intensity of the fire or even choke it off altogether if necessary. A brick fireplace has no such control mechanism.

Most people live in big cities where the burning of firewood is not even permitted and so they have little or no experience of burning wood inside a house. Little wonder then that most are unaware of the potential hazards. An open fireplace can easily burn too hot, get out of control, and burn a house down if it is fed too much fuel.

Judging exactly how much wood to feed a fire is not always easy even for a clear-headed person but it is especially difficult for someone who is intoxicated.

The level of technology built into a wood burning heater probably goes back to the early nineteenth century--but the technology in an open fireplace goes way back to the time of Robin Hood and even all the way back to the time of Abraham. They are highly inefficient too in that most of the heat goes straight up the chimney.

City folk are readily charmed by the flickering flames of an open fire. It is romantic too but far from safe. For that reason, why not opt for a wood-burning stove with a glass door. That way you can enjoy the warmth, the charm, the romance--and live to tell your grandchildren about it.

The home brewing of beer, which is legal in Tasmania, can produce an excellent drop at a mere fraction of the normal price. The use of such a home brewing kit might have enabled Alan Barlow to drink all he wished and still have money left over. That money should have enabled him to buy at least a few extra things to improve his lot in life.

But the alcoholism gets to be so debilitating as to exclude this as an option for someone like Barlow, who couldn't even wait a week for the brew to reach maturity--if someone else made it for him. But the idea of going to all the trouble of brewing it himself was something he simply couldn’t be bothered with.

Another house at the other end of town burnt down at about this same time. It was situated on the Copper Road, and, as it just so happened, Grant Lloyd was the unlucky owner of three of the four houses.

Rumor had it that each of his houses was insured but the insurance company refused point blank to pay out on any of them. Rumor had it the insurance company said they would drop charges against Grant Lloyd of fraudulently benefiting from arson if he were to withdraw his claims.

Through the period of June, July and August, a total of eight houses were burnt down on the Sugarloaf. In earning newspaper coverage in Launceston and even Hobart, these fires--underscored by the death of Alan Barlow--begin to put Sugarloaf Mountain on the map.

For a village of barely two hundred people, Sugarloaf Mountain begins to assume a prominence appropriate to a medium-size city.

One Tuesday morning in September, Kathy answered a knock at her front door. Standing on her porch was a large and neatly dressed man.

"Good morning!" he said, holding up his badge. "I’m detective Tom Brown from Launceston CIB and I’m making inquiries about the disappearance of Robert Raskins. Do you know him or do you know anything at all about him or his disappearance?"

"Well, no. I didn't really know him," said Kathy, "even though he was virtually a near neighbor of mine. He just lived a few doors down on the other side of the road. Maybe he kept to himself. Maybe I keep to myself a fair bit, but I haven't lived here long in any case . . . less than a year.

I think he was a bit of a drinker. I think he spent a good bit of time at the pub, but then you could say that about most of them. That’s really all I know about him. I know it isn’t much."

"In this township a whole series of houses has been burnt to the ground," said the detective. "We are seeking information that might lead to the arrest and conviction of an arsonist?"

"A house burnt down right across the street not long after we arrived in town. The guy who owned that house was beaten up the day before. I heard he was beaten within an inch of his life.

Why someone would bear him that much malice is a mystery to me, especially because he had only moved into town about three days earlier. He even called here to introduce himself. He seemed enthusiastic about his move to this town and his plans for the future. But, once again, I really can’t tell you anything significant about him or his house being burned down or about any of the other fires."

"Is your husband at home?"

"No. I’m separated."

Who else lives with you?"

"Only my ten-year-old son."

"Okay, well, thank you kindly for your help."

CHAPTER 21: AN EXAMPLE TO OUR YOUTH.

It is a sunny Saturday morning in mid October. Josh has gone, as he often does, to visit the Piggot. But today will amount to more than just a visit as usual to his home or workshop.

The old man has been promising Josh another trip into the bush in the Blitz wagon as soon as the weather turns warm enough to permit him to do this. His emphysema, of course, is an ongoing problem; it makes him hypersensitive to cold air, but today’s sunny warmth makes it a perfectly suitable day.

Upon opening the back door, Josh can smell coffee in the kitchen of the Piggot’s house. Looking around the doorway he spies the Pirate sitting at the breakfast table.

He is having his morning coffee with the Piggot, as he often does, but he also has his head buried in a newspaper. The Apache happens to be there too on this particular day but he is a less frequent visitor.

Upon entering the kitchen, Josh greets, and is greeted by, each of the three men. The Apache, however, is not staying and is at the point of leaving. He is driving into the city, and has dropped in primarily to see if he can get anything for the two other men while he’s in there.

"I need my propane tank filled," said the Piggot, "but I’ll leave that go for the time being. I'm a bit short this week. I don't have the money to pay for it."

"Not a problem," said the Apache. "Let me take care of it for you. It's on the house." He takes the ten-gallon tank under his arm and leaves.

The Pirate has been reading a newspaper article, which is of considerable interest to him. "Hey! Get this!" he said. "Someone workin' at the Tax Department took a photo-copy of the Prime Minister's tax return and mailed it to a big Sydney newspaper. Apparently he only paid a total of $200 in income tax for the whole year even though he's a millionaire."

"And they reckon we're thieves," said the Piggot, "but that’s only because the law is made by the rich for the rich. Them rich people got lawyers who see to it they don't pay no tax. Our fearless leader, the Prime Minister, should be above the sort of greed of business tycoons."

"That's the sort of example they set for the rest of us," said the Pirate. "There's judges 'n' lawyers 'n' bent cops, senators and politicians all the way up to the Prime Minister. None of 'em's even honest as us, honest enough to admit what they are and make no bones about it. They're not only bigger criminals than us, they're also phony fucken hypocrites.

They go to church, but only because they think it'll win em more votes--why else would they even bother to go. They got no principles."

"They do set the example," said the Piggot.

"Of course they do! In a world like this one, yuh can only try ‘n get whatever yuh can. Yuh gotta get your piece of the pie by hook or crook."

"Is it okay if I take the Blitz into the bush today?" asked the Piggot, changing the subject.

"Sure. Take it any time," said the Pirate, distractedly.

A half-hour later, Josh and the Piggot are once more enjoying the theme park experience of climbing Difflock hill. They then continue their drive into the bush until coming to where the stash of stolen treasure is hidden.

The Piggot turns off the engine but makes no attempt to get out of the truck. He seems to have something on his mind, something that is troubling him. He is in a talkative mood and it causes him to enter into a long-winded discourse.

"I give up smokin’ for near on three months to try ‘n’ get me health back. I get so bored durin’ the winter. The Pirate won’t let me go out with him ‘n’ the boys cause of me emphysema.

He reckons I ain’t strong enough, reckons I ain’t up to the task. But he let that damn Beanpole join the group . . . and against my advice.

That Beanpole can’t look yuh in the eye--a bad sign. And he ain’t got no sense of humor whatsoever--another bad sign. He never smiles a greeting or smiles at all for that matter.

He doesn’t even say ‘hello’. He just looks straight through yuh like you was an inanimate object or somefint. You simply can’t trust someone like that.

When I’m doin’ nothin’ I ain’t makin’ no money. When I’m bored I’m inclined to smoke all the more. That makes it all the harder to cut it down and even harder to give it up."

Today’s outing is more than just a social one--the Fence must replenish his supplies. He doesn’t make all that much money at what he does--partly because the cash value of stolen merchandise is extremely low, but he doesn’t even get that, because the stuff isn’t his (wasn’t stolen by him) and so he only gets a small percentage of what he can sell.

Because of his emphysema, he also gets an invalid pension. But the money flowing from that is dissipated as quickly as a bucket of water spilled in the Simpson Desert; it cannot survive exposure to the twin, voracious vices of smoking and gambling.

That should have been understood already by the Piggot and people generally in light of Benjamin Franklin’s written observation, advice and warning more than two hundred years earlier that: "What maintains one Vice, would bring up two Children."

The Piggot doesn’t have a drinking problem and rarely gets drunk, but in terms of monetary cost and monetary loss (or the rate at which money is funneled down a rat hole) gambling is a far worse vice than either smoking or drinking.

The Piggot was unable to play an active role in raising children in any case during the considerable, twenty-year period he spent behind bars. During those, his years of absentia, he was not in a position to protect his six-year-old son from the depredations of a homicidal pedophile either. That was a realization to still inhabit his nightmares.

It was just two weeks earlier at one of his Saturday morning visits that Josh found the old man in a bruised and battered state. He looked like he had been in a brawl. His nose had a thick bloody scratch on it and the knuckles of both his fists were all battered and bloody.

He had been fighting with nameless demons in his sleep the night before. He had gotten out of bed and, in a somnambulistic stagger, had attacked the walls violently with his fists before losing his footing, falling heavily and colliding with furniture or some other hard object.

Back in the forest now, the old man and the young boy are working together once more to drag the camouflage net out of the way. They then lift a corner of the sheet of canvas and this leaves the Piggot Fence free to scour the booty for the particular items he needs.

He needs a variety of power tools, drills, routers, circular saws, jigsaws and packets of blades. He is also in need of three more chainsaws.

Standing in a hole up to his waist he distractedly places several items on the ground in front of him, ground that stands at table height relative to his present position and perspective.

"I shoulda bin there," he said. Josh wasn’t sure what he meant by that or whether, perhaps, he was talking to himself.

"I shoulda bin there to take care o’ me boy," said the Piggot, clarifying the matter in Josh’s mind. "The screws could never break me. Because of me stubborn pride I was defiant to the end, so I served all me time without one day off for good behavior. I cut off me nose to spite me face, and for what?

Me defiance was all bullshit--all of it, ‘cause all it did was keep me in jail. Me defiance was just stupid pride. I cared more about me stupid pride than I cared about bein’ a good father--how could I be any sort o’ father when I was in prison?"

It was an unusual display of emotion for the Piggot. It was deeply felt regret. It was heart felt regret.

CHAPTER 22: NICOTINE.

A semi trailer is reported stolen to Police. It was carrying a cargo of cigarettes. The big, eighteen-wheeler appears to have disappeared completely; that’s because it is hidden away inside a warehouse, the whereabouts of which is only known to the Pirate and his inner circle.

A week later, the semi is found abandoned and empty. By way of coincidence, the township of Sugarloaf Mountain is now overflowing with cigarettes. The availability of these at no cost (except to his health} causes the Piggot to take up smoking again.

"Free cigarettes, said the Chief, "when do we get some fair-dinkum cash money. I can’t be sellin’ a pack here and a pack there. I gotta have somefint tuh take to the casino. Nuffent can beat cash. When are we gonna get some more fucken cash?"

"Cash is king," said the Pirate, "but you have to diversify. Yuh can’t take too much off one pile or you’ll kill the goose. And why would yuh kill the goose--just ‘cause yuh gamble too much."

"I gambled some. Sure! Everyone does. But I saved too. I bought a beaut beach house fer ferty grand."

"Well done, my son! But I can’t give yuh no more money. I had a bad day at the track me self."

Impatient by nature, the Chief quickly becomes fed up with waiting for another big safe-cracking job to come along. He resolves to become a freelance and solo operator. He figures a small safe will be a lot easier to gain access to and the smaller amount of money likely to be contained within it will be more than offset by its not suffering a debilitating six-way split.

Having located a prime prospect, he hopes to detach the safe from its moorings, place it on a trolley and wheel it outside and up a ramp onto the back of his pickup truck. That is his plan.

But the Chief is unlucky. Despite the safe’s small size, the owners have nevertheless gone to the expense of investing in a silent alarm, which the Chief triggers. He is caught red handed right in the middle of the act by a policewoman.

In a panic he punches her in the face, breaking her nose and knocking her down. He then runs for it but doesn’t get far. Just outside the building, he is apprehended at gunpoint by other police.

The Pirate goes into town to bail the Chief out of jail and drive him home. On that return journey he asks the Chief to promise not to do a runner, which would cause him to lose his bail money. He also expresses disappointment at the lack of chivalry displayed in his beating up a woman.

At the next meeting of the volunteer fire brigade, the Pirate raises two motions, both of which are seconded by the owner of the general store, who is part of polite society.

On Sugarloaf Mountain there is a seemingly strange interaction and cooperation between career criminals and polite society. The criminals are seen as a group distinct from the rest of the community, to be sure, but only in the legitimate way that, for example, timber cutters or shopkeepers might be perceived as members of a distinct group. They are separate in their choice of career but in all other respects they are still members of the community.

This works in part because the criminals are careful not to foul their own nest. They will steal nothing within their own town. This will earn them no disapproval. Conversely, they will deal decisively and ruthlessly with any petty criminals who do steal within the township, and this earns them the considerable approval and gratitude of polite society.

