 
Riding the Whirlpool

Return of the Breaker Part 2

Prequel to Crocodile Dreaming Series

### Author

Graham Wilson

Copyright

Riding the Whirlpool

Return of the Breaker Part 2

Graham Wilson 2019

Published by Smashwords

BeyondBeyond Books Edition

**Crocodile Dreaming Series**

**ISBN:**

Smashwords Edition Licence Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form without prior approval of the author. For permission to use contact Graham Wilson by email at grahambbbooks@gmail.com

## Author's Note

This is a novel set in Australia's outback, a place where I lived and worked for four decades; travelling to many places including in large and small towns, cattle stations, aboriginal communities and among remote, rugged and beautiful natural places for which it is famous, places with names like Uluru, Kakadu and Arnhem Land. These provide the background to this story.

This novel is a work of fiction. The characters are not real people. However, elements of stories have a real basis, as experienced by myself, or as stories of the bush, told around campfires or over bars, somewhere in the Australian Outback. While general locations described around the Northern Territory and other parts of Australia exist, many details are not accurate; they are created as a canvass on which to paint the story.

Backpackers are part of outback Australia. Occasional horror stories occur and get wide coverage. Some, like the Joanna Lees story, or the awful deeds of Ivan Milat contributed ideas to this novel. However these are rare events, as likely to happen in cities or other countries. They do not typify most people's experiences of these places.

The setting of this novel is an external frame for the story. It tells of a journey of a person through places and within himself. In bad situations he does awful things. This reflects human experience. We all have the ability to make terrible choices and do great evil if we cease to value life, but even the worst of people may have parts that are good and decent. So, as to the man at the centre of this story, the question of whether he is evil or just a victim of bad circumstances, that is a judgement that only you can make. The question I ask myself is if, in the same set of circumstances, I would have behaved differently. We each can only answer that honestly for ourselves.

Alongside that personal story this book seeks to capture the essence of a place called the Northern Territory of Australia, the centre and north of the Australian continent. This land remains alive in my imagination from when I lived and worked in it. Despite the coming of modern civilisation; with roads, air transport, communication and comfort; the intrinsic character of this place, the 'Territory', remains little altered. It is what Ernestine Hill called, in her famous book of that name, 'a land too vast for human imagination.' Wildlife remains abundant. Stations still muster cattle and buffalo for a living. Aboriginal people live off the land, as they have done for untold millennia past. Stockmen tell tales around campfires, gazing in awe at immense star filled skies. This is a place where life moves slowly, as befits a land where time is driven by nature. Brilliant desert colours, huge tropical storms and endless emptiness live on.

My heartfelt thanks to innumerable real characters of the Northern Territory who contributed parts to this story. They did this by lighting creative fires in my imagination through sharing their own stories and memories.

This is a prequel to the Crocodile Dreaming Series of 5 novels also published by this author. It provides the back story before the original series begins.

Books in this series which follow are:

Book 1 – An English Visitor (Ed 1 – Just Visiting)

Book 2 – Crocodile Man (Ed 1 – The Diary)

Book 3 – Girl in an Empty Cage (Ed 1 – The Empty Place)

Book 4 – Lost Girl Diary (Ed 1 – Lost Girls)

Book 5 – Dance of Shadows (Ed 1 – Sunlit Shadow Dance)

## Reader Reviews of Books and Series

Just Visiting - Excellent !!!!!! : So good! So impressed with this this story, can't wait to read the whole series. This book has it all, romance, suspense, danger, secrets beauty culture, family, travel and so much more! The description of the country of Australia is wonderful, so many times writers get carried away with too much description of scenery etc. I found this author made the reader visualise the whole picture which is very important to this particular book. I hope everyone who comes across this book will read it, you won't be disappointed. Highly recommend!!!!

An English Visitor

Really liked this book and want to read the series. Eerie story from Australia about a young English girl off on an adventure to Australia. She meets up with a young Australian man and they take off together so he can show her the outback. She starts noticing things a bit off with him and the story unfolds involving crocodiles, aborigines etc. Don't read before going to sleep!

Series Reviews

I highly recommend this series; if you enjoy suspense novels or reading about Australia and especially both, you'll be happy you got a hold of this.

You must read this series..... the content is excellent

It's superb... So sorry to finish it!

I read this series one volume at a time, over the last two years. It's very entertaining, well-written and really makes you feel like you're there with the characters. I can't praise it highly enough!

What a good series, so many stories, so many lives, growing darker with a thread of hope

A compelling story, told with sincerity. It would make a good plot for a television mini-series!

I thoroughly enjoyed this combined series. It is a nicely composed, thrilling script with essentially a fairy tale goodness. With this book I had my virtual tour through Australia.

# Prologue

It's Susan again.

For three years now this half told story has driven me mad, eating into my restored sanity, consuming me. It began with what I tell in the Epilogue of the previous half of this book, variously known as 'Crocodile's Child' or 'Return of the Breaker', based on Mark's two assigned titles of the story.

When I discovered it, a notebook hidden in a space in the wall of a place where the man who I remembered a Mark Bennet, but who was called by most, 'MB' used to sometimes live, I thought this was the real story of his life, self-told, the good and bad, warts and all.

And so it was, in part. But that was the problem: it was only a part.

When I started it and saw the 200 pages of dense hand-writing, written in the hand I knew so well, it seemed like it would be the full story.

So I immersed myself in it, reading with relish and imbibing a mix of joy, sorrow, love and horror. It was not a pretty story; three parts horror to each part good, but it was one I needed to read and one that deserved to be told.

I would not allow myself to read ahead, to skip or preview. I was firmly determined to read it line by line, to taste and fully know it only as each part unfolded. But as the pages unread dwindled, until but a bare handful were left, and then none remained, I knew this story went on far, far further.

This I knew from my own personal knowledge of parts unwritten that this man, my once upon a time lover, had told me directly or of which his diary gave glimpses.

I started to feel short changed, conned. In my mind I called him a bastard for fooling me yet again, giving me something to whet my lips but nothing at the end of which I could find understanding, nowhere near enough to give me real meaning, to satisfy my need to know and try to comprehend.

I began to wonder whether, rather than the man I still held to be a good man I had loved, but who had become bitter and twisted as luck ran against him, he was in fact the monster that others claimed, one who most delighted in delivering torment to his victims as a form of vengeance.

Of course my most beloved Vic, the man I thank God for every morning and night, and most especially when a smile lights his face, told me it was not so, that whatever parts of bad he had in him, he did not deliberately torment, and that he finished things he begun. So, if he had set himself to tell a story, he would finish it unless fate intervened.

Of course fate did intervene, but this fate was in a time and place of his choosing, a time when he had decided to end it of his own volition, even if the manner of its ending was not his exact plan. And that ending was at least two weeks after he could have left the first part of this story in Alice Springs where I found it. That was because for those last two weeks I travelled with him, day and night, to other far-away places, right until the very bitter end.

So there was clearly enough time for him to write more. I even had an inkling of seeing him with a second book in addition to his diary, that book which he had bequeathed to me as a parting gift.

In our weeks together there were times when he would go off alone with binoculars and a notebook or two, sometimes carrying a rifle. I understood this was part of his need to commune with the empty places and spaces that fed his soul. I had seen his diary in his hand at times thus, the one that I have since read. I also recalled seeing a second notebook too, though when or how often I could not be sure. That notebook was a thing akin to the one I found which gave me the first half of this story. I assumed back then it was an extra place he used to make notes. Perhaps it was. But, in hindsight, perhaps it was much more: a second unfinished part of this story.

So, three years on, I am determined to make one final effort to find the last part of the story of the second Breaker, the one known to most as MB.

***

My mind has been replaying those last few days I was with him; days after we went mustering on the VRD, beginning with the night on the boat in the big river of tides. When running the tides was done I remember how we sat still together in the small hours and talked. I am almost sure he had this notebook then, resting in his lap. I think once or twice he had it in his hands; his finger touched it as if to draw a thing from it.

I do not think he wrote in it, but he had put it in his briefcase with papers which he took to the meeting the next morning. As we drew close to the end of our boat journey, just as I was waking, I am nearly sure that he had this notebook and his diary resting on his knee. As I looked at him, half asleep, I remember he was sorting through papers for the meeting and when it was done he returned these papers to one compartment and these two books to the other of that leather briefcase. The diary was there a day later when I opened it, along with some other papers, but the other notebook was not. Not that I specifically looked for it but, if it was there I would have found it, and I am sure there was no other book there on that final day.

If this is so then it could be he left it at Timber Creek, in a safe place or with friends there. It is something to check, though I doubt he did so.

And, if it did not remain at Timber Creek, then it must have come on with us to the place of the crocodiles. I did not find it in the car or with his things. I took out everything I could find and checked each item, one by one, before burning or throwing each in the river.

The memories of that day, of all his things I held and discarded, are stamped like diamonds in my mind, sharp edged and blazing in cold light.

Could I have missed it and thrown it away. I doubt it. I know I did not burn it. Perhaps one of his boxes I threw in the river had a false bottom; perhaps it was within the lining of a gun case I threw in the river.

I cannot say for sure but it does not seem right.

But, if not there, then where, where, where?

Could he have been writing it yet when I disturbed him on that last early morning? It seems it was important to him to finish the story, his recording of a singular destiny. So I can imagine him sitting up these last few hours, when I slept my sleep of terror, to finish what was told. I know he told about me in a final diary chapter and wrote me a letter which he left in my passport. But those two things were the work of a bare half an hour. There were perhaps three hours from when he left me to when I woke.

If this other notebook was left somewhere at the site the police would have surely found it. I am told they combed the site for days, searching for clues as to his fate and that of the other who was with him on that last day.

It was me of course but they did not know it then. Their site search was done just after Charlie found that first part and then divers found more bits remaining of him in the lair of the crocodiles.

So, if it was left somewhere on the site, they would have surely found it!

But then, perhaps not!

I am told that, once they had found the things from the water, the car track and footprint, they packed up and left the site. Then, soon after this, they discovered his car where I left it and found my identity. So it appears that after this they lost interest in the site. They had all that they needed to tie me to him and me to the site, a tyre track, my footprint, my DNA in the car, and of course all the evidence of my deception. And to make it really easy for them I did not contest it. I pled guilty, knowing what I had done and carrying the shame.

So their evidence was not tested, I made it simple by admission.

Perhaps, after they had found these first things at the billabong that told of a murder, they only half looked further. It could be so.

All at once it comes to me in a rush, like a flaming fire of vision. In a flash I know it is so, it truly is so. A memory, unbidden leaps into my mind.

It is of Alan, as he later told it to Vic and others. He was searching for a better explanation after I had given the clue, that momentary lapse when I admitted there was another thing hidden there that they had not found. My part was but a word or two and a gesture that slipped out in my desire for cleverness. It was about the box of passports I had taken and buried at the foot of a little hill nearby.

Of course I did not say it in so many words, but my reaction to a question gave a clue, even though he did not know for what or where to look. In the end that search was futile, the clue was for a thing unknown in an uncertain place. It was like a needle in a haystack, the task was too big and the one day allowed was too short. It ended as a day of failure. He searched but found no treasure trove, then went on to Katherine where he found the vital clue.

But I recall now that he did make a finding on that day, one then deemed to be of no importance, one that slipped past notice amongst greater events. It was finding the crocodile totem, Mark's most beloved possession.

On that day, after the main search was done, and before he left the site, Alan squatted in the grass beside the billabong, trying to place himself inside the mind of MB, to see it as his murder victim saw it on that fateful day.

And, as Alan was there, resting on his haunches, beside still water, trying to share MB's same vision, his hand touched the ground beside him; a place hidden under a bush, far away from prying eyes. As his hand rested there it touched the crocodile totem, a fluke but strangely directed. Alan had pulled it out and put it in a bag for later checking. But of course that checking did not happen, the trial was done and then I was gone. And, when I fled I took the bag holding the totem. It was returned by a strange turn of fate to a place near where it was first found. Here Charlie found it once again.

They searched the site again, better this time, with nothing more found. But this was months later, after a wet season passed, taking with it whatever traces may once have been there.

I see again that crocodile totem, the thing most special to MB. Why was it left there? Was it dropped by mistake and found by accident?

Mark would not have left his special totem untended; never would he have dropped it by mistake. It was too important to him for that. It was his mark of belonging, a connection to the only real family he ever had, a thing he valued above all others.

In all the time I knew him I never saw him do a thing without purpose. If it was there it was because he intended, the leaving was intended and the place too was intended, perhaps even the finding was intended.

In that instant I know my search is now almost over. I know where to go. His crocodile totem was placed just there in order to guard and mark this place for others who would later know it and understand its meaning.

Who are these others to whom it was left? There are Buck and Vic, guardians of his will. There is Charlie who knew him not but to whom the spirit of the crocodile spoke. There are Alan with Sandy, who together searched for and found the truth.

But it was not left there for them to find. None of them saw him with my clear unshadowed eyes. None of them knew him as did I. In fact there is only one, it is me, the custodian of his future in all its parts, his things, his children, his name, his memory. It was left for me. It is now mine alone to find.

At last I know where to look.

***

A week has passed. Today it is just Alan and I by the waterhole. I decided that, even though I am sure it will be here, I want no others to share my disappointment if I am wrong. And, if it is true as I think, that the last of his story lies buried here, I need my own private space to commune with his spirit before I decide what to do.

I think this story must be told to its bitter end. But, until I have held it in my own hand and felt its life force, I cannot know for sure.

So Alan takes me to the place he found it, as best he can remember it. He stands back to leave me to look on my own. And he stands guard, in a clear place with an open view out over the water, perhaps five meters away, revolver in hand. He watches with high alert lest some denizen of the deep would seek to do me harm, knowing that his gun must be my saviour.

But nothing stirs. No spirits of the place are about, walking on the land or moving beneath the water. Today is not their day.

I settle on my haunches as others have before. And with my hand tool I scrape and probe the soil, as others have before, but now with clear purpose. A few minutes pass of nothingness. I have scraped a centimetre from the top of all the soil within reach, removing leaves, sticks and flaky soil, looking for any discontinuities. I move a half step to my left to widen the circle. Amongst the loose stuff my tool hits a thing which gives a small metallic clink.

I look towards the noise and see the place. It flashes a glimpse of blue, In that instant it reminds me of the wing of a fairy wren dipped in milk.

As my eyes focus I know it. It is the sister stone of the one he gave me all those years ago, to place between my breasts and give him an uninterrupted view, third sister to the one he placed on my finger.

It is a place marker put there for only me to find. So I scape and dig a few inches down. It is there, not a metal box, just a package in heavy canvass, as if from an old oilskin, wrapped tight to keep out any water or other creature.

Within it is a solid thing, the size and shape of the other book.

I unwrap it slowly and with great care.

A single sheet of paper sits outside of the notebook, faded but clear;

" _Susan, with all my love!!! XXX MB_

" _The rest of my story that was beyond me to tell to you last night._

" _I am trusting your smarts to find it sometime, along with the other half hidden in my desert home. I feel it is your destiny to know._

" _You can do with it as you wish, tell it or hide it as seems most fit."_

I open the front cover of the notebook.

On the first sheet is written: _"Riding the Whirlpool."_

Without reading more I know this final story must be told.

Good reading to you all!

Susan.

# Chapter 2 – Place without Name

I am lying in what feels like a bed, unable to move, speak or see. I have no memory of how I came to be here, no knowledge of where 'here' is or any sense of a recent past. My mind is like a foggy thing of half awareness, not quite asleep, not quite awake, somewhere in a twilight land.

I try to sort out the things I know in my mind. They are distant and feel unreal, but I can gather and hold to a few half things. I am lying on my back. I am sure I am in a bed. I have a distant awareness of pain, but it is not sharp, more like a thing belonging to another me, as if I am drugged and out of it. I try to move my tongue. It seems to work but it is pressed down by an object in my mouth, something like a hosepipe, I try to move my head, but cannot, I do not know if is held in place or my neck does not work. I trying to open my mouth or close it fully but cannot do these things either. I try to open my eyes but there is something pressing down on them and encasing them. I try and determine if I have a connection to arms and legs but it is beyond me, they are too far away and it is all too hard. I give in and surrender to more dreamless sleep.

***

Some hours, days or even weeks have passed, time is an immeasurable quantum in this half world. I am still encased in something white, my head bound, eyes covered and a tube in my mouth so I cannot speak or see.

But now I have one sense returned. My hearing is clear; the underwater fog of mufflement is gone. My last clear memory is being somewhere in the heart of Australia, riding a horse that twists and turns as it bucks below me, and of a muted roar as the packed people cheer from the stands.

Now my brain has new information to process. It is a voice, talking about me, not to me. It is a male of indeterminate accent, a northern voice of posh clipped culture perhaps English or American, not Australian, Kiwi or South African, perhaps Bostonian or Canadian or expatriate Pom. This voice is now talking about an object using the indeterminate it; I know the object is me!

"Well last week it was a smashed up pulp of bits and bones, this week it is beginning to take human form again. It seems that some of the bits are at last beginning to work. What did you say its name was?

There is a rustling of paper. A female replies in a nasal southern drawl, pure Texas, saying, "Well aint that something, the broken bits belong to a man with no name, it's amazing he was even brought here rather than thrown in a hole and covered, the way he looked. The only distinguishing mark is a small M, followed by a tiny heart shaped dot, then B tattooed to the side of his head, just behind his right ear, a bit like a prisoner identification mark you hear of in concentration camps, though putting it behind his ear seems a bit more personal as if it was to talk to him."

Boston voice replies, "OK, give me a run through of the injuries and their up to date status."

Texas replies in a precise voice, "Fractured skull, fractured jaw, several cervical and thoracic spinal fractures, four broken ribs, but amazingly no broken arms of legs. Then there are the soft tissue injuries, ruptured liver and spleen, torn diaphragm, punctured lung, pneumothorax, innumerable cuts and contusions to the head and upper torso, and a big laceration along the back, between the shoulder blades but no deep penetrating wounds. It is almost like someone took to the head and body with a sledgehammer and machete but left the arms and legs alone. There is an old healed fracture to a forearm but it happened many years ago. Though I would not be surprised if it was an old gunshot wound as there are flecks of metal, like lead around that site, they look like old bullet fragments."

Gradually my brain processes this barrage of information. I guess they are talking about me and I am not pretty to behold.

The voices continue, "What about vital organ and nervous function," asks Boston. "What do we know about those?"

Texas drawls, "Yair well, kidneys are fine, the undamaged bits of the liver still seem to work, the lung function seems OK now that we have repaired the diaphragm and realigned the broken rib that caused the puncture. No clear evidence of brain damage beyond contusion on the MRI. Spinal damage is hard to say, no obvious displacement, however a lot of contusion around the cervical cord and sensory and motor functions to the limbs are difficult to assess right now – perhaps fifty-fifty whether he ends up in a wheelchair or something worse.

Boston, "If they don't know who he is how did he end up here, I mean this place costs real money and last time I looked they did not do charity, only hard cold cash."

Texas, "Yair well, that part is a bit amazing. The only thing that came in with him was a small backpack. But when they opened it up it had a hundred big ones in hard cold cash, used notes, not traceable. Some talk about a drug gang victim but it does not really gel, if that was the cause then why did they leave him with all the dosh. They surely would have looked, don't you think?

"What we reckon is he was found lying somewhere with his bag, some good neighbour rang in without looking too hard and the ambos picked him up with a pack next to him figuring it belonged to him and no-one looked at what was in it until he came in. They brought him first to the emergency across the road but when they found the money they transferred him here as we are better equipped to deal with these spinal cases.

"They say that at first the cops were real keen to talk to him, something about a bull ride gone wrong and lots of people losing money. But the cops seem to lose interest when we told them that it was unlikely he would ever talk or walk again or know what happened and even if he does it will be at least a month before we can unwrap him enough to communicate.

"So that is the limit of the knowledge, but I suppose we may as well call him MB. There is a theory he is South African as he has some antibodies in his blood that fit with diseases there. But that is just a guess; he could be from anywhere really.

# Chapter 3 – Mystery Writer

So here I am in my flat in Katherine, looking at the note my hand holds that I have just retrieved from my letter box, addressed to Breaker MB and signed, 'Friend of Fred!' From a place behind my boredom comes curiosity.

How many, of the small handful of people who could find me here know me as Breaker MB? Most people call me Mark or MB. I have broken horses for a living, perhaps that is it though I think not. It was a name barely used; just a couple times at Carrington Rodeo when I rode time on my first two real buckjumpers and won the big prize. To my best knowledge it has never been properly used to refer to me since, save for the time I was in Alice Springs and a mate of Vic's challenged me about it.

Then I agreed to another ride only on the strictest condition that nothing be said about the time before, or of that name. It was a 100% non-negotiable condition on my part, that I ride with just my then name, Mark Butler, and no nicknames, certainly not with Breaker attached to my initials. Back then the deal seemed to hold with no whispers of what had come before. I do not think any connections could have come from there.

And that place and time gave no links to Fred. So how and where did a 'Friend of Fred' emerge? Mystery on mystery!!

Sure my MB initials get bandied about a bit. But now I am nearly thirty. There is little resemblance to that scrawny youth about whom those words were shouted for one night more than a decade ago. Even more remote is my connection to Fred, the old fella who once taught me most of my riding, shooting and other knockabout skills even longer ago, when I was a callow kid in my mid-teens.

I try to guess how many people could join these distant dots of past lives and link them to me. Only one I can think of as a 'Maybe'. I last saw him that night at Carrieton, almost longer ago than I can remember. Back then I called him JJ and he called me Mark BB Brown or sometimes MB. He was a good guy back then and I think he would be a good guy still. He taught me the first principles of horsemanship for which I will be forever in his debt.

But then I needed to fade away and, even though it was long, long ago and I can see nothing to fear, I am still cautious of being linked to that place.

Yet JJ was a good guy and I am curious. So I resist the inclination to go the other way. I sit and ponder, looking once more at this inscrutable note. It gives no clue. I wonder what I shall do.

In the end curiosity wins. I cannot close this out with a no-show. I must go and see, even if only to sit quietly in a corner and wait and watch to see who else shows, if anyone.

So I sit in a corner, nursing a whisky, barely sipping, while I watch and wait and see who else arrives. I have taken the other chairs away from my space. That way anyone who wishes to approach me must do so directly, not sidle up and grab a convenient nearby seat. An hour passes, then two, my whisky is gone along with two soda waters. I am bored, time to go. I rise to leave, an empty glass the only sign of my sojourn. As I pass through the doors someone brushes past, going the opposite way. It feels like a random touch but my senses are heightened. I look at the retreating back which gives no signal and then to my side where the brush contact was made. I see the white edge of an envelope above the pocket of my light jacket. It was not there before. Now I am really curious.

I think to chase the man who placed it there, the cloak and dagger act seems excessive. But when I cast an eye around the room, he is no longer there; no one new is in sight.

Was he a phantom, am I seeing shadows? Still the envelope is real.

I take it out and walk into the night, checking and double checking to ensure an absence of followers. Finally I go to a place under a street light with a pool of light and scrutinise this object carefully. Sealed, unmarked, unnamed. I walk home to read it in seclusion.

" _It has taken a while to run you to ground, Friend of Fred. After he died you just vanished, no surprises there. In early days Fred and I were partners. Then I went off to seek fame and fortune in another land. He did the same at home. He wrote me once and told me of you; he said, 'Of all the Johnny Come Latelys you were the best he had seen.' Then he was gone, just a grave in red Cloncurry dust. You were gone too. Maybe a year later I got a small packet of things from Fred left in safety deposit box, saying, if aught happened to him, could I keep an eye on you? So I tried then, but you were long gone._

Over the years since I kept a half eye open, but nothing until one day, a Sunday not too far away. I ran into an old friend, JJ, at Carrieton. He gave me a story, back a few years past, of the lad called MB who rode a Whirlpool. It sounded something like the lad Fred wrote of.

Since then each time I return to the land of Oz I scan all the riders of the events, mainly outback Saddle Bronc. What should I find but your MB name in an old list of winners from the Alice Springs Rodeo. The MB initials were enough to get the link. When I showed your photo from that time to JJ he assured me it was you. He too knew Fred a little; he had half joined the dots by himself. When you did a runner from Carrieton that time he thought on it a bit and reckoned it was best to leave old dogs lie.

Anyhow you know how I found you. Now I'm a mite curious to meet you over a beer, see if what Fred reckoned back then still holds true. But I'm a tad shy of company, and with the Darwin Cup next weekend, I figure a good way to meet without observation is if we both put $100 on horse 2 of Race 3, Cup Day next weekend. Do it with the bookie Billy Carmody, say ten minutes from the start. That way we can note our common pick and share a drink at the bar to discuss the form in a way that would seem like nothing at all."

Hope to see you there.

JP

So it was that a week later I stood at the bookie's stall and placed my bet then waited. Five minutes passed, then ten. The race was called then won by another horse, a little fancied outsider with odds of one hundred to one.

I stood and waited for a bit, not sure as to whether this cloak and dagger thing was real. There were not many punters on the winning horse and they drifted in slowly to take their bit, a ton to one dollar seemed a good payout. New punters were starting to lay increasing bets on the next race where it seemed like a local horse with a local trainer and jockey was all the rage.

After a bit longer a smallish non-descript man came along and handed over his chit for $100 on the horse in the last race. By my calculation he was due a big ten grand for his long shot. The man looked half familiar but it was not the horse I backed so I gave him little mind.

