Hope's Road Read online

  Travis slapped two pieces of bread in the toaster and rammed them down to cook. He hated it when the child looked at him like that, but Billy frustrated the heck out of him. It was hard having the kid around when he was so used to being on his own.

  The child started his possum-like rustling again and Trav tried to block it out as he mulled over his plans for the day. He had traps to check over towards the boundary of freehold land and the state forest near Sunny Point. There was a bit of fencing that needed doing on his own place and he had to get into town sometime, do some grocery shopping and check on his mother, Diane, at the nursing home. There’d been a message on the answering machine from one of the nurses. Diane was out of incontinence pads or something.

  Overhead, a yell of glee coincided with the toaster violently throwing its cooked bread up and out of the contraption and onto the floor.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit,’ said Travis, scrabbling for his and Billy’s breakfast on the floor. He didn’t have any more bread either. It would have to do.

  ‘I found it!’ called Billy as he swung his way down the ladder to land on the floor, an Akubra clutched tightly in his hand. He slapped it on his head, managing to look both delighted and contrite at the same time. ‘I thought I’d lost my hat.’

  ‘You never wear a hat inside,’ growled Travis, ‘it’s rude. Didn’t your grandmother teach you that?’

  ‘Sorry, Dad.’ Billy quickly snatched his most prized possession off his head.

  Travis glared at his son then pushed a plate over to him. ‘Here, eat your breakfast.’

  The two of them ate in silence. A knife, butter and Vegemite were pushed back and forth across the bench. The kettle whistled on the stove, the only merry sound in an otherwise quiet house. Trav started to make himself a cup of tea. He moved towards the fridge, stuck his head inside and said to his son, ‘You want some milk?’

  Billy munched away at his toast, oblivious, completely lost in his own dream world.

  Travis sighed, swung away from the fridge, milk in hand, and contemplated the child. What was he going to do with him? He was a dreamer just like his mother. Travis felt a kick to his gut at the thought of her. The desertion and divorce still rankled, even after eight years. ‘Billy! Do you want some milk?’

  ‘Huh? Oh, milk. Yes, please, Dad.’

  Travis couldn’t help but focus on the word ‘Dad’, because Billy used it a lot, like it was a new toy to be batted around and played with. He couldn’t blame the kid: they’d hardly seen each other in the last six years.

  He pushed a glass of milk towards his son.

  ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  There it was again. And all the responsibilities that came with that incongruous three-letter word. The thought of being solely accountable for ensuring Billy made it into adulthood, scared the shit out of him.

  Tammy was just starting to crank the tractor over when Billy Hunter walked up wearing the new Akubra hat his father had given him for his tenth birthday.

  ‘Gidday, Billy! Just in time, mate. Grab the motorbike, will you? You can ride on ahead and open the gates for me.’

  Tammy couldn’t help but smile at the boy’s happy skips as he ran to do what she’d asked. He was a funny kid. No mother, and a father who worked all day every day. From what she could make out, the child pretty much dragged himself up. Such a shame, because he was a good boy, who particularly loved riding the four-wheel motorbike. She watched him haul off his felt hat and place it reverently on the shelf in the shed. Pulling a helmet down over his red hair, he jumped on the bike, pulled in the clutch to start it in gear and fired the engine, just like she’d taught him. The child had learned a lot since he’d arrived on her doorstep a few months earlier, asking if there were any odd jobs he could do.

  Satisfied the boy was organised, she drove the tractor out through the double gates and headed down the cow-track. A big metal bucket filled with a load of dirt and clay bounced around in front of her. Billy whizzed past her, an intent look on his freckled face. He was going to fly right past the gateway she wanted opened, the rate he was going. Tammy stuck her fingers into her mouth, curled her tongue and whistled him up. The child should hear that. It was a ripper of a whistle. Her grand­father taught her how to do it when she was only little.

  Billy stopped and looked around. Tammy pointed at the set of gates to his left and he jumped off the bike and opened them. In the paddock beyond the gates, a concrete trough sat looking lonely on an eroded mound of dirt. The boy rode the bike across to it and waited patiently for Tammy to follow him. She gestured to Billy to help her line up where the dirt was needed. Billy ran up and guided her into where the worst of the erosion around the trough was. He used all the correct signals: a shake of his hand to lower the bucket; a thumbs up when she’d reached the right position. Then he jumped out of the way so Tammy could dump her load to fill the gaping holes.