There is certainly some truth in the proposition that: If you live alongside wolves, coyotes will scarcely bother you. Conversely, in the USA, foxes prefer humans for neighbors rather than coyotes.

The two motions raised by the Pirate propose; firstly, to dismiss the Chief from the position of fire chief and; secondly, to dismiss him from the brigade altogether. While only half the brigade members are members of polite society and the other half are career criminals, both motions are carried unanimously.

In response, the Chief is verbally abusive only: "Yuh buncha cunts. Whadidyah expect me tuh do--put the handcuffs on meself."

He does at least keep his promise not to run and cause the forfeiture of the Pirate’s bail money. He stands trial dutifully and is sentenced to two years jail.

CHAPTER 23: A RELIGIOUS ZEALOUT.

Rumors had been circulating around town for some time concerning a certain male person who was alleged to have been carrying out acts of sexual molestation against children. He was also, reputedly, a control freak, religious fanatic and all-around weirdo.

He had established a de facto or common law marriage with a single mother who had four children by four different fathers. He, the religious zealot, had, supposedly, taken control of her sizeable social security payments. These amounted to a considerable sum because of the extra payments allocated to her four children.

These words circulating through town in the form of gossip would be transformed into direct action soon after the woman’s fifteen-year-old daughter gave birth to a baby boy.

In a distraught frame of mind, the teenage mother confided in the Red One’s wife. She said her mother's boyfriend was the baby’s father; he had been imposing sexual intercourse upon her for the last couple of years.

The Red One, accompanied by the Enforcer, went immediately to pay the pious man a visit. They would extend to him, in their usual, inimitable fashion, a cordial invitation to leave town.

It was all happening right across the road from the Fleming house. The noise of raised voices was the first thing to attract Kathy's attention . . . one late afternoon, just before supper. Josh was already home from school.

Kathy opened the front door and looked stealthily around the edge of the doorway in the hope of seeing what was happening without, in turn, being seen as a busy body or a sticky beak.

Josh, now eleven, but still a lot smaller than Kathy, has his head beneath hers. They are both watching the scene with considerable interest. The enforcer has hold of the zealot unceremoniously by the hair and is leading him out of the house like a dog on all fours.

"Big fucken man," said the Enforcer in a bellowing voice, "Lordin' it over women and children. Why dont'cha pick on someone your own size?"

With the pious one still down on his hands and knees, his rear end presents a perfect target for the Enforcer’s size-twelve boot. He kicks him hard in the butt--hard enough to throw him flat on his face on the ground.

The Enforcer then reenters the house. Accompanied by the Red One, he emerges a minute or so later. They are carrying an armful each of religious icons, which they then stack in a pile (a pyre) and set on fire.

The sanctimonious one does nothing, does not try to stop them, does not try to run away, does not move at all, nor does he make any verbal form of protest that is audible to the Flemings.

From what Kathy was told subsequently, the weird guy had constructed a kind of religious grotto at which he would pray. The grotto was made out of ten wooden boxes that were fastened together in the shape of a horseshoe, and each box contained one or more religious icons.

"You fucken animal! You are banned from this town!" screamed the Enforcer. "You got till midnight tonight to be gone, to be outa here. If you're still here tomorrow or if you ever come back, I'll fucken kill you!"

He gives the weirdo another very hard and humiliating kick in the butt and then starts kicking him in the ribs. He seems to go into a frenzy of kicking; so much so that he totally misses with one of his wild kicks and is almost thrown off balance by the equal but opposite force that he himself has unintentionally supplied.

This act of self-defeating clumsiness appears laughably foolish to Kathy but it has the apparent effect of making the Enforcer even angrier than he was already. He commences kicking again with a renewed fervor. At that point the pious freak begins to scream more like a terrified animal than a human being.

While the scene had been of titillating interest to Kathy’s idle curiosity, it was now becoming decidedly distasteful. It was no longer something she cared to look at, or have Josh look at. She felt there was something shamefully indecent about this type of voyeurism. She pulls Josh back out of the way and shuts the door.

There was also something overridingly scary about this open display of hostility. The Enforcer appears to have a very bad temper; a temper so bad, in fact, as to be readily and completely lost, with the likely consequence of precipitating him into acts of extreme violence.

For that reason perhaps, the religious zealot leaves town promptly and obediently that same night and moves to a town about fifty miles away. His de facto wife follows him there a few days later and brings her three other children with her.

The young mother remains on the Sugarloaf with her baby. She intends ostensibly to keep and care for it but after about three months she leaves town and the baby too. She leaves the baby with a neighbor. The neighbor is also left with no other option than to notify Social Security, who’s representatives come and take the baby to be put up for adoption.

CHAPTER 24: GEORGE.

Early one evening about a week before Christmas Kathy answers a knock at the front door. Regular visitors never use this door but prefer to use the back door instead. Because of this, Josh is more than a little curious as to who it might be.

Upon opening the door, Kathy throws her arms up in an unrestrained expression of delight. "George!" She shouts. Her face is one big, stupid, irrepressible smile. It is obvious to Josh that she is ecstatically happy, but he is far from sharing any such sentiments.

George enters the house, crossing its threshold with one broad step. Kathy throws her arms around his neck and he lifts her in a bear hug, literally sweeping her off her feet in the process. Though her face is animated with intense delight she is nevertheless able to divert her attention momentarily from George to Josh.

"You remember George?" she said. "He is a close friend of your father." She then turns her attention back to George. "How is Arthur?" she asked.

"So, so. I saw him not long ago. He said you left him for good this time."

"Yes . . . Anyway," she whispers, "I'll tell you more about it later. How long can you stay?"

"Well, I'm in no hurry. I'm open to suggestions."

"You're actually just in time for dinner."

"Perfect!"

"We're having Shepherd's pie."

"Sounds good."

"You and Josh should take a seat, and I'll have everything on the table in half a moment."

They sit down.

"How old are you now Josh?"

"Eleven."

"Well, you are getting to be a big boy. You've grown a lot since I saw you last . . . That must have been two or three years ago."

Kathy brings the food to the table. Everything is now ready. She takes a seat and they all begin to eat.

"I was playing with a Country & Western band for about the last two years, but just recently I left that group and I'm now looking for something else. To be blunt, they gave me the shits--lots of people do. You, Kathy, are one of the few people I know who are easy to get along with."

Kathy smiles in apparent acknowledgement of the compliment conferred.

"You never came to hear my last band. I told Arthur and he came but you didn't."

"I’m afraid I had too many other things to worry about at that stage. I'd like to come and hear you play though--maybe in your next band after you get another one together."

Then, changing the subject, Kathy said: "I've had a bit of good luck. I own this house outright. It’s paid for free and clear. Why don't you stay?"

"Well, maybe I will. Who knows . . . We'll see."

"You would never have to pay rent again. Rent can be expensive, as you know. You could save a fortune by living here."

"Yes, but it would take a ton of work to make this run-down little house livable. It doesn't look as if it's been painted at anytime over the last twenty years. The paint on the outside is all pealing off."

Kathy looks deflated and a little hurt. The glow in her face is switched off but only momentarily. Smiling again, she then continues to speak:

"I think it was painted a few years ago but the guy used the wrong type of paint or maybe cheap paint. But I’ll buy some good paint if you help me paint it."

"Okay, sure. Why not," he said.

As soon as George has finished eating, he asks if he can use the telephone. The telephone is situated in proximity to a mirror, in which George preens and admires himself while he talks. He speaks in vague terms, which render his entire conversation meaningless to Josh even though it lasts every bit as long as their conversation over dinner.

"He keeps on looking at himself in the mirror," said Josh, in a disapproving and slightly irritated tone of voice.

"Shhh," said Kathy, anxiously.

"He's running up a big bill on our telephone," said Josh about ten minutes later.

"Shhh," she reiterated. "Why don't you go and do your homework and I'll do the dishes."

Two days later Kathy visits the local general store to buy ten liters of paint and a large, four-inch-wide brush suitable for painting weather board siding. But she can't afford to buy a ladder and this soon poses a problem: How can they paint the upper half of the house if they can’t reach it.

George proposes to solve the problem by making a ladder from the railings and pickets of an old hardwood fence, the components of which lie on a refuse pile in the backyard. Kathy does at least have on hand a hammer and three-inch roofing nails.

George uses these to fasten the ladder together. When that much is accomplished he stands back to admire his handy work. By the look on his face he seems pleased as punch with what he has accomplished (in Josh’s estimation at least) but that sense of satisfaction and pride is not long lasting.

He ends up doing little more with the ladder than test it out and is in the process of doing just that; is perched upon it as high as his sense of safety will permit when the Apache comes walking past. The Apache is walking along the sidewalk in front of Kathy’s house and George on his ladder is leaning against the front of Kathy’s house; there is a distance of about thirty feet between them.

"You wouldn't trust your life to a makeshift ladder like that, would you?" asked the Apache. Taken at face value his words expressed concern but his tone of voice was so forceful as to be easily construed as being aggressively domineering.

George comes down off the ladder to engage the Apache in conversation.

"Well, we didn't have one, so I thought I'd try making one. I guess it isn't too terrific." His words seemed apologetic to Josh.

"I'll go and get you one . . . You must be Josh's father--he's the spitting image of you."

"NO!" Josh protested vehemently. "He's not my father! He’s only a friend of my father."

The Apache smiled sheepishly in apparent acknowledgement of the faux pas he had just unwittingly stumbled into. He then quickly changed the subject:

"In this town," he said, "people fit in real well by adopting the philosophy of the three wise monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil."

"Well, that sounds like a real good philosophy to me," said George, in a diplomatic and affable tone of voice, which seemed overly appeasing and ingratiating to Josh, who somehow sensed that George was scared of the Apache.

With that much said the Apache departs the scene for a period of about ten minutes. After that, they see him again in the distance almost at the top end of their street. He is walking and carrying a long ladder.

He carries it at least a quarter mile or more without breaking into a sweat. As he comes closer, Josh takes note of the Apache's powerful biceps and pectorals flexing and rippling against the weight of the long, extension ladder.

"Here you go. This will insure your safety. This one is guaranteed not to break."

"Why thank you kindly," said George, with a facial expression conveying surprised amazement admixed with a trace of self-conscious embarrassment. "You are spontaneously helpful, and that is truly the hallmark of a tall gentleman."

The Apache nods his head and smiles in courteous acknowledgement of the compliment conferred. He doesn’t come back for the ladder. Where he even got it from is anyone’s guess. But it doesn’t break. No indeed! And, with its help, their painting project is completed soon enough. After that, the ladder lays waiting for someone or other to come and get it.

A week or so into his sojourn, George proposes to Kathy . . . well, to be more accurate, he makes a proposal . . . no, that still doesn’t describe it accurately. He issues her with a proposition--no, that is getting closer but it still doesn’t quite do it. He propositions her. That’s what he does. Yes, in all its disrespectful crudeness, that is simply and precisely what he does.

"What say we indulge in a little afternoon delight?" he asked.

Kathy is reluctant. "Not with Josh in the house," she replied.

George suggests a plan for getting around the problem, and Kathy, who is unwilling at first, finally and reluctantly agrees to it. It concerns her asking Josh to do something.

"Josh, can you do us a real big favor? You know I don’t normally ask you to do all that much around the house and so I hope you’ll take that into consideration. Could you take the bus to Pritchard and buy a carton of cigarettes for George? They are on special down there and much cheaper than at the Sugarloaf store."

"But that will take me ages, Mum. That will take me hours," he said in an exasperated tone of voice.

"I know. I’m sorry, but I don’t often ask much of you, so why don’t you do this just once. I promise I’ll make it up to you later."

Josh agrees grudgingly to his mother’s request. He feels the duress like a heavy weight, a burden of debt upon his back--upon the back of beast of burden, a dumb donkey. This puts him in a listless mood as he embarks on an errand, which is bound to prove excruciatingly tedious in his considered estimation.

I’m the fall guy. I have to do everything. I was always the one who had to go and drag Dad out of the pub and help him walk home. He’d be staggering and falling over and sometimes there was a gang of kids following and poking fun and laughing. It was horrible. Theo never ever went to get him; he just plain refused; he wouldn’t even consider it. It was always me who had to do it. Always me who had to be the fall guy.

After waiting at the bus stop for about ten minutes Josh is struck with an idea of inspirational power and significance. It suddenly dawns on him that there is no earthly reason for him to go to Pritchard at all.

In point of simple, actual fact he needs to go no further than the Piggot’s place. The Piggot has boxes and boxes of all kinds of cigarettes--a whole room full of cigarettes.