There was a bit of muttering and grumbling by the bookie as he sent one of his men off to get some extra cash to make up the ten thousand, but then it was duly paid, with 200 fifty dollar notes counted out. You could hear a pin drop when the man took the cash and walked off. It seemed a strange if lucky diversion. This day was starting to feel like a non-event. I drifted towards the bar, weighing what to do, to stay and have a serious look at the horse flesh so as to make some informed bets or to head away before it was too late. There were odd people I half knew in the crowd, some who I could share a chat and pint with, but no obviously close mates, so I could go either way.

As I was working my way into the bar queue, there was a tap on my left elbow and a waiter handed me a beer. I looked at him questioningly and he flicked his head to indicate the donor. It was the small man who had cleaned up on the last race. He was perched on a bar stool at a corner table.

He gave me a salute so I wandered over to give my thanks. I still paid him little mind, just a punter flush with winnings spreading out some good cheer, that was how I labelled him. As I placed my beer on the coaster indicated I noticed a betting chit on the table next to it which this man was pointing to. It was an identical bet to my own, placed two minutes after my bet. A bell went off in my brain. I looked up at him with sharp focus. Suddenly he did not seem so old, decrepit and nothing looking. A tough wiriness was clear to see.

"Don't tell me I got that one past you? The word is you are sharp."

I raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue, "It seemed a bit too obvious to put two back to back bets for $100 on the same horse in front of all the other five and ten dollar punters. It might have seemed we were onto something or in cahoots. So I figured it was best if my main bet was on the longshot, and that drew the attention because it was a big payout number. As that bet was being processed I slipped them another hundred and said: 'Same again on two.' They wrote a second ticket that passed below everyone else's watching eyes.

After it was done I thought of chucking that ticket for the long shot in the tin can. But, bugger me dead, it ups and wins. I only chose it cause I liked its look in the mounting yard and I liked the green silks, colour of Ireland, home of my grandfather. So, even though I was not looking to win, I thought a payout of ten big ones was too good to pass by. So I went back to collect on it and wondered if you had picked me out. I had you spotted from the start, but then I had the advantage, I knew who you were.

He stuck out a surprisingly strong hand, "Name today, Jake Prendergast, AKA Friend of Fred. I have a few other names too which I may tell you later. And you are the MB man of many names too, but amongst them a few have called you Breaker MB, known as a handy rough rider.

It all seemed so absurd, this meeting with all its attendant secrecy, that I burst out laughing, saying with my own return salute; "And your real name is JB, short for James Bond, 007, I must presume!"

So we fell to talking and gradually the real back story slid out. Jake was the assumed name on a dodgy passport, as there were a few things against him in the Oz tied to his real name, Paddy something, he mumbled it so fast I only half heard. These days his main home address was the US but he also had South American and Swedish passports to hand for use if required. So, in Australia, these days he needed to keep below the official radar and dressed and acted accordingly.

Of course once I shook his hand the power of the real Paddy, it was there for me to see, the strong lean frame hidden under those ill-fitting clothes. He had clearly seen the other side of sixty but this was no soft man. Like Fred, I could picture him riding a mongrel horse or holding his own in a boxing ring, using native cunning to beat the odds, even if his best days were behind him.

His story was that, after the early days where Fred and were comrades in arms on the Australian Rodeo Circuit and each had won a good share of cash and prizes, that he had set his mind on going international, particularly in the US and Canada where the best money was to be made. Along the way he also dabbled with some events in Europe and South America, places like Chile were it was a main national sport, Brazil and Argentina where it was also part of national culture even if the events were different, and places like Germany and Hungary where the sport was smaller but there was still a loyal following. It had been a natural progression for him to move from competitor to event organiser and promoter. That was where the best money lay.

This man, Jake as I called him then, was nothing if not sharp in that space, as shown by his cleaning up of the bookies on a long odds racehorse today. Finally, when the rodeo call faded, he had married a Chilean girl. For several years they had settled on a ranch in its far south, a place of lakes, snow and high mountains, so he told me. There had never been children but they had a good life with their ranch, cattle and horses, until the cancer took her five years ago.

Then, at a loose end, he had returned to his former business and had quickly picked up the threads and started to organise high end exhibition rodeos, with a select group of horses, cattle and riders and, as backers and spectators, high wealth people who wanted the best of the sport that money could buy. This new life had worked out pretty well, except a couple years ago, in Victoria, when he was waylaid by Animal Rights activists wanting to shut his business down. When a couple had got in his face he had rearranged their faces. He was now wanted on two assault charges which, according to his lawyer, were likely to result in a stretch in jail.

So he was not keen to be recognised or have authorities in Australia know his real name, even though he still thought of himself as an Aussie. However, on the trip that caused the problems a couple of years ago, he had also got the information about who I was from JJ. So he had wanted to meet me. It had taken a couple years to arrange but here he was.

I liked this man and his story intrigued me, though it would be a stretch to say I entirely trusted him, but still he was a once mate of Fred and that was a good enough introduction for me.

It was clear he had done his research on me pretty well and knew a fair smattering of the stories that had done the rounds about me. He did not hint at knowing anything darker but did say. "When I finally got that letter from Fred, some years after he penned it, it seemed the time to help you already had passed. It appears from what I have since found out about you that you have done well for yourself without any help from others. That comes as no surprise as Fred obviously saw the potential in you then added his own bit to your raw skills.

So I doubt you are needing anything from me. But still, having gone to an effort to run you to ground, I thought I should put a business proposition to you, should it be of interest.

Those who have seen you ride lately tell me that you still have it in you to ride a wild horse better than most and to look pretty as you do it, even if you have not done any serious buckjumping events of late.

What I want is a dozen class riders, one or two from each of a range of rodeo countries, Aussie, Kiwi, Yank, Canadian, Chile, Brazil, maybe a couple other South Americans, and three or four Europeans. Then I will put together a championship event that is part an individual rider event and part a country and region championship; the boys from Down Under versus the best of the Europeans, the North versus the South Americans, that sort of thing.

The tour would be held in key places in North and South America with maybe one European event in somewhere like Spain, or the East, where the activists have no sway. I would pay each rider a retainer, something per week and something per ride as well as prize money. It is really a show for rich lovers of the sport who have fat wallets which they will open wide for an exclusive experience of seeing and mixing it with the best of the best.

So my proposition to you is to be one of my Down Under Team, to take on a riding name something like, 'the new Breaker M, come again'.

As well I need a bit of help with the organising, getting the right stock, training, setting up events, paying local contractors, that sort of thing. I think, following in Fred's footsteps, it is something that would fit you.

I am doing the circuit of various countries scouting talent. I need to know who I have got within a couple weeks. It will be organised with Chile and the States, maybe Texas, as the main bases for the North and South Americas. If you are in then I need a commitment for a year. It is not something to do year after year, but the idea is for a one off international completion, a bit like a World Cup of Rodeo that someone would put on every few years.

I reckon if I do the first one, someone else might pick up the next. I have five M cash from a rich backer to put the show on and anything else we raise from ticket sales and other backers is a bonus. So while we are not rolling in cash for a big event it puts us in a good place to get underway. We will need about six months to put it together then three or four months for the events to run including heats and finals in the various countries and a month or two to tidy up afterwards.

# Chapter 4 - Chile

So it was that a month later I was in Santiago, Chile, a country of which until my arrival, I knew almost nothing. The deal, done on a handshake was that Paddy, as I had begun to call him, would pay me $100,000 for my contract services to help him set up and manage the event over a year, another hundred as a riding retainer, and a fee of $10,000 a ride along with half of any prize money I won. The cash was of minor importance but the terms seemed more than fair. I would ride under a name still to be determined but with the name Breaker M as a part, and the promo would link my name to the famous Breaker of 100 years past.

I was OK with the M for Mark but did not want the B, and also did not want it directly said that I was the Breaker returned again, that seemed too presumptuous. If I rode well enough it may be that some others would make that claim, but I did not want it coming from me as a boast. At the end of the day, the rides I did would be what told any tale to be told, good or bad.

After three days in the city meeting the business backers, we flew out in a small plane along the spine of the Andes. First we went north, leaving the fields and farms surrounding Santiago behind, heading into an increasingly arid place of of barreness below beetling mountains. We landed at a mid sized city called Calama, which had boasted a copper mine in the past from which huge wealth had come. In this town lived a former major shareholder of the mine, Enrico, with a huge love of the Rodeo. He was our main sponsor and for a night he entertained us like royalty and listened to all our stories and told a few of his own. He had aspired in his early years to be one of the great riders until his father and uncle had brought him into the business and told him of his family obligation to more serious matters. Now in his seventies, but still fit and active he had conceived with Paddy the original idea for this grand event to showcase Chile to the world, and was bursting with enthusiasm now it was finally becoming reality. He would come to Paddy's Ranch in a month to watch it all take shape once the main riders were assembled. In part he was like a school boy bubbling with enthusiasm and in part he was a powerful business man, but after that day I mainly thought of him as a friend and ally in this grand venture.

I could feel his affection for Paddy was real and he told me, in an almost shy way, that the proudest day in his life was when he had presented Paddy with a national champion's medal a couple decades earlier, in his days as a great rider. With that story, more than anything he bought my loyalty.

Next day we were heading south for the Ranch, tracking the edge of the mountains as we passed by Santiago and continued on our way. To say this country was beautiful was an understatement. Snow covered mountains rose far above our plane and, as we tracked southwards, the low country became an ever more rich and fertile series of valleys, a mix of crops and stock, and towns in an obvious Spanish style. Further south, it was a land of lakes and snow covered hills, lying near to a dark and brooding ocean.

We landed after flying more than a thousand miles in a perfect valley ringed by hills, and settled onto a grassy strip. A man with a big hat on a small horse, galloped over and called on the two way radio for a car to collect us and soon we were settled into the front of a roaring fire in a big house that looked like a Spanish hacienda. That night we drank whiskey and ate steak while on the morrow the real work would begin.

# Chapter 5 - Band of Brothers

I had always been an amateur in this game up until that time. Sure Fred had taught me a whole lot of skills and tricks to put on top of my earlier training by JJ, and I had plenty of practice in riding the crazier horses I had broken in. And I had ridden time in a few rodeo rides and collected a few prizes. But it had never been something I was really committed to, really just an occasional occupation to pass the time between other things.

But now it was a deadly serious occupation at two levels, one as a lead on ground organiser of a huge event, one with a big five plus million dollars attached to it, and a second as a serious competitor, one of a hand-picked few. I found myself seriously impressed by the calibre of others in this club, our dirty dozen, more or less as Paddy called us.

Each of us was a serious professional who wanted to be the best at what he did, not so much to beat the others, but for the skill involved in riding the best ever ride. Sure, we would be competitors, but much more we were all in this together and all wanted to help the whole become better than each part. It was as if I had found a family in comrades at arms that I had never really known before, I had close friends like Vic and odd others, but not ever really felt part of a team of the like-minded, a sort of band of brothers.

And over and above that this country lived, breathed and dreamed horses and riding and I was living in that dream. Rodeo was the official national sport and a bigger national obsession in most parts than football and the passion and dedication of even the average riders was huge, as was the celebrity status of the best.

I was an unknown but I rubbed shoulders with giants and walked a foot taller in that space. And Paddy was one of them; his hard riding days were past but a level of hero status still lived on, which I saw through old films of his rides. Fred was good but if anything Paddy was better, that lean wiry body that twisted and turned and yet remained balanced astride an animal below. I did not see him a lot as we were both very busy with our parts but we now had a real and trusted friendship, and I told him a couple times I was glad he had run me to ground and he admitted to a similar satisfaction.

When I had come back with Paddy to Chile it was just him and me, and then Enrico, though he had half a dozen riders of great promise lined up to start in a month. They did not get the same instant terms as me but had to prove themselves whereas he regarded the fact I had done an apprenticeship under Fred as proof enough.

His idea was to find recognised riders of undoubted brilliance but either relatively early in their career, or where, for some reason, the fates had intervened and limited their chance to make a name. He would use them as the foundation of a team. He hoped these riders would be keen to be a part of what we were planning as it would give them the chance to shine in a heavily promoted event and thus make a big name and some real money.

So in effect we were hand picking our main team of riders on the basis of a mix of potential and demonstrated ability. We only had space for a select few and wanted those who we picked to bring something really memorable to the event. And we did not want those with over big egos or a high sense of self-importance as they would be hard to manage and likely to lead to friction with other riders if they considered themselves as too special.

The one exception was Chile where he wanted his riders to emerge as national champions from a national competition. So he was running a special event here where he would allow entries from those who had won classes in other national rodeos and then select those who won provided they showed a willingness to be part of his team and concept. The strange thing here was that this country's national rodeo was a different event, one where men on horses called huasos, had to cut our and manage a steer through a whole lot of moves where the horse and rider pushed its body into the outside fence.

It was done in a special arena, and Paddy with Enrico's agreement, had decided that it would be the feature event in all competitions, both here and in other places, though really the expertise was mostly here. But alongside this were many talented Chilean horsemen who could hold it with the best in other rodeo events, the buckjumping, bull riding and roping. So he figured he could give these parts their own popularity too. And then he wanted to give a chance to some of the other South Americans he had known and grown to love over many years to shine too.

The Brazilians and Argentinians had their own huge rodeo followings and their own distinctive versions, and it was also huge in many of the other less well known countries, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, the list went on.

Paddy wanted if not a local competition with all these countries, at least a format where some of their riders got the chance too. So, over a month or two we turned our ideas into a real event with real people, and mapped out our competition.

Each morning, first thing for the first three weeks the two of us would arise early, each take a steady horse, and head out together, talking our way through our plans as we marvelled at the natural beauty of this land. An hour or so later would see us back at breakfast and each getting on with our part of the day. My initial job was mostly done on the phone, booking meetings, booking travel, talking to promoters, getting costs for various venues, the list was endless. I was not really a computer buff, but Paddy had a great personal assistant who worked alongside me, Manuel. He was the fluent Spanish link but with equally fluent English and German as well. He was also a whiz on all things electronic, and along the way he taught me a good bit of this and more than a smattering of Spanish.

He arranged an hour of detailed conversational Spanish each afternoon with a pretty personal assistant of his named Rosetta, and she ground her way through giving me both words and phrases and correct conversation until, by three weeks, I was good enough to have a limited conversation with an unknown man in the street with no English. Manuel would come with me for meetings and travel when Fred was not there, so that would cover my imperfections in the big events, but I needed to be fluent enough to have day to day conversations with the other riders without a struggle.

So, apart from the logistics that I was helping arrange, my main challenge was to find and get on board a select few riders who would be the backbone of our event. Of course Paddy and Enrico had been following this business for years, particularly in the Americas. They knew both most of the big names and the rising stars. Enrico would fly down for two or three nights a fortnight to give his ideas and soak up the atmosphere, but for the rest of the time he left us alone to get on with it, which left Paddy as the driving force.

But Paddy had a business to run from his ranch and while he would make some trips he needed an offsider to look from the outside and make separate judgements of both riding skill and the ability to be part of a team.

Of course Paddy had a pretty good idea of who he wanted but did not want it to be seen as not giving all the up and coming riders a real chance to win a place on our team. And this was doubly so in Chile, as our home base and the source of most of our other sponsors as well as Enrico. So from Chile he was running an extra selection event for all the six places on our team.

Each country team was to end up as six riders, with two being called reserves and four as the lead riders, one for each premier event, the Saddle Bronc, the Bareback Buckjump, the Bull Ride and the Team Roping. The two reserves along with other riders were slotted in to other competitor slots.

In the next round, as well as the lead rider for that event, two others riders from our team would also get to enter each event, meaning that each of the six team members would ride in two of the four events. Then in the local round it would be open for up to ten other competitors to go head to head with them. The best performed of these ten would be offered a slot reserved for one extra rider to come onto our team to compete in the next round. For other country riders Paddy and I were first checking out the talent pool, watching select events then making offers to the best for a month or two of trialling with our team and, if they showed the right attitude and endeavour, offering them a contract for the duration of the event.

So each team had its four spaces and two reserves, based on these four events, bareback horse, saddle horse, bull riding and roping. There was also a novelty event for each rodeo, where either a national event would feature or some other special display of horsemanship would occur.

In the US it was likely to be barrel racing, in other countries it would be other things and in Chile, their own national event of would be central, and would have two top teams as well as the rest of us who all had to learn.

So our plan was to run an initial event in each country where we put up our lead rider and two others in each event and invited entrants from their own country. While our lead rider would retain his place, their best three overall riders in whatever events, would be offered a place in the next event in our team. If they performed to expectations would then get an ongoing contract on our team, thus swelling each team from three to six with the last two called reserves who would be slotted in where needed across the events.

It was a bit complicated but in essence our three contracted riders from each country gave us a stable core, with the lead rider being clearly best in their preferred event, and other riders skilled enough to give a credible show in whatever they were entered in.

I was nominated as lead rider for an Australian New Zealand combined team in the bareback buckjumper event. I was happy to be entered in the saddle-bronc, calf roping and barrel racing or other novelties, though I told Paddy that I preferred not to ride in the bull ride, as I had never ridden bulls in rodeos and wished it stay that way out of respect for Fred.

This was fine because, in reality, each team member would ride twice in each rodeo except for any novelty extras. For me that meant that normally I would also ride saddle bronc, though I was determined to get good at huasos. So each afternoon I could I would spend an hour practising with a local skilled rider until I gained a reasonable mastery of this event too.

Our complete competition was a series of events to run over six months. For each event it was to be our team riders versus the locals in each of New Zealand, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, United States and Canada, plus a combined European Team, making ten teams in all or forty lead riders plus twenty reserves. Rodeo events in a country in a region were allowed to take entries from adjoining countries, subject to local qualification rules, so in our Chile rodeo we allowed competitors from most other adjoining countries in South America, and had several non-Chilean nationals including a Uruguayan and a Bolivian competing for a place. However they had to ride in Santiago in front of a hugely patriotic crowd, tough going for the non-nationals.

Then after we had our national champions' rodeo in each country we had a second round where the best all competed against each other, with prizes for individuals and the county team. Finally we had a grand final where the top ranked individuals competed but also with a team completion for a regional championship for four regions, North America, South America, the Europeans and the Down Under boys which I led.

It seemed a bit complicated but once you broke it down, week by week, it worked, with an event running each week. Hence ten local selection events, ten championship events, an all country final followed by a regional final, more than enough riding opportunities for all who aspired to make a mark. By now media was running hot, particularly in South America and our sponsorship pool was past ten million and climbing steadily without factoring in ticket sales.

Alongside this our expenses continued to climb steadily as more and more handpicked riders joined the team, not to mention all the ground booking fees, stock hire fees and advertising. But it ran along as smoothly as could be expected.

Alongside this I also had my own personal training regime, gruelling enough on its own without having to fit it into a twelve hour day of other work. Paddy had told me to mix it with the best I had to become really fit, no my current half fit level, and to make sure this happened he assigned me a diminutive personal trainer, Rita, who also served as my personal assistant in all other matters. The one thing she did not offer was private services out of hours, that would have messed with our business relationship, though she definitely was hot enough to fancy that way, however after twelve to fourteen hours daily side by side it was actually better that way, we each needed personal space, and her workouts were so tough they left me exhausted enough to fall into bed with no other thoughts.

Within the first three months I had travelled at least twice to each country and region, picking venues, making offers to riders and lining up stock contractors. By the end of four months we had our first 27 hand-picked riders, three from each outside country and had a two week training session on Paddy's Ranch. Once that was concluded it would be six weeks to go to the first round Chilean event for the first three places on our team, and perhaps for a couple of extra reserves who could be used are yard riders, novelty competitors and cover for anyone unfit to ride on a given day.

Those two weeks were something wonderful for me. I had worked my butt off, helping Paddy get it all together, had spent over three million dollars of his money, and now was the test time to both see us all riding side by side and also see how we could bond and work together as a team. I was very determined not to put on airs and graces, I knew I was only as good as my first real ride and wanted to be one amongst many equals, not preferred son.

The first week would have mornings of training, an exercise regime to get everyone fit, which all would continue on after this time, how to use all the gear, how to slot into any role at a moment's notice, how to give a press conference after an event, how to dress and what to wear and what not, along with so many, innumerable other things.

The afternoons were a mini competition. We all did one ride, sometimes in our preferred event, sometimes in another. Each ride was critiqued by three other riders before the next ride went on, each reviewer making tough but constructive suggestions for improvement.

Evenings were free time, a maximum of three drinks each were allowed, followed by a big feed, then relaxation, using the ranch spa, swimming pool, pool tables, computer games and whatever else took our fancy.

After six days we had a day off then another six days saw us finished the practical part. The last day was a big get together, meet the press, ideas for improvement, finished off by an unlimited evening of drinks and good cheer. For the two weeks it had been a girl free zone, except for the day off. That evening we could bring wives, partners or anyone else we fancied for a final night of good cheer. I had been too busy with all the work to chase anything on offer until then, but that final night I had the company of Rosetta, my Spanish tutor at the ranch up until then. It was a sweet if fleeting liaison.

I don't easily remember all their names now, the others in our band of brothers, but some stand out, there were Rafael and Jose from Brazil, Carlos from Argentina and Diego from Mexico. Between them all I was fast picking up Spanish words and their culture of living hard and playing hard which well suited me. There was Hank aka Tex, the Texan from the States, a serious loudmouth but a good bull rider, Ed from Canada, Mick and Rod the Kiwis, Dave the other Aussie, there was Albert from Germany and Fabio from Spain.

My best mates were two Kiwis and the other Aussie, there are always many things bonding about a shared culture in another land.

It was strange, we all wanted to win for both ourselves and our countries and regions, but above all we were brothers, walking the same path, sharing the same risks, this highs of success, the failures when it all turned to nothing in a split second or two.

It was one of the best times I can remember in my life. If there was an undercurrent of nastiness, I don't remember it, though as always that would emerge later for some. But for that time we were just brother competitors, all giving it our best shot and working to make the event the best it could be.

Of course we knew that success would benefit us all, bigger crowds and followings meant bigger prizemoney and bigger shares for each of us. We were all well paid anyway but a pot of gold of at least two million sat at the end of the rainbow for us to share.

But that seemed a long way away. Right now there was just the here and now; train, compete, ride, and do it over and over again; that was where our focus was. We laughed and joked, we took the mickey out of a quick fall or a bad ride, but we were just as fast to congratulate the great ride. We shared drinks and meals, we told each other odd snippets of life stories in a mix of Spanish, Portuguese, German, English, French; with us all helping the other translate. Most off all we smiled and felt good.

# Chapter 6 - Rodeo Riders

The first time I rode in a training rodeo event at the farm I was unexpectedly nervous. I had done at least two rides a week on one of the crazy horses that Paddy had in his buckjumpers paddock and had mostly ridden at least ten seconds until I jumped off. We did not want to spoil them by letting them think we had won and bucking themselves out, so the tactic was that once the time bell rung you had to jump off. If you did not land cleanly on your feet that marked you down. In my dozen or so rides, done on a mix of horses, two times the horse had won before time at three and five seconds. The rest were mine though I only had a 50% average of getting off and staying upright.

But this hardly mattered because apart from Paddy the only observer was Rita, personal assistant come trainer and she had seen me in all states including when I was past doing another push up or chin up. Now there were around thirty blokes watching and three holding scoring cards.

This horse was unknown but had the makings of nastiness; he tried to bite my leg as I climbed on in the chute. He snorted in anger when he got my boot instead and I knew the competition would be fierce.

For five seconds I sat there, nerves all tingling, as I waited for the gate to open. It was not my best ride but it was OK with solid sevens on all the cards. He had bucked well. I had ridden acceptably but had not pushed any magic buttons, no death defying twists by him or masterful control by me, just a workmanlike performance which the first judge called good but bland and I knew I had to push beyond ordinariness.

But that settled me, after that my nerves were gone and I knew I could just focus on the ride. My scores were a mix of eights and nines from then on, not perfect but genuinely good. I was pleased. I was ranked second on the bareback table and that was fine by me. The best was a Brazilian rider whose balance was superb. He could turn each ride into a ballet performance.

Generally scores across all the events were pretty comparable, a mix of sixes, sevens and eights and an occasional nine, tens were a rare thing as befitted the idea of perfection, fabulous to aspire to but rarely achieved.

And of course there were times when it all went wrong; a rider sat in the dust while the beast bucked on. These were a great leveller, no one escaped at least one and the average was three, saying that the horse and bulls were of real quality and not to be taken lightly. What I most liked was the scorers were tough but fair and we were all generally in agreement with them.

By the end of the fortnight we were all getting better, averages lifting above eight, with little to split us. And we were all learning off each other!

Then it was over and we went on with our own lives, back in our home towns until a fortnight before the first event when we all were to return to boot camp again. By then we were all expected to be in our peak physical condition and ready for the rides of our lives.

All too soon the first round of rodeos was upon us. I was far and away the fittest I had ever been. We sat on the sidelines for most of the Chilean selection, knowing that this was not about us, but about finding the best of them. Most of us entered their roping event, the huasos, knowing it was best to pit our skills against real completion. We chose partners and together we practised for the fortnight. While none shone we learned from the masters.

A week later, I was sitting in the chute of the Saddle Bronc as Rider Number Two. My ride was good but not world beating and I placed third, competing against Brazilians and others in Sao Paulo and coming in behind an American and a Canadian. It was the same in the Bareback. Overall I was glad to have made a start. It was good enough to earn my bareback lead rider slot for team Down Under, though a Kiwi, Rod, was snapping at my heels.