  Billy slapped his hands together, brushing off some sticky clay, and Tammy gave him a wide smile to indicate another job well done. The poor child needed every bit of encouragement he could get – from what Tammy could see, he didn’t get much at home.

  Recently, she’d started letting him bring up the cows on his own, wash the cow-yard down, help set up for irrigating and pull the irrigation bungs to allow water out into the paddocks. She’d even let him use her computer to do his homework as he didn’t have one at home. The teachers nowadays always seemed to want projects typed up.

  ‘Surely your dad would buy you one if you need it for school?’ she’d said to him.

  ‘Nup. He said he ain’t got no use for them new fandangled things.’

  Tammy couldn’t believe it. ‘What did your teacher say when you said you didn’t have one?’

  Billy had stared at the grass at his feet and mumbled, ‘I didn’t tell her.’ When he glanced up she saw such vulnerability in his eyes. He looked like a begging puppy. ‘You said I could use yours, didn’t ya?’

  ‘Didn’t you, Billy. You, not ya. And yes. Yes, of course.’ But Tammy was still angry about it. Didn’t that bloody Hunter man know his son needed a computer in this day and age? Didn’t he know his son needed his attention full stop?

  ‘Did Miss Greenaway say anything about some of your homework being handwritten at the parent-teacher interviews you had last week?’

  ‘Nup. She was too busy flicking her hair and giggling at me dad.’

  ‘My, Billy. My dad,’ reminded Tammy.

  Billy rolled his eyes. ‘My dad, then.’

  ‘You mean your father actually spoke to her?’ Tammy had met Travis Hunter only once but she knew he didn’t like to talk much. Billy made up for the apparent lack of conversation at home when he came to Montmorency. Around her, the child barely paused for breath.

  ‘A few times but then he left in a hurry when Miss Greenaway started to smile all stupid, like this,’ said Billy, as he stretched his mouth into a simpering grin. Tammy couldn’t help laughing, which made the boy play the fool more. He started blinking like he was batting his eyelashes, which made her laugh even harder.

  Finally she had to ask him to stop so she could breathe. ‘She didn’t do that, did she?’

  ‘Yup. She did.’ The child stopped. ‘What does it mean, Tammy? A smile like that?’

  Crikey. How to answer that question? She didn’t know anything about Travis Hunter’s love life. ‘I’d say it means she likes him, that’s all.’

  ‘Mmm . . .’ Billy looked pensive then. ‘Sometimes, on the bus, Katie Barfield does that kind of smile to me too, when her brother Evan isn’t looking.’

  ‘Is that the Barfield kids from over the river? Didn’t their dad die in some accident there a while back?’

  Billy sighed. ‘Yup, he did. Their granddad helps their mum look after them now.’

  There was something in the boy’s tone that made Tammy pause. ‘And that’s okay, isn’t it?’


  ‘Yeah, it’s just –’ The boy looked out across the paddocks up towards McCauley’s Hill. ‘It’s just, well, the kids at school treat them different from me. My nanna brung me up a bit too but it’s like I’m weird having a mum that just ran away, like she didn’t want us. Katie’s dad died in an accident. He didn’t mean to leave them. And they’ve still got a granddad who helps their mum. Like they’ve got the whole Big Mac family still. Mum, dad and two kids.’ The boy frowned before going on. ‘But I’ve only got a cheeseburger; no mother, no brothers or sisters. Nanna’s in an old people’s place. I’ve only got Dad, you see?’

  Tammy did see. All too well. With only her grandparents raising her, and Mae being so distant and standoffish, she understood exactly what the kid was saying. But she couldn’t help him and the one person who could, his father, for some reason wouldn’t. Damn the man to hell!

  ‘Tammy?’ said Billy. ‘Are you all right?’

  She looked down from her place on the tractor and was a little shocked to see that while she’d been ruminating on Billy’s situation, she’d driven the tractor back to the hayshed and parked it in a spare bay.