Josh now feels intensely relieved at being unburdened of an irksome task. It takes him less than five minutes to walk to the Piggot’s place, and that is even less of an effort than a walk in the proverbial park. He finds the old man in his workshop.

"Hi! Do you have Lucky Strike cigarettes?" he asked, with less than a second’s delay between his greeting and his question.

Are you fixin' to start smokin’? Don't you EVER do that or even flirt with the idea. Don't you ever start! Once you do, you can never stop. Even if you get emphysema or cancer, you’ll still keep on smokin’."

"Oh no, they’re not for me."

"Who are they for then?"

"My mum's boyfriend."

"Oh, well that’s different . . . Is he a nice bloke?"

"I don't like him. My mum thinks he’s wonderful for some reason and so does he. He thinks he’s so important. He wanted me to go all the way to Pritchard to buy his cigarettes, because they’re supposed to be cheap down there: ten dollars for a carton of 200."

"Then we'll charge him that full amount," said the Piggot, with an acerbic smirk.

His last minute change of plan saves Josh about three hours of travelling time. It is quite understandable then that he is able to get home a great deal earlier than expected.

Coming from the direction of the Piggot’s house, as he is doing on this occasion, Josh arrives home by way of the back gate and walks through the back yard until reaching the back of the house. His mother’s bedroom is situated at the very front of the house.

Upon preparing to open the back door, he finds it slightly ajar. This has the practical consequence of enabling him to enter the house while hardly making a sound.

Turning a doorknob is surprisingly noisy, so is the frictional drag of a door against a door jam. But, with the elimination of these two sources of sound, Josh is able to enter the house without alerting George, whom he then sees from behind, bare-arsed naked and just entering his mother's bedroom.

With the painful abruptness of a slap in the face, this revelation now explains the purpose behind the errant errand Josh had been sent upon, and it does so with complete and utter clarity.

This same disturbing insight also causes Josh to exit the house just as quickly and quietly as he entered it. He feels a powerful need to escape this situation and the pain it brings him. He needs to find a place to hide.

Why does he feel so bad? He doesn’t rightly know. As if by instinct, he retreats to the woodshed, a quiet and private place where he sometimes goes just to sit and think. It now serves him as a place of solace.

The woodshed is the size of a single-car garage. It is roughly built but the roof is nevertheless sound enough to keep the interior completely dry. This makes it an oft chosen place of refuge for Josh in rainy weather.

There are no chairs to sit upon. The firewood itself might have served that purpose in places where it is stacked to just the right height, but most of the wood has been split and is thus full of splinters.

A far more serious hazard is the danger of disturbing the occasional snake that might find its way inside the woodpile. This leaves the chopping block as his best seating option even though it is a little lower and thus less comfortable than a proper chair.

Josh now sits quietly upon that chopping block and waits for the hours to drag by. All the while he is engrossed in sullen thought.

With the sun sinking low in the late afternoon sky, Josh enters the house once more. He hands the carton of cigarettes to George, who is now seated, watching TV, wearing a bathrobe and smoking.

"Why thank you, young Josh," said George, looking up momentarily from the TV screen.

"It’s time to get dressed for dinner," said Kathy, in a tone, which, to Josh at least, suggested annoyance and impatience.

Despite the shocking spectacle the boy had witnessed earlier that day, he is unwilling to cause a scene or even make waves of any kind, because he is simply too embarrassed to say anything at all about the matter. For that overridingly powerful reason things appear deceptively the same over dinner.

Josh is very quiet, to be sure, but he is usually quiet in George’s presence anyway, so this in itself brings no apparent change to the status quo. Moreover, everything seems smooth and amicable until later that evening when something quite different and unexpected takes place.

The telephone rings. Josh answers it. "It's for you," he said, motioning the receiver in George's direction. So far Kathy appears unperturbed. "A lady wants to talk to you."

But Kathy reacts instantaneously and intensely to the additional information contained in that last, short statement. She is now visibly upset.

Looking straight at Josh, George shakes his head from side to side while holding an index finger up to his lips. Josh takes this to mean: "Don’t say anything," or "Don’t tell her I’m here."

"He doesn't want to talk to you," said Josh, with an abruptness he hopes might pass for forthrightness or clumsiness but which shows little regard for George’s implied wishes.

The lady on the line is pleading desperately and asks Josh to persuade George to call her back later if that's more convenient than talking to her right now.

"Will you call her back later?" he asked.

"NO! Just hang up the phone, damn it!" said George, tersely, and Josh, taken aback, slams the receiver down heavily and angrily.

"Who the hell was that?" asked Kathy, pointedly.

"Just an acquaintance of mine."

"Just a female acquaintance you won't speak to, but who knows you’re staying here and who also knows my phone number. So why is she calling here . . . and how would she even know to call here if you didn't give her my number?"

"I didn't give her your number," he said, in a tone of stubborn self-righteousness, "so why the third degree?"

"Then how does she know you're here? You must have conveyed that information to her by some means or other, and so you must have wanted her to call you here. Why? To make her jealous, to make her insecure, to put her through the ringer, to make her desperate, to make her grovel?"

With each phrase uttered, Kathy’s anger is becoming increasingly apparent. Her list of statements is extensive, is frenetically spoken, and it seems to continue without her taking as much as a breath:

"She must be quite important to you. She must be special. She must have something you really want. But what does she have that makes her so important? Perhaps she has something I lack--money! That would have to be it for sure. I’ve been so stupid! Her money would give her something special to offer you. That's it, isn't it?"

"Oh spare me the holy, goddamned inquisition!" he said, angrily.

"That’s it, ISN’T IT!"

"Well, if you really must know. She owns a nice apartment in the city, a BMW and three hair-dressing salons."

"And it doesn't bother your conscience that you’ve been leading me on, leading me on to think that maybe we'll be getting together, when you knew right from the start that you were only here to put your rich lady through the ringer by playing hard to get."

"Oh, said George angrily, "who are you to talk about two-timing. You are the consummate hypocrite. You two-timed Arthur, your own dear husband."

"I told you I was through with Arthur and that was the truth, and you know it."

"But what about when you two-timed him years ago. You don’t do things by half measure--you two-timed him all the way."

"And so did you. You were his best friend (I don't think) and you never paid a penny in support . . . but you should have!"

"No, it was never my responsibility anyway, because men don't get pregnant, and so they should never be held financially responsible except in the case of rape."

"You are such a damned selfish bastard!"

"And you want me."

"You are a cruel heartless bastard!"

"And you want me!"

"What's gonna happen to you when you get old. Who'll take care of you then?"

"Are you kidding! In old age, women outnumber men ten to one--I'll be beating them off with a stick."

"You are so damned selfish!"

"So are women. They just won't admit it."

"Women are not selfish like men. Women are caretakers."

"Yes but women enjoy taking care of people, and enjoying something makes it selfish; therefore, women are just as selfish as men. In caring for people, women are gratifying their own sense of pleasure in much the same way men gratify themselves by having sex or driving a sports car."

"You twist everything around, you turn moral questions into a can of worms, and you actually seek safety and solace in moral confusion . . . but you are a user. You use women for money--that makes you a pimp."

"Women choose to give me money. And they choose to do that because I'm the favored one in their estimation, just as I was always my mother's favorite son--because I'm tall, handsome, clever, and the first born."

"Yes, well I think that’s interesting and revealing: perhaps your mother was exactly the one who made you precisely who you are, made you the chauvinist pig that you are . . . but you are proud, and if pride goes before a fall, then that's where you're headed for sure."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha," he laughs.

In wide-eyed bemusement, Josh is sitting quietly all this time watching this romantic drama unfold. This night has quickly and unexpectedly developed into a night of considerable intrigue. Josh finds it upsetting and disturbing, to be sure, and yet there is also something strangely entertaining about it.

The phone rings again, in the midst of this protracted and passionate debate, but this time Kathy rushes to get it herself rather than let Josh get it. She snatches wildly at the receiver, almost dropping it in the process, and, stamping her foot angrily on the floor, she answers the call.

"Hello . . . You want to talk to George. You want him back. Well, he's staying here a week or two, or just as long as it takes to get you desperate; just as long as it takes you to sing the Bill Bailey song? Are you ready to grovel in the gutter? How much money do you have to pay your worthless goddamn pimp? I hope you have plenty, because you will need every penny of it."

Kathy’s angry words seem to be probing in search of a tender spot. It takes a determined effort to penetrate his self-righteous armor but using the word ‘pimp’ to describe him to his new lady love seems to turn the trick.

It is presumably too close to the truth to be funny and George is now sufficiently goaded to be losing his cool. He rises abruptly out of his seat and attempts to snatch the telephone receiver away from Kathy.

In an effort to prevent this, she holds it up high and behind her. But, being taller, he is nevertheless able to reach and take hold of it. As they both maintain a tenacious grip on the receiver and attempt to get it away from the other, their arms swing from side to side like a signaling semaphore.

George finally applies sufficient force to pry it loose and out of her hands, but in the process of achieving that victory he pushes her half off her feet, causing her to knock over a small table of crockery, which goes crashing and smashing noisily to the floor.

"Keep a civil tongue in your head," he said, his face now red and clearly revealing a hot and bothered state of mind.

With the proceedings rising to the next, higher level of animosity, Kathy attacks him with flailing fists. But her rage proves an impotent one when he grabs her firmly by both wrists.

This effectively restrains her, presumably because she is not quite angry enough to resort to kicking him. But the ensuing powerlessness and frustration cause Kathy to whimper, signaling a sense of sadness, resignation and defeat. She seems close to tears.

With things having turned physical, Josh is now genuinely frightened. He makes no attempt to fight George, thinking this a futile gesture in light of the enormous size discrepancy between them. But while he is frightened and upset he is not panicking--he has another more realistic plan of action.

He goes for help and he figures the Piggot's house is just the place to find it. Upon entering the house, Josh can hear talking and laughter and the Piggot’s voice in particular:

"The cunt was dead before he hit the fucken ground . . . Who’s that comin’ in the house? Who’s there? Why, it’s young Josh. What’s the matter mate?"

In a smoke-filled room, the Piggot is playing poker with the Enforcer, the Red one and the Red One’s brother from out of town.

"A man is fighting with my mum and making her cry," said Josh.

The Piggot looks at the Enforcer. "Can you see to it? My emphysema's got much worse. I doubt if I could even walk over there and back."

"I got no time for cowards who beat up women," said the Enforcer. "I'll go 'n sort the bastard out."

On the return trip to his home, Josh is half running in order to keep pace with the broad, angry steps of his outsized companion. The Enforcer’s gait conveys anger but also a grim sense of determination, which is mirrored in his hardened face when he enters the Fleming house with all of the forceful abruptness of a bulldozer.

He virtually explodes upon that scene in which the two combatant paramours are now enmeshed in a bout of verbal jousting. They are surprised into open-mouthed silence at suddenly finding the brazen interloper trespassing within their domestic domain.

"Okay, what the fuck's goin' on here?" said the Enforcer, just as bold as brass can be.

"What? Who are you? And what's this got to do with you in any case?" said George.

"Josh don't want yuh here--that's what it's got tu do wiv me. He's too small to kick yuh out of this house but I'm not."

"This is an outrage!" protested George. "You can't just kick someone out of someone else’s house! You have no right! Who the hell do you think you are!"

During the course of this brief conversation, the Enforcer has been moving slowly but steadily toward George. Upon getting within reach, he raises his left hand suddenly and abruptly, and, in less than a flash, he grabs hold of George by the hair.

He pulls George toward him, pulls him into close and even intimate proximity. He then drives his right knee heavily into the musician's midsection, winding him, causing him to double over and end up on his hands and knees on the floor.

There is little chance of George falling backwards and damaging anything inside the house, because the Enforcer’s painful grip on his hair keeps their combined movements effectively contained within a tightly circumscribed area.

With George on his hands and knees on the floor, and sufficient pain transferred to his scalp through his hair, the Enforcer leads him to the front door. The pain is applied in a manner and purpose much like leading a bull by the nose.

The Enforcer opens the front door and drags a humiliated George on all fours yelling and screaming across the threshold, down the porch steps, across the front lawn and through the front gate.

"Josh wants yuh out'a here! You’re out’a here! Get it? Set foot back over that fence line just once more and you’ll be leaving town in an ambulance."

"But I need my things, my clothes, my car keys, my car," he yelped in an abject state of helplessness, a helplessness that seemed in search of sympathy like a wounded child. George seemed on the brink of tears.

"We’ll get yuh stuff. All you have to do is wait there."