Because we were fitter than most locals and battle hardened, our team took out most of the top prizes and about half of the second and third places. However there were a lot of talented local riders, not to mention some from adjoining countries and several made a great showing. We soon had three extras in our team including a tough little rider, Pedro. He rode the toughest bull in the event, and was a split second short of time. But if he had stayed on it would have been the best bull ride since we started. So we gave him a slot on our team as his raw talent was there for all to see.

The weeks rolled along. My rank held steady with a mix of twos, threes and fours in the event places, the occasional no score and just one ten, when I nailed it and came out on top.

It was an all-consuming but satisfying life when I slept, exercised and rode, with barely time to think. It was almost a state of happiness but not quite, contentment would have been a better word; an absence of future and past and that satisfaction of living in a moment in time and doing it well.

The down under event was to be held in Wellington, New Zealand. It was a pretty town ringed by mountains, the national capital and the long standing meeting place of the people from the North and South Islands where the ferry linked the two. It was also cold and windy but I blocked that out.

Paddy had decided that an Australian event was too risky on account of his dubious passport status, whereas the Kiwis seemed much more relaxed about this stuff. And it was only a two hour flight from the main towns of eastern Australia, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, which made it easy for some good Aussie competitors to fly here. I was not a name on the Australian rodeo circuit, so we sent our other Aussie, Dave, who was a well known local bull rider, and a handy Saddle Bronc rider, to spend a week there just before the competition started. As a result we had over a dozen talented Australian rodeo riders make the trip as well as a bevy of Kiwi locals who all wanted to try their luck. My two buckjumping rides were two strong seconds, with this time Kiwi Rod, beating me in the Saddle Bronc to the rapturous applause of a home crowd, and the Argentinian lead bareback rider, Francisco, beating me by a whisker in my lead event. We were all happy with this. The Kiwis were a generous crowd and cheered both me and Francisco loudly, along with Rod who rode third. I was pleased with my success but also with the relative anonymity of my ride. There was little coverage by the Australian media despite it being the top story in Kiwi land, with Rod a brief national hero.

At the end of this event we picked up another three riders, one Aussie from Cape York and two Kiwis, one from the Bay of Islands and one from the far south near Invercargill. Our team was good, there were no big egos, our new Aussie was a seriously good bull rider, equal to Dave, and we were all both mates and versatile, willing to have a go at anything.

One bloke I met was a slightly built Aussie, not much more than a kid, perhaps eighteen or nineteen. He name was Jimmy and he was as keen as mustard. He did a couple good rides and one almost great ride on a bull. But, like Pedro, he lost it a half second before time on the bull.

He was hard not to like, keen and enthusiastic. I knew he desperately wanted to make the cut, he saw it as a meal ticket to fame and fortune. In a strange way he reminded me of myself, way back then, he had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks and was desperate to get out of where he had come from. We chatted a few times around the yards; he was often to be found doing anything that would help and was a tireless worker.

I found that, like me, he had heard the stories of the Breaker and was desperate to follow in his footsteps. It too had been my dream at a similar age, though now, looking back, I could see it for what it was; a dream of full of stars that may never shine.

But no matter, it is good to dream a dream of hope. I would have liked to make space for him. But really he was too green; it was too early for the fully formed rider, the one that we needed, to emerge. So I encouraged him as best I could. I watched his dejected walk away after all our team was named and he was not one. I told him his time would come and that, once I got back to Australia, next year, he should get in touch and if I could use any contacts to help him I would. That seemed to satisfy him. He left with a half-smile covering disappointment in his face. I wondered if I would see him again.

At the end of the first round the teams were all settled, now over sixty of us, so we broke more into groups though all knew the basic facts about each other. I tried to mix with all and mostly succeeded, there were only a couple others that I had my reservations about and, with so many others, the need or ability to talk to everyone was limited.

We had a week off to refresh ourselves after the country selections.

I found myself mentally tired and decided I needed to get away to regain my zest. So I chartered a small plane and flew up to the northern edge of the country, a place where the driest desert in the world meets the richest ocean. I had decided I would allow myself five nights all alone, just me, the ocean, high mountains and the desert.

I landed at a town called San Pedro de Atacama, which was built in an oasis on a high plateau about 8000 feet in the air. Behind me, eastward, high Andes peaks with snow reared to double that height and to the west another less high mountain range reared. Our plateau, in a rain shadow, was a place of almost no rain, yet the water of the oasis had, from time immemorial, given the town its life. It was September, a time of transition from winter to summer, so a huge volcano covered in snow dominated one view. The other direction had red brown mountains with no trace of visible vegetation or life, behind which lay the ocean I had glimpsed on my flight's descent.

I hired a vehicle and paid a local as a guide to direct me away from the milling tourist crowds that seemed to surge through the dusty streets. I got his help to navigate onto a road into the middle of nowhere. From here, with my almost passable Spanish, I could follow his directions to a salt encrusted lake vista which I had to myself alone. I arranged to collect him mid-morning the next day when he would take me on a tour of the highest villages, sitting above 12,000 feet on the sides of the huge mountains.

So now it was just myself and the desert. I had a simple swag, a few bits of food and a bottle of water, all I wanted or needed. There was something in the silence of this vast emptiness that nurtured my soul. I wanted for nothing more, content to gaze across huge spaces and empty places to more of the same. When the night came I lay on my bed for several hours and immersed myself in a landscape of stars, beyond anything of human reckoning.

In the morning my mind felt clear and refreshed and I returned to the town for my guide to take me to the highest hill villages. We walked and talked with the villagers in a mix of my rudimentary Spanish and his limited translated English. At lunch we broke our fast in a cantina with a selection of tapas foods and glasses of their house red, before returning, as the shadows of the high land swept across our path, to my place of the salt lakes.

The next day I booked him to take me down to the ocean, a place where the Pacific abuts desert mountains; a place full of life in contrast to the desert desolation. Huge breakers rolled and slammed into a sand and rock strewn coast and a chill wind whipped off a living ocean.

Out to sea I saw whales and dolphins cruising without apparent effort through broken waves, while gulls and gannets hurled their insults to the sky. I spent most of the day in a desolate bay; just me in the midst of the lonely sea and sky. I found myself reminded of a fragment of a poem, barely known; 'I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky'.

It was the place where I was alone in emptiness, yet a place full of its own movement and life. I was an irrelevancy. I loved the fact that I was a nothing in the vast wonderment of this landscape. The coast was a barren wasteland of rock strewn hills, rising at sheer and impossible angles, with odd fragments of greenness and life, some moss and lichens here and there, an odd stunted bush. The sea was a roiling, boiling, swirling mass of movement, as if its own living creature, one which gave life to yet more creatures within and above it, a place as indifferent to me as the empty hills.

I gathered a few shards of driftwood and made a small fire, nothing too extravagant as the fuel was sparse, but it was my own tamed part of nature. Earlier I had collected for free some small fragments of nature's bounty, shell fish, crabs and a couple small fish I caught in rock pools with my hands. They were supper to feast on as a settled into a half shelter in the lee of rocky hills. I watched the mist drift off the ocean and swirl over the hills as day turned to night. Tonight there were no stars, just tendrils of mist.

In the morning I awoke, hungry and unwashed. I set out to walk to the nearest town, which from my guide's instructions was maybe twenty miles, maybe thirty. I had a water bottle and a light pack but that was all, enough for a couple days. Late in the day I found a town and a cantina, the food and company was welcome again, as was a bed with sheets.

Next morning I got a drive to another bigger town with an airport from which a series of flights brought me back to the ranch. I was expecting a quiet home coming, one where my absence was barely noticed, but it was not so.

# Chapter 7 - The Fight

It is strange how apparently peaceful and harmonious life can turn to chaos in an instant and never be able to be restored.

I had left what I thought was a happy and peaceful band of brothers, all seeming well satisfied with their joint success. I returned to something close to open warfare between the north and south, a civil war in our ranks.

It was not quite the American Civil War but had some of its elements, north versus south, one culture against another, slights and fights - some real and most imagined. Here it was the Spanish and Portuguese cultures of South and Central America against the all powerful big brother of the north, in its Yankee and Canadian guise.

The Europeans and Down Under boys mostly sat on the fence though with some leaning one way and some the other depending on where their cultural affiliations lay, the Anglos for the north, the Spanish for the south.

Two of our number were in the local hospital, one with a broken jaw and one with a knife in the guts. Others nursed a range of more minor injuries from the no holds fight that ensued.

The story I pieced together was that the Texan, Tex we all called him, though Hank was his name, had a couple too many drinks. He was a big man, slightly beefy, about six foot two and sixteen stone, his large frame was a bit unusual for a good bull rider but he did have some real talent, and seemed to get on well with his Yankee and Canadian team mates.

It was not quite clear how he had got on the team, partly merit, but also Paddy and Enrico put his name forward at the outset, they had picked him as a man with a growing reputation and good rodeo connections into Texas, which we wanted as our North American base. He was a better than average rider. His competition scores were solid, a mix of 3rds and 4ths mostly, and that was OK, though he was the weakest of the Americans in real talent.

He really was at best a reserve but because of his pull in Texas we had left him in the lead spot for now on account of his drawing power. Really we should have culled him as mediocre, but he had snuck through and done just enough right to keep a place, even though he was a loudmouth.

On this day, with more drinks than normal and an oversized mouth Tex was telling his Mexican fellow bull rider, how Texans were the best, far above the rest, whereas Mexicans were no good, lazy layabouts who snuck across the border and took jobs from honest, hard-working Americans.

It had started as good natured banter, but had somehow got personal; words to the effect of 'your mothers and sisters are all whores', had come from this loud mouthed Yankee to one of the Mexican team, to which the Mexican bull rider flung his drink in the face of the Yank. Tex then king-hit him and broke his jaw. In retaliation one of his Mexican team mates pulled a knife and in a flash it was buried in Tex's belly, after which an all-out brawl erupted between to two competing factions, first Americans against Mexicans, then, as the Americans were getting the upper hand, the other South Americans joined in with their Mexican brothers. Now with the tables turned the Canadians felt obliged to step to the defence of their American brothers. As it was not on the ranch but in a bar in town the police were called and arrested half of our team.

That had all happened the previous night and this day it was my pleasure to walk into the aftermath. Paddy was doing his best to settle things down. I had never really noticed how age was catching up on him until that day when he seemed to be grey with a combination of fatigue and age, perhaps in large part because his dream of an international rodeo competition seemed to be in tatters. It was clear that neither Tex nor the Mexican bull rider would be competing again anytime soon. In reality neither was welcome any longer in our camp. We paid the hospital bills and wrote out a cheque to each for severance pay then left them to their own devices.

We bailed the rest of the team and got our lawyer to get an agreement with the police not to press charges if we paid an inflated damages bill to the bar and a big fine to the local town for disturbing public order.

Back at the ranch we split the team into their base camps and Paddy and I spent ten minutes with each asking that they let the past be past and get back into training for our next event a bare week away. A lot of them looked shamefaced that it had all got out of hand and their seemed a general willingness to get on with it, though I could feel a big pimple of resentment running through the various camps at the other side who in their minds was mostly to blame. We quickly secured a new big name Mexican and American bull rider to start in a week. In the interim I promoted the next best of each team into the bull riding slot.

It was peace restored, but not quite true harmony as something in the 'esprit de corps' was gone and would never return, though we all redoubled our efforts to get on and do our best for teams and the competition.

# Chapter 8 - Rodeo Champions

So the competition rolled along but without the mountain of goodwill there had been before. Week by week country championships followed each other in rapid succession. The routine was; ride Saturday night then celebrate, rest Sunday, Monday had an early morning work-out then we all packed up and travelled to a new location. From Tuesday to Thursday it was back into full-on practice, Friday was publicity day when, in the early morning, we washed and groomed and polished our looks and speech routines, then we would be out and about, meeting the press and rodeo loving public, doing events, signing autographs and on. Saturday we would do it all over again. The prizes were pretty evenly spread about, both between competitors and countries, which was good as everyone felt they and their team were getting a fair share.

My own performances had slid a bit, mostly I rode time but my focus on being the best had slipped with all my other responsibilities. I found I did not care greatly, telling myself I would focus again when the finals came around in the final two weeks.

I think others in the Down Under team were a bit disappointed that I was only doing OK, but it also left more space for them to shine and pick up prizes so it was a swings and roundabouts thing.

I had not really thought about what I would do when it was over. By now I mostly slept in the big house, not in the team quarters of bunk beds. I was often talking to Paddy about arrangements until late in the night. Frequently Rita came to my bed in the late night which gave its own comfort, she was like a fierce independent bird, happy to share her body and pleasure with me without giving or seeking more.

The final trip before the finals started was the return leg to down under. This time Paddy elected not to come, he had a grey drawn look all the week before and a couple times I saw him wincing as if swallowing pain. When I asked about this he told me he had an ulcer. Plus we had decided to take a chance, moving this second event to the Oz. We had chosen Toowoomba, in the Queensland hinterland, as a good location. It still had a country town feel and was close to the rural heartlands of the Darling Downs and New England. It also gave easy access to the big populations of Brisbane and the Gold Coast and Brisbane Airport was a main departure and arrival point for international travel, making it quick and easy to get all our team in and out.

This time the Australian rural media was out in force. I was touted as an Aussie success story, MB, boy from the bush who made good and is now working the international rodeo circuit.

I ducked questions of who I really was, I just said that all my mates knew me as MB and I had got used to the name. When a couple reporters tried to compare me to the Breaker I told them I was born a hundred years too late, plus he had won all the events he competed in whereas I was mostly getting seconds and thirds.

However, now I was here, back in my own land, I found, within myself, a burning desire to succeed in front of my home crowd and to bring the Down Under team along with me, getting the best from us all.

Our invitation event was Camp Drafting which we were all handy at, not to mention there were innumerable local competitors all wanting a crack at the $20,000 in prizes. As well as this we had put on a Sheep Dog Trial, purely for local entrants, with $5000 in prizemoney, which seemed pretty right.

We reasoned these events should bring a good crowd of competitors as well as spectators from across the region.

We had also run a ballot for four wild card entries into each of our main events. We did this by drawing names from a hat of those who nominated if they had qualified first or second in a rodeo championship across the country over the last six months. These local competitors competed on an equal basis with our own team in each of the events for prize-money if successful. These competitors effectively gave us a second local team in the competition.

On the morning of the event there was a steady stream of competitors from outside bringing in their horses and dogs for the camp-draft and sheep dog trials. They often brought friends and family as we had allowed up to six free tickets for each paid competition entry, to boost numbers.

We were unsure how many people would come on the day; we knew it really depended on the vibe for the event out there in the local towns.

The pre-day ticket sales gave us about a quarter of capacity, which felt like a good start. However, knowing Australians, we reasoned a lot would not bother to book but just rock up on the night.

The gates were opened two hours before the show started and, by then, a good crowd was lined up to come in. This was followed by a steady stream of further arrivals. By half an hour before starting it was getting pretty tight, and by start time it was well over 90% full. We were determined to squeeze in all comers, if we possibly could, so as not to turn people away.

When our cowgirls and cheerleaders galloped out and made their circuit to celebrate the opening of the event a roar went up that shook the stands. It gave me goose-bumps. I had never been really nervous in any competition before, but tonight I felt I was walking on eggshells. I locked down my mind to focus on my own brief seconds in the bright lights.

We opened our program with the Saddle Bronc, followed by the Steer Roping; then the Camp Draft was held during the middle hour. As I was riding two events that night I had not entered this. After that was done there was an intermission during which the Sheep Dog Trials ran. The event wrapped up with the Bareback followed by the Bull Ride.

So my first ride in the Saddle Bronc was just around the corner as the opening ceremony unfolded. I sat behind the chutes, waiting to go out and focused my mind on this window in the spotlight. I knew this day was my best ever chance to shine and was determined not to fluff it.

My horse draw was good but not brilliant, he would perform, but I would have to work him hard to get his best. I was drawn third to ride which was good as there were two ordinary competitors before me. One rode time with a low score and one came off. Once they were done I knew I should try and set the standard to beat. I rode a good solid ride and got nines.

As the rest of the competitors went through I was sitting comfortably in the lead. But I knew my real competition came from the second last rider, a Paraguayan rider who was part of the Argentinian team. Realistically he was better than me; he rode every day for a living and was a superb and polished horseman in every way. So, it was no real surprise when he pipped me at the post by a small margin with two nines and a 9.5.

I did not begrudge him his ride or success and in a way I was relieved.

I had met expectations. I now was free to ride my best ride without any weight on my shoulders in the Bareback. The horse, Scarface, I had drawn here was a real mongrel, a shaggy looking half brumby thing, with a big scar running down the front of his face and a half-white wall eye, not blind but a bit damaged from an encounter with a rail.

When I had walked towards him in the run up yard, just before this event begun, he sized me up with his good eye, then snorted and curled his lip as if to say, 'Your time will soon come.' Then for good measure he sank his teeth into the rump of the horse closest. It bucked, squealed and jumped away.

As I watched all this I felt good, thinking, ' _Meanness begets meanness. I am mean and you are mean, may the meanest bastard win._ '

Then it was time to watch the others and see if there were any clues from how they went; a way to spin, a judge to impress. My ride was second last and, as I climbed on board, I could feel a hush come over the crowd. It was as if they knew something about me or the horse would be big and were waiting with bated breath for it to unfold.

It was good to sit in the silence, feeling the bunched muscles and angry moves of the horse below me. I guessed he would break right, away from the judges. I wanted to reverse that. I would let him have one big buck going that way. Then on the second buck, when he was at full stretch and I was being propelled upward I would use that momentum plus an almighty reef on the halter to push him the way I wanted him to go. I figured, if I could pull that off, it would make him so mad to have been thrown of his stride that he would go completely crazy and throw everything at getting rid of me. After that I simply had to ride out a series of death defying bucks as he ran across the front of the judges in the face of a cheering crowd.

It went exactly as planned for the first bit. Now he was flinging it all back at me as he followed the planned path. But then, just I was thinking I had it in the bag, perhaps two seconds from time, he turned on the wildest, craziest buck I had ever seen. It started as a front foot prop. He dropped both feet in the dirt, then he corkscrewed his body as he spun through a buck, going first one way then reversing in mid-flight. I had not expected this, too confident that I already had it in the bag. With all my strength, using the halter like a lifeline, I pulled myself back in the middle of his back. In that split second that I touched down the bell rang time. A barest half second later his next buck slung me like a catapult the other way and from that there was no coming back. I knew I had got my score, just by a hairs breadth, and so I went with the sling, kicking my feet clear as I headed the opposite way to my horse and then touching down on the dust below, in a seamless two foot landing.

I lifted my hat to the crowd who were cheering ecstatically.

In a way I felt the horse had won, he was undefeated as he had pitched me off his back and, but for the bell, I would have been gone for all money. But at the same time I had won too, having done a ride of my life. It felt plain good. So I scored two tens and one nine, this judge later told me he reckoned I was gone even though I had done time and he was right.

When the presentation was made, the local commentator spoke to the crowd, "Well, I don't know about you, but I have just seen one of the rides of my life. I heard a whisper, before this event, that some have compared this bloke, MB, to the Breaker, come back to life after a hundred years.

"I don't know about that but I reckon that was one ride that even the Breaker would have been proud to have made."

As he spoke these last words a new round of cheers rang out, and several voices could be heard calling out, "The Breaker, The Breaker."

I found that, for once, I was comfortable with these words being said, the commentator was pretty right, I was not the Breaker and never would be. But I had done one almost perfect ride that any horseman, even the Breaker, would have been proud of. It was enough to walk that close to this man.

After that the rest of the trip to Australia was an anticlimax, the endless commentator questions, the backslapping, girls making offers I had to refuse.

As part of the deal with Paddy I did several more interviews with famous rodeo buffs. But this news was at the margins of mainstream Australia and I was gone two days later. So the story never made much of a splash outside that small pond and for that I was glad. I realised the public adulation was a meaningless thing. All that really mattered was that I had done good for my team, for Paddy and for myself.

Two days later I was on a plane flying across the world and by the next day Australia seemed very far away.

# Chapter 9 - Paddy

Paddy had not come to Australia. He had claimed too much else to do and had not wanted to risk his arrest, but I knew there was more to it. Over the last month he was starting to look more drawn and the pains were becoming ever more obvious.

On my return it was like seeing him anew for the first time. A bare week had passed and yet he suddenly looked old and frail, not long for this world. Sure, on his last trip to Australia to meet me, he had played the part of an old decrepit man. But then it had been a ruse, immediately obvious if you looked closely. Now it was real, his body was failing him.

I asked him how he was and he went to brush it off, saying, "All the better for seeing you, returned a winner."

In the past I would have let it go, but not today. It was just me and him in the front room of his house. Today it was time to get to the elephant into the room. I said, "Paddy, it's me you are talking to. You can cut your Irish blather. I can see you are not well. Don't you think it is past time you levelled with me about whatever this is?"

He sat down, pointed to another chair, and took a deep breath. "You're right; time for some straight talking, fair is fair. In simple words, I am rooted."

"There is this thing inside me that is eating me up from the inside out. It will give me enough time to see this rodeo thing out, but only just.

"It's spring now in Chile, my new beloved country. I will be lucky to see out summer. In fact it will probably be over before Christmas Bells ring.

"I am not sad; I am ready for it to be over. I have had a good life, done all I want and more than most. I am ready to be put in the ground, alongside my beloved wife who lies there, for my own good long sleep.

"I am glad I found you; I am really glad we pulled this thing off and put it together. If I could have my perfect end from here it would be for Chile to win this championship or at least for one of the countries down here to come out on top. Or, maybe, for one of the boys from Down Under to be up there.

"You don't need to know the details of all the bad things happening to me, I don't want to be nurse-maided, or to have you by my dying bedside.

"I have more than enough carers to look after me and, when I am gone, what I own will go to these people who have been my friends for a large chunk of my life and now look after me with affection. I know I could give part or all of it to you. But I also know enough to realise you don't need that, or any other material things from me.

"I am glad, for both your and Fred's sake, that I ran you to ground and I am glad you did the ride of your life just now. One day, when Fred and I meet in that other place, over a cold beer, we will both take pleasure in telling and remembering that story.

"And, even if only for one day, it's good that people have put your name alongside the Breaker and told far and wide that you have done a ride worthy of him. Perhaps we will meet him over there too and we can all tell this story, perhaps we will even meet you there one day, not too soon I hope, though like the Breaker I doubt you will make old bones.

"So MB, don't feel sorry for me, just get out there and help me win that bloody championship for those that matter most to us both. It was never about money, but there is something so precious about taking pride in being the best. If we win can this last thing then you and the others will walk in the footsteps of giants, and share their legend."

***

With that said there was no point in beating around the bush. I knew what I had to do. I had to try and help Paddy get one last dream. He did not want others to know, he would stage manage his appearance so as not to let on. He only had to hold it together for another bare month, a week off, two more events a fortnight apart, one in North America for the national championship round and one in Chile, for the regional final.

This would be his very last public appearance. If there was a good story to be told after it was done he would leave it for me and the other riders to front the media and celebrate, his celebration would be a private affair with a few close friends and a small glass of Scotch. When this was done he said he would like it best if we would all get out of his life for the dying part.

So that is what we did. I got the team together that night, I did not tell them exactly the problem but said that we all needed to give it our absolute best shot, and that we would both send an old man who had been good to us off happy and make an ongoing name for ourselves plus lots of money if we all rode better than we or anyone else could believe.

It seemed to work, the competition was fierce, but most important, off the arena we were back to a band of brothers in the best way we had been before. We all congratulated each other on our good rides and we each gave little pointers when we saw a thing to be improved.

It seemed the crowds gathered knew it too, that they were witnessing something special. With that spirit success can easily to us all, we consistently bettered our best rides from before and worked together like a well-oiled machine. In the end neither Chile or the Down Under boys were quite able to match the Americans in the national championship event with the US coming out number one and Brazil number two but we ran a close third and fourth behind them. I had ridden good rides though, with all else going on, my riding was just a notch below the best. However the other riders in our team more than made up for it. So then it was back to Chile for the regional final and the presentations of the final awards; best competition rider in each event across the whole tournament. This time it was us Aussies and Kiwis against the best of North America, an incredibly good combined US, Mexican and Canadian Team. The other cut was the South Americans against the rest of the world, a mix of Europeans and a couple riders from other obscure countries, a Russian of Cossack lineage and an amazing Mongolian rider who seemed to have been welded to his horse since birth. This group went first and although it was closer than expected the South Americans emerged clear winners setting themselves for the grand final event.

Everyone was expecting the North Americans would walk all over us, they after all held top scores in most individual events. Before we started I did my best to rev our team up, I told them that Paddy was one of us, a Down Under Boy who had made it big across the waves and we needed to show him the national pride of both our countries. I reminded them that it was our heritage, following in the footsteps of Breaker Morant, the Man from Snowy River, Clancy of the Overflow, and so many others from both our countries, to work the rough hills and dry plains of our lands with horse and beast and relive our national legends. It seemed to strike a chord.

Both teams had three competitors in each event; I was number two in the Saddle Bronc and No 1 in the bareback. In the Saddle Bronc we rode well but the Americans were a little better, they were in front by a bare point. I liked our chances in the roping and sure enough we levelled the score. The bull ride was expected to be theirs and it was finished off by the Bareback where I was determined to make my last ride my best ever.

I think the Yanks were a bit overconfident about the bull ride, the had won this event repeatedly and we had never beaten them in this. Plus they had a sense that their destiny was always to win, they just had to turn up and ride for it to come their way, after all they had just cleaned up the national championships a fortnight past.