  ‘Yes. No worries. Sorry, Billy, in my own dream world, mate.’

  ‘I’ll be going then. That’s if you got no more work for me?’ His face looked earnest and not a little eager.

  Tammy hated to disappoint him but there wasn’t much else the child could do for her today. ‘No, mate. All done.’ At Billy’s downcast look, she added, ‘Thanks heaps for the help, though. Takes a lot longer on my own.’ The child gave her a dazzling grin that turned the red-haired little urchin into a handsome boy. ‘What do you think you’ll do now?’ she asked. It was Saturday, no school. Though she knew that, when his father wasn’t home, the child just bummed around the bush up on the hill, playing imaginary games. As a kid, she’d done it herself.

  ‘Old man McCauley killed a sheep last night. Just baled it up in a corner of the paddock, got a knife and slit its throat. Totally cool. Might go see what he’s gunna do next.’

  Tammy frowned. She knew only too well what Joe McCauley thought of trespassers. Especially kids. ‘You be careful over there, Billy. The old man doesn’t take too well to folks spying on his business.’ She’d found that out thirty years back.

  But Billy was already pulling off his helmet and donning his Akubra again. ‘I will,’ he called as he slung out of the drive, pedalling his old BMX like a maniac. ‘See ya!’ he called.

  ‘See you, Billy,’ Tammy muttered, smiling and shaking her head as she watched him go.

  Suddenly the child did an about-face in the drive and came back.

  ‘Hey, Tammy!’ he called. ‘I forgot. Can I use your computer? I’ve gotta do a speech for school on Monday. Need to type it up.’ Billy was level with her now, flinging his bike into the grass, walking over, pulling a grotty-looking piece of paper from his back pocket. ‘See. I got it all written out. I just need to type it up.’

  ‘Sure. Go ahead. What’s your talk on?’

  ‘Three minutes on meself.’

  ‘Three minutes on my-self, Billy,’ Tammy said with a smile.

  Billy glanced at her with a wicked grin. ‘No. Not on you. That’d be too hard, with all that history and stuff you’ve got here at Montmorency. It’d take waaay too long.’

  Tammy laughed. ‘Tell me a bit of your speech,’ she said, leaning against the front of the tractor. The poor kid was probably supposed to be practising it in front of someone. Maybe if he had four legs instead of two he’d garner more attention from that father of his.

  Billy’s face flushed. ‘I ain’t much good at it,’ he said, swiping at his nose in agitation.

  Tammy decided to ignore the ain’t. ‘Try me.’

  Billy flattened out the piece of paper. Cleared his throat. ‘Me name’s Billy Hunter and I’m ten years old. I live on McCauley’s Hill, just out of Lake Grace in the Narree Valley with me dad, Travis Hunter. He’s a dog trapper with the De . . . De-part – ament of Conservation.’ He looked across at Tammy, shamefaced. ‘I can’t say it. I can’t say De-deapartment.’

  Tammy smiled. ‘’Course you can. Follow me. De. Part. Ment.’

  Billy said, ‘De-apart –’ He shook his head. ‘That’s not right. What did you say again?’

  Tammy pitched her voice a bit louder. ‘De. Part. Ment.’

  Billy looked surprised. ‘There’s no “a” in the middle, then?’

  ‘Only in the “part” bit.’

  ‘Right,’ said the boy. ‘So it’s just De-part-ment. Department.’ The child grinned as he ran the word together. ‘I’ve got it, haven’t I?’

  Tammy nodded with pride. ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘Department, department, department.’ He started to run off towards the house (and presumably the computer) chanting at the top of his voice, ‘Department, department . . . I heard it. I got it! Yes!’

  Chapter 7

  Travis threw another strip of wattle bark into the old copper. The water was just starting to boil nicely and turning an inky black. Perfect. He threw in the new Lanes dog-traps the Departmental blokes had dropped in the other day. The Conservation mob constantly kept changing the design of the traps he was to use, so it was an ongoing thing, making the traps smell as much a part of the environment as he could. A dog’s sense of smell was one hundred times that of a human and they were damn smart. Some of the old blokes smoked their traps; others made a fire with gumtree leaves and dumped the traps in it. Some just rubbed the metal in dirt and found that worked. He preferred to use a mixture of methods. The wattle bark for some traps and just plain old soil for others.