Kathy quickly gathers George’s things together; she seems in a worried hurry to get him gone. She packs his bags and puts them on the back seat of his car. The Enforcer reverses the vehicle out of the driveway.

He then gets out of the car but leaves the engine running and the driver’s door wide open. It is an open invitation and even a time -and-effort-saving measure that will expedite George’s departure.

"This is just a polite warning for yuh to get out of town." Said the Enforcer. "Don’t ever come back or you’ll wish you were never born."

CHAPTER 25: Patton was a tank man too.

In Australia, property taxes are known as council rates. Council rates on Sugarloaf Mountain, including water rates, are only a tenth of the minimum amount you would pay living in the suburbs of a modern metropolis.

The main reason for that is the low socio-economic status of the place. But another important reason is the cost of garbage disposal that you don’t have to pay for on the Sugarloaf, because you have to take your own trash to the dump two miles out of town--unless, of course, you can get someone else to do it for you.

The Piggot had a marked aversion to garbage, and this saw him take frequent trips to the dump to rid himself of that noxiously insidious but ever-accumulating stuff.

But taking so many of these trips seriously increased the very real danger of being spotted: caught in the act, and this was likely to have dire consequences.

Upon first noticing this pattern of behavior--about a year and a half earlier, just after their arrival on the Sugarloaf--the Pirate said:

"Oh, if you’re goin’ to the dump anyway, while you’re at it, I got a bag or two of garbage yuh can take wiv yuh while you’re at it if you’re goin’ in anyway. It won’t be no extra trouble for yuh."

How could he refuse--how could he refuse the refuse. He couldn’t, and that’s how the task first began and then began to grow ever bigger until the Piggot ended up shackled with the responsibility of managing a small garbage run.

But with his emphysema growing ever worse, he was enlisting Josh’s assistance more and more. By this stage, the old man was doing the driving and little else. Josh was quite able to do the rest. Far from exploiting the boy, the Piggot paid him more than twice the going rate.

During the winter following George’s departure (or at about the stage in this story when Josh is eleven and a half) and while he is in the process of jettisoning bags of garbage so as to unload the truck, he spies a safe lying out in plain view. With his curiosity aroused, he goes toward it in order to take a closer look.

"Hey! This is a safe!" he yelled, "And the door has been completely removed from it." His words stir the old man’s interest sufficiently to induce him to get down out of the truck and walk the short, thirty-foot distance to where the object of curiosity is located.

"Darn it! That’d be Briggsy’s handy work. He now fancies ‘imself as bein’ some sorta tank man."

"What’s a tank man," asked Josh.

"A safe cracker."

"Oh, of course."

"But he’s a loose cannon--he’s prob’ly left his fingerprints all over that--that’s why the boys won’t let ‘im join the gang . . . but the bastards won’t let me in either even though I ain’t no loose cannon. It’s a stupid thing tuh do, leavin’ that tank out in the open. We better load garbage all round it tuh cover it and hide it away. It just don’t pay havin’ the cops find somefint like that in our town. They’ll end up snoopin’ around. Gives our town a bad name too. It don’t pay to foul your own nest."

Being too unreliable and unpredictable to earn membership in the Pirate’s gang, Briggsy was reduced to the status of a solo operator and this restricted him to working with small safes, which were likely to contain relatively small sums of money.

The privileged members of the Pirate’s gang, by comparison, were real tank men and able to access jackpot lottery size bundles of cash--that was like a fact of life. Another inescapable fact of life is that people like to gamble. As a result Tattersals Tasmania, like lotteries everywhere, have lots and lots of money.

For that simple reason Tattersals would make an ideal target for the safe-cracking exploits of the tank men of Sugarloaf Mountain--and it would prove to be one of the most lucrative heists the group was able to carry out during that winter.

It took a good five hours of cutting and cooling, cutting and cooling to open that big fat safe without burning the valuable bank notes it contained. It took quite a few gallons of water judiciously applied to guard against that.

A hundred and fifty thousand dollars (split just five ways now since the Chief’s untimely incarceration) was thirty grand apiece and excellent recompense for just one night’s work.

And yet even the hourly rate at which the wages of safe cracking poured in was paltry when compared with the unlimited flow of revenue generated by the government through gambling. All else is eclipsed into insignificance; all else is child’s play.

Gambling revenue exists on a scale to rival a force of nature; like the moisture, evaporated from the world’s mighty oceans, that rises high into the atmosphere to be cooled and reconstituted into the raindrops that fall upon the land and fill the rivers and streams to a raging torrent. All of this water then wends its way inexorably back to the sea . . . such is the nature and power of gambling.

After all the money is stolen, after all the banks are robbed, after all the safes are cracked; their accumulated proceeds spill over into the infinite sea of gambling revenues which find their way back home again inexorably to the eager, welcoming arms of the government’s gambling coffers. Those are the coffers of infinite capacity; those are the pockets of infinite depth.

Gambling is a game, but a game that goes full circle. It is analogous to the circle of life or the wheel of life or a law of thermodynamics, and it sees to it that criminals willingly and even eagerly cooperate by giving the lion’s share of their ill-gotten gains straight back to the government.

But how can crime pay if even successful criminals give back the money they have risked so much to get their hands on in the first place. This is the pointless, untenable game that can never be won. It is the bucket full of holes that can never be filled. It is a system of rules that cannot be beaten. It is an act of spiritually alienated futility, and it brings about a never-ending need for more and more money.

This meant the tank men of Sugarloaf Mountain always had a mountain of unfinished work left waiting for them. It was work they could never complete. More break ins and robberies were always required to satisfy the never-ending need for more and more money--and a prodigious series of heists were in fact carried out during that winter and again the following summer.

Of the non-safe-cracking jobs carried out during that period, the most memorable was a payroll robbery.

Being from the mainland, the Beanpole is unfamiliar with the layout of Launceston. Being thus unable to properly find his way around its streets excludes him as a possible getaway driver.

They need two good drivers--one to drive the first car a distance of about a mile from the robbery site to the second car. The second car will then, hopefully, get them home. The second car is the Pirate’s ten-year-old Ford Falcon--a hack unlikely to attract attention. The first car, of course, is stolen and will be abandoned at the transfer point.

Because he isn’t driving, because he is new, and because they want him to play a more active role than merely that of disarming security alarms, the Beanpole is chosen as the one who must snatch the leather Gladstone bag away from its rightful custodian.

The target is a large retailer, which has many employees and many more customers. To accommodate the motor vehicles of so many people, there is a large parking lot, in which the Beanpole and two others sit waiting in the stolen car.

When the payroll carrier gets as close to their car as he is likely to get, a masked Beanpole runs toward him and grabs hold of the bag. He tries to snatch and tear it out of the carrier’s hands, but his efforts seem tentative, even half-hearted, and prove to be ineffectual. The Beanpole then turns and runs back to the car empty handed.

Inexplicably, the payroll carrier then throws the bag onto the trunk of the getaway car.

"I was so angry," he said, in a subsequent newspaper interview, "that I wanted to smash the back window of their car--you know, do some damage to it so as to get even with them, but I missed."

Seizing that moment of opportunity, the masked Apache gets out of the car, out from behind the wheel, takes three steps, grabs the payroll bag, gets back behind the wheel and takes off. He guns the car out of the parking lot and, because there is no traffic blocking his path, he drives unhindered straight up the road and away.

Making quick time through the sparse traffic, there is no need for reckless driving, speeding or even hurrying. It takes less than five minutes before the Apache is parking the stolen car quietly and carefully behind getaway car number two, which has the Pirate sitting behind the wheel in casual readiness to depart.

"That was quite a story he had to tell the cops," said the Piggot. Was that payroll carrier workin' for you?"

The Pirate smirked. "You’d think so, would’n’ yuh. Maybe I should send him a coupl’a grand. The poor bastard! He’s prob’ly in all sorts of trouble with the cops. They’re prob’ly still given’ ‘im the third degree, and his employer is prob’ly given’ ‘im an equal hard time. Could yuh believe he was’n’ in on it?"

"No. No way! I think it’s unbelievable! But I can believe the Beanpole screwed up. I warned yuh about ‘im, did’n’ I.

"Well, ‘e ain’t much of a villain, admittedly, but we need im fer the alarms. We done a lot more jobs ‘n’ made a lot more money since he come into the group."

"I wish I could take part in some of your big cash jobs."

"You could definitely take part if it wasn’t for yuh emphysema."

CHAPTER 26: PETER BRIGGS.

It seems nothing ever stays the same; for that reason things can change even during a mere segment of one’s childhood. On Josh’s next visit to the Piggot’s place, he finds the old man’s attention directed elsewhere. He is preoccupied and deeply absorbed in gambling with Peter Briggs.

He has the newspaper’s form guide spread out over the kitchen table. His attention is focused upon the formidable task of selecting a winning horse from each and every race running that day.

Briggs is literally red-eyed with either drugs or strong liquor but he is still sufficiently interested in the proceedings to remain there listening and attending to the Piggot’s running commentary even if that passive role is the only one his present mental condition will allow him to play.

Normally a loutish yahoo, he is now uncharacteristically quiet--no, more than that, he seems heavily sedated and his comments are confined merely to an occasional anthropoid grunt.

They are gambling by means of the telephone. The Piggot has his own TAB account, which the pair are using. The TAB is run totally by the government and is not merely taxed or regulated by it--as in the case of the lottery and casinos.

Despite his emphysema the Piggot has not merely taken up smoking again, he is chain smoking. His oversized ashtray is filled to the brim with butts and ash, courtesy of his seemingly inexhaustible supply of unsold inventory left over from the big cigarette heist.

In making a quick subjective assessment of the situation, Josh thinks he has Buckly’s chance of gaining a favorable response to the question he is anxious to pose, but he poses that question nevertheless:

"When are you going bush bashing in the Blitz again?"

"Sorry, not today Mate. I got a sure thing running in the third?"

Josh stands around awkwardly. With the Piggot’s attention focussed elsewhere, he is not sure as to what he should do next, or of what he should say next, or whether he should say anything at all.

He figures he should just leave and go home but fears such an abrupt action on his part might be construed as rudeness or an angry response to the Piggot’s giving him a ‘no’ answer. He feels stuck to the floor by his shoes and simultaneously pained by the old man’s lack of receptiveness and seeming indifference toward him.

But his conflicted awkwardness is soon dispelled when the Piggot’s daughter arrives upon the scene. She is far from being a frequent visitor. Josh has only seen her once before over the last three years--he is twelve now. She is a woman in her late thirties.

The Piggot looks momentarily up from the table where his head has been absorbed in the paperwork associated with his ‘system’ of gambling.

"There’s me card," he said, handing his credit card to his daughter. Her eyes light up as she takes hold of it.

"Get a nice new TV for yuhself."

She doesn’t stick around for as much as another minute. She heads straight for the back door and Josh follows her out, figuring he can leave abruptly too if she can, and he can even make use of her by virtually leaving under cover of her shadow.

As events unfold over subsequent weeks, Josh learns from a complaining and disillusioned Piggot that his daughter ended up buying a lot more than just a television. She purchased five items in all and, in the process, maxed his card out completely.

She must have gone back into the store to see if she could get a Hi fi set (the second item listed on his statement). Had his card not allowed that transaction to take place, she would then, presumably, have merely left the store and returned the card to him.

But, since that second transaction had been approved, she must have gone back into the store and chosen a third item to see if the card would pay for that too. She must have continued doing this, presumably, until her sixth chosen item was disallowed.

The Piggot then complains that his daughter continued to hang on to the card and wouldn’t bring it back to him. He ended up having to drive all the way down to her place in Hobart to get it back.

The Piggot is now in a complaining mood. He appears to feel used and abused as he continues to speak of his daughter’s exploits.

He retells the story of when she last borrowed his car. She kept it for thirty days exactly, a whole month. She clocked up 9,000 miles over that relatively short period and almost drove the car into the ground.

She averaged 300 miles per day--an amazing amount of mileage, especially if you consider that, had she missed just one day of driving, she would have had to do 600 miles the next day in order to maintain her average. That’s 600 miles or nearly a thousand kilometers in just one day.

"How can yuh drive like that for pleasure," he said. "That ain’t pleasure, that’s work. That’s the sorta work a truck driver gets paid for."

At this point Peter Briggs storms into the house, effectively changing the subject of conversation.

"Someone killed me dog!" said Briggs, who was now sober but very angry. "They killed Devil, me best dog. There’s gonna be hell to pay!"

"No one would kill yuh dog," said the Piggot, in an apparent effort to calm Briggsy down.

"It was that old cunt, Harrison. He fucken well hates me dogs. It’s got to be him."

"He wouldn’uh done that. Just take it easy."