I remembered how both we and the Kiwis had each done them in the America's Cup. I said if just one country could beat them in that then surely working together we could beat them in this. I could feel a few dubious looks and half head shakes but I knew they were listening and I had got through.

So now we were drawn level with two events to go. I would not ride a bull, it was not my thing, but I willed our riders to match it with the Yanks. All the rides were good and made time, and were still level pegging when their last and our last sat in the chutes. Their rider went first and did a cracker ride. He would be hard to match let alone beat. I gave our Cape York rider, who was drawn last, a part aboriginal lad who reminded me a bit of Vic, the thumbs up, as if to say, 'Go Beat them' and that is exactly what he did. He blitzed the field in a flawless ride and the judges scored straight tens.

We were in front, with just one event to go. I knew it was mine to win or lose, drawn first in the Bareback. I blocked out the cheering crowd to make the ride of my life. And so it was. I barely remember the detail, but as I sat there a split second before the gate opened I patted this ball of bunched muscle on the withers and, as my hand touched him, I reached out my mind, saying, 'Do your worst, buck like you have never bucked before and I will ride to equal that. It was a second set of perfect tens and I knew we were home and into the final, to ride off against the peoples of Paddy's new home.

As is often the way, when you exceed yourself in one round, it can't be matched in the next and so it was that day. We came a close second to the South Americans, but I was happy, Paddy had got his dream finish and, best of all, in that last event two of the winners were Chilean riders, one in the Saddle Bronc and one in the Roping. Our same rider cleaned up in the bull ride with straight nines and in the last event an Argentinian knocked me off in the Bareback though it was a close run thing.

When it came to the awards for best rider I tied with the Argentinian for which I felt inordinately proud. I was good but I thought he was better, his balance was superb and his sixth sense of anticipating his horse's every next move was uncanny. So I was happy to stand alongside him.

In a strange way this series of events had brought me of age. It showed me both that I was good and on a par with others at the top of the game and equally that fame and fortune were just fickle things, here today and gone tomorrow and not worth giving too much to.

It was better to follow one's own path and try to be true to it.

The night it was over I drank a quiet Scotch with Paddy after he stood for five minutes at the presentation to the rapturous applause of the crowd. Although he would have rather shunned the limelight he was deservedly a national hero for one night, and this last time was all he could manage.

The next day I took Rita on a journey to Mexico to visit her cousins. We were lovers and that was enough, neither of us sought to make it more.

After less than a month we came back to bury Paddy, it was still in November. So, as he predicted, he did not hear the Christmas Bells ring. I knew he did not care about this, so neither did I. Still I was glad to have done my part in making his send off one to remember.

I then flew home with a loose promise for Rita to visit me in the next year, perhaps in Cairns where we could go diving on the reef. As the plane climbed out of Santiago, New Zealand bound, I reflected on the year just past and how my future may pan out. For Paddy I felt regret at his passing but little real sadness.

He had lived life to the full and loved what he had. Then, when his time was over, he had walked to the finish line with dignity. I seemed all any man could hope for. I would be pleased if I could emulate him.

# Chapter 10 - Homecoming

It was strange returning after more than a year away. I was thirty one and felt as if an entire life had passed in the last year. I was richer in money than any foreseeable needs and decided that I should establish a place of two of my own that I could call home.

Before I had a flat rented in both Alice and Katherine, nothing much was in either. While away I had merely rented a storage box in an industrial shed in the Alice to keep odd things I wanted to retain. At that time I felt no need to buy anything called a property in my own name.

However coming home gave me a new perspective. The last time I came back to this place it was to seek respite from grief and loss. In doing so I had found friendships and made a home, of a sort, in an impermanent way.

This time I had a desire for something that unequivocally belonged to me. It did not need to be flash, but I wanted a piece of something of my own in this vast outback land, a thing that was legally mine. I did not want it to tie me down or require maintenance on a regular basis. But I liked the idea that I could go away for a month or a year and one day walk back, open the door, throw my bags on the floor and call it my home, even if it was nothing more than four walls and a bed. I had a couple million dollars in liquid assets, and perhaps another five in investments of other kinds. But none of this related to a fixed place. I now wanted one.

I considered a flash house in Sydney or Melbourne or maybe Perth. But I belonged in none of them. I thought of buying a station, but that seemed like a trap to keep me in one place, I thought of buying a country villa by the sea in some pretty tourist town. But that was not what I wanted either.

The vast sweep of the inland was my home and all I really wanted was a place or two in its heart, modest and unassuming but yet my home.

Perhaps this need grew out of a life of impermanence, because my life had begun as the child from nowhere, who had then grown into a man from nowhere. Vic had one or twice joked that my nickname should be 'Nowhere Man', and while meant as harmless fun it had a ring of truth.

In the end I bought two of them, small flats, almost a thousand miles apart, one in the Alice and one in Katherine. Perhaps, in time, I would buy a couple more, maybe a place in the Flinders Ranges, another in the Kimberly or in North Queensland. These were the places I drifted between. It just meant an odd night in a place I owned. But two properties was enough for now, the place in the Alice was a second floor unit looking out to the red MacDonnell Ranges, a view which I felt connected me to the ancient wisdom of the first people of the place. The other place in Katherine was a single level unit a street back from the river, from which I could stroll with a fishing line in hand and maybe hook a fish, or watch a crocodile sunning itself on the bank and, when they were not in evidence, I could watch the luminous wing flash of a rainbow bee-eater as it swooped for insects over the water.

Both properties were singularly non-descript, but still they were mine. Now my two homes also gave places where odd bits of mail could be sent. In the other locations I compromised by buying a post office box and made arrangements for any mail which came to each of them to be sent on to one of my primary homes.

I used a different name for buying each place. In Alice Springs I mostly went by the official name of Mark Bennet and in Katherine I was Mark Butler. For my riding career I had mostly been Mark Brown. My most used overseas passport was in another MB name.

From early on I had learned the value of multiple identities though, for simplicity, I used the same first name. I did not want to complicate my life by having to respond to multiple names. The MB moniker was easy, for most purposes it sufficed and it avoided people having to use my real name. I kept most assets under my other identities but had a will made in my real name. I assigned the property rights of all assets to a trust. This was held by an imaginary entity but the named trust beneficiary was the real me.

That way, should I want to cash in or distribute my assets, I had them reverting to a structure that was owned by the real me, but it was almost impossible to find me behind these structures unless I chose to reveal myself. It was not totally foolproof, but it would take a really big investigation many months' to unravel. Nobody I knew had a reason to look that hard.

I had learnt the hard way, early on, of the value of having more than one you and understood the need to move seamlessly between identities. Now, having spent a year with Paddy and seeing his trouble with his real identity, I was, more than ever, convinced this was a prudent thing to do.

Who knew when or if a person from my past would come after me for one of my many 'so called' sins. I did not feel guilt or regret for what I had done but still it was good to have lots of escape holes to slide into.

Once my real estate dealings were done I settled back into station life, reconnected with Vic and a few other old friends. I let it be known I was back in the gem trading business. I spent a week in Coober Pedy rebuilding my old networks there along with some new; it was a good place to buy and sell things dug out of the ground of unknown provenance without the taxman looking over a shoulder, or others asking unwanted questions.

I found these traders often also wanted other services and, within reason, I was happy to oblige, nothing too dirty, but things of anonymity that gave solutions to other problems and paid well for the service.

A few months drifted by. I was working in the south-west corner of Queensland, using the pretence of a bit of station horse breaking to check out the country north west of where Elfin and I had come. When I had gaps between bits of horse work I would head out into the scrubby, broken range country that followed the desert country north of the Barcoo River, a land that shared a common look with the place where we had found our great opal mine. I had never been back to it to dig further; I felt it was a place that deserved to be left to the spirits now that Elfin rested nearby. But, continuing on from that time, I had learned of the signs that went with the boulder opal country. Now I used my free days to explore one area after another.

I also questioned old timer miners who had worked this country over the last fifty or sixty years whenever I got the chance, as there were many things they had learned that stayed unsaid.

While I had found no new instant bonanza, I now had several promising prospects to dig into when the time was right. As I explored I took out low cost leases on key bits that seemed worthwhile. As a result I now had a dozen such small land parcels to which I held the mining rights. It was a hobby, but also an occupation that gave me purpose and pleasure, particularly talking to old miners to glean what they knew.

Usually I would spend a Wednesday or Thursday night in some local town hotel, doing my research. These were the best nights: the weekends were too busy as all the ringers were in town and Monday's and Tuesday's most stayed away nursing the last weekend's hangover.

# Chapter 11 - Reunions

I was sitting in the little town of Quilpie with a whiskey in hand and a shout going at the bar for three old timers who were gradually feeding me dribbles of information. It was not a promising night, they had little to tell.

I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned round to see a familiar face, Jimmy, the lad who had ridden so well in Kiwi land last year in the rodeo completion. He was still a bit small and scrawny but had definitely grown up and gained strength, with hard square shoulders and strong hands. He was even growing a semblance of a moustache.

He grinned from ear to ear in finding me. It turned out he was travelling to on Windorah to which I was heading for the next day too. So after a couple drinks and some news exchange we agreed to travel in convoy tomorrow for this next leg. It turned out he was now eighteen and allowed to legally drink and vote, whereas last year he had to con his way into bars.

I could not help but like him, his enthusiasm was infectious and it felt like I was looking back at myself a decade or more ago, when life was such a fresh thing full of promise. By the end of our trip the next day I had agreed to take him on, apprentice like, and teach him what I knew for the rest of the season.

He reminded me so much of myself, not in looks, but in the survival instinct he had. He had been brought up tough by an abused mother and an abusive father on the outskirts of Brisbane. He too had to fight and steal to survive and, though he had never done a remand home and his mother was still alive and gave him love. He told me how he and she had escaped from her bullying husband who had beaten them both innumerable times when they were small.

He was an only child like me and had known a life on the run, going from shelter to shelter as both ran from a man who would track down and beat up his mother and son at every chance.

Finally when Jimmy was twelve and his father was laying into his mother, on one of the occasions when he had tracked her down, Jimmy had found a beer bottle in the kitchen and had used that to smash into his father's head, over and over again, until he stopped moving.

His father had not died but now was little more than a vegetable in a nursing home; they said he had sustained severe brain damage. As for Jimmy, he was classed as a minor who was protecting his mother so there had been no charges and, even though his mother still visited his father in the home and even fed him mush, Jimmy told me he was glad he had done it.

It had finally given his mother a life without continual fear and, even though she was still poor and drank too much, he felt affection for her and sent her money and visited her when he could.

As a child his main respite from violence had been to watch old cowboy movies on TV. Then, when he was a bit older a school, knowing of his love for cowboys and horses, a teacher had introduced him to the Australian outback heroes, the poetry of Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson, bushrangers like Captain Starlight, Ned Kelly and the Wild Colonial Boy and most of all the stories of the Breaker. He now aspired to walk in Breaker's footsteps, to ride like he rode and fight like he fought. Even more than me at that age he had such a hunger for success.

I found, as he talked to me, that his dream was to make it big in the cowboy rodeo circuits of the US, both for the money on offer and the fame and fortune he saw would attend it. And there was no doubt he had promise, he had the reflexes of a cat and the mid-sized, tough wiry build that I had found in most of the rodeo champions I had known, particularly the bull riders. Bulls were his biggest passion, the meaner the better. Even though not really my thing, I could see he had the skill required and appreciate his talent. And of course he was pretty handy on a horse as well.

So I took him along on my trips as I broke horses and contract mustered rough country and he took to it all like a duck to water. In our free time between jobs I taught him what I knew about trick shooting and self-defence and paid for him to have professional boxing lessons. Whenever there was a local rodeo he used any cash he had for the entry fees and, if he was short, I would advance him the cost out of his wages.

Like with Fred I was determined to keep him tough and make him pay his way, there was no percentage in spoiling him if he wanted to get to the top. And, apart from the serious business of helping him get ahead and become the best, he was good company and fun to have around. He was a practical joker with a wicked sense of humour and loved nothing better than to catch me out with some clever trick, everything from a python in my swag, to tying my feet together, where they poked out of my swag with a piece of rope. When he called out 'Emergency', and I jumped up, I went face first into the prickles. For that alone I could have killed him but he ran so fast he was out of harm's way by the time I got my feet free, and I could not stay cranky with him for more than a minute without laughing.

We found ourselves at Birdsville the weekend of the Races where he entered the Fred Brophy boxing. Even though on the small side, he had the reflexes of a cat and got more than his share of hits on the old professional boxer he was matched against while barely getting a mark on himself. After the three rounds the whole crowd was standing cheering for him as the new local champion. I felt as proud as if he was my own son when they raised his hand as the one and only outside winner on the night.

We celebrated in the Birdsville Hotel after and it was then he told me of his plan to fulfil his great dream to go to the US over our summer and try and break into the big time. He had won several local rodeo events, a couple bareback bronco rides and some bull riding events. He said he was only half interested in Saddle Bronc as he felt there was too much advantage to the rider over the horse, whereas with just a strap around the animal's middle to hang onto he felt the ledger was square. In America the Saddle Bronc was big but if anything the Bull Riding was bigger. And so it was there he wanted to seek fame and fortune in this event. He had a few thousand dollars cash saved but reckoned he needed another twenty or thirty to give him six months to have a serious crack at it. So he asked me if I could advance him the thirty on spec, either as a loan out of future wages or in the hope that he would make the money back from his bull riding to refund me. It was with a touch of regret that I said 'Yes', not that I begrudged him his chance for days in the sun, but I knew I would miss him once gone. As a second favour he asked me to come with me to Brisbane while he told his mother at the end of the season, she would not want him to go and he did not want to worry. He thought it would reassure her to meet someone else who had made the big time in this life overseas. He also asked for any contact details I had for any of the riders on the American Team or Canadian Team from when we had all ridden together last year as maybe a couple of these could help him make some local contacts and get some rides in the bigger events.

I still had most of these in my notebook, a mix of phone numbers and emails. Over the next week we sent out both emails and texts to those he remembered and I thought were most promising. I never gave him the contact details of Hank, the Texan, I thought the guy was trouble and did not trust him as far as I could kick him. However I thought all the others were decent blokes and it was no harm to touch base with them. I still thought of us as a band of brothers. I would help one of them the same way in return.

Sure enough, two Americans and a Canadian came back within a week and a couple more later, all saying they would love to see him, they could give him a bed for a few nights and would introduce him around their locality and try and line up a couple rides for him. It seemed fair and decent. Once he knew his options he worked out to go first to California where one had a big ranch and then head on with him up to Montana in November where he now had a couple rides booked.

In the end I gave him fifty grand. I told him he could pay me back if he ever made it big, and in the meantime to treat it as a bonus on his wages, not something I was looking for return on. I said my reward would be his success, and in return he had to send me a text, postcard or email once a month to let me know how he was going, to which he happily agreed.

So in October, when the bush was getting hot and dry, we headed for Brisbane. I spent a day with him and his Mum, seeing the sights of Brisbane before we put him on a plane to the States. I felt for his Mum, life had been hard for her and, even though it was now OK, she had the face and the body of a person far older than her years, still bearing the scars of fists and other beatings, now added to by too much beer and whiskey. She asked Jimmy to come with her to see his father before he flew out, not that he even knew who his son was these days, but his mother thought he still had a parental duty to go and say his farewell, which he reluctantly did.

I did not go and see his father with him, I still had not seen my own father in twenty years and forgiveness for my own father was something I could never envisage. So there seemed no point to watch how Jimmy tried to come to terms with the remains of a man, now diminished from past monster but remaining his own flesh and blood.

I don't think it was a good meeting because when I saw Jimmy next day he simply said, "Fuck that man, I still hate him as much as ever, but at least my going made my mother happy." Nevertheless I liked that he felt loyalty enough to his mother to do what she wanted even when he did not.

One thing that happened through me getting in touch with all the riders from North America was it made me decide to check in on how the others were going, particularly those in Chile. It seemed that life was treating most of them OK and some had done really well with their riding careers over the last year and were continuing on as national heroes.

Along the way I talked to people at the ranch and soon there was the familiar voice of Rita on the line, she was still working there doing things to maintain Paddy's legacy and wishes. She told me she was coming through Australia on a trip to the Philippines and Europe soon and asked whether I wanted to catch up. I remembered fondly out nights in Chile and Mexico and, without hesitation, said 'Yes'.

Rita flew into Cairns, en route to Spain, using some of the money Paddy had given her in his will to fund her trip. It was great to see her again and we spent a week in a cheap backpackers, a mix of outdoor and bedroom activity, before she flew on. We liked each other well enough, but as 'fuck buddies', rather than eternal friends. She told me she was now seeing someone else in Chile but had decided to enjoy whatever came her way on her holidays. It suited me to have a friend who was not trying to push me into more.

On the last night before she flew on via Manilla, we were sitting in a small bar connected to the place when a girl started to play the guitar. I was in the back of the room talking to Rita. I could barely see the singer and gave her little mind. But, as she rolled into her second song, there was something in her voice that reached out and grabbed me, a smoked honey sound, half husky, half resonant and deeply mysterious, as if her eyes were viewing other places seen by herself alone, but which she had chosen to reveal to me and me alone in her song. It felt that as she sung the words they gained their own independent life of which I was an intimate part.

# Chapter 12 - Belle

I realised Rita was looking at this singer intently and, in a few seconds with her ear for language, she said, 'Francaise'. When the song was ended she went to chat to this girl in a Spanish-French amalgam of words and phrases.

Rita soon waved me over, introducing me to Belle. I was distracted by the mood the song had created and only half paid attention to the singer, but the sense which came was of a woman of beautiful mystery, dark and exotic.

Rita explained that Belle had just sung a song she knew from childhood, a Catalan song, from the mountains where France and Spain meet. This song made her feel homesick. This trip she was making was in part to visit this land of her great grandparents, known to her only in family legends before now.

Belle explained that her parents were musicians and, as a girl, she had performed with them across the south of France. While she had never been to the land of the Catalans this song was one she had learned sitting on her father's knee and she now sang it for others to enjoy.

Before the night was done Belle and Rita had exchanged home contact details with Rita promising to travel to Belle's village during her trip to meet her parents and, in return, Rita offered to host Belle if she made it to Chile or perhaps even for the two of them to meet again in France or Spain.

I did not think much on it, it as just one more casual contact in a meeting place of strangers, where connections arise and a few may lead to something further in another time and place.

But, as I sat and listened for the rest of the night, I immersed myself in this breathtaking voice of smoked honey while I sipped a drink and dreamed of other times. There was a power in the songs to trigger memories and bring old times alive in all their magic and pain. In reaching this place I travelled a road well-worn, yet seldom traversed, indeed almost forgotten, until now. I tried to tell Rita something of this, but I do not think she understood, for her the connection to the song was different, it was a familiar song of her own childhood, whereas for me it was like no music I had ever heard before and spoke to me of things of beauty and pain for which I had no words.

The next night Rita was gone and I was there alone. Again I went to the bar and bought a drink while I lost myself in the same music to my soul, this time another was on the guitar when I came in. But Belle sat alongside doing a harmony. It was her voice that drew us all in, it told of something utterly sad but yet so beautiful and evocative, a sense of lost loves in lost places.

I moved my chair to the front where I could immerse myself in this wash of sounds of loveliness, she was a pretty girl, but until her voice came floating out across the ether I had barely noticed the rest of her. Now her dark wavy hair, intense eyes and slender body were such a perfect complements to this song that I was entranced, all these separate parts of her being made the full whole so much more than each part alone.

In the final line of the song I felt her eyes connect with mine like a jolt of electricity that seared through me. Even though she seemed unaware it was like she had made a connection between her eyes and voice and my soul.

After that she sang a bracket of French songs before handing back to the man with the guitar and coming to sit next to me to listen. I offered her a drink which she accepted. Then we sat side by side and lost ourselves to the harmonies. I could hear her softly humming which accentuated the other.

When the music was done we shared a second drink and chatted about everything and nothing until the night was done. When the bar closed and it was time to leave I wanted to invite her to come to my bed with me, but I thought it crass to seek out her when my bed was barely cold from Rita.

Instead, I asked her to sing me a last song before we went our separate ways into the night. She took my hand and led me to the verandah where the moon was bright. With head thrown back and hair sparking in the light she sang, 'La Vie en Rose', first in French and then in English, before blowing me a kiss and giggling off into the night.

I doubted I would see her again but it was a night of true loveliness, just a man watching a girl, she serenading the moon, quaint, courtly and utterly beautiful. I dreamed of her that night, part loveliness, part portend of doom, as if I was destined to break everything of beauty that I touched and that included her. But, by the end of the dream, the sole image that endured was two mischievous, enigmatic eyes that bored into my soul with a mix of grand hauteur and knowing delight.

The next day I was away, travelling back to the Alice where I was booked to work with Vic to do some cattle mustering in the rough eastern hills.

A few weeks passed. I had thought of Belle fleetingly but often, just a sense of great beauty unknown and waiting to be discovered, though with no sense that anything further would really happen.

I was booked to go up to the Tanami Gold Mine, five hundred kilometres north-west of here and at least a seven hour drive. I needed to be there at daylight tomorrow, Sunday, as they were shutting a part of the production for a single day during which I needed to get the work finished to resume full production on Monday.

Then, after that, I had to travel on to a second job at the Argyle Diamond Mine in the Kimberley, a further thousand kilometres away which began two days later. So on Monday I would be driving all day. Timing for both jobs was critical; any delay would have flow through costs which would run to many tens of thousands of dollars per day for one or both jobs.

So today, Saturday, I planned to leave Alice by four this afternoon to give me time to do all the hours of driving needed, getting there around midnight for a few hours of shut-eye before daylight and work.

Around two o'clock I was strolling down the street, doing the last of my shopping when I spied a girl mate, Martha, who was a nurse in the hospital, walking against me. I had first met her a couple years back when I came to the hospital casualty to have a big cut in my hand stitched up, nothing too serious but still needing several stitches.

She had helped the doctor sew me up and then, when he finished, she did the bandaging. My hand healed fine but a week later I ran into her in a local pub and we struck up a casual friendship.

I half fancied her but had done nothing about it. Perhaps it was because I liked her boyfriend who was a jealous type and did not want to put grief into their relationship, perhaps it was due to lack of real opportunity. But I felt if it was just the two of us we would have fun together and would likely end up in bed for some simple and enjoyable sex.

I had heard that, last week, her boyfriend had gone south for a month. So maybe today was the chance, though there really was not time if I was to leave town in a couple hours – of course there was always time for a quick fuck but the wooing would take longer, unless I just asked straight out and we went to her place and got into it. She looked good and that idea had a definite appeal, maybe I would just come out and ask, "Back to your place or mine for an hour?" There had been no one since I returned from seeing Rita in Cairns, not from lack of options but those Belle eyes kept haunting me. But now a full month was gone, as was Belle. My body said it was time, even if my mind said, _Ignore._

Anyway Martha waved to me and we stopped to chat, I could spare an hour or two. It would be impolite not to say hello. Plus who knew where it may lead. There had been no one since Rita and that was starting to feel a long time ago. I decided that, after initial courtesies, perhaps I might ask her to come home with me for some horizontal exercise, just a quick workout. I thought she would understand what I meant and would either say 'Yes', 'No' or something humorous but cutting. Of course that conversation was never had, rather it turned into a polite hello and what are you up to. We instead agreed to go to the café just across the road for a quick coffee.

Half way across the road I realised we were heading towards an achingly familiar sight; Belle was walking along the footpath, right in front of us, and heading our way. At that same instant she looked up. She gave a little start and then a smile of surprise, before saying 'Mark' with a question, as if she was unsure if it was real. Until I head her voice I too thought I was dreaming. But then, with that musical voice sound, came her enigmatic, half haughty, half mischievous smile and I knew it was she.

We meet like both friends and strangers. Her hand is out. "I am Isabelle. I think we know each other, yes? You are Mark, Mark from Cairns?" Her eyes are laughing. I had forgotten how wondrous her dark eyes are.

I take her hand in mine, "Yes, Mark."

Her eyebrows raise in a second question, "Perhaps MB, is that what she called you there in Cairns, your friend Rita?

Now we all burst out laughing, and agree to go together to the local café where we settle in for a drink. She is just up from Yulara for a night or two to see this famous town. Before I know it she is friends with Martha, who offers her a bed for the night. They agree, they will stay tonight at Martha's nurses' quarter flat and, in return, Isabel will put Martha up at Yulara for a return visit in a week or two.

I want so much to cancel my out of town plans, but my honour demands I do not. I want so much to stay with her, Belle, to try and charm her, to seek out the soul beneath those laughing eyes. But it seems we are destined to pass the other by, like two fireflies, flickering lights glimpsed but not touched as we flash by in opposite directions.

As we part I tell her I will be back in Alice in a month if she is still here.

I say, "Perhaps I could come and see you in Yulara or you could come back to town and I could treat you to some night life."

She nods as if she likes the idea but I sense she does not believe me. Perhaps she thinks I am fickle about women, that I come and go between them as the fancy takes me. I want to say this version of me is not so, but in fact it really is and I cannot lie to those eyes. So we both smile our goodbyes. Inside it is like we both already know our ships have passed in the night, heading on two separate courses which will not cross again.

It is a trip of strange regrets. Both jobs are important and necessary and the money is good. The work leads on to other work south of Broome. I apply myself to it to block out the 'if only'. But regret and a sense of a lost chance remain, making me restless.