  It was a perfect day up here on his hill, in the bush. He didn’t have anyone to annoy him and he liked it like that. He wasn’t certain where Billy was but suspected he was floating around spying on someone. Old Joe or the McCauley girl down the bottom of the hill. Or maybe even watching him? Travis let out a sigh. His son, with his big eyes so like Katrina’s. He was finding himself getting more and more annoyed with the kid when he wouldn’t shut up. Sometimes it’d just become easier to ignore him. Trav liked his peace. Liked to be in his own head.

  But now he was paying the price: an ten-year-old who sometimes glanced at him like a scared dog about to dodge a kick. The look in Billy’s eyes this morning . . . Trav winced, remembering. It reminded him of how he used to look at his own father. It was obviously one thing to have a son, but another entirely to be a dad.

  It was all still so new, this living with Billy again. Maybe he shouldn’t have shipped the kid off to his grandmother so young? Trav threw another log onto the fire as he ruminated. But there really wasn’t much else he could’ve done, was there? Well, except leave his job on the dog fence, and he hadn’t wanted to do that. Surely it had been better for the kid to be brought up in Burra, go to school with other kids, rather than being out in the scrub? Billy had seemed happy enough with Diane Hunter and Trav had tried to visit when he could. It had all been working out fine until his mother had had her stroke. Life’s a bastard, thought Trav, as he pictured his once active but now incapacitated mother.

  Diane had done a good job with his son. He owed her a lot and that’s why he’d brought her back to Lake Grace and why they were here at Belaren, although he had to admit the boy seemed to relish it too. The kid’s bush skills were second to none and that had really surprised him. Like now, even he wouldn’t know if Billy was watching him. He didn’t know where it’d come from, this desire to be at one with the bush, especially since the boy had been living in town for the last few years. He wondered if it was a quirk of genetics, something inherently born to the males in their family? He couldn’t see his own father consciously imparting such knowledge even though he’d been a dog trapper too.

  His father was more likely to pit himself against the elements and see who could win. Take a swig on a bottle whenever he damned well pleased and pretend he didn’
t have a family to go home to. He’d been an old bastard, Jack Hunter. Trav hadn’t realised how different his childhood had been until he’d met Katrina and her ‘normal’ parents. He winced again. Even after eight years it hurt to think of what could have been. He’d lost touch with Kat’s extended family years ago. Her parents had been in their mid-forties when they’d had their daughter. They’d moved on into a nursing home not long after Kat had left and then they’d passed away within weeks of each other. Together, always together. Shame they hadn’t instilled that ethos into their daughter.

  The sound of a car labouring up a hill caught his attention. He loped towards the rocky outcrop which would give him a view of the whole Narree Valley. From here he could see his own driveway, and the vehicle currently traversing it. It was red, that much he could ascertain. Shiny and clean, judging by the glints coming off the duco in the late afternoon sun. Sporty looking too. Spoiler, mag wheels. A younger person’s car. Either that or a mid-life crisis kind of vehicle.

  The car kept coming and Trav weighed his options. He could disappear into the scrub but that would mean leaving his fire unattended and he really didn’t want to do that. He could put out the fire but any dumb fool would know it was very recent. He sighed. Damn it. He’d have to hang around and talk to whoever it was. Maybe they’d leave quick?

  As the car turned around the last corner to the house he strode back towards the yard, his hand automatically moving to smooth down the buzz cut which had forced his normally wavy brown hair into submission. He settled his face into an impassive expression while piercing blue eyes took in the vision exiting the vehicle, inch by inch. Something he hadn’t seen up on this hill in a very long time. A female. An attractive one at that.

  Ms Jacinta Greenaway slowly emerged from the snazzy car like a cat.

  ‘Travis? How lovely to see you. Just thought I’d drop by.’

  Inwardly, Trav groaned. Outwardly, he slung a half-wave in the air and moved forwards quickly, in the hopes he could head her off before she moved too far from the vehicle.