"He’s the one. It couldn’ be no one else. I know the cunt. I know all about ‘im. He goes shoppin’ every fucken Friday--him ‘n’ his mrs."

The Harrison house caught fire that very next Friday. The fire must have started late in the morning. By noon, when the brigade was able to put it out, the house was still standing but damaged beyond repair. The Harrisons, a retired couple, lost all their photographs, all the beloved memories of a lifetime.

The insurance company would not pay the $20,000 the house was insured for. They refused to pay any more than $7,000, which they claimed was the realistic value of the house and contents, and that the Harrisons could actually buy and furnish another house for less than that amount--the difference would compensate them for the time and effort required to obtain second-hand furniture.

What the insurance company said was, in fact, true but changing their agreement was also an arbitrary act. However, the Harrisons could hardly afford to take legal action against them.

*

Being brother and sister, there was an understandable degree of closeness between Peter and Sylvia Briggs. But because Sylvia is the Pirate’s girlfriend there was also, as one might expect, a degree of closeness or at least some kind of positive relationship between Peter Briggs and the Pirate.

This was in fact the case. They often went out on the town as a trio. On one such occasion, when they were going for drinks at a pub in the nearby town of Pritchard, they had an encounter with an overly officious policeman.

The Piggot’s E-type Jag is not parked at forty-five degrees as it should be, it is parked pretty much nose to curb, and before the trio can even enter the pub, the officer is already writing out a ticket.

"That’s harassment!" screamed the Pirate, angrily.

"How can you worry about parking rules in a tiny town like this?" asked Sylvia.

"The law’s the law," said the officer coolly.

"You’re new here," said Briggsy.

"Yes, I’m new and I’m just in time for the opening of the new police station in two weeks. Our combined newness will be like a new broom to sweep this town clean."

After he gets home, the Pirate rights out a check to take care of the piddling parking fine. He mails the check and thinks no more about the incident until a few days later when he learns that the new policeman has been checking all the motor vehicle registrations in his precinct, and this includes Sugarloaf Mountain.

In the process, the new copper finds the registration has expired on old-Alf-the-hermit’s ancient Standard Vanguard: a British car of the 50s. Alf only ever drove that old car about two miles along a bush track from his shack to the pub.

He figured it wasn’t worth paying full registration in return for so little usage, especially in light of his being a chronic alcoholic who was also chronically short of money.

The new policeman went all the way out to the hermit’s shack and, with screwdriver in hand, screwed the number plates off his car. That was the major topic of conversation at the local pub over the next few days and the coming weekend.

As it so happened, that weekend was the very last weekend before the new Pritchard Police Station was due to open, and would have opened if it hadn’t mysteriously burned to the ground in the wee small hours of Sunday morning. What had been shining bright and brand spanking new was now a total catastrophic loss. The new constable was hopping mad.

Senior police were not happy either. They brought in a portable police booth, barely three times the size of a telephone booth. But that minimal facility ended up being pushed over by a truck or Landcruiser late on the following Saturday night or early Sunday morning.

The new copper was once again hopping mad. Senior police were not happy either and saw fit to transfer their new boy to another precinct many miles away--a gesture suggesting he was quite likely to blame for causing the problem or at least provoking it into existence.

It was just a few weeks after the new constable’s departure that Mrs. Campbell came to call on the Pirate to discuss a matter of great personal importance to her.

"Come in. Take a seat. Tuh what do we owe for the pleasure of this visit," said the Pirate.

"I got troubles," she said. "I got these neighbors--riffraff they are. They bin stealin’ from me."

"And yuh want me tuh do somefint about that?"

"Yes. I could pay you a hundred now and another hundred just as soon as I can save it (in a month or maybe two) if you could beat them up and burn their house down.

"Well, there’s a giggle," said the Pirate. "What makes you think I would ever do such a thing?"

"Well, my friend told me, the only way out of my predicament was to hire professional criminals to do what was needed."

"And?"

"And she said that you are Mr. Big."

"Well, there’s a giggle," said the Pirate. "But why don’t yuh just call the cops?"

"Oh, I done that already, but they won’t do nuffent. They gotta have proof it was them what done it. And when the cops talk to ‘em they’re just as sweet as pie. Butter wouldn’t melt in their mouth. And they just tell the cops I’m a crazy old lady.

But since I called the cops, them riffraff have threatened to burn me house down. I’m too scared to go shoppin’ now or even sleep at night." Her voice breaks to indicate she is distraught. "Why can’t you help me? Everyone reckons you already got rid of more than a dozen houses full of riffraff."

"Foul gossip and slander!" said the Pirate. "You could get me in a lotta trouble talkin’ like that . . . Hey Sylvia! Come in here. Take Mrs. Campbell in the bedroom and check her for a wire."

"Oh, I’m not wearin’ a wire and I’d be glad to prove it, then maybe you’ll help me."

The two women reemerge after a short time and Sylvia gives the Pirate the all clear.

"How close are yuh to the house next door? Is there a vacant lot between yuhs?"

"I’m very close--only about twenty-five feet away."

"Have yuh got a real good reliable alarm clock?"

"Yes, I’ve got a very good one."

"Okay, set it for three o’clock tomorrow morning--that’s when the fire will start. Make sure yuh don’t sleep through it or yuh could end up dead. Let the fire burn pretty good before yuh call the brigade--that will guarantee yuh get no more riffraff movin’ in next door."

Mrs. Campbell is now smiling radiantly. She hands a hundred- dollar bill to the Pirate.

"No, Luv!" he said, emphatically. "Hang on tuh that."

Mrs. Campbell thanked the Pirate profusely and bid them good afternoon. Her smile conveyed such a warm sense of wellbeing as to suggest she now felt confident that her problems were solved, and her confidence would subsequently prove to be entirely justified.

It is said that good fences make good neighbors. But neighbors are amenable to other influences too, and those varied influences can sometimes prove far more powerful than the mere constraints imposed by physical boundaries.

*

There are two young men drinking in the local pub. Relative newcomers to the Sugarloaf, they have lived there maybe a few months. With a number of drinks under each of their belts, their growing intoxication emboldens them to a state of unbridled bravado, a bravado which is growing ever more reckless and thoughtless.

They are talking big, talking loud and bragging to Sylvia. They claim to know who the serial arsonist is. They have figured it out. It is Peter Briggs. Needless to say perhaps, they are oblivious to the fact that Sylvia happens to share that same surname.

The very next day, one of the young men is standing on his front veranda when he spies Peter Briggs walking very fast and coming straight in his direction. Briggs is walking so fast in fact he breaks his stride every now and then in order to go into a half run. Briggs is clearly livid and, more significantly, he is carrying a sawed off shotgun.

The young bloke on the veranda stares unwittingly for a moment or two at the approaching figure before suddenly exploding into action. He runs into the house, presumably to warn his partner, and the two young men escape via the back door. They run for their lives at breakneck speed straight into the forest that encroaches upon their backyard. They high tail it for the hills.

An enraged Briggsy searches the house, and, finding no one, decides that setting fire to it, and their car, might serve as an appropriate kind of consolation penalty.

Those two boys probably decided it was a good idea to leave town and never come back, but how they carried out their departure exactly is still a mystery to this day. Did they walk? If so, where to? Did they thumb a ride?

In any case they never came back--but that assumes they actually left in the first place, so to be more accurate I would have to simply say they were never seen again.

*

The following winter, it looks like the firebug has finally been caught. A newspaper account of a police report discloses that the alleged culprit is a retarded teenage boy.

Neighbors had observed him a couple of times loitering around a vacant house. This caused them to maintain a vigil to see what he might do next. He did subsequently place a pile of kindling under the house and set it on fire.

Timely intervention with the help of a garden hose saw the fire extinguished before it could cause any damage. The police were then notified and, with minimal interrogation, the alleged firebug confessed to the gamut of crimes he was accused of.

But in spite of this, by the end of winter Grant Lloyd loses eight more of his rental homes. This marks one more year marred by serious financial setbacks for him. Such uncompensated house fires are beginning to take the fun right out of being a slumlord.

Another irritating source of concern is the fact that half of his renters refuse to pay any rent at all. He only charges ten dollars a week in any case but they refuse to pay even that. Moreover, they refuse to pay him with such tenacious determination as to suggest there was some kind of sacred principle at stake.

A rental collection scenario might typically go as follows: Lloyd goes to one of his rental houses to collect the rent. The front door is open. The tenants are inside standing near the wood-burning heater. Lloyd enters the house and attempts to engage them in conversation but he senses they are not in a receptive frame of mind.

Their subtle lack of receptiveness is finally made flagrantly obvious when one noisily hawks an enormous loogie and spits it onto the stove, where it sizzles like an oyster at a beachside barbecue.

Such symbolic, non-verbal subtleties of communication are then likely to give way to unmistakably explicit utterances, which convey hostility and a defiant unwillingness to cooperate: "FUCK YUH, YUH CUNT!" "GO ‘N GET FUCKED, YUH CUNT!" "GO ‘N FUCK YUHSELF, YUH CUNT!"

The above comments pretty much cover the gamut of verbal responses Lloyd is likely to receive in lieu of payment.

Having suffered the combined onslaught of financial loss, and bad feelings on the part of both renters and other residents, Grant Lloyd finally loses all further interest in being a slumlord. He leaves town and heads for the coast.

He also leaves the town in a condition where each row of houses on each street resembles the keyboard of a piano: with each white key designating an intact house and each black key designating a burnt down house.

That situation, by the law of unintended consequences, is one for which Grant Lloyd is partly if not substantially responsible.

*

The arrival of yet another summer brings with it a significant birthday for Josh. He is now thirteen and, as he sees it, he is no longer a child--he is a teenager. That is a distinction he is very conscious of. It is somehow an achievement even if time alone has brought it about; it is a newly achieved status of which he might quite rightly be proud.

Meanwhile, in the town of Grenville on the north coast, Briggs is able to commandeer a small safe by hack sawing it loose from its moorings. He then perambulates it back to his mother’s place by means of a hand trolley. He manages that feat under cover of darkness alone--he doesn’t bother to cover the safe with a blanket or sheet of canvas or anything else.

Briggsy is taking a short vacation, in part to spend some time with his mother, but that is not his sole purpose. He also hopes to take advantage of whatever felonious opportunities might happen to present themselves within the boundaries of his mother’s neighborhood and during the course of his stay there.

He also has at his disposal the substantial resources of his deceased father’s workshop. This choice of tools sees him very prepared, as fully prepared as an Eagle Boy Scout--and preparation need wait for nothing more than opportunity. It takes him but two hours to crack the safe and remove its ill-gotten contents.

Briggs is so pleased with the ease with which that first safe was misappropriated that he decides to go for another in broad daylight the next day--Sunday. He figures Sunday the best day of the week by far to undertake such a bold venture.

Surprisingly perhaps, he is able to score a second safe. He is wheeling it down the sidewalk on his trusty trolley and is about halfway home when he is seen and challenged by the police.

Two officers in a patrol car just happen to be driving past. They stop alongside Briggs and get out of their car to confront and question him.

"What in blazes do you think you’re doing?" asked the senior constable.

"I found this up the road sittin’ on a vacant lot, so I went home and got me a trolley ‘n come back tuh get it."

"You can tell it to a judge, a cock & bull story like that," said the senior constable. "You really have one hell of a hide!"

Briggs is arrested and taken into custody but he remains in jail for barely twenty-four hours. The Pirate bails him out on Monday--the very next day. Briggs then goes back to his mother’s house to access the cash stashed there. It amounts to the tidy sum of several thousand dollars.

He reimburses the Pirate forthwith for the bail he has stood and brings the rest of the cash back to Sugarloaf Mountain. In a gesture of surprising generosity, he gives almost half of the sum remaining to the Piggot who, as usual, has a string of bad debts--not that he will use this money to pay them off. No indeed! He has that money earmarked for a purpose that ranks much higher in his order of priorities.

To increase his income, the Piggot has been keeping all the fence money and not just his percentage of it. He figures the tank men (the inner circle of the Pirate’s gang) are so well off they can easily do without their percentage share of the stolen merchandise he sells. The Piggot also has credit card debts and is behind in paying all of his household bills.

The windfall profit supplied by Briggs does little to even temporarily alleviate the Piggot’s state of financial insolvency; that money goes back to its place of origin the following Saturday when he gambles every cent of it away on the horses.

CHAPTER 27: THE DOMINO THEORY.

The rapid depletion of Briggsy’s Grenville money reflects a general trend throughout the Sugarloaf; the proceeds of crime are suffering under the relentless onslaught of gambling. It doesn’t take long before money is in short supply for even the most financially prudent of inner circle members.