After a month I find I cannot bear the feeling of unfinished business any longer. I fly back to Yulara for a night and then on to Alice for a night. In both places I cast around for her.

Some people remember her at Yulara, but none knew her well. They say she has flown home, she went to the airport a week or two ago. The ones I find only remember her slightly; they are unsure whether she went via Alice or Broome on her journey home. In Alice Martha is not there. Her nurse friends tell me she has gone to see her boyfriend in the south, he is staying there for longer than expected. So she has gone to see him and is not back until next week. They do not have her address and her mobile rings out when I call her, unanswered.

So I fly back to Broome, where my car is parked. I feel I must pursue this last option, though with little hope. My flight arrives in Broome at lunch time. This afternoon I will drive around the resorts of Broome, on the off chance she is working somewhere here. The flash places are where I should start, those resorts facing out across the Indian Ocean with marvellous sunsets.

But first I will walk along the main street of the town, to soak in its balmy tropical feel and savour the feel of the old town. I am lost in thought as I walk along, my head more down than up, barely noting my surroundings.

I raise my eyes to the distance and my heart gives a lurch. It is her, Belle. I see her walking down the street, going the same way as I am. She is well in front of me. She does not look back to see me as I follow behind her.

She goes into the bar at the Roeburn Hotel. I think of following but want to watch at a distance for longer before I charge in. Perhaps she has gone in there to meet a man. If so I do not want to intrude, it would be rude. I must let her alone if she has moved on and is with another.

As I contemplate she walks out and passes by, chattering to another girl, looking away from me. I watch them walk across the open ground, going past the motel units and heading on to the workers accommodation out the back.

I see her fit a key to a door while she waves goodbye to her friend who walks on to another room. Then she is gone but I know what I need to, Belle is working here, she is found. It feels as if our fates have destined us to meet again and I gladly accept this offer of possibility.

It is strange, I thought it more likely she would be out at Cable Beach at some high class resort, but she is right here instead. It is a crap hotel, a real down at the heel workers pub, frequently rough and violent. She is a big class above most of those who drink here.

I want to protect her and bring her away. I form a rough plan. I will get a list of shifts from the bar manager. That will tell me when she is rostered on and when she finishes. If she is working tonight it is a Tuesday night and it will be quiet. I will come in just before closing; feign surprise at seeing her again.

I will say I have just driven into town after working on a station south of here, just making it here before the pub closes for a drink. It will be a third chance meeting of strangers, it must mean something. I will buy myself a drink and encourage her to have one with me. I will ask her to come with me on a trip of adventure. I can't wait but must; time is a thing I have plenty of.

If she says yes I will take her to a place I have wanted to explore for a long time, the heart of the Kimberley. I am booked in a fortnight to go back to Argyle Diamond Mine for some more work. Before today I had a half formed plan to go to this place until I saw her.

In the past I have touched its edges; I have flown over parts, and done some work in other small parts on the ground. But I have never really been into its heart. It is something I would like to do with her and her alone.

Perhaps we will become lovers, perhaps we be just friends. But, like a moth to a flame I feel her pulling me. I am drawn to her. Perhaps her flame will burn me up, perhaps she will not want to come with me, but yet I must dare to ask her. I will not die wondering. I will take whatever chance comes. Deep down I believe that she is my destiny.

# Chapter 13- Into the Heart of Nowhere

On that first night it is like there is static electricity between us. I can feel she is drawn to me as I am to her, but there is also an innocence and naivety to her. I do not think she has known many men before.

She explains, shyly, that coming with me does not mean sleeping with me; she struggles to say the sex word but it is clear what her roundabout phrases mean. She becomes embarrassed and finishes by saying her offer is for an adventure companion and friendship, not more, at least for now.

I will honour any request she makes, the pull of her attraction is great, but it does not need to be intimate that way. I just love her company, the deep thoughts and half throaty, musical voice. On our first night we drive for an hour into the starry night before I make camp and give her my swag.

As we drive we talk of God and the Universe, a large subject for a first meeting but she wants to know and understand me and I hunger for her approval, and am fascinated by her insights.

Our camp is a mug of tea and dry biscuits. Soon her yawning intervenes and I guide her to her bed and indicate I will go to my own. She gives me a sweet smile and blows me another kiss. It is more than enough to dream on.

Next day we drive into Derby for breakfast and then explore the town.

I need to stock up for a remote bush trip, it has not been planned until now and we need food and more camp gear, enough to last at least a couple weeks in the middle of nowhere. She is an easy companion, full of ideas for things to cook and adding a feminine touch in an unobtrusive way.

I suggest we stay here for the night, our last night of civilisation in a while. She agrees. There is a hotel I know in the middle of town called 'The Spinifex' so we drive there and, without asking her, I book us both separate rooms. I must respect her privacy and avoid her tempting ways.

I almost feel a trace of regret in her eyes when I give her a key to her own room. She says, "I trusted you last night in the same camp and I trust you enough to go with you to the middle of nowhere. So I would trust you tonight in the same room."

I smile ruefully, shrug and say nothing. It is me I do not trust, not her.

We eat, drink and laugh the night away. She asks me if I will dance with her. I shake my head so she dances briefly with another man. I try not to let myself watch her flow gracefully across the floor, touching another man.

I feel jealousy eat at my soul. I have never really learned to dance. She has all the natural moves; it is part of the culture she grew up with.

But soon she comes back to me, talking my arm and leading me out onto the floor, saying, "I will not take no for an answer, I do not care about you not knowing the moves, I just want the pleasure of seeing you try."

I have no power to refuse her. She patiently teaches me the basic moves; under her careful tuition it is not so hard. And when she says, "I would much rather do this with you than someone else," it pulls a tight knot into my belly, knowing she has chosen to be with me over all others. He body floats beside me as she teaches me. Just now and then we brush and, as we do, she does not pull away, it is as if the touch is as electric to her as it is to me.

When the music is over and the bar is closing we walk back to our rooms, her hand resting lightly on my arm, both friendly and intimate. I have a great urge to bring her into my room and consume her but must not, it is hard to honour a promise that you so much want to break. I think she would gladly let me break it too.

But I must not; anything past here must come as her conscious choice not an unplanned outcome based on a few drinks and the desire for a warm body in the middle of the night.

So this time I pull away, go inside my own room, and close the door.

It takes me a long time to sleep; the power of her presence on the other side of a thin wall is like a magnet. I suspect she is finding it hard to sleep too. I am tempted to knock on her door but do not. After all we have many days to follow where this leads, to let whatever happens between us evolve at its own pace. I love that thought even more than thinking of being with her now.

In the morning we arise early and head out, stopping for breakfast at a little billabong just off the main road. I pull out my diary; there is something about the magic of our journey that I must capture in words for another time.

She wants to read a part of the diary. She wants to know all my thoughts about her and other things. In truth I can think of little else but her, her looks fixate me, her smile lights something deep within me. Most of all I love her honesty. Last night she showed her loyalty to me and tried to reassure me of her trust, so today I must trust her with showing a part of me.

But I cannot bear her to know of my contrivance to find her here in this town which I was about to write down. So instead write the words I told her of how I came to stumble on her in Broome in the bar late that night, was it only a day and a half ago. I am not ready to tell her I came looking for her. It seems too contrived to have sought out a third meeting. It might damage her belief in me.

So I show her the untrue words and afterwards wish I had not, our life together must not be a lie. I take a deep breath and blurt out the truth.

She looks at me with those piercing eyes and says, "If that is the worst you have ever done I don't think there is anything to forgive. I like the fact that you wanted to be with me enough to contrive a way to find me, I like that you wanted me to come with you, above all else."

After that we no longer have secrets and, as days pass, I tell her all the things, even the worst things, I have done. There is still acceptance in her eyes, even if some parts pain her to hear.

It is a trip of much travelling. That lunchtime we swim at Tunnel Creek, in an underground river that runs through the hillside. It is cold down there and I suggest she keeps her top dry to put on again as we walk along the buried river. Instead she takes off all her clothes and I see her naked form for the first time. But for visitors stumbling upon us at that critical time, I am sure we would have consummated our pleasure in that pool. Instead we wait.

That night, even though we lie together, our bodies touching and arms entwined, we wait some more. It is like a slow dance, a tantalising dance of anticipation. In place of joining our bodies we first join our souls, so many stories to be told. We talk far more than we sleep.

We are both people used to silence and yet we have thoughts we want to share. Until now she had expression only in songs, now she speaks as well. She says she has been waiting to find me all her life, that now she has found me she will not let me go again. She says that she will bring me home to meet her parents and we will make babies together, perhaps to live in her village, perhaps to travel the world. Even though we are not yet lovers she has pre-empted this happening in her talk of our babies. Her mind has determined this outcome and therefore it will be so.

She teaches me to write love letters to her in French and she teaches me love songs in French to sing back to her. And each day she teaches me to dance, choosing patches of open flat ground for practising the moves until our bodies flow through space in time with the music in an almost perfect unison. I sense dance is like riding a horse, synchronising one's body and moves with another being, so the whole is more than a sum of the parts.

She has her own diary which she shows me and she writes words into it along with mine. Our journey into the heart of the country takes five days, glorious days when we climb hills, swim naked in clear pools, and search for gems and hidden treasures. We find little but neither of us cares, we have treasure enough in each other. Mostly it is a journey into our private spaces.

On the fifth day we come to a barren hillside, looking out over the ocean. We make our camp on a rocky plateau. There is a flat place for our vehicle, beds and gear and, at the back, is a sandy recess against the rocks. Above several large trees keep off the midday sun. Here we make our camp fire.

Other red broken hills rise behind us, many pock marked with caves and crevices. We are perched high above a crystal blue sea below. It extends into an endless horizon to the north-west into which the afternoon sun descends.

In the salt water below we see large fish swimming in circles. We see also five large crocodiles which seem to own this place. A small creek trickles from a spring in the hillside and runs across bare rocks, making shallow pools over which the birds swoop to drink from. At dusk the rock wallabies come down here to drink too. At the end of the pools, where land ends, a fine spray of water disappears over the cliff, falling into the ocean far below, the sunlight making rainbow patterns in its mist.

On the night of our arrival, having completed the joining of our minds we dance together on that barren hillside as the glow of the sun fades away in a place beyond the western horizon. The trip has been perfect, the day has been perfect and now our dance is perfection too. When the night is fully come and there are only myriad stars to watch us we at last join our bodies.

It is wondrous. It is the first time my Belle has known real pleasure with a man and now she wants to do it over and over, in the starlight, in sunlight, in the cool caves of the hills. I love this part with her beyond words, but I love her beyond words too. She dances with joy like a wild goat on the mountains of her childhood, she has their sure footedness.

We have one full day of being together and then another night as lovers. It is too perfect. And then, in the midday of the morrow she is gone.

A small piece of rock breaks away under foot on the edge of the cliff. Her body plunges down into the water. Yesterday we fed the five crocodiles here, each given a part of the haunch of a rock wallaby I shot for dinner. Today they are waiting here together in hope of another offering.

When she hits the water they are bare metres away and move towards her, mouths open, seeking their prize. I have been shooting rock pigeons for our supper with my light 22 rifle. I stand above and look at her, helpless, in fear, yet trusting me. I cannot bear what will surely follow. I am, for a brief moment, paralysed from action, the hungry mouths are closing fast.

Her face is white as she looks up at me imploringly, dawning terror in her eyes. I do the only thing I can think of. I cannot let her to suffer or know pain.

I put the round dot at the front of my barrel on her forehead.

I squeeze the trigger to end it for her.

There is a flat crack. Her body goes still, the joy in her eyes forever gone.

I cannot bear to watch so I look away, but instead try to join my soul to hers in this place of the crocodiles. Perhaps I can feel a small part of her spirit coming into mine, but much more what I feel it is the spirit from my totem brothers below invading mine. It fills my soul with a predatory rage.

I must kill in recompense for this, but who?

I have never felt so desolate.

I was warned in my dreams.

I should have learned this time.

I should have taken due care with something so precious.

I should have flung my body off the cliffs to put myself between her and these creatures, perhaps my crocodile totem could have protected us both.

At the very least I should have died with her if I could not save her.

And yet, in my terrible moment of indecision, I let them have her not me.

Sure I spared her pain in her ending, but it was a bad choice.

I would undo it if I could but cannot.

I feel the fury of a rabid dog, the fury of an animal in a killing frenzy.

I howl my rage at the setting sun and at the moon and stars.

Next day, with all the love I can muster I collect her few things and put them in a safe place in a small crevice in the hills which I pile high with stones to keep them safe for her.

Then I drive far away from this accursed place in the heart of emptiness.

# Chapter 14 - A Terrible Vengeance

What can I say about Josie? She was like the kid sister I never had. And yet I killed her too. And I did it with purpose.

It is hard to tell the story of the killing of Belle. I told it in part in my diary which I wrote some days later. It was an awful act, but I did it without malice, more as an act of desperation.

But, after that day, a rage which knew no bounds consumed me.

What follows is, of all the things I have done, the act most terrible.

I wrote how it came to pass in my diary. I will not write that part again. She was a good person who had a hard life and yet retained her decency, spending what few dollars she had to help her mother, a hopeless druggie.

I agreed to help her and give her money to build a good life and a future. Almost against my intention I became her lover, even though I wanted not to think of her that way. But she knew the power of her body and the ways of seduction. When she climbed into my bed I did push her out.

And, in truth, I enjoyed that part of being with her and I enjoyed too the domesticity she brought to my life. It was lovely to come home and see her in an evening, hair done, wearing pretty clothes which she had chosen just for me, and to enjoy the food she had made and the little pieces of beauty she created in our home. Though, at the time, I was too consumed by anger to see the goodness she offered.

And, for some strange reason, she loved me too. It would have been much better if she had not, because from her love came jealousy when she thought I loved another and had rejected her. And, when she felt spurned, she reacted with her own anger and desire for vengeance too.

So with the rage of the crocodile in my soul I hunted her like I would a wild animal, and then I shot her from behind as she ran from me. There was no courage in that act, only the power of consuming rage that she would try to take away what was mine, not just the trinkets of wealth but, most of all, the place in my heart held by another, that she would seek to debase my love for the other I had lost.

As I saw her fall to the ground, when the bullet struck her, I knew I had done a most terrible thing, a thing for which any forgiveness was impossible.

It was my darkest hour. So, with what love remained in my soul, I picked her up and carried her far into the desert, to a place of great beauty where I buried her under a vast mound of flowers, praying she may know a better life than the part I had given her.

And, in a strange way, as I sat in the desert in that place of flowers, it felt as if her presence was there too, offering me odd kind words drifting in the breeze and birdsong. It was not redress for what could never be undone, but there was a faint sense that, in this final act, I had done something good and kind for her and she thanked me for it.

So I left Josie in the desert and drove back to Top Springs. I took to my companion, OP rum, to hide my shame at what I had done to this woman.

My friend the bar tender, Mick, was happy to give me my needs.

All would have been well that night if not for the fact that another big loudmouth came into the bar. He knew me slightly and had met me over the last few months with different girls, Josie, most recently, when we stopped at Watti Creek for a cold drink as we were passing through.

At that time she had hold of my arm, it was a time of affection between us which he saw.

Two days later she was dead by my hand and I had buried her last night and stayed beside her this morning until the sun began to wilt the flowers, at which time the pain of her passing had seemed to rise as the flowers faded.

It was as if they were saying to me, she is dead and now we are dying too. I did not want to watch this decay and so had driven away.

Now here I was with a bad conscience nursing my rage.

This man hailed me as if I was a friend and sat alongside me in the bar. We both drank quietly at first. Then after two rums it seemed they had loosened his tongue. "Like a pretty girl do we. Take em out and show em the sights of the night sky, seen on their back, as you ride em, is that the idea?"

I could feel myself bristle and saw a warning glance from Mick.

I turned to look away. It may have passed if left alone.

But now he had his Dutch courage. "Seems like you have a different one every time I see you. Bit of a lad with the girls are you, that's what I've heard them say, eh? What do you do to them, eh; root them, shoot them and chuck them in a hole?"

Predatory rage swum before my eyes, mixed with shame at the truth he spoke. I felt a killing calm descend on me. I picked up my third rum, not yet touched. I flung it in his face. Then, as he reached up in surprise, I grabbed his glass and poured it over his head. "If you ever say a thing like that again, I will kill you," I said.

"What, can't take a joke?

"You may be joking, I am not. If you want to keep this argument going, step outside, otherwise you're just a windbag full of shit?"

Not trusting myself for more I got up and walked out the door. I did not expect him to follow; surely Mick or others would counsel him against this. Even though I rarely got into a fight enough locals knew bits about me, a story of my former mercenary status or two, to mostly leave well alone.

But he was a southerners, just up for a short time who was convinced he could teach us all up here how to do things better. He was big and strong looking, though with an edge of softness, but still he must have been two inches taller than I was and outweighed me by fifty pounds, so no doubt he thought he could take me down. And I must have dented his pride with the public humiliation I dished out in front of the others in the bar.

Once out in the fresh night air I sat on a stone at the edge of the garden, waiting for my rage and anguish to subside before I drove away. Five minutes passed and then came the sound of bar doors opening and he staggered out, swaying in the breeze. It looked like he had downed at least another quick rum or two to build his courage.

He shouted out, "MB, you piece of dog turd, come fight me like a man."

I stood up, took the handful of loose change from my pocket and walked over to where he was staggering around in the dark, maybe fifty yards from the pub door. I came up behind him and grabbed a handful of hair with my free hand and proceeded to systematically belt his face with my hand full of coins which gave it the force of a battering ram. I could feel his knees going but I kept at his face until it was a whimpering bloody mess. Next I turned my attention to his ribs and belly and took pleasure in feeling soft flesh give and ribs crack as I belted him.

Finally he was lying on the ground unmoving. After a couple final well directed kicks to the kidneys and liver, I turned to walk away, saying, "Don't ever let me see you again, not even smell your putrid stink or see your distant shadow. You need to be on the next plane south and never come back to this place. If I ever lay eyes on you again, I will cut your prick and balls off, shove them down your filthy gob, then take you into the desert and let the dingoes finish whatever is left of you. If you don't believe me just try and see."

With that I got into the car and drove away wanting only to be someone, anyone, other than me.

# Chapter 15 – Loss and the Lost

The months drift by aimlessly. The only thing that keeps me sane and part of the outside world are occasional post cards or messages from Jimmy.

He is encouraging me to come and see me ride, he is doing well. He has won back the money I gave him and wonders if he should send it back to me. He has won another championship bull ride in Wyoming and is heading for Texas. A top national event is on there with a hundred grand for first prize.

He thinks he has a real chance at this big one.

I reply in one or two word texts. I cannot bear to say more, I pretend to be glad for him though I struggle to care. Can it really be but a bare year since he flew away and made his own life? So much has passed; I know it can never be the same. I am glad he is happy but where has my life gone. There is an endless hungry anger in my soul that seethes like an unquiet beast, but it has no direction or purpose, it just is.

Vengeance is a hollow thing and yet it is all I have. It consumes my whole being. I must punish someone, I must, I must. But who – there is only me.

I work to pass the time, but what I do or how I do it no longer resides in my memory. I drink with people but their names escape me. I can barely be bothered with girls, though a body on an occasional night gives brief solace. After I can barely remember their names or how I met them.

One day, after more hours of meaningless work, when I go to the pub where there is phone reception, a text pings on my phone. It is from some number I don't recognise. After trawling all my defunct memory banks I realise it is Jimmy's mother, Meg.

The text is four words, "James dead, Marg Rowley."

I see it was sent yesterday, now over 24 hours old. I ring the phone number. It turns out to be a neighbour who lent her a phone. The person is unwilling to go and disturb her at this late hour, all she knows is the words Meg told her, "James was killed by a bull. I must get his body. I need help."

I could try and get her to come to the phone, but there is no point.

I must go to help. I must do what she asks. I drive the four hours to Darwin and am on the red eye which leaves Darwin at two in the morning. I am in Brisbane by six, just as dawn is brightening the October sky. I hire a car and drive to her place, a squalid housing commission one room flat. We drink cups of bitter tea as we go through what little she knows. The day before yesterday she was contacted by an official who works for the Australian Government. He tells her that two days previously her son was killed by a bull in a rodeo in Texas. She is his next of kin, he is her only son and his father is of no value. Shas no money to fly to Texas, the government offers to arrange a local burial or cremation and return his ashes. But she wants to bring Jimmy home, to bury him in the local cemetery where she can put flowers on his grave. That will cost at least ten thousand dollars which she does not have.

It is the least I can do, when all is said and done.

We stand in a circle around the grave a week later.

I have spent closer to twenty thousand than ten, but I am glad to do this small thing for this lady and her Jimmy, to whom I was part teacher and part friend. Now that he is gone I find I really miss him, I remember his cheeky grin and boundless optimism, I remember his riding ability. I know I will never see his like again. He is gone.

The funeral crowd is me, three neighbours, Meg and Jimmy's father in a wheelchair. He understands nothing and says nothing. Soon it is finished, the short ceremony is over and they wheel him away.

His mother says, "He was a good son and I miss him."

I say, "He was a great kid and a great rider."

For an epitaph I carve, "He walked in the Breaker's Footsteps"

It is not much for a life but it is words that would please him.

***

Now I must find out what happened. It is the least I can do for Jimmy, Meg and me. All I know is what the embassy told me, that he was riding a bull and when he fell off it turned on him and killed him. Then the local police were called and they contacted the Australian embassy, who contacted his mother, who contacted me.

It is not enough explanation for a life wasted, I need to know. I need to understand. I need to find out what went wrong. I must find out who is to blame – there will be somebody to punish. And then I will act. Someone will pay for this life thrown away; eye for eye, tooth for tooth, a life for a life.

I will go to the place where this happened and find out. My soul has a new clear if ugly purpose. My anger has a focus.

The next day I fly out direct to Los Angeles and then on to Miami. I could fly direct into Dallas-Fort Worth, where the event was held, but first I want a couple days to sit and think and plan, as well as to adjust to the changed time zones. I need to be at my sharpest when I go on to Texas.

I decide I will visit the Everglades, a place I know by reputation. While working in the Top End of the NT, I have met several station people who came from there. Their families made the NT their home forty years ago and found the floodplains of the Top End were similar to the swamps of Florida. They brought their airboats, a boat with an aircraft propeller on the back of that blows it across the water, mud and grass. In the Top End they used them to traverse and muster cattle and buffalo from the swamps. I remember them telling me that Florida even has its own crocodile, the alligator. It is not as big as its NT cousins but still dangerous.

So I want to see this other sort of crocodile, to find out if they share a kindred spirit with me and my crocodile totem. That is the way it was in Africa with the Nile Crocodile, I could talk to it like my brothers of the totem. Any you never know, a place of crocodiles, or 'gators' as my Top End friends called them, may be a good place to dispose of a body or two.

So I sit in the Everglades swamp for two days and then three. These scaly creatures do recognise my brotherhood, they tell me they are most happy to accept any gifts I bear if the need comes as I am sure it will.

In Miami, when I come back, I ring up a few friends from my rodeo days over here. They have heard what happened to Jimmy and give condolences, they had heard that Jimmy was a promising young rider destined to go far. They have also heard odd bits of gossip about what happened, which may or may not be important.

The first is that there was a huge betting plunge on Jimmy's win. The bull, which went by the name of Whirlpool, had never been ridden. It is said that, at first, the money was all on the bull remaining unconquered, and the odds of his win were low. Then came a splurge of big money placed at long odds, by a crowd of supporters, saying he could win and be the first to ride the bull as well. As money poured onto him, the odds plunged and there was a word that if he had won it would have broken several bookies.

So clearly there were some very relieved bookies when he did not ride time. They had got a very large payoff from his failure, never mind that he was dead, it was still a good result for them.

The second thing was that when he came off the strap around the bull had broken too. With his hand hold gone, it was obvious why he failed. This was odd, because in a big event like this, that gear should have been brand new. No one had made a big deal of this. It was a thing that happened now and then. It often led to a re-ride.

Of course no re-ride for him, suddenly dead, now pushing up daisies.

The third thing said was the clowns were slow to get the bull away once Jimmy went down. No doubt they were scared of this bull, one seriously nasty motherfucker. But the view was the clowns should have been quicker and, if they had, Jimmy would probably have been fine.

I felt the rage burn bright on hearing this. It was what they were paid to do, it was their job to protect the riders who fell down, to give them cover and time to get away.

Instead the bull pinioned him on the ground, stamped on his head and hooked him by his back with a razor sharp horn. Then it tossed him around like a rag doll before it was stopped and he was attended to. But it was all too late; he was well dead by then.

The rodeo committee and the police wrote it all off as an unfortunate accident, sad but hardly preventable. It was called an occupational hazard to an everyday bull rider; that was how they told it. But alongside these official public utterances was a view, out there but little spoken among the rodeo riders, that what happened here was not right or true.

This was a dangerous thing to say by those who wanted to keep getting rides. Still it did seem that the police and rodeo committee were excessively matey, did not like hard questions, and their investigation was a sham.

The final thing I found out was that the stock contractor for this rodeo, the one who supplied the bull and the gear, was none other than my old friend, Hank, the Texan of our rodeo circuit, he who got a knife in the guts.

He was a snake then. Most agreed he was a snake now, except he had grown into a much bigger and more powerful snake. He was someone I had little reason to love and I knew he had little love of me after I threw him off the team. My question was, did his dislike for me play out with Jimmy's life?

It was clear that those who knew thought Jimmy a good chance to be the first one to ride time on this bull. If this happened it would most likely have cost many powerful people who ran and placed bets a lot of money.

And sitting alongside this was that the value of this bull, once ridden, was greatly diminished. Then it would be just another bull, not a legend.

So I flew on to Dallas, with more than a faint whiff of something rotten in my nostrils, determined to find the source of the stink.

Before I flew out of Miami I arranged for some minor cosmetic changes. My dyed dark black hair streaked with grey, along with make up to give my face an old and haggard look and some fatty filler injected into my cheeks, chin and around my eyes to give me a bloated and overweight look. All in all it made me look like a ten year older man, one who may have been something once but was now a has been.

And, in memory of Belle, though hardly conspicuous, I had a tiny tattoo of an M and a B, separated by a tiny love heart, placed on the skin of my head, just behind my ear where I had a sense of being able to hear her voice. It was only the size of a ten cent piece but, thinking it unlikely I would be alive when this was all over, I wanted some permanent mark left on my body of her. Of course it was also my own initials but at the time I did not think of it that way, it certainly was not a sign of self-love.

Rather it was a remembrance of her life, brief but wonderful, and of her voice which often came to me at the strangest times. Using photos of my new self I paid a good forger of documents to create new identities to match. In the past I had sometimes been confused as a Canadian and like the ones I had met. So I got a Canadian Driver's License with the name Mathew Bartlett printed on it, bearing my made up photo, after I discovered that a two bit Canadian Rodeo Rider by that name who had retired to the backwoods a couple years past. He had a vague resemblance to the character I inhabited. As best I could tell his riding career had been confined to Canada and just a couple early rides in the far north of the US, but with nothing here in the last decade. So it was very unlikely that I would run into anyone in Texas who knew this man and had seen him inside a decade.

I wanted to play the role of an old and jaded cowboy, a minor bumbler, whose best days were long gone but still thought he had it in him to talk the talk and maybe get a ride or two. I though it best not to let anyone know that another MB was back in town, digging around.

I had brought on my person two hundred grand in cash for any expenses I might incur along the way and had the balance of a half million in easily accessible US currency in a local account. I expected I would have to pay off quite a few people to get close to what I needed to know, and cash money was an amazing sweetener, particularly if combined with some real hard edged threats to add a scare factor. Not that there would be idle threats, I had little patience left in my soul, so any threat would soon become action, action which would cause a wealth of pain to the recipient.

# Chapter 16 - Texan Rodeo

In Dallas I rented two rooms, one in the name of Mathew Bartlett in a dumpy motel, and one in the name of Michael Brown in an upmarket hotel. Mathew wore down at the heel riding clothes, and a big cowboy hat. Michael wore spic suits and a wig with flawless mid-brown hair. I thought that even my mother, if still alive, would have been hard pushed to recognise that both these people were plain old me.

The day after I settled in and got my bearings, I had arranged meetings with several committee members who organised the previous Dallas Fort Worth Rodeo at which Jimmy had died. I focused on those who lived in the town, using a vague promise of sponsorship of upcoming events.

My backstory was I was an Australian who had settled in Canada, really loved rodeo and was looking for promotion opportunities, using substantial well targeted dollars, to get my business name, MB Promotions, out there. I had even paid to set up a shell company of this name with a fancy website, featuring an aligned backstory and a range of testimonials so that there was something that anybody curious could easily find and contact.

By lunchtime, that first day in town, I scheduled meetings with three of the top-dog rodeo people for the next day, one for a business breakfast, one for a power lunch and one for a pre-dinner drink that may continue.

Having covered these bases I slipped out the back house door of my upmarket hotel in a heavy overcoat, sunglasses and a pull down hat, with the get up of Mathew Bartlett underneath. Now I had a half day free to play the washed up rodeo rider getting to know the low life that hung around the rodeo circuit places, yards, hard drinking bars and the outfitter shops that traded in cowboy and rodeo merchandise.

By evening, having used surprisingly few well directed dollars, I knew who most of the people at the bottom end were, names, backgrounds, who was straight and who was bent, those with habits that cost money, whether drugs, booze or expensive girls.

They included several who had worked on stock handling for the rodeo on the night that Jimmy died. I also had a list of names of all the others who were part of making the rodeo happen, including those I most wanted to talk to, the clowns and the rodeo chute operators. I was not ready to go near them until I had all my ducks in a line. That way, when I asked questions, they would understand I meant business and soon answer or I would fry them.

One of the key things I found out was there was CC TV footage of the yards, raceways and chutes for that night from several angles and there was a good chance I could see anything unusual on these. For a down payment of five hundred and a promise of the same again on receipt, I bought myself a copy of these tapes, to be delivered the day after next. I also acquired two video recordings of the ride from different vantage points; one was prepared by the rodeo and used to supply media channels and other outlets. The other was from a camera in the judges box which allowed them to review the ride and assist them in adjudication should it be needed.

There was also more footage taken by a range of private rodeo camera men and enthusiasts available which I could acquire if I wanted to, but at this stage it did not seem of value.

That night, as I sat in my comfortable hotel room, having retired for the night as Mathew Bartlett, after telling the motel reception I would be out of town for a day but would keep my room, I moved to my more upmarket space. Here I watched these video recordings over and over until I knew every part by heart.

What happened was simple enough, on the third buck the bull strap broke and Jimmy was flung to the side of the bull, close up to the rails and away from the clowns. He was in a dangerous place. Having not expected to go flying he hit the ground out of balance and went down face first, looking away from the bull, with the chute rails in his face. If he had reacted quicker he could have climbed out, but it seemed he was a bit stunned by what had happened and the bull was not top of mind.

The closest clown had a second or two to distract the bull before it too realised what had happened and got to Jimmy. It was too far for the second clown to get there, and in fact he had tried manfully to do so, but he had to get past the first clown who was effectively blocking his way. When he tried he almost got tripped by this joker for his troubles. For some reason this first clown was fuddling around, making uncoordinated movements. It took him at least a second too long to move. Then, instead of running to the bulls head and using something to distract him, he ran towards the bulls hindquarters, making a pretence of slapping and hitting there to get it to turn towards him. But of course the bull had his victim pinioned on the ground next to the rails with nowhere to go and was oblivious to being hit on his behind.

Within two or three seconds the bull was stomping on Jimmy's back and head as he lay face down. By then it was too late to do anything. If clown two was closer he would have got there first, got something in the bull's face to break its deadly intent, but he was a second too late. By then Jimmy was speared by a horn through the back and was being flung around like a rag doll, though I don't think it mattered. The stomp on his head had already crushed his skull and by then he knew nothing.

The more I watched the more certain I became that the first clown had deliberately wasted time and impeded the progress of the second. Of course it is easier to sit in judgement on the sidelines than be in the middle, but they were paid big money for the job they did. I would have expected better and intended to ask him why in a way he could not refuse to answer. I could not find fault with the second clown, he looked like he had really tried and was gutted by his failure.

The first clown did not seem to care. In fact he almost looked pleased at the outcome. I knew that, very soon, I would ask my questions in a far less pleasant and more persuasive way than the police had. And I would not be fobbed off with half-truths. Before I did I would talk to the second clown who seemed like an honourable man.

Next day I was up early for my first breakfast meeting with one of the rodeo committee, John William Junior. Despite his somewhat uppity title and name I found I actually liked this man. In due course the conversation came around to that night, still fresh in his mind. I pitched my inquires on the basis of the adverse publicity for this event and how it would make me nervous to be associated with something like that and all the bad press.

It was a chance for him to tell me what to make of it in a reassuring way, to gloss it over with positive spin if he chose. But he did not, saying he was still shocked, that he still felt uncomfortable thinking about it; he felt the rodeo and its systems had failed to protect a rider and thought the police chief, who was a mate of several of the bookies and the stock contractor, had done a shoddy job of the investigation. He did not accuse anyone of a crime or clear collusion but seemed genuinely appalled and saddened by how it had happened. After this we moved the conversation on to other things, but I felt this was one straight member of the committee.

As we reached the end of our breakfast I decided to try a minor pitch, saying, "What would you think if I was to make a donation to a special event to honour that fallen rider. We could call it 'Jimmy's Memorial Bull Ride.'"

I indicated I would be prepared to put up substantial prize money for such an event if it could occur soon. He seemed to be genuinely taken by this idea and said he would be happy to take it to the rest of the Committee on my behalf to which I agreed.

With that he said he had to go, he had a full day of business to attend to. In his passing words warned me to take care of other Committee Members, he said two were OK, a young ex rodeo rider and a previous rodeo queen who was a great barrel racer. But the other four were an old man's club and in the pocket of the Stock Contractor, Hank, and of several bookies.

This information checked out when I met both of the old club men later that day. If not for the fact that I hate breaking appointments, I would have canned the second meeting, having got almost no useful information from the first, Malcolm Madden. He was most definitely one of the 'good old boys', with his Texas ranch, a splash of old oil money and an appetite for expensive toys which needed a big income to sustain it.

I got nothing suggesting he was in the pocket of Hank or the bookies, but his throwaway comments were that they were all great guys. It seemed he was struggling to generate the cash his lifestyle required, now in the throes of a second divorce with another big settlement payout looming.

The two things that made me think he was not involved in anything too shady were his big mouth which sprayed information about everything to all and sundry, it was hard to believe that anyone would trust him enough to involve him in something they did not want broadcast, and also the way he had a touch of the old patrician about him, someone who did not spoil his clean manicured hands with anything dirty or messy like menial work. He was pushing fifty and running to fat. The idea that he would involve himself in anything that involved real physical labour seemed impossible to believe.

The one useful thing I got from him was that the rodeo committee was running a bit short of cash to sponsor and promote major events, it having being a struggle this year to raise the required prize-money for events and, but for some generous help from a couple bookies and the stock contractor, Hank, who had cut his contracting costs, they would have struggled to put on their most recent event.

Of course his idea of poverty and hard time was a world away from mine, he thought of poverty as the inability to find another hundred grand to buy a new flash car. Still, I could almost see the drool run from his mouth when I canvassed the idea of putting in hard cash to sponsor an event, though the idea that, if we ran a testimonial bull ride for Jimmy, we should give more than a token amount of any cash raised back to Jimmy's family, seemed an anathema to him.

"Sure, spose we could give her a grand or two," was the closest he came to offering anything at all, even though I had suggested that, for the right event, I might donate fifty grand or more. When I suggested something with another couple zeroes in front you could almost hear his incredulity.

"But sure, man, before Jimmy made the big time she had nothing, why would she need anything now; much better we keep any excess cash with the Committee to keep the sport growing and the money flowing."

At my parting from him he shook my hand with a big sweaty, greasy paw and told me to leave it to him to sort out arrangements for the right event to remember the 'poor boy'. I went and washed my hands to remove the sense of moral turpitude that seemed to go with him. And yet I did not think he was truly bent, that would have taken too much effort for this good ole boy.

In the end I was glad I went to see the final committee member.

Whereas Malcolm was a bumbling incompetent slob, this man, Brian Case was a snake, though clearly a rich, clever snake. Sly deals and graft were written all over him. I soon decided he had the morals of a gutter rat hidden behind a veneer of richness and sophistication, to give it respectability.

In bush idiom he was a rat with a gold tooth wearing a pin striped suit.

The only thing that made me doubt he was an active co-conspirator in the shady bits of what happened was that he was too clever to get caught up directly in anything that could be pinned back to him, his type would ensure enough layers to keep him clean from what he did not need to know. It was likely, I thought, that he knew a bet was rigged to win, but not how or why.

In our discussions over three drinks it was clear he was interested in my money. But he was also suspicious about why I would want to spend money for something as obscure as the memorial to an unknown Aussie outback rider. When I explained my connections to this place and how it would play well to Canadian and Aussie audiences, and thus help my business, he make indications of belief but I could tell he did not buy it. So I knew to be very careful. His pledges of support were worthless at best and much more likely dangerous. I reckoned that, if anyone had squared off the police chief not to look too deep, it was this man. Sometimes knowing who you enemies are is worth more than knowing your friends.

That night I googled all I could find about the Dallas Police Department and spent a couple hours of going through a mix of media articles and police department website spin. From the media I got that the Chief Investigating Officer for the event was Sergeant Billy Jacobs and the police chief was Ray Wills, and also that it was all over almost as soon as begun, the finding was misadventure and accidental death, with barely a mention of the bull rope coming undone, and the clowns not being able to divert the bull away from the rider in time despite best endeavours. The announcement of findings was made two days after the accident with a decision that a referral to the coroner was not warranted as there were no suspicious circumstances.

They event cited the fact that over a thousand people had witnessed it as it happened. It probably did not help that there was no grieving locals to complain no family or friends who spoke in favour of the rider, he was just described as a little know foreign rider who was the victim of an unfortunate accident, in a way that implied he was at least partly at faulty for losing hold of the rope. No mention of it breaking, just that he had lost hold and it had come off, even though videos of the event clearly showed it breaking while he was still holding on.

The media articles finished by praising the bull, saying what a great bucking bull 'Whirlpool was, how it was remarkable that after more than a year still no one had ridden it to time and wondering whether anyone ever would, no mention that it was a dangerous people killer.

In the morning of the next day I visited the police station and asked to speak to Sergeant Billy Jacobs and when informed he was out I asked who else may be able to help with information about this accident, that I was trying to get a bit of information about what happened for Jimmy's mother.

After a few minutes a very junior police officer, looking like he was barely out of school, came out. He did not ask to see my identification and when I told him that I was a Canadian businessman who knew Jimmy's family slightly and was considering a fund raising event to help remember him, and just wanted a quick look at the investigation report to get a bit of back story he happily obliged.

So I got to read a report of less than a page which said the same as the newspaper did. The only useful thing was that there were four photos of the broken rope, printed on photo paper. Two were long distance shots which made it look like the rope had frayed and broken over time, and two were close up shots of the broken parts, one looking at each end up close. With my naked eye these looked similar to the distance shots, all the strands were broken in multiple places over a few centimetres. But on close looking it seemed that some of the broken bits had tiny jagged cut marks, as if multiple places along the broken bit had been cut or damaged in some way, or it had been caught against something sharp which had damaged it in many places over a short length as it broke.

I asked to see the rope only to be told it was tossed into the rubbish once the investigation was finished as it no longer had any value.

As this no longer was available I decided that I needed one of photos for closer examination and, using a minor ruse of pointing to something outside to make the policeman look away, I secreted the best of the photos before handing the others back with the report and quickly thanking him for his time before I walked out of the building.

Back at my hotel I checked my messages and received confirmation that the videos were now available from the CCTV for the night of the rodeo but it would cost an extra $500 as an extra party need to be paid to get access and a copy made while not letting on. I rang and confirmed my agreement to the extra payment and said that I could collect those videos at the bar across the road from the rodeo ground after work.

It was a bit of a way out of town and I decided I needed a couple cars to get around and maintain my two different identities more efficiently. So I rented a upmarket hire car with darkened windows for my current self and, using this, toured past some down at the heel car yards on the outskirts of town until I saw something that looked suitable.

I parked my upmarket car around the corner, dressed in my downmarket cowboy outfit, and walked into the car yard. I confirmed that the car that I liked the look of had a sound motor and brakes that worked. In fifteen minutes with no serious questions asked I had purchased a slightly dented white Ford pickup with decals and cowboy stickers that looked just the part for a mere two thousand dollars in hard cash which I was sure would never find its way to the tax man, though this car was now legally mine.

I drove to a hardware store, bought a big lockable metal box, the full width of the back which I had screwed onto the tray. I then found a saddlery shop where I bought a battered cowboy saddle, spurs, bridle and halter and other accoutrements to fit my part as a fading rodeo rider. I then drove to the rodeo ground where I found the bar, paid for and collected the video tapes, and drank two leisurely beers to keep building my identity and back story as a rider, who after falling on hard times was determined to get myself in shape for one more crack at the big time and some real money.

I decided I had better be seen around the motel where I was due back tonight. So I went a bought my dinner in the tacky motel restaurant and left my car parked in a prominent position in the carpark.

Once the dusk was properly settled I quietly slipped out the door and around the back of the motel where a gap in the fence let me through to the street behind from where it was twenty minute walk to where my car was parked. Without further ado I went back to my hotel, now dressed in my business suit and walked through the front door, after having parked in the carpark, asking if there were any messages, not that I really expected any, but I wanted to be noticed as being back here.

To my surprise it was a message from another rodeo committee rider, Max Brandt. I did not really know him but felt a touch of surprise when his name seemed a bit familiar. He asked if he could call round here and see me tonight. I suggested we meet at 8:30 in the downstairs bar. It was now a bit past 8 pm, so I quickly rang the number and said I was delighted to meet him, but could we push it back to 9 pm as I was just back from a day out and about and needed half an hour for a shower and to freshen up.

As I quickly got ready I searched my memory banks and then it came to me. One of the postcards I had got from Jimmy, before he came to Dallas, had mentioned a friend he had made, Max B, 'funny - same initials' he said. Max had encouraged him to have a crack at the bull ride here. Max was an ex rider, who had got busted up last year and given the game away but was now on the Fort Worth Dallas Rodeo Committee and had encouraged Jimmy to have a crack at the big time here. Which of course had led to him registering for the event and what followed.

So, by the time I met Max, I felt I had an idea of who he was and where he came from. I liked Max too when I met him. He was a little like me, a bit beaten up from a hard life, but a mixture of straight and tough. Of course he did not know who I was, and as it was him who had requested the meeting I let him lead off. It turned out he knew John William Junior pretty well and this had come from yesterday's breakfast and the idea of a memorial ride for Jimmy. Max was open that he knew Jimmy. He had really liked the kid and felt truly bad for what had happened, it was him who had encouraged Jimmy to enter and ride and now Jimmy was dead. He even told me a few stories about Jimmy, the bush larrikin with some of his antics, practical joker and the like. He even told me about Jimmy's mate back in the Oz, MB something, who Jimmy told him shared his initials and also reminded him of Max, a seriously good rodeo rider who had got a bit knocked around by life.

So Max was all for something to honour Jimmy's passing and wanted to propose it at a Committee Meeting in three days' time. He asked how solid my offer of sponsorship was.

I told him I had fifty in cash looking for a home, and was happy to make a down payment at that meeting if it helped to lock it in, of course subject to the money only being for this specific purpose, with the proviso that this money and half of any extra cash raised, after expenses were paid, be donated to Jimmy's family.

Max liked that idea and said that, as Jimmy was well liked around the circuit, he was sure that at least a hundred in extra cash could be raised this way after expenses were taken out, which would mean a minimum of a hundred went to Jimmy's family.

So we had a deal. Max too warned me to be careful with the rest of the Committee, but said there were three solid votes out of seven in the bag for what I proposed and he reckoned he could swing at least one and maybe two more, though he said the other two I had met with would agree to the event but not to more than a minor donation to the family from the rodeo, "maybe five or ten was their limit as they were as mean as cat shit," he reckoned.

We ended our conversation with me asking him how he got busted up.

"It was that same prick bull that cleaned up Jimmy, he is an evil shite," he said. He had got drawn to ride it in the Las Vegas Rodeo last year. Somehow he had lost his grip on the bull rope, it had not broken but his hand had slipped, maybe it had got a bit greasy from sweat. So he was off, on the ground and the bull was on top of him before he could move. The rodeo clowns got between him and the bull, but not before it had smashed his shoulder with a big tramp of a front foot. But he had lived to tell the tale.

The other thing he told me was that he did not know how Jimmy had managed to draw that bull this year. There were other good bulls he was better placed to get, and these would give him a better chance to show his skill. It had never occurred to Max that Jimmy would draw this bull, there were twenty entrants and he was in the second tier for this bull, good though he was.

So it was almost certain that one of the top ten rated riders would draw for this bull and Jimmy's best chance was on one of the others. Not that this bull was really as good as its reputation, it was older and less agile than some younger ones. But it was noted for its meanness and its run of success over the last two years was noted for freaky accidents, nothing you could pin down, but the luck certainly ran with it and not with the riders.

He finished by saying, "If I ever get the chance that is one fucker I would like to kill, just me with a knife or metal bar, one on one against it." It was food for thought.

Three days later I had my event arranged. In the end we had all agreed on running the event in a month's time, a last event before Christmas in early December. The vote for the event was unanimous and the vote to split profit after expenses with Jimmy's family was four to three in favour, which was fine by me as I now knew the ones to watch.

In return I paid a deposit of $50,000 in the Rodeo bank account, to be held in trust until the event was run. In return I would be listed as a major sponsor on all the promotion and could use this information to promote my fictitious business as I chose. When all was done I told the meeting I would be out of town for a month but hoped to be back in time for the event and even if I could not make it I would be there in spirit.

The one other interesting participant at the Committee meeting was Hank's wife, Belinda. She was there on his behalf to ensure the stock supply arrangements were in place. Hank himself was up in Montana, but she was a capable lady, well able to represent his interests.

When discussion of this event was over we found ourselves leaving together while the Committee attended to other business. As we walked out I asked her if this was her home and, if not, how long she was in town.

It was partly politeness and partly to get more information about her husband. I had nothing against her personally but I wanted to understand a bit about how things were with her and him and also get a picture of the business and his movements. She was friendly and open. She suggested we have a drink in the local bar before we went our separate ways.

Over drinks she told her story, how the contract company was now just a business arrangement between them, that when she was eighteen and Hank was twenty, she a keen quarter horse rider and barrel racer from a Texas Ranch and he was a promising rodeo rider. So they had hooked up together. At first Hank had seemed a decent bloke who had charmed her.

But once they were married it was clear he wanted her mainly for her money. He had soon started playing around with other girls on the rodeo circuit. She said that at first it had upset her when she walked in on him screwing one of the rodeo queens. But she had decided that what was good for the goose was good for the gander, and now they lived largely separate lives except for business arrangements. It was easier than divorcing which her father did not approve of. So they had rolled on that way for the last five years and she was just pleased they were no children to make it complicated.

She told me that, when Hank was back in town next week, she could arrange for me to meet him if I wanted to discuss arrangements in more detail, as organising the rodeo was mainly a matter for him; her end was the rodeo stock they kept on her family's Texas Ranch to which she would return the day after next. She even gave me his phone number and work address if I wanted to meet him.

She herself was in town for another night tomorrow, with a plan to do some business before she headed back to the ranch the following day. It was clear she was available for more than business if I wanted to spend the time with her, either tonight or tomorrow night.

In the end we arranged to meet the next night for dinner at her hotel, which offered to be a pleasant diversion. It had a feel of one of the delectable ironies of life as we screwed each other silly the next night for a couple hours before we said our goodbyes.

As I left I rested easy in knowing she would not miss her husband once I had dealt with him. She even offered for me to come and visit her out at the ranch when next back this way.

I knew it was something I would not be doing as, by tomorrow, Michael Brown and all links to him would cease to exist. The Rodeo Committee had willingly taken fifty thousand of his money. They were well able to manage the event from here and four honourable members would see that Jimmy's mother got her fair share.

Now I would be only Mathew Bartlett. He would take my vengeance.

# Chapter 17- To Kill a Nest of Snakes

It is funny how the most complicated things in life suddenly reduce to being very simple. I now had but one need in life, to take revenge on behalf of my friend Jimmy. And for this I had a set of narrowly defined tasks.

The first was to find out exactly why Jimmy had died, the root causes.

The second was to find out who was responsible for what happened, both those who did things directly that caused his death and those who were responsible by causing others to do these things.

Then, once this nest of snakes was identified, the solution was elegantly simple, to kill them, one and all, before they did others more harm. I did not expect another to do this job for me. It was a task for me and me alone. So I must make plans that ensured full success.

Snakes have poisonous heads. If their heads are not cut off they continue to bite and spread poison, so decapitation was clearly required.

Of course there were others fed the snakes and allowed them to grow, then there were those who sought to benefit from the actions of the snakes. They would get their own comeuppance. It may be a step back from death, but I thought that loss of social status and wealth, disgrace and humiliation were good substitutes.

I thought about suitable remedies for those who sat back, did nothing, watched while it happened; perhaps this was the police chief, perhaps the bookies and members of the rodeo committee who had aided and abetted what was done. Their turn of pain would come.

But for now I must begin at the beginning. I was fairly sure I knew the three main snakes, the rodeo clown, the someone who sabotaged the bull rope and the stock contractor who oversaw and maybe paid for it. Then there was the bull. It must die too, it did the ultimate act. Once I fully mapped out these people and their actions I could work out the path which led to those behind them, step by step, and decide on what result fitted them. It was clear that no one else was going to give Jimmy justice, so it fell to me to be both investigator, judge, jury and executioner. I was pleased to take this role.

There were two primary causes of Jimmy's death, a bull rope that broke and a clown who failed to rescue. I would begin with these.

I began by looking at the photo of the rope, examining the detail of the broken ends, first with a magnifying glass, then with a dissecting microscope. At a glance it looked like the fibres had broken at random in many places due to a flaw in the making. But, once looked at closely, I saw many little groups of what looked like cut ends, ten or twenty fibres here, another same sized group with similarly sharp cut ends in another place. It was the sort of thing that one could do with a fine sharp knife or scalpel, pushed into the rope in many places. To do it carefully and thoroughly would take some time, in my mind I estimated about five or ten minutes.

I tested out this technique myself with a similar bull rope using a fine medical scalpel, a No 11 blade worked best. Five minutes of careful probing left the outside looking intact but made the inside into a honeycomb of cut ends. It held together when you applied moderate force, such as tightening the rope around the bull chest and the rider's hand. But, on giving a big jerk, like the full weight of the rider being flung against it when the bull bucked, it suddenly gave way, mostly on the second or third such jerk.