This predisposes them to a willingness to take more risks than usual. Having gotten away with so many crimes so far makes them overconfident to the point of becoming reckless; the Pirate is the only one who doesn’t share their sentiments.

The rest of the gang has set it in their minds to carry out a National Park job and, against the Pirate’s expressed misgivings, they insist on going through with it. The Pirate is becoming cash poor too but is too cautious to take part in what he perceives as an ill-considered venture.

"Them National Park people don’t spend money," said the Pirate. "They’re not like gamblers, you know. You won’t get nuffent fer yuh trouble but another chance of gettin’ nicked."

But the tank men are not dissuaded by his advice--advice they would have heeded if they weren’t so desperately pressed for cash. They go to the National Park office in the wee small hours of the morning and easily manage to commandeer its smaller than average size safe.

But unbeknown to them they have been observed by an ornithologist. Her specialized field is caprimulginaceous birds (nightjars), the study of which keeps her up very late at night.

She telephones the police, and her astute powers of observation are then brought to bear upon the task of providing them with a lucid and detailed description of the four men seen loitering and their pickup truck.

It isn’t too many miles up the highway before the long arm of the police catches up with the hapless tank men. With siren blaring and lights flashing, the patrol car pulls alongside their Landcruiser and motions them to pull over and stop.

The tank men comply with that official instruction and prepare themselves to meet questions the police are sure to ask, with the coached answers the Pirate has taught them. When asked how the safe got into the back of their truck, they said they found it on the side of the road and decided to take it home with them.

That street-smart strategy had already proved of value to Briggsy, who had used it to escape the serious charges that might otherwise have been laid against him, and who, as a result, had suffered no adverse consequences beyond spending twenty-four hours in the lock up.

But when asked about the oxy-acetylene tanks, the blowtorch and other burglary tools in their possession, their claiming they had found those too was an explanation that stretched the bounds of credibility far beyond the elastic limit. It failed laughably to ring true and was unlikely to impress even the most liberal of judges.

The judge subsequently grants bail to the tank men but sets it at a high figure. That sum is substantially aggravated in being multiplied by four, by the number of tank men involved.

It is more money than the Pirate can readily lay his hands on. To make up the deficit, he is forced to sell the Blitz for a mere fraction of what it cost him to build. At that point, he is still short of the sum required and must also offer up his house as collateral.

*

The number of people who have gone missing on Sugarloaf Mountain has been climbing steadily over the last few years. The number has now reached nine. This has become an extremely serious matter. Firstly, because the missing people are all feared murdered; secondly, because nine out of a total population of two hundred translates out as a staggering murder rate of four and a half percent--or four thousand five hundred per hundred thousand.

Because of this, the National Crime Authority has been assigned the task of investigating the matter. The NCA (Australia’s version of the FBI) bring heavy equipment to town to excavate numerous potential sites. They concentrate their particular attention upon old and disused mine shafts. Many of these have been filled or partially filled over the years and for reasons often unknown.

The National Crime Authority also sends a team of detectives to interview the town’s people. Two detectives--a man and a woman--come and knock on Kathy’s front door. They ask whether she knows anything about the nine missing men--they are all men.

"Five of the names on this list I’ve never even heard of before," said Kathy. "And while I’ve heard of the other four, I really didn’t know them very well. I really didn’t know them at all.

I saw them at the Post Office and was introduced to them. I saw them subsequently maybe a few times in the post office or in the general store . . . I saw each of them maybe two or three or four times. I’m sorry but that’s really all I know about them."

"Who else lives here with you?" asked the male detective.

"There’s just me and my thirteen-year-old son."

"There is a large and well-organized gang of criminals known to be living in this town," said the male detective.

"They might easily take advantage of a young woman like yourself living virtually alone as you do with just your young son," said the female detective, "but remember: the police are just a phone call away".

Kathy successfully suppresses a smirk and a sudden inclination to giggle.

*

Josh is hanging out in the woodshed one day, doing nothing in particular, when he hears voices coming from the yard of his neighbor to the west. With his curiosity aroused, he looks through a large crack in the woodshed wall to see what he can spy.

He sees Peter Briggs talking and nodding his head in apparent agreement with their neighbor to the west. Then, the neighbor takes out his wallet and hands Briggs what looks like a handful of bank notes. Josh gives this incident no further consideration until much later.

At about 3:30 the following morning Kathy is woken up by popping sounds resembling small explosions. These sounds, though familiar to her already, are nevertheless different--but only different in that they are noticeably louder than before.

For that reason, the apparent difference fails to mask their meaning. On the contrary, it serves to intensify it. It also clarifies in Kathy’s mind the need of putting into effect an immediate course of action.

Jumping out of bed in a flash, she notices a faint orange glow emanating from the gap at the bottom of her bedroom door. She switches her bedroom light on, then quickly puts on her dressing gown and a warm jacket.

This habit of hers, ingrained by the cold mountain climate, had been honed to the point of approximating a reflex action; an action she would never fail to carry out even in an emergency.

But for that same reason, this pressing habit would take her virtually no time to carry out and would thus not interfere with the effectiveness of whatever emergency procedures she might be called on over the years to put into effect.

Upon opening her bedroom door Kathy was immediately confronted by a much-increased intensity of yellow/orange flaming light shining through her living room windows. At that point she clearly sees and understands that the source of this light is the ferocious, burning inferno that had once been the house next door.

Staring fearfully at the pyrotechnic portrait, which is framed by the living-room window closest to her (the one she is looking through) the glass suddenly cracks with a loud snapping, cracking bang.

This startles Kathy out of her momentary mesmerism and spurs her to complete the simple task required of her. She heads straight for the back bedroom, Josh’s room. She turns the light on, drags him out of bed and grabs his jacket and slippers.

Kathy leads the teenager out the back door and around to the safe side of the house. It is at that very point that the fire brigade arrives. The new fire chief is also the owner of the local sawmill and this makes him more sensitively attuned than most to the dangers of fire.

He and his wife are the only firefighters upon the scene at that early hour. The pair will run the entire show between them if no other brigade members turn up in the meantime to render assistance.

While Kathy is pleased and grateful to have the brigade on site so early (especially since she was too pressed for time to be able to call herself) she is nevertheless intensely worried at the very real prospect of losing her home.

"It’s all my fault," she said, nervously clutching Josh, "I let the insurance lapse. I did that to cut costs but all it did was bring Murpy’s law into play. I’m such a stupid, foolish woman."

"It wasn’t your fault, mum. I think it might have been Peter Briggs. I saw him talking to the neighbor yesterday. The neighbor gave him money . . . maybe to burn the house down for the insurance money."

"Well, that’s possible," she said, "but don’t you go around saying things like that unless you actually saw him light the fire; otherwise you could end up bearing false witness against your neighbor, and that is a very serious matter."

The brigade trains most of its water on the Fleming house to soak and cool it and keep it from bursting into flames. Water poured upon the burning house appears to have no quelling effect whatsoever. The inferno has reached such a critical temperature that nothing can stop it; nothing can stop the chain of events that began with a mere match-flame less than an hour before.

It is touch and go for about twenty minutes as to whether the Fleming house will catch fire too and be consumed, but, after that, the blazing conflagration begins to die down and continues to do so slowly but steadily.

Allowing the insurance to lapse was part of a cost cutting plan Kathy had implemented to help her save a small nest egg, but had the house burned down she would have been reduced once more to her hapless equilibrium point, the point of zero progress.

Being seemingly her point of equilibrium, it was a place she knew only too well. God would never allow her to enter the middle class. That one fact was certain in her estimation. All else was irrelevant and even meaningless. Her efforts good and bad would come to naught. Her decisions wise or stupid would make no difference.

With the fire now under control and the house in fact saved, Kathy felt a profound sense of relief. But in spite of this fortunate outcome, the house had nevertheless sustained a degree of damage. All the windows on the western side were cracked by the sheer intensity of heat they were exposed to.

Also, the force of water generated by the brigade’s high-pressure pump had caused some of the cracked panes to become dislodged, and this had allowed quite a lot of water to enter the house. Most of the west wall was also blackened because it had begun to burn after the paint had been scorched right off it.

And yet, it could have been worse: They could have lost the house, they could even have lost their lives. By the law of compensation, they must necessarily also have gained something. What was that? They gained a vacant block next door, which brought with it a range of ramifications and potential uses. They also gained a buffer zone, which reduced the hazard of fire in the future--at least on that side.

Liz comes to visit, seemingly to offer her sympathy and support but she has serious problems of her own, which soon cause her to slant the conversation in that direction.

"I know it’s not a good time to ask, but I was wondering if you could lend me two hundred dollars?"

"Two hundred dollars is everything I have in the world," said Kathy. "What do you need it for?"

"I got into a bit of trouble. The police came to our place and they saw eight pot plants sitting in front of my main picture window in the living room. They were really Peter’s but he would have got a much bigger fine or jail time so I told them the marijuana plants were mine."

Kathy shook her head in dismay. "Why doesn’t he pay? You’ve saved him money in any case. You’ve saved him from having to pay a much bigger fine, so if he paid the two hundred dollars, he’d already be a lot better off. He’d be getting a real bargain. So why isn’t he grateful for that?"

"He is grateful. It’s just that he hasn’t got no money at the moment."

"In order to save money for Josh I didn’t even pay the insurance on the house. That makes the money I’ve saved hard won. I’m sure as hell not going to turn around now and throw it down a rat hole. Are you brain-dead! Are you ABSOLUTELY BRAIN-DEAD!"

Kathy is so angry, she is losing her composure; worse than that, she is just plain ‘losing it’.

"You shouldn’t scream at me like that," said Liz, getting up and walking away with humiliation and hurt feelings written all over her face. "You should show me a bit of respect."

"Are you ABSOLUTELY BRAIN DEAD!" screamed Kathy with unmitigated intensity. She is now virtually hysterical.

*

While the tank men are waiting to stand trial, the Beanpole, for whatever reason, moves out of town. This necessarily sets up a physical distance between himself and the rest of the group but does it do more than that? A suspicious person might have been driven to do more than speculate about his motive for doing something like that.

After moving into Launceston where he rents a house with his girlfriend, the Beanpole is stewing over the prospect of serving hard time. After contemplating that prospect for about two or three weeks, he panics. He goes to the police and offers to become an informant under the witness protection program.

Within five minutes of entering the police station, he is singing like a mezzo-soprano. He gives details, names, dates and addresses, pertaining to a surpassing and highly implausible eighty-three felonious transgressions.

The egregious nature, of the Beanpole’s litany of break-ins and robberies, makes it highly newsworthy. It makes the Sydney newspapers, radio and television, not to mention a smattering of newspapers all over Australia.

The Chief is in prison with but a few months of his current sentence remaining. Over the prison grapevine, he has heard about the comprehensive news coverage, which he perceives as inimical to his best interests and perhaps his entire future.

In light of this, he begins to sweat at the thought of being implicated by the Beanpole and the likely prospect of his serving several additional consecutive sentences.

He is concerned in particular about stories he has heard circulating in prison concerning the confiscation of property that has been purchased with the proceeds of crime.

While this latter matter was something pertaining only to drug dealers in the USA, it seemed to worry the Chief a great deal more than anything else and would occupy a paramount place in his mind and his thinking.

As a consequence he tells his wife to sell their beach-house as quickly as possible and convert the proceeds into cash, which she should then keep stashed in a safe place.

The purchase of that house, situated in an idyllic beachside resort, was probably the smartest and most purposeful act ever carried out by the Chief. He made just a few large cash payments on it and then it was his outright. He paid a total of $30,000 for it, which in the late 70s was a sizeable sum of money in Tasmania.

Being in a hurry to sell, Gwendoline, his wife, accepts the very first offer she receives. That sum ($20,000) is substantially less than the market value and is further reduced by legal and estate agent’s fees.

But she figures an immediate loss of this size is hardly a problem considering the circumstances, and the fact that she has a plan to redress the entire situation in any case, which will render such a loss into irrelevance and insignificance.

It takes money to make money. That was a statement she had heard so many times throughout her life and it explained so much. She was poor because she had always been deprived of an opportunity to make money; she had always been deprived of an opportunity to make money because she didn’t have the initial sum of money that it takes to make money with. Therefore, she was merely caught in a vicious circle and once that circle was broken everything would be different.

And that fortuitous circumstance had now finally come to pass. It had been a long and tedious wait but this was now her time to shine; especially because she had not only been given the opportunity now but had also devised a plan of action. Such an original plan as she had formulated all by herself might not merely reap bigger rewards, it was also certain to prove enjoyable and entertaining. It was a multi function plan.