I tested my technique several times until I accurately worked out how much cutting to do to give a guarantee of invisible failure, but yet keep the rope strong enough to hold together and be invisible to casual view.

Each time I did it I created a new break which I compared it against the original photo. They all showed the same pattern of fine groups of cut ends. To the naked eye each break was unremarkable, but under magnification the same pattern was always evident. From this I was convinced I was right about why and how the rope broke.

For confirmation I sent a duplicate of the photo off to a fibre expert for examination and a detailed report. It confirmed what I knew, that a human act of sabotage had caused the rope to break and that any subsequent close examination of by a proper investigator would make this clear.

So I now understood the reason why the actual rope was discarded, but not the 'by who' or 'how it was done' questions There clearly was a person or persons involved. It was important to find out whether this was done after the police took it into evidence, or whether they simply took photos of it at the time and never collected it. It was clear that the absence of the rope was not an accident or chance event of fate but a deliberate act.

If it had been kept it was the physical evidence that could give the game away. So the question of who got rid of it was critical. It was not the act of an unknowing person and if that person knew they were one of the snakes

A further thing that intrigued me was why the photos had survived. It was as if it had not to occurred to whoever removed the rope that photos of it may contain the same evidence when examined under magnification. So that led to back to the question, 'Was the rope taken as evidence by the police then thrown away? Or did they simply see it, photograph it and discard it once done. In my notebook I wrote down as a loose end to follow later: 'Chain of custody of bull rope' – someone would know and eventually tell me once questioned with enough persuasion.

It was funny that I found myself reluctant to look at the CCTV footage for the areas around and behind the chutes of the rodeo ground on that night. Part of me feared they would be a dead end and show nothing, part I feared they would show the act of treachery which I was reluctant to witness.

I had this sense this treacherous act had to be done shortly before the ride took place, as with many bull ropes in use it needed to be done to the right one, the one allocated to that ride and that bull. If it was done well in advance there was a big risk that it would end up being used on the wrong bull or with the wrong rider, as they would not want to mark it in other ways lest that gave its critical difference away – it had to look for all the world exactly the same as any other bull rope.

But since I knew for sure it was tampered with I must force myself on. That night I sat in front of a TV for many hours and ran through all the tapes. With four feeds running and each having over three hours of footage to check it was slow and tedious.

I was often tempted to flick forward over large chunks at high speed, but I was looking for something minor and unobtrusive, like a person in a dark corner huddled over and working on something for an extended time, even perhaps pretending to be repairing a piece of tack. But it actually got easier as the time I watched got longer. The rodeo ran over two hours and I started an hour before that, when the stock were being pushed into forcing yards that led to the chutes and all the gear was being unloaded and put into place. I did a quick skim first, at high speed, just to get the overall sequence of how everything was done, running all the videos together and keeping my eyes moving to keep track of the whole event from the multiple viewpoints. It was obvious there were times when all the workers were used to do loading and unloading tasks, or stock handling tasks and no one could slide into a quiet corner. Then there were times when nothing much happened and everyone sat around. Then there were times when another event was on and most people crowded forward to watch the events directly or on the big screens. These seemed like the most likely times to me as, at most, one or two stayed back at these times to keep an eye on the rest of the stock.

So, having done my quick skim, I now set to systematically work my way through the video feeds from the four cameras. Two were covering a central open area, looking forward, which had a big volume of people coming and going. One was the area behind the stock yards where it kept track of the people and vehicles coming and going and one was facing towards the yards and the raceways that fed stock into the chutes. A storage room for all the tack sat just to the side of the yards with its door also in view of this camera. In my preliminary view I had seen people coming and going from this room with the saddles, halters, ropes and other tack which was the fitted to the animals once in the chutes.

So this camera seemed most likely to get something. I was fairly sure I could back track from when the bull was run in to when the bull rope was brought out. It was possible that any tampering was done in the tack room or earlier but I thought this unlikely due to the danger of someone else coming into the room while the person was working, or if done before, keeping track of which item was doctored. As the bull ride was the last event of the night I began at the end, when the animals were run into the chutes and the riders mounted. I knew Jimmy rode last as befitted the status of his bull. At that stage five of the other nineteen riders gone before had ridden time, which meant that if he made time he then had to outscore five others. Two were really good rides. These were his serious competition.

I felt a huge pang as I watched him laughing and joking with the stock handlers as he waited his turn. He looked relaxed and confident. For that I was glad. It was obvious he fancied his chances, going last and knowing who he had to beat.

In my heart I felt that, if it was fair, this event would have been his.

Then I started my slow progression back. This front camera on the chute showed them preparing the bulls and the riders mounting but nothing before then. However I watched the stock handlers put the bull in the chute and one of them drop the rope over its back and reach under with a hook to pull it around and then lift up the ends.

Then I saw Jimmy settle on to its back in those final seconds before they swung the gate open. You could see him take the rope in his left hand, then tuck his stronger right hand underneath it where it was doubled back, and with his free hand pull it up tight and close his right hand around it, then with his left hand he gave the signal that he was ready. I watched the gate swing open and the bull move sideways with him sitting astride. I knew what happened from now; I had seen two front on views.

But I kept watching the handler who had fitted up the bull. If I did not know better I could have sworn he was watching with more than usual interest, something between interest and anxiety, whereas most handlers turned away to the next job once their part was done. But of course it was the last ride of the night and so no more bulls would be required.

Then I saw what convinced me he knew something, it was between three and four seconds after the gate opened. From this camera I could not see the arena, but I knew the timings. This was the time of the third buck when the rope gave way. The handler punched the air in success and pleasure, as if to say, 'Mission Accomplished'. In that second I knew he had just written his own death certificate, once I was finished with him.

So now I tracked the event back using the various cameras. He did not load or fit out any of the previous bulls, in fact he was not really in any video except for a couple distant back shots for the earlier parts of the bull event on this camera. However when this chute had disgorged this previous rider and bull, about a minute later he came into view with the bull rope in his hand, waiting for the bull to be brought up and the rider to come out. He was clearly more nervous than the other stock handlers.

He hung back, keeping out of the way, as if waiting his turn, choosing not to interact with the other stockmen. Jimmy came out, laughing and joking with two other stock handlers, the ones who had just loaded the bulls for the two previous rides. Jimmy exchanged a form of greeting with this bloke, but it seemed short and very cursory, not like the friendly banter with the others.

So now I searched for him in the other cameras in half hour before. It was a bit needle and haystack, but I saw him emerge from the tack room at a time which coincided with the announcements at the start of this event, a time when most eyes would be looking forward to the ring and the hoopla of dancing girls. No one else was in sight on this camera when he came out of the door and before he stepped fully out he looked left and right before he ducked quickly and furtively to the path which led to the stock yards, bull rope in hand. I could not see what he was doing.

For seven minutes his back was turned to me and he stayed in one place, hard up against the stock yard rails, hunched over looking down, not looking out to the stock in the yard behind. Every few seconds he glanced nervously over both shoulders, looking left, right and directly back, to ensure no one else was in sight. I saw no one else on this video during the time.

Finally it seemed he was finished what he was doing. I saw his hand go into his pocket as if putting something small in there, maybe a small pocket knife. Then he straightened, looking relieved and turned and walked forward, rope in his other hand. He had assumed a pose of nonchalance, as if to say, I am just waiting and watching, all is under control.

After a minute Hank walked past, his back to me, nothing was said that I could make out. But it was as if Hank was asking if it was fixed. While it did not appear as if this man spoke he raised his free hand and gave a small nod, as if to say, 'All Sorted,' in response to which Hank made a thumbs up sign.

So it was clear to me this thing was done with the agreement of both. I felt a creeping satisfaction knowing the death certificate Number Two had just been signed.

The final thing I did for the next hour before I put the videos away was to look for any interactions between this man and the clowns or Hank and the clowns. To do this I backtracked to the break before the last event. It was nothing conclusive but I found a camera view of Hank and this handler and the slow clown all walking out of the staff mess room side by side, not really talking. It was about ten minutes before the bull ride started and everyone was getting into position, so the timing was right and, as they each went their separate ways, they made a small joint exchange of a hand wave as if to say we each know what our job is.

For now that was good enough for me. I knew true confirmation would follow once the stock handler discovered the meaning of real pain. I also knew that, in the month between now and Jimmy's Memorial Rodeo, the world would have three less snakes to do harm.

# Chapter 18 – Old New Cowboy

When I first created the character of Mathew Bartlett in Miami it was purely to give me an identity to blend in around the rodeo ground and with cowboys which was neither threatening nor memorable, a person others would have a drink with and forget, leaving but a half memory of a harmless old codger, a once mediocre rider whose day in the sun was long past.

I could tell most people who met me assumed I was well on the upside of forty, perhaps pushing fifty, gone soft and running to flab. However, at the same time as looking harmless, I needed to get myself into top physical condition, to single handed control and subdue some other powerful men.

I had not seen Hank in the flesh for two years but then he was a couple inches taller than me and two stone heavier with mostly muscle. Since he had given the riding game away, after getting that knife in the guts, it seemed he had put on a bit around the middle, as from the pictures I had seen of him. But he was still a big formidable man who I needed to take down by myself. While neither the clown nor the stock hand were as big and strong as Hank, both looked fit and able to handle themselves as their job required.

So to deal with them, one on one, I needed to be at my best. Once I had worked out, back in Australia, what I would do, I had turned my attention to getting fully fit again after a period of slackness where I lost my focus. Since then, at least daily, I did a full body workout. I could feel muscles hardening and fitness returning.

Now, as I hung around the yards and talked to the cowboys, I started to fancy I had another ride in me, something big. And, as I looked at the pictures of that evil bull and how he killed Jimmy I formed a view it was time to bring him a reckoning. The best way, before sticking him with a knife, was to ride him into the ground. It was clear he was a nasty piece of work.

In watching him perform I felt there was more to him than met the eye, some particular characteristics that gave success. So I started to study all the film of his rides and learn his patterns while I laid my plan to bring him down. If nothing else it gave me a real challenge. And as I watched I began to understand. What was most striking was that he used all the yard fittings to his advantage, he would try and wipe riders off on the rails, he would run at fences and swerve as if to unseat them, he would do amazingly sudden direction changes to try and get them off balance, followed by belting riders hard against rails. It was much more than random variation, it looked like a taught pattern, the way you train an animal to go through a range of tricks and reward success.

And what was most striking was that once he had a rider on the ground he attacked with purpose. His primary weapons were not horns and head but feet, feet which he used as attack weapons to pound into whatever was on the ground with phenomenal force. It reminded me of watch old bull baiting videos, how when bulls were attacked by dogs, their feet became their best defence. I would almost bet he was trained to defend himself from dogs.

Of course, once the feet had done their damage the horns came into play. But in most cases this was just theatrics, to make him look more dangerous and hide his primary tool.

So, having understood this, I knew if I was to be the winner in our contest I had to lead him on, give him a sense that I was going to fall to his tricks and then, without warning, reverse the tables. Perhaps his trick of trying to hit the rails broadside could be used to unbalance him, even change his last minute direction so his head bore the brunt of any impact not a shoulder or side. It knew I would have to play any ride as it unfolded but at least now I had a general plan for what I needed to do. As I worked all this through I realised that it was not enough to bring the others down from the sidelines. I had to be the central player. I had to ride the ride of death.

I did not kid myself that I was likely to survive this vengeance crusade. What was important was that I had to make sure, by my ending, if I went down, that I had taken all the snakes with me. I had not yet a fully formed plan of how to do it, but my ideas centred on the memorial rodeo to occur next month. I wanted to kill these three but also bring to all involved in the bigger a circle a mix of lost money, shame and disgrace. As for the snakes, perhaps I would arrange for the bull to kill the three of them, give them their own ride on the Whirlpool, where he made them into pieces of human pulp.

But the more I though the more clearly this idea formed. Rather than do something complicated, instead I would ride Whirlpool and ride him to death, ride him in a way that killed him. Along the way I would let people think I had no chance of success, hence the money of the bookies would flow against me, while I placed bets to wipe them out. As for the snakes, I would deal with them just before the event, so I knew all they knew when I rode, and their bodies would still be fresh enough for no one to be sure where they went, just suddenly missing.

It occurred to me, that I had the perfect character to succeed in my plan in the form of Mathew Bartlett, the innocuous older cowboy that nobody would look at twice or give a serious chance in a big event.

I just had to do a few half reasonable rides in this persona between now and then, enough to gain entry into the event, but not good enough to scare the horses or clue in the experts or bookies.

And then I would bribe my way into getting the ride on the Whirlpool. It may be that some on the Rodeo Committee would not want to let him into this event as he had killed the person it honoured on his last outing. But I was sure that Hank would want him in, as would some of the greedy Committee Members, along with the bookies and the press.

It would make the best form of promotion, a story of a rematch, a telling of a fight between man and animal, one they could portray as a fight to the death. Let others think this was hyperbole, I knew it was true.

I was already wondering if Jimmy got his ride on Whirlpool by paying off Hank or one of his minions. I knew Hank was greedy, both from his wife and from members of the Rodeo Committee. I also knew he was not so flush with cash he could turn down serious money. Plus it was obvious he had expensive tastes and a continual need for more cash to support this lifestyle, the many floozies he hung out with had big dollars written all over them.

So, as I bounced it around in my head, a clear plan began to form.

A man from nowhere would ride Whirlpool, the killer bull.

At the end one or both would be dead, including the bull.

A man with only the initials MB; a man who nobody knew.

A man who turned into a phantom without past or future.

When done the rider to be just a name belonging to none.

As for me I would be either dead or vanished. So they could choose any MB name they liked to hang on me, though every version they chose would be an equal dead end. There is a thing immensely egotistical but gratifying in planning your own demise, and making it memorable but inexplicable.

That coming weekend there was a minor rodeo event in another Texas town, an hour's drive away. I entered in the Saddle Bronc and the Bull Ride. I rode a strong Saddle Bronc ride and a mediocre bull ride that just made time but scored poorly. So now the Old Cowboy was back in town and going OK, nothing sensational but competent.

The next weekend I rode in another local town event, first riding time but scoring poorly in the Saddle Bronc but this time putting in a respectable ride on a big black Brahman bull called Midnight. It placed me third which was just what I wanted, competent but not noteworthy.

A week before the big event in Fort Worth, Dallas they had a series of qualification bull rides. Competitors for the main event, in a week's time, were coming from far and wide. Already there were far more hopefuls than places available so they needed a prequalification event, which would make even more money for the main event. It would also help the bookies set the odds and the big punters work of picking likely winners for the big one.

The popularity was partly on account of the big money put up, $100,000 for the winner and another $50,000 for other places. It was also something that had captured public attention in the rodeo world, a memorial ride for a fallen comrade was seen as a great thing for the industry to do to honour one of its own. Many wanted to see their name in lights as the winner.

So now, as a slightly known rider, I had to win a chance to compete in the big one through this qualification ride a week before the real thing.

More than a hundred riders were registered to try out. The entry fee was a modest two hundred dollars versus a thousand for the big event. But this brought in twenty grand alone, which was a useful sum of money, and the twenty dollar gate entrance fee for the 5000 plus spectators was another hundred grand, not to mention all the other turnover. Prizes were only medals and the chance to ride again next week.

Even though not the main game it was good to get to know some of those I was riding against, they collectively knew the industry and talent here far better than me. Through them I wanted to get a feel for the way that the various players were regarded, Hank in particular. Clearly he had form and few had a good word to say about him. But they only spoke at most in bare whispers which made me think there was plenty more backstory.

As I looked at the talent assembled it was clear a lot was mediocre. So I set myself to ride another good competent ride that day, nothing sensational but solid and strong. That was how the papers described it the next day, speaking of how the experience of an old dog, whose best days were long past, still kept him in the game against younger, stronger challengers.

This description suited me fine. It meant I would have to ride off in the second qualification event the next weekend, the day before the final, to earn a slot on the big occasion.

The week before the qualification I saw Hank again, in the flesh, for the first time in two years. He was bigger, flashier, and even more full of himself than the last time I had seen him, his paunch was now noticeably bulging over his belt. He had a pretty little dolly on his arm and his wife was nowhere in sight. It seemed she would be there for the big occasion but the rest of the time she kept a separate life and stayed out of sight when he was around.

Hank looked straight at me as I went up to the podium to collect my qualification medal without a flicker of recognition. It was obvious that my disguise was good and, if I could fool him, I felt confident that no other would know my real identity.

The next day I set the wheels in motion for my final play. It was time to deal with the snakes and bury them deep where they would never be found. In the month or so I had been in Texas I had researched where alligators were to be found. I had not known they were part of Texas but soon found out they lived here in uncounted thousands, even millions, along with even more in the neighbouring state of Louisiana. There was a twenty five thousand acre of block of wetlands called the Big Hill Bayou Wildlife Management Area. It was about 300 miles from where I was staying and it was said to have a truly huge population running into tens of thousands in this vast land of swamps.

So, on days when I felt like getting away, which was usually for three of four days each week, I headed off out into this wilderness and explored it, first chartering a helicopter and a guide to give me an overview and then using a small flat bottomed boat to explore the myriad creeks, swamps, channels and little islands. Soon I had a mind map of its many parts and could reliably navigate to places where no one else was ever seen, sometimes catching a fish or two but mostly just living amongst the turtles, alligators and waterbirds which made this place their home. It was clear that if I wanted to disappear this was a place better than others. It was just a good as a place in which to make others vanish and ensure they were never found. I bought a flat bottomed punt with punting poles along with a small electric outboard, large batteries and charging panels. With this and a few simple implements I knew I could live out in the land for a long, long time and be almost invisible and impossible to find.

Meanwhile, when back in town, I followed and worked out the routines of my three planned victims, keeping back and staying patient as I watched, until I could tell, with almost certainty, where they would go and what they would do at any time of day or night.

As I made my plans and prepared, slowly and inexorably the days rolled forward to my date with destiny on rodeo weekend. My mind was working like a computer as I went along, scouting opportunities, calculating times and angles until the whole slowly formed into a clear and cohesive plan.

By the weekend of the qualifying rodeo, with a week to go, I had it all worked out, the where, the how, and all the steps needed along the way for a seamless operation. With that first qualification weekend in Dallas over I headed to the swamp to get all things ready for a night of reckoning. Now all I had to do was wait until my time was come.

I returned to Dallas on the Thursday with two days to wait until the day for action arrived. Saturday was the day of qualification finals, to determine the lucky twelve final riders who would compete for the grand prize on Sunday night. There were forty eight contestants in four heats that ran over three hours on the Saturday afternoon, before the twelve successful finalists were announced. I had managed to get myself into the last heat so I knew the competition I had to beat and managed to get listed to ride third last.

It is amazing how few simple dollars can grease the wheels of supposedly random draws. Of course most cowboys had thin wallets whereas mine was fat which helped greatly. What I did not want to do was thrust myself into the limelight, a draw in the back of the field, no higher than seven or eight of twelve was where I wanted to be. So when I rode, I knew within a point the score I needed and rode accordingly. I duly snuck into tenth place which felt just right.

Then the final part of the jigsaw was the draw for who rode which bull tomorrow. Again money was needed and this time real money, ten thousand to the drawing official and ten thousand to Hank before it was done. I made a promise of the same again if my name came out to ride the Whirlpool. I knew that all the money would come back to me with interest if they did not deliver. I was never quite sure how it was done, but the end result was clear, the name of Mathew Bartlett written alongside the Whirlpool on the draw sheet pinned to the wall of the judges office and a second copy of the same sitting in the riders room.

It seemed a good bargain to me and with it done the need for restraint over dealing with the snakes was gone. The rodeo bull ride began as six the following night, almost exactly 24 hours from now. I figured I needed to be back and waiting by four tomorrow to ensure I was in good time for my ride.

By the time I went outside the light was gone, faded into an evening gloom. Cold had come down hard making it an unwelcome place for those with a desire to wander or sightsee. I did not mind the dark or the cold, I could feel a familiar alien presence coursing through my veins, the spirit of the predator within. It was time to hunt, night time is time for hunting.

# Chapter 19 - Persuasion

My first victim, the stock-hand, was heading home to a little squalid flat a half a mile away as I walked silently in his wake. As he turned the corner, coming off the main street into his side street, I moved.

Three steps around the corner my noose of wire went over his head and, with barely a strangled sound, I lowered his body to the ground. I was not ready for him die yet, so I eased off the wire and watched as blood returned to his head along with a few spluttering gasps.

Before he was awake I injected a muscle paralysis drug, a thing called succinylcholine, a nerve blocker, into his jugular vein. I watched as, within seconds, his body became flaccid. He would not be running away from me now and his vocal cord muscles were not working either so there would be no shouting or calling for help. I dragged him out of the way into the bushes, where no one would spy him until I got my car, five minutes' walk away.

As I loaded him into the back I saw his eyes frantically watching me, terror evident but with no ability to make any sound. He was still breathing but only just. Once I got him onto the tray-back I threw a piece of old green canvass tarp over him to keep him out of sight of any casual observer.

Now it was on to Victim Number Two, the clown. He worked in a garage on most weekdays. He was given a small flat above the garage as part of his payment. He did his clown job at the weekends and on occasional nights. It seemed he had got to know Hank through servicing Hank's flashy cars and he aspired to be a cowboy, though thus far he was just a mediocre clown.

Most nights he spent alone and today, after a long day covering the bull rides, he had gone home alone when the work was done. I had previously canvassed his flat above the garage. It was hardly secure, relying on it being above reach of the ground with a single locked door at the top of the stairs to keep people out. But there were plenty of easy ways in, most obvious was an extendable ladder leaning against the back wall of the garage. It could easily be used to get up to a verandah that sat at the back of his flat.

As the night was cold he was inside with just a single light showing. I put the ladder in place. In a few seconds I was on the verandah. From here it was a simple matter to get in through the unlocked door that I had secured in that state earlier today while he was out at work. I knew this door led from the verandah to the inside along a narrow passage with the bathroom to one side and a bedroom to the other.

I also knew he was a serious drinker and, most likely, he would be sitting on the lounge that faced the TV looking away from this passage, with a bottle of bourbon in hand. This was in a small sitting room behind the front door with a kitchen off to the side. The door connecting the passage to the living area was part open which suited me. It meant I could see into where he was sitting without him seeing me in the darkness. I came along the passage, walking like a cat, until I came to the door through. It was open a quarter way which was good. Nobody could see in but I could look out. I spent a couple minutes checking he was alone as, occasionally, he brought a floosie home.

When satisfied it was only him I brought out my wire loop again. He had not heard me coming and in two steps I was behind him and dropped it over his neck, giving a quick pull. He tried to pull free but in brief seconds he was unconscious, the same as his mate had been. I similarly injected him with muscle relaxant before he came to. Then I dragged him down the hall to the back verandah, tied the rope I had brought up with me around his middle, lifted him over the side and lowered him down. He was not overly big and I could manage him fine without straining myself or finessing it.

Once he was down I went back inside and did a quick check for anything to reveal my presence. There was nothing so I exited the way I had come, locking the door behind me. I had parked my car a hundred yards down the road, from where a couple of distant unoccupied vehicles were visible.

In five minutes he was in the back, lying next to his terrified mate, both in thrall of the drug and unable to move. Even though he was smaller than his mate, he was not as paralysed, breathing more easily, but still well enough subdued for now. With both of them stowed I drove to an old shed I had found. It sat at the back of an abandoned warehouse in a derelict estate at the outskirts of the town. Its great blessings were a total lack of activity or security. Late on a Saturday night it was doubly quiet with nobody and no vehicles in sight anywhere nearby.

The shed had no power but I had a powerful battery light. Beyond that all I really needed was a place out of the worst of the cold where I could have an undisturbed hour to ask my questions. The shed was ideal, it was a partly soundproofed with the door closed which should mask any screams that may ensue. It also both block the light being seen by any others. Not that I cared. There was really nobody to hear or see anything within a mile or so.

I dragged them both out of the car and into the shed. I pushed each into sitting position, leaning up against its wall, then handcuffed their hands behind and tied their feet together. That way, when I reversed the muscle paralysis drug, they could not jump up and attack me or try to run away.

Now I drew up a double reversal dose of neostigmine and injected half into the thigh of each man. While I waited for it to take effect I took out a hunting knife and sat there systematically sharpening it.

They watched on with two sets of terrified eyes. I waited until their muscles showed a return to movement. Now I walked over and cut a two inch line down each cheek of the clown. I did it gently but the knife was sharp. Flesh peeled back and blood oozed as a scream rent the air.

Now I turned my attention to his mate and repeated the process. This one seemed to have better control, rather than screaming he spat, but the terror in his eyes was real.

I said, slowly and clearly, "Do you know why I have you here?"

Both heads shook.

I took out a picture of Jimmy, one I had got from his recent riding career in America, in his cowboy clothes except for a hat, showing his features and tousled half blond hair. I showed them both the picture, one at a time, up close, then returned to stand opposite. "Now do you know?"

Dawning comprehension beside the terror was now in both sets of eyes.

I continued. "So I am going to ask questions, the same questions, first to one, then to the other. Each time I ask a question, you are to answer me fully and truthfully. If you do not tell all, if you keep even one small detail back I will cut a piece of you off. I will begin with your ears, then your nose and lips, one for each half-truth or lie. And if cutting them off is not enough, then I will cut off your balls one at a time, then your prick. And then if you have not told me everything I will keep cutting until you are dead.