It encompassed entertainment, accommodation and profits, and the latter would pay for the other two. With a bag full of cash, she would travel to Hobart.

While there, she would sleep in a plush hotel. The high cost of that would not be extravagant or wasteful either, because it would be covered by the profits she was bound to make at the casino across the street.

But due to unfortunate and unforeseen circumstances, her plan fails to pan out. In fact, she loses all of the money and loses it rapidly.

This is more than a disappointment to Gwennie. It is a predicament of gargantuan proportions and far reaching implications.

She is now even bereft of bus fare; bus fare that might have enabled her to return to the home that she now no longer owns in any case but that she might have returned to had she not sold it.

If that isn’t bad enough already, the Chief’s imminent release from prison is causing Gwennie to see his street-fighting prowess in a new light. She had seen it in action previously, of course, when it was directed with considerable effectiveness toward others. But now she is able to conjure up a scenario in which she would find herself at the receiving end of it.

After contemplating that prospect for perhaps and hour or two, she panics and heads straight for the nearest police station. She explains the serious nature of her problem and takes pains to emphasize the high probability with which the Chief is likely to inflict acts of considerable violence upon her person. Given these circumstances, she asks the police:

"What can yuh do for me if I dob in the Chief?"

"That depends on whether or not you’ve got something good on him to give us," said the detective Sargent. "The more serious the crime, the more we can give you."

"How about murder?" she asked.

"Murder would be very good. For that we could give you a house, a pension, a new identity, the works . . . provided you really have the goods on him."

"Oh, I got the goods alright. Remember the old pensioner in Hobart about two years ago--The Chief was short of cash n’ tied ‘im up n’ gagged ‘im. Then the Chief burgled the house. He di’n’ beat the ol’ bloke up or nuffent, but ‘e cou’’n’ breve n’ ‘e died."

Just two days before he is due for release the Chief suffers a disappointing setback. He becomes just one more victim of the law--the law of unintended consequences, which had been set into motion by a spurious rumor about drug dealers in the USA. He is charged with murder and detained in prison for a further, unspecified period of time to face trial.

By coincidence, or perhaps a confluence in the judicial pipeline, the Apache is also due to stand trial. But his current case is an entirely different one and concerns a rape he allegedly committed two years earlier. Keeping his promise to the Pirate, who, as always, has stood his bail; he does in fact show up in court at the appointed time.

The Apache allegedly picked up a woman in a pub in Launceston and drove her home a distance of about ten miles. When, later that night, she was unwilling to have sexual intercourse with him, he raped her. Worse than that, he grabbed her by the hair, hit her head against a screen door, and raped her in front of her five-year-old son.

In taking these extenuating factors into consideration, the judge saw fit to sentence the Apache to the substantial sentence of twelve years imprisonment.

*

In prison, the Chief is now stewing over the prospect of standing trial for the murder of the elderly pensioner, which is likely to carry a sentence of twenty years to life. With his fear overcoming his loyalty, he tells police he is willing to do a deal.

He can’t tell them who the real killer of the old man was, nor can he tell them who killed a number of other people--valuable as that information might no doubt be to the police. He can’t utter a single word about any of those matters, because that would make him a dog, the lowest of the low.

Instead of doing that, he will do something entirely different--to his way of thinking at least. Rather than tell them the person’s name, he will write it down on a piece of paper. He holds the piece of paper up for police to see, then puts it in his mouth, chews it up and swallows it.

Having performed that strangely ritualistic ceremony, the Chief takes police to his uncle’s sawmill and the exact spot where the Badden lies buried.

They dig fifteen feet down and discover the still clothed remains complete with a wallet in the back pocket of the dead man’s blue jeans. The wallet contains ID including a driver’s license.

The Apache is charged with the murder forthwith--a murder that took place more than ten years earlier.

The Chief then takes police to Dead Man’s Gulch. A forensic team abseils down the cliff and scours the area but finds nothing more than a few small strips of clothing.

When police tell him there is nothing down there, the Chief responds with incredulity and amazement.

"But I seen ‘em go over! I know for a fact that at least three dead men went over that cliff. I know that! I was here! I seen it! I seen three the Apache dumped over the edge and there was prob’ly more what went over that cliff when I wasn’t here tuh see ‘em go over. I ain’t bullshittin’ yuh!"

"Well, I believe you on the whereabouts of the first body," said the detective lieutenant, "but only because there was incontrovertible proof. That’s quite the opposite here. There’s not a skerrick of evidence to be found anywhere and I certainly can’t just take your word for it that people were murdered here. I really can’t take the word of a criminal too seriously in any case."

The Chief continues to act confused, nonplussed and bewildered but after giving the matter some serious thought, he suddenly remembers the details of a conversation he once had with the Apache.

"It must be true!" said the Chief. "The Tassie devils musta eaten ‘em up completely till there was nuffent left of ‘em."

"Huh, that doesn’t prove a thing," said the detective lieutenant. "You could tell me there were six bodies here and three bodies there and another six bodies fifty yards away--and the only reason you can’t see any trace of them now is because they were all totally consumed by devils. That doesn’t prove a thing."

But the Chief’s story is nevertheless plausible. Farmers have seen dead cattle, which were progressively devoured by Tasmanian devils. The devils would eat everything: hide and hair, horns and hooves, skin and bone, even the skull; how much easier then to devour a human being compared to a cow. And yet the Chief’s story still doesn’t prove anything.

"Why would he kill all those people in any case?" asked the detective lieutenant.

"Well, prob’ly ‘cause he was cleanin’ up the filth. That’s what he sometimes said. He said he shoulda gotta medal from society for all the filth what he cleaned up."

"But if that’s true, why didn’t he kill you rather than kill Raskins. Raskins was just a harmless alcoholic."

The Chief looks down, looks away and turns quiet.

*

In the depths of that next winter, Josh goes to visit the Piggot. It is a very frosty Saturday morning, and Josh is dressed appropriately from head to foot. The frost is thick on the ground, is covering the trees, is everywhere.

It is his ingrained habit to knock at the Piggot’s back door but enter immediately without waiting. Upon doing so and entering the backroom (which is the kitchen in the Piggot’s house because he has set things up that way) Josh meets the Piggot’s daughter once more.

She is in the process of emptying her father’s kitchen cupboards, and appears to be emptying them in their entirety. She is taking the canned food, food in jars, coffee, sugar, flour, Weet Bix, Corn Flakes, and anything else he has on hand.

She had made this visit in any case in the hope of borrowing some money or borrowing his credit card, but he was unable to accommodate her on both counts. He had neither cash money nor a functioning credit card.

This was likely a matter of considerable disappointment to her, and yet by dint of her relentless determination, she was not about to let the time-consuming trip to the mountaintop go entirely to waste by returning home empty handed.

Instead, she figured she might just as well cut her losses and settle for whatever groceries the old man had in the house.

Upon entering the living room, Josh finds the Piggot sitting in a lounge chair and watching TV. A large tank of pressurized oxygen stands upright beside his chair.

With the steady progression of his emphysema his movements are now limited by the length of a plastic house, which is attached to the tank at one end while the other end is hooked up to his nose.

"I'm getting the house clad with vinyl siding," he said excitedly to Josh. "It'll look great and I won't have to pay it off, ‘cause I’ll be dead before I make more than a few payments on it."

Josh is too distracted by the daughter’s antics to be able to attend too closely to what the Piggot is saying. Instead, his eyes are peering through the living room doorway and into the kitchen.

He is bemused by the daughter’s octopus-like behavior, which he perceives as a flailing frenzy of multiple arms and grasping hands. There is a fervor here rivaling a feeding frenzy among sharks and something just as mechanistic and amoral; it is the complete and consummate selfishness; a selfishness that can know no shame.

The daughter is an adult, is thirty-eight years of age. Josh is yet to turn fourteen but he knows this isn’t right. She shouldn’t be exploiting a sick and helpless old man.

She should be doing things for him to make him more comfortable in his infirmity. But she would never bother to visit him at all if he didn’t sweeten the deal with some kind of direct or indirect monetary reward.

Both the Piggot’s trucks are now gone as well. But they were never his to begin with. The Pirate owned them both and found it convenient to park them on that vacant lot and the Piggot then gradually and logically fell into the habit of keeping an eye on them, maintaining them and driving them.

The Pirate even paid for the Piggot’s house. The Piggot would leave this world with less money and fewer possessions than when he entered it. How is that possible if he came into this world with nothing--because he had a negative financial net worth; he owed money to people everywhere.

After a few minutes the daughter enters the living room. She eyes a sideboard curiously, goes to it and opens its double doors. They are doors that open out from the middle.

"Whatcha got in here?" she asked, but the question wasn’t a serious one, because she could see very well what he had in there. It was his secret stash of rice cream--his favorite food. It was the food that would keep him going when his delicate stomach could digest nothing else.

Storing this, his culinary treasure, in the living room seemed like a deliberate strategy to safeguard it from theft, because people don’t normally keep food stored in their living room. But even if it was a deliberate gambit on his part, it didn’t work; it was no match for his daughter’s powers of detection.

CHAPTER 27: THE MARKS BROTHERS.

Almost from the start, almost from first meeting him, Kathy was unable to see eye to eye with grandpa Fleming. Even Arthur openly described his father as being an arrogant bastard. That at least was one conviction the conflicted couple could share.

This, her father in law’s arrogance, and her own stubborn pride would never allow Kathy to go to Grandpa Fleming for help. She viewed that prospect as the supreme humiliation, the shameful gesture of stooping low to go through a narrow gate with begging bowl in hand.

On top of this Kathy believes she just doesn’t fit in with ‘those people’--as she thinks of them. She had wanted very much to fit in, of course. In the early days she had been most eager to take what she saw as ‘her rightful place’ in that respectable, middle class family.

It was something she had wanted probably more than anything else in the world, and she had hoped; she had even expected it to be one big happy family. She had wished for a middle class husband, who would bring her middle class prosperity and that would necessarily bring her middle class in-laws as well.

Those middle-class in-laws would constitute an idyllic family along the lines of an American television show. The father would be just like the character, played by Robert Young, in the series Father Knows Best.

He would have a professional career and own a big two-story house. He would be handsome, intelligent and debonair, but affable and always approachable, and on top of that he would always be wise, loving and kind.

That was her initial, naïve belief of how family life would be in the Fleming household. For that reason it was understandable she would want dearly to be part of that, but it was an illusion, a fraud, a fake and a sham.

Being highly intelligent, Grandpa Fleming was nearly always right about everything, but in his arrogance he felt he was always right; therefore, he also had the right to tell people what to do.

It was only fitting and proper in any case that other people should always do what he told them to, because that was their guaranteed shortcut to correctness; therefore, disobedience was nothing but willful, perverse stupidity.

But Kathy experienced life under the banner of this uncompromising logic as redolent of living under a Nazi dictatorship. Her own family was dysfunctional but this seemed a hell of a lot worse and it was just so foreign to her.

Even Theo, her own flesh and blood, had seemed alien, had seemed a stranger to her. That feeling was to intensify with their subsequent physical estrangement.

In Kathy’s heartfelt estimate, Theo was a Fleming by name as well as nature--he was a Fleming through and through. Josh, by way of contrast, was a Fleming in name only and a true kindred spirit.

But with Grandpa’s advancing years and failing health came fundamental changes to the Fleming family dynamic. He was now seventy and had suffered a serious stroke. This had left him in a wheel chair, unable to walk and unable even to talk.

Grandma Fleming (Helen), who had been thoroughly dominated by her husband in the past, now found herself in charge. She was the boss and her attitude toward Kathy and Josh, which had been positive in the past in any case, was now finally free to openly manifest itself.

Grandpa’s stroke and a series of conciliatory letters from Helen and Theo had softened Kathy’s disposition against her in laws and had left her amenable to the idea of a family visit.

That visit would finally come to pass during the end-of-year school holidays that summer. Kathy drove Josh and herself into Launceston in her now twenty-five year old car.

During this visit and attempted reconciliation, Kathy is pleasantly surprised at finding herself cementing the foundations of a new and entirely different relationship with her mother in law.

With everything having revolved around the constant friction with Grandpa and the powerful emotions necessarily generated by that, such an opportunity had not previously presented itself. And even if it had it would probably have been resisted or actively sabotaged by Grandpa in any case.

But now Kathy actually found herself enjoying the rapport she was establishing with Helen. She found Helen to be more than softly spoken; she was also more thoughtful and a lot more intelligent than Kathy had previously given her credit for.

Helen also had numerous qualities that made her congenial. She was undemanding, agreeable, reasonable and amenable; traits that were understandable in retrospect--how else could she have tolerated her domineering husband for more than forty years.

Helen’s personality had been eclipsed in the past. But all of that had now changed. It was like a big tree had died in the forest and a small tree that was growing beneath and shaded by it was now finally able to find its place in the sun where it might not only grow to its full and proper stature but blossom too.

That process of arboreal succession appeared to be taking place now in analogous form within Helen’s personality as well as her newly found relationship with Kathy.

Theo and Josh were also cementing the foundations of an altogether new and positive relationship. Malice had, ostensibly, been removed from the equation, had been taken right out of their relationship. It was only the one-sided malice of the bully, big brother that had been removed, but that was nevertheless enough to change everything.

Theo had undergone a seemingly miraculous transformation. He now not only treated Josh with politeness and respect, he made him the center of attention, treated him virtually like a VIP. He even took Josh to the movies, to the zoo and to other places of interest in his neighborhood.

Theo had undergone a seemingly miraculous transformation. He was now such a thoroughly nice guy that for a little while at least Josh became even more wary of him than he had been in the past.

But after a short interval of time he came to believe his brother had really changed--no, it was much more than that, Theo was a man now and no longer a wanton boy.

Josh had just completed the eighth grade and had done very well in all his subjects except math. Hearing this, Theo offers to give him an hour’s tuition each day if he spends the remainder of the school holidays at the Fleming house in Launceston.

Josh is well aware that Theo is a scholarship winner and a brainiac who definitely has the power to help him. For that reason he tentatively agrees to the idea, but he hedges his options with a plan B: If anything goes wrong Kathy will come and get him immediately. Otherwise she will leave Josh with Theo for all of four weeks--the entire remainder of the school holidays.

Theo is a veritable wizard at math. Moreover, he is a superb tutor. He first searches to find where Josh is up to and only then does he begin to teach. He explains each separate step in the proceedings with such clarity that Josh can understand it immediately and then remember it long term.

Theo’s fabulous tuition quickly brings Josh’s grade level up to an ‘A+’. That, in fact, is the grade he earns at his next exam: his first math exam in the ninth grade. In a surprising reversal of form, Math is now his best subject in spite of the fact that he had previously earned ‘A’s in all his other subjects and continues to do so.

*

When the National Park burglary case goes to trial, the Beanpole is the first to take the stand; this opening gambit sets the overall tenor of the proceedings from that point on. The Beanpole monopolizes the stand to the point that it becomes his designated place to sit as much as any director’s chair; he is the star witness and stool pigeon for the prosecution.

By means of manipulative ethics, moralistic juggling and a skillful sleight of hand, the prosecution is able to spin a character reference, which portrays the Beanpole in glowing terms.

He is their boy: a fundamentally nice guy who has now seen the light and who’s only crime in any case was allowing himself to be tricked and misled by the pernicious influence of a gang of evil doers.

He is the former member of the Boy Scouts, the repentant sinner who has vowed to sin no more. He is not selfishly ratting on his former colleagues and friends, merely to save his own skin.

He isn’t ratting on his friends simply because he was caught and can’t bear to face the consequences of his actions. He was going to rat on his friends in any case even if he had never been caught and even if the money had kept on pouring in. That was his true intention. Yes indeed! It was simply a matter of conscience.

His testimony comes thick and fast and quickly leads to a conviction and jail term of eighteen months for himself and his three accomplices--the Apache, the Enforcer and the Red One.

That sentence--paltry compared to other sentences the Apache has yet to face--was nevertheless more than the Beanpole had anticipated--for himself at least. How could a Boy Scout get the same sentence as three bad guys? It was hardly worth his while to turn dog.

His squealing had earned him honeyed words from the prosecution, had earned him fawning adulation and flattering praise . . . but nothing more tangible than that. Of course, he would get his house, pension and new identity later but not until he had served the exact same stretch as his accomplices.

The court also failed to bestow brownie points upon the Beanpole for implicating the Pirate--even though his efforts on that score had been both generous and gratuitous. And yet they nevertheless made full use of that information; the Pirate’s subsequent arrest makes front-page news.

It is later that same fateful day, after he gets home from school, that Josh sees the very large picture on the front page of the Launceston newspaper. At ten inches by ten inches it is as big as a front-page picture can get.

The scene depicted in the photograph doesn’t mean too much to him at first because all you can virtually see is a pair of hands in handcuffs. The hands are those of the accused man who is holding a coat over his head in an effort to conceal his identity.

But in spite of this the photo also happens to be a close up of such clarity as to reveal age spots on the exposed hands. These necessarily indicate that the captive is not a young man by any means but someone who is growing old.

This realization invokes in Josh a poignant impression of frailty and vulnerability, which, in turn, causes him to feel a heart-rending sense of pity.

Deep down, on the level of feelings, he already knows who the man is and his hunch is confirmed when he reads the article under the picture which names the prisoner: Peter Gerald Stevens, 63, of Wolfram St, Sugarloaf Mountain.

In that moment of insight and understanding, that briefest instant of recognition and realization, the tears begin spontaneously to flow down the cheeks of Josh’s young face and their intensity increases steadily until they are running freely and copiously.

But that veritable torrent is then strangely transformed into just one tiny tear welling up in the corner of his eye . . . and yet that transformation is part of an even stranger and far more comprehensive change.

That tiny tear has moved over a great distance of time and space, and is now located in the corner of a much older eye. It is the eye of a much older Josh, a Josh who has seemingly aged ten years in an instant, a 24-year-old Josh, who is now absorbed in reminiscing as he hikes through the beautiful forests of Sugarloaf Mountain.

Josh is now a fully-fledged Geologist. He lives in Sydney and works there too in a sense, or at least that is where head office is located. But he is routinely assigned to field projects all over Australia and his latest assignment has brought him back to Tasmania.

During this, his current visit to Tasmania, Josh will also take the opportunity to visit two very important people. The first of these, of course, is Kathy, his mother, but the second person is someone he actually owes money to.

That creditor and benefactor is the local doctor, who financed Josh’s college education. That doctor, surprisingly perhaps, is a young man who, at the mere age of twenty-eight, is barely older than Josh himself.

But from the age of eighteen already, as a first-year student and cadet in the Army Medical Corps, he had been receiving second lieutenant's wages--a lot of money for a teenage student. Halfway through his medical training he earned the rank of first lieutenant and, upon graduation, he was a fully-fledged captain.

After a further three-year-stint in the Army, he was free to enter private practice. He could have opted for Sydney and it's greater financial rewards but he chose instead to go where he thought he was needed and might make a difference. That ended up being Sugarloaf Mountain, though his district also included Pritchard and two other neighboring towns.

Josh had already gone to visit his benefactor earlier that day but the doctor had then been far too busy to be able to indulge in the luxury of a social visit. Upon trying again later that day and upon opening the surgery door, his eyes focus once more on the brass plate affixed to it, upon which is written: Dr Theodore Fleming.

With only one patient remaining, the elapse of a further ten minutes brings a morning’s work to completion and leaves Theo free to see his brother.

"Hail fellow well met!" Said Josh. "It sure is good to see you again. I’m also pleased to be able to make my last repayment on the money you loaned me to finance my education. I’m pleased especially to be able to make that payment to you in person."

"Best investment I ever made," said Theo, smiling happily.

"Well, I’m really not so sure about that--what about the beach-house you bought for Mum?"

"Well, yes. That was another very good investment."

"I visited her yesterday. She is so thrilled with that house. She tells anyone at all who comes there: ‘My son the Doctor bought this house for me.’ She is so happy . . . and she’s happy about so much more than just the house. It was her lifelong dream to improve her lot by entering the middle class. I remember her telling me in tears: ‘God will never let me into the middle class; I’m the unhappiest woman in the world.’"

"It was a long hard road for her to travel," said Theo. "It was like a purgatory that lasted for decades and it was a lesson so long and hard that it was almost too much for her. But I’ve done my own penance. I remember how horrible I was to you when we were kids. Even to this day I don’t really understand why I should have been such a vicious bully. I guess it was the dark side of my nature. There was, and perhaps there still is deep down a part of me that is malicious--perhaps ‘evil’ is not too strong a word to use. But at least since my late teens I’ve been able to put a lid on it."

"You wouldn't expect both sons of an alcoholic to end up graduating from university, would you?" said Josh, changing the subject in the hope of blunting the sharp edges of his brother’s self-accusations.

"Not at first blush," said Theo, "but truth is stranger than fiction. Perhaps the children of alcoholics try extra hard not to end up like their parents."

"Maybe so in some cases, but what about the chronic drinking endemic to a place like Sugarloaf Mountain; that is passed down from father to son. An eighteen-year-old, typically, can hardly wait to gain lawful entry into a pub. It is like a right of passage--the confirmation and recognition of his manhood. It is nothing less than the commendation of his pride at being a man."

"Yes," said Theo, these are clearly false values. But they are like the values of a false god and that gives them incredible power. I’ve seen so much of that sort of preoccupation with alcohol up here . . . and the rate of smoking--they smoke like chimneys up here!"

"Indeed, and what about the gambling? And what can be done about violence and the threat of violence, which is pervasive amongst teenage boys in a place like Sugarloaf Mountain, but which is also common enough amongst younger boys and young men?"

"Yes, but violence can exist at all levels of society and not just at its lowest echelon. I think Kathy and Arthur were always middle class--they just didn’t have any money. That would make us middle class too, and I have no doubt that we always were, but I was a vicious bully in my dealings with you and I didn’t have a below average IQ to offer as an explanation or excuse. Perhaps there's a mean streak in all of us that will come to the fore when the opportunity arises--that's why power corrupts. A thirteen-year-old has power over a nine-year-old and will be tempted to use and abuse that power--"

Josh interrupted Theo. "Power does corrupt, and that’s why it's probably easier being a younger sibling, because you are not saddled with the responsibility of coping with such a powerful corrupting and tempting influence. You are automatically spared that burden. You are given the high moral ground to stand on by default and without even having to earn it."

Well, for that matter," said Theo, "What can you do about the leaders of our community, who are rich but often so greedy they pay virtually no income tax--this sets a dog-eat-dog example for the rest of us."

"Yes," said Josh in emphatic agreement, "and what can be done about usurious rates of credit card interest, which are tailored to cheat the unsophisticated? What can you do about rich businessmen who use their God-given high intelligence merely to deceive and cheat those less fortunate?"

"All of this is a spiritual problem and it confronts each and every one of us. I can work on my own spiritual development, and I do that because I know it works and it makes me happy, but I can't make other people want to do that. They have a free will and it requires of them that they do what they think is best. I'm only here to make sure there is a doctor in this area to hand out pills and medications and admit some of them to hospital when necessary."

"But the world is a better place by far than it used to be a hundred and fifty years ago. Convicts were sent here on the pretext of stealing a loaf of bread, but they were really only sent here to populate the place. They had no rights. They were treated little better than slaves."

"It all boils down to this: If you want to improve the world, you should start by improving your self."

"Yes, you are absolutely right," said Josh, "that’s the way to do it. That’s the way I’m doing it too, and my progress so far makes me optimistic about the future . . . Have you seen the Pirate lately?"

"Yes, I saw him last week when he came in for a check up."

"How is he?"

"He’s good. He’s seventy-three but he’s a strong man. He has a strong constitution and he’s young at heart. I asked him how he was feeling and he said: ‘I feel just like a juvenile delinquent!’ I think he still has a scheme or two going to earn him a little extra cash on the side."

"He is incorrigible but pretty good at what he does. They almost had him ten years ago, but the testimony against him ended up being dismissed--it was merely the Beanpole’s word against his."

"He’s doing okay, the old Pirate. He even gave up smoking and he’s been off it now for three years."

"He had a friend, the Piggot, but he died about eight years ago of a heart attack, which was brought on by oxygen starvation--emphysema. I knew him well. It seemed to me like he had an addictive personality; he was always searching for something that might stimulate the pleasure centers of his brain. It seemed as if he really believed that just one more cigarette or one more winning horse would give him that sense of satisfaction or fulfillment. It never happened, of course, but it seemed he never lost faith in the belief that it would happen eventually if he just stuck at it."

"It’s amazing how people can have so much faith in something so worthless and destructive when they have so little faith in anything more positive. They are caught in a state of spiritual alienation. They don’t understand that happiness has a moral foundation. In order to find happiness you should seek virtue. In order to find virtue you must seek your own imperfections. These must be found before they can be remedied, but you won’t find them in the first place if you can’t be totally and even ruthlessly honest with yourself. That’s where the truth comes in. The truth is the key. The truth will set you free.

THE END.

I would be delighted to receive any comments from readers to serve as feedback on this novel and especially my first novel, Patina and the Fallen Angels.

Please let me know what you think on stephena@vision.net.au