It was all over in half an hour. I only needed to use my knife once at the start on the stock hand, I did not even have to cut more than a little bit of his ear, just a small piece of the fleshy lobe was enough. After that they told me everything I asked with no further resistance, first confirmation of what they had done, then whose orders they were following, Hank's of course, how much they had been paid and where the money was now, ten thousand each, half up front and half on success.

With the precise location of where the money was in each house identified I went on to ask whether they had done anything similar before. Both admitted they had though not with the rider dying.

I finished with asking why the bull was a killer and they explained how they had trained it to attack with its feet and also to try and brush the rider off against the rails. They also admitted to having interfered with riding gear in other ways before, greasing the rope to make it hard to hold, loosening buckles to let gear slip, opening the gate when the rider was only half settled, the clown making the bull change direction unexpectedly, there were lots of tricks, all dirty, to stack the odds against the rider and in favour of the bull.

Of course they did these rarely, mostly based on a bookmaker payment to stack the odds or sometimes when a big punter needed some help. They changed what they did to stop a pattern being seen. Thy admitted they had both worked for Hank since he had come back from his injury. In that time they had done many such things for which he had paid them. The end result was they had earned a lot of extra money. He had made even more money. When I had all I needed I used my knife to end it, a quick insertion of the point into the place where head meets neck at the back and a twist to cut through the spine, and it was over with very little blood. I did the stock hand first while the clown watched. When his turn came he pleaded and begged, but the lump of rage inside me was too huge. So I smiled into his eyes as I cut him and then he moved no more.

I took the two lumps of meat that had once being living human flesh and threw them in the metal box in the back of my truck, then locked the box and threw the tarp half over it. It just looked like a big box of tradesman tools.

I went into each of their houses, using their own keys, and took their money from the places they had told me of. It was a fair pile so I put it in a large envelope and dropped it in a post box with the address of Jimmy's mother on it. There was over eighty thousand dollars, not a fortune but a start to a better life which I thought she deserved. I knew that helping her was what Jimmy would have wanted with anything that came to him.

When it was done I felt pleased. The world was well rid of two piles of excrement. I washed my hands to remove any slime from the touching of these two and their money. Now it was time to deal with Hank.

# Chapter 20 – Gifts for Alligators

After a month of learning about and studying Hank's habits, including the address kindly provided by his wife, Belinda, I had the man's patterns pretty well mapped out. Tonight would not be a big night out as, after today's event he needed to get all his stock settled and organised for the big day tomorrow.

Not that he would be doing real work but he would be running around and telling others what to do, a fair bit or shouting and harassment that in his mind passed for serious work.

The bulls used today were second string bulls, the same ones that had been used last weekend, except then each had done two rides to get through all the contestants. Today a single ride for each had sufficed. For tomorrow he had twenty top string bulls, unridden in the last fortnight and all full of energy and nastiness for the battle. They would all be fed and individually checked for soundness before the night was done.

Most were penned together, but three of seriously bad temperament each had their own small pen, in part to protect them as his most valuable assets, in part to ensure no harm to others from their sharpened horn tips.

This was a small thing I had also learned tonight, that as well as teaching Whirlpool to attack things on the ground using his hooves, they sharpened and polished his horns to maximise their lethality before each big event. Of course it was all against rules; the official version was the bull rubbed the points so they sharpened naturally. But it was something I had wondered about and now knew to be true.

I knew Hank would be there until at least ten tonight, before he headed off. His habit was to call at the local pub for two or three quick drinks before picking up a six pack to take home. Sometimes he arranged a girl for the night, but not on the night before a big event like tonight, he was too focused for that. Instead he would unwind over his beers in the bar before carrying the extras away. At this time it was a crowded place, with most tables in use, but Hank, as a big wheel, was taken to a reserved table at the back.

I had an A plan and a B plan to take him out, the A plan was to take him as he exited the pub, the B plan was to get him at home an hour or two later. Each had its pros and cons, the hotel was more public, but less prone for a cowboy to stand out amongst the other cowboys, the house was a private condominium in a private estate with lots of security, but I had the security worked out and it was not hard to crack and disable for just his place. Its main disadvantage was all the CCTV in public spaces, but once inside one could easily hide away until the time was right. And it had a private garage which let one drive in and out without having to show oneself.

So I would look for a way to get to him in the hotel, but if too hard I would just follow him home and bide my time. It turned out easy enough. When I saw him leave the office at the showgrounds and head towards the car, checking things out along the way, I slipped out onto the street where my car was parked, avoiding the CCTVs whose locations I knew. Then I drove to the street behind the hotel and walked around and into the bar, just in time to see Hank's car, a distinctive Hummer, pull up out the front.

He waved to an attendant to take the car and park it for him. I realised this was my perfect chance. The attendant took the keys and drove it around to an undercover park, while Hank went inside for his requisite drinks. I quickly followed his car.

Without having to follow the road and go under the car park barrier I was there before him. On the way I picked up a handful of small stones from the road edge. As the attendant began to get out of the car once it was parked I came alongside the back door on the other side, out of his view.

As he stood straight I lobbed a handful of small stones in front of the car beyond him, in the opposite direction of where I was standing. He started and looked that way. While distracted I climbed into the back of the car. I was inside, out of sight, before he looked back and clicked the key lock to lock all the doors. I watched him walk to the office next to the entrance where he hung up the keys and then went outside.

I reckoned I had about an hour until the car was taken out again and delivered to Hank. In the meantime I found a rug and pulled in over myself as I settled myself into the floor well in front of the next row of seats.

That timing proved right and just over an hour later I heard the click as the locks opened, then a few seconds later the door opened and a driver got inside and drove it back out. Then there was the sound of Hank's loud voice, sounding mellow but sharp as he got in along with the clink of glass as he placed his six-pack on the adjoining seat. I had a half view from my corner behind his seat and could see dark sky and street lights as we drove along.

In a few minutes the front of the condominium complex loomed into view and in seconds we were through the roller door into the underground car park and soon into his own private locked garage at the back of the car park. He got out of his door. As he fiddled with the keys to take him from the garage through an inside door into his apartment I came out of the opposite car door, walked silently up behind him and dropped my wire noose over his head. He was much bigger and stronger than the others. For a few seconds tried to claw free. But with the blood cut off to his brain I knew it was a short one way trip.

As with the others I repeated my paralysis trick but with a lower dose that would make him barely able to move but still with a voice. Who could believe it could be so easy. For extra security I handcuffed him to the Hummer bull bar before he was properly awake, and then put a half gag over his mouth so he could whisper but not much more.

Then I waited for him to wake up and see if he knew me. It took about five minutes until his brain was functioning enough to respond. I stood there and waited until his vision cleared and his eyes were focused sharply on me.

I asked, "Do you recognise me now Hank?"

He shook his head, mouthed "Fuck You" and tried to spit at me. His mouth barely worked and the spit dribbled down his chin.

"That was pathetic. Is that is the best you can do. Maybe I should remind you, we once rode for the same outfit out of Chile, remember me, MB."

Now realisation sprang into his eyes, mixed with the start of real fear.

I continued, "Did you know I was also a friend of Jimmy, the lad you killed in your last rodeo bull ride?

He tried to shake his head but his eyes gave him away.

I went on, "I thought I would just kill you, but after talking earlier tonight to your clown and stock hand, the one who cut the rope and the other who let your bull kill him on the ground, I thought I should talk to you first and see if you wanted to cut a deal, one where I let you go, maybe drop you far out in the middle of nowhere. Rather than throw you in a hole with a bullet in your head, I am curious to see what your survival skills are if I release you and let you try and find your way out. Of course a bear or a mountain lion may eat you, but you may have a little better chance to end up alive than if I put a bullet in your brain. What do you think?

By now his eyes were rolling and his body was starting to shake in fear.

"Bit different now the boot is on the other foot eh? So how shall we play this? Do I kill you slowly now or do I take you to another faraway place and let you go?"

I did not wait for an answer but took out my knife and picked up a square piece of wood a foot long, lying on the garage floor. I ran my knife along a corner and watched as a sliver of wood came away, turning into a sharp splinter six inches long. With deliberate care I broke this off and inserted the sharp end into the meat of his thick leg.

He howled and tried to pull away but he had no strength. Once it was embedded a couple inches in I left it sitting there. I put the knife tip under his eye and said, "Maybe we will do some amateur surgery, cut out an eyeball.

Then, "What is it to be? Help me; get a chance, or die now as I slowly cut bits away. I knew I had his attention as he nodded furiously, terror the only emotion left in his face.

"OK, let's begin. Where is the money you stole from Jimmy, the money he had and used to bribe you for a ride on Whirlpool, the prize money he would have got and the winnings you collected from the bookie, by my calculation it will add up to about one hundred and twenty grand, maybe a bit more. That money belongs to Jimmy's mother. Before we go on our trip I want to send it to her. I will tell her it came from you. It is the least I can do."

For extra emphasis I returned the knife tip to his eyeball and pressed gently. Now he was babbling. "The safe, inside the safe."

"Where is the safe?"

"In my office on at the back of the top level."

"How do I open it?"

He rattled off a combination.

I took his keys and said, in parting, "No noise. Don't try to get away or our deal is off and I will kill you now, cutting of all your parts, bit by bit, starting with your ears and nose and ending with your dick."

So I went and opened the safe and counted the money. There was over a hundred and fifty grand in a mix of notes. I reckoned that the one twenty was Jimmy's and the rest could stay with Hank, he would not get to use it again but maybe it would go to his wife Virginia. That seemed only fair.

I checked out the rest of the house for anything useful, but there was nothing I wanted. So I pushed and lifted him into the front passenger seat of the Hummer and drove to where my car was waiting a couple miles away. Once I had sat him in the front seat of that I gave him another muscle paralysis dose, I did not want him to try and escape in my absence and returned his car to his garage, cleaned it out carefully to make sure no trace of me remained, locked it and left the keys in the front hall, before heading out the front door and walking into the night. It was easy to exit from the inside and with a heavy coat of Hank's and a big hat it was unlikely that anyone would know for sure if it was me or him who had left on the CCTV.

It was just turning midnight as I walked out of his front door. Half an hour later I was back at my car and drove into the night, heading southwest for the alligator swamp.

As we drove I talked to him in an almost friendly way. I told him of my life in Australia, my friendship with Jimmy, the pleasure in fucking his wife, the brotherhood of the crocodiles I shared. I also told him of where we were going and my plans once there, to dump the bodies of his two friends in deep pools, that I would not do this to him but just leave him untied. I did not need to say paralysed in a place full of crocodiles, so he could try and escape but in all likelihood they would eat him first. I also told him how I would kill the bull when I rode it, and I would take back from all the bookmakers and others thieves their winnings when I did. I even told him of the fact that I had signed confessions of the clown and stock handler which were in an envelope going to the police. So, even if he escaped, unlikely that it was, his empire would be in tatters. I knew it made no difference, he would be dead before the sun was high, his body torn apart and his flesh a gift to the alligators. But it passed the time and the vengeance I was dealing out felt sweet. There was no pity in my soul for this awful man but a part of me knew I was his equal brother of evil.

There was just a faint light in the sky as I packed Hank and my other two bundles of human into the boat and headed out into the swamp. I had picked out the place for Hank's date with destiny about half an hour in the boat from here. I figured dawn was a good time for his date with destiny. Before we left I undressed them all, using a knife to cut away clothes so only naked bodies remained. In place of clothes I wrapped a piece of wire around a foot of each and attached a five pound gym weight to an ankle. I wanted there to be no floaters. I put the items removed in the metal trunk. I would burn them later and dump the residue before I left.

We stopped twice along the way. Each time was in a place of deep water where I had seen many alligators. In the first I left the clown and in the next I left the stock hand. Hank watched with terror. His colour was now a blue grey, half frozen but with muscles that barely were able to shiver. A few times he muttered, "Please, Please:, in a half audible voice.

As the first light streaks were breaking the sky I reached the chosen place. I dragged him from the boat and pulled him onto a water sodden bank, his body on dry ground and legs still in water. I checked the weight was well attached to his ankle.

As I looked around I could count at least half a dozen large alligators. They were a bit cold to feed yet but would soon warm up and get hungry once the sun begun to shine on them. I left Hank lying there, barely moving as the crocodiles circled and got closer, little by little. Once the first sun shafts hit my back and I felt the warmth I knew it was time to go. I drew up Hanks muscle relaxing top up, so as to make sure he would not be getting up and walking any time soon.

I walked over, gave him his final needle, and told Hank, "As promised, you are untied and can get away if you know how. But that is a matter for you. However I don't like your chances, there are at least a dozen hungry alligators out there. They are just waiting for me to leave so they can enjoy breakfast. The menu is you.

# Chapter 21 - Riding the Whirlpool

As I drove back to Dallas to prepare for my date with destiny I ran through the arrangements for what I had set in motion from here. Over the last week I had prepared three copies of a dossier which each included a copy of an extract of the CCTV tapes, copies of original photos and close magnifications showing the cut ends along with the expert report confirming these photos showed deliberate cuts to the rope. There was also a copy of an analysis I had done by a statistician on the betting plunge on that last ride. It showed how the odds had changed and the likely profits made by the bookmakers and key punters following Jimmy's failure to win. These numbers gave firm evidence that key people had benefitted by at least three million in achieving that result. It was not proof of malfeasance but it gave a strong motive for why it was done. I also had a legal opinion on the failure to hold a coronial inquest by an eminent barrister which roundly criticised the police for failing to do their public duty this way. At the front of these documents I had prepared a short letter which laid this all out in summary form to help readers gain a simple understanding of their significance.

All documents were dated two days ago. A task, once back in Dallas, was to put a copy in the mail to the Washington Post, a second copy in the mail to the Dallas Morning News, the city's daily newspaper and send a third copy to the Dallas Attorney General. Each letter had a cc annotation for the other copies made, which was sure to focus minds and avoid them being buried.

I also had a fourth copy of the letter, without the attachments, to leave on Hank's rodeo office desk, so as to give a possible motive for his sudden disappearance along with that of the other two.

Once or twice, as I drove along, I thought about what I had done over the last night. I wondered if I should feel regret or remorse. I did not. I felt only satisfaction that these three people could do no further harm. The world was a better place in a small way in their absence. I also felt a primordial thrill in retasting their fear and terror at the end. None had died well; all had shown their craven souls. I was glad, at the bottom of my predator heart, that I had delivered vengeance and it had been a bad ending for each, none deserved better. Along with these emotions I had a sense of incomplete vengeance, I still had the bull, Whirlpool, to deal with.

By lunch time I was back in Dallas. The city looked unchanged. It gave no signs it had noticed anything in my absence, it seemed its heartbeat of life had continued unchanged.

As I drove past the Rodeo Grounds I saw crowds were already pouring in even though the events did not begin for three hours yet. There were many people coming and going as I made my way in the back entrance, a few were wondering where Hank was, though there was no real alarm; comments of him riding a floosie hard all night or having overslept were made by some. And, in reality, he was not needed for the rodeo to roll on. There were plenty of others to do the work who knew all the jobs needed. Hank's office was in a back corner and it was unlocked at expected, as others came and went taking lists and other instructions and leaving bills and other paperwork for another day. I idled in sight of the door. When no one was near I slipped inside and left my letter on his desk, face down and almost hidden by todays mail. It would be found soon enough, but most likely not today.

So now all my other work was done and it was time to concentrate on getting ready for my ride tonight. I returned to my motel room, slept for an hour until my alarm awoke me, then showered and clipped my hair super short, so all the black and grey was cut away and a short stubble of mid brown was all the remained. I could just glimpse my MB tattoo and heart behind my ear, a fitting symbol should I die here tonight. I felt no anxiety at this prospect, this day was waiting for us all. I would let the fates take their course. I had lived hard and well, known friendship and even love sometimes, fathered a child in Africa. It seemed enough.

As I looked at my transformed visage in the mirror I thought of my once inspiration, the Breaker, a hundred years past, as he faced the guns in those last few seconds. I reckoned he too had thought this way as he had looked at what lay beyond before making his final utterance:

"Shoot Straight You Bastards."

I checked out of my motel, making sure all signs of me were gone. I gave them a tip for a hundred dollars, telling them I needed to leave early and thanking them for their hospitality and kindness. I parked the car in the street behind the grounds and again I took care to remove all traces of myself and any links to my past from it. I did not expect to be needing it again.

The end of the day and the early night passed slowly but at last my time was nigh. I watched myself, as if from a distance, as I took my place by the chute, watched as they ran in a snorting bull, exuding hate for me who dared to ride him. When he was locked in I climbed over the rails and onto his back. I had new specially sharpened spurs to goad him and short flick knife blade strapped to the inside of my wrist. It would shoot out a super sharp steel blade if needed. When directed to the place where his head met the bunched muscles at the back of his neck it would sever his spine and death would be instant, his body dropping like a stone. This place was within easy reach as I sat on his back and If I reached the end of the ride without a better solution this would be an easy way to finish it.

In those final seconds, sitting and waiting for the gate to open I linked my mind to the bull, a dark brooding evil presence, bubbling over with his own rage and hate. I felt his hatred of Hank, his hatred of his riders, his hatred of all living creatures including his own kind. Buried deep I also found the child of a raging father, the once calf who had been terrorised and brutalised, tormented by dogs, humans, branding irons, firesticks and other things until he knew his only form of defence was attack.

I told him were both the same, spirit creatures of vengeance. Tonight we together would reap our own vengeance and, once done, it would end for ever. I showed him my crocodile soul, sitting in the river, waiting for his kind to come and drink, over countless millennia. I told of how we would ambush and seize his kind, drag them in, tear them limb from limb, then eat them.

He showed me his kin, sometimes escaping, trampling and horning a denizen of the deep until only a pulp remained and how they too would glory in victories. It was the way of all creatures in a fight to the death.

Now our fight was to be joined neither would give any quarter.

My half seeing mind watched as the gate swung open and then we were out amongst the cheering crowd.

It all ran in slow motion in my mind despite a frenzy of bucking, twisting and turning. Because my mind sat alongside his, looking into his but separate, I could see his intentions form but he could not read my reactions. So I was ready for his moves and anticipated Whirlpool trying to smash me into the rails. I threw all my weight the other way so his twist fell short and his balance was out. As he landed and I returned to my seat I raked my spurs along the full length of his sides, the sharpened blades slicing into the softer skin. I felt a whole body flinch and roar of pain, the next buck was the biggest ever as his rage erupted, however I rode it with ease, going straight up and coming back into the same place where my spurs retraced their previous path to even greater effect, along the already scarified skin. Now it was just an explosion of pure rage and frenzy as he bucked in arc circling away from the rails and then curving back. I knew time was almost up as we headed back towards the judges box at forty five degrees. I also knew the first prize was mine; I had blitzed the competition and ridden a close to perfect ride, my best ever on a bull and close to my best in any form. We were two bucks away from the rails when the time bell sounded. In that instant I knew the time was now mine to end this once and for all. I drove a third even greater rake along the bulls bleeding flanks and felt his last control snap. Now only a killing machine, devoid of reason, remained below me as he exploded into a massive final buck. I used all my remaining power to push his direction into a tighter circle so that he was now headed directly towards the rails below the judges' box. I had thought to release my knife on my wrist but knew now it was not needed. The bull was blind to his surrounding, heading at a flat out bucking gallop towards the rails. As its front feet landed its head was a bare two metres from metal. I gave a final spur jab in the last split second, adding even more power as he launched forward. The base of his horns hit the steel upright like an express train. I heard the bone give as his brain turned to mush. I knew it was over for me too, a ton of his mass would pile drive me into the steel, bonded onto him with parts of me between this body and the metal. I flicked my leg out of the way above his side but my torso and shoulder connected, along with my head. In that instant I knew no fear, only that this was a ride that would be talked of for decades and it was my time to end it too. I felt a split second of pain, as my body smashed into metal, and then nothing.

# Chapter 22 - Awakening

I had no sense of time in a world of white. White bandages encased my head, white shadows came from bright light and white uniforms tended me.

Slowly fragments of memories reformed in my mind, a crunch of me and a bull hitting steel, my name of MB though I had no idea what it stood for, perhaps a name, perhaps a mission. I still had no sense of what had been before and no real idea where I was, though parts of conversations when I was awake had given me the names of Fort Worth and Texas.

I still slept most of the time though my aware and waking periods were getting longer each day. It seemed they were using drugs to keep me asleep and motionless. I could feel sensation in my feet and hands so I knew I was not paralysed. I also knew I had multiple spine fractures, several broken ribs, a fractured skull and a range of internal organ damage.

But I had defied early predictions of being a paralysed vegetable which I had heard repeated by some doctors and nurses who had no idea I could hear. Hearing was my one connection to the world beyond my bed.

One day I heard Christmas Carols playing and a discussion between two nurses about the Christmas Roster and who would work Christmas Day shift in two days' time. So it placed a marker in my life. I didn't know the year but at least I knew that day was the day before Christmas Eve. I wondered if I had family somewhere with whom I should be making plans to celebrate this day. I did not feel it was so, but really did not know.

Two days after Christmas they took the bandages off my eyes and I went from seeing only light and shadows to seeing real things again. I saw two people in the room, a nurse and a doctor. He was the New England voice, young, lean and fit looking. She was Texan twang, plump and middle aged.

My jaw was wired with a tube running in, so I could not speak. But at last I had a second channel of communication with the outside world. With eyes uncovered and open they tested for a range visual functions and declared, though not with great certainty, that things seemed to be working.

It seemed to be around this time it occurred to them there was a living conscious person in this bed and began trying to communicate with me.

The nurse began it when she said to me, "I think you can hear me and you know what is going on, your eyes seem to work OK, as best we can tell. So how about I tell you something and you reply. I would ask you to move your head to say 'Yes' and 'No'. But they have fixed everything in place for another couple weeks until healing is well progressed on the spine fracture in your neck. So my best alternative idea is to ask you to blink a few times if you can hear me.

I blinked several times and was rewarded with a smile.

"Well, that is a great step forward," she said. She held out a hand as if to shake mine, saying, "Marg is my name, I have been doing most of the work looking after you since you came in here. I figure it is time we were properly introduced and had a real talk. Blink once if you want a chat and twice if you want to be left alone and in peace."

I blinked once and she continued. "Well, thank God for that."

Gradually we built up a picture of what had happened between us, she questioning, me blinking. She checked I could hear fine and see as well. From then we used the one and two blink routine for me to answer her questions. It was slow going; she had to guess next questions. But when time is no limit it is amazing how much simple yes and no replies can be used to say.

Marg told me I was brought in almost a month ago and at that time all that was known about me was that I was a bull rider with the initials MB. They had initially thought I was named Michael Bartlett, a Canadian rider of years past. But they soon located the real Michael Bartlett. He confirmed that, while I looked a bit like him, I was nobody he knew. Along with this they had confirmed from XRays that my real age was at least ten years younger than he was, so it was doubly clear I was not him.

Marg also told me that all other attempts to trace my identity had come to a dead end, nobody could make head nor tail of who I was and where I came from, all they knew was that a small backpack with the initials MB had been found next to the chute I came out of on the back of a bull.

The only others item in the bag apart from a few clothes and toiletries, including a toothbrush with my DNA, was an envelope with over one hundred thousand dollars in cash; mixed US denomination older notes that nobody else had been able to make a claim to and which were being used to cover my medical bills. Marg also told me there was another hundred thousand dollars prize money for winning the bull riding event I may be able to collect in the future though there was legal argument over my claim to this.

She also told me about the disappearance of Hank, the stock contractor and two of his workers at the same time and how evidence had surfaced, courtesy of the Washington Post, about their role in the death of the rider, Jimmy, of the previous event. This was now being called murder, with a new police investigation underway. Along the way, she said, the head of the Police Department and three members of the Rodeo Committee with business links to Hank were suspended, under investigation. The word was they were likely to be charged with conspiracy.

And then there was me, the rider who nobody knew, who had ridden the bull which was dead too. Marg told me how I should have died too with my injuries but had somehow miraculously survived. Apart from all the money and the MB tattoo, most called me John Doe, person unknown, with no identity documents, and no DNA or dental records to link to. She said that after they had debunked the theory that I was Canadian rodeo rider, Michael Bartlett, all attempts to trace me had come to naught. As to the name and signature on my rodeo entry form, the name was of the entrant was an almost indecipherable scrawl, which the officials had rendered as Michael Bartlett, presumably because I told them this, and the signed signature was MB. Some further profile testing had suggested an African, Australian or Middle Eastern connection but it was little more than speculation.

At first the police had wanted to talk to me, the owner of the body retrieved lying half under the bull. But nobody had thought I would survive such horrific injuries and with the fractured skull, nobody thought I would remember anything anyway. And when the police were told that, with the neck brace, stomach tube and wired up jaw, it would be at least six weeks until I could speak, they lost interest and set their sights elsewhere. There was also no suggestion I had committed a crime, in fact in the rodeo world I was considered something of a hero for finally mastering this bull, even though it almost killed me. Few were sad the bull was dead.

Of course I listened to all this in silence, unable to move, but for eyelids, also unable to speak and without memory of any clear story. But I was not restless. I felt I had achieved something of substance though I knew not what. Instead I was content to let things happen in their own time and just wait while they did. I wondered if anyone knew me and would visit.

A week passed and then another. After a week they unwired my jaw, untied my hands and took the stomach tube out. I could now feed myself. Another week later they took the neck brace off and unstrapped my body from the bed so I could move body and limbs again. However I was told not to move from where I lay until a doctor said so, lest I set back my recovery.

Now I had a mouth to use and could talk again I found I had nothing to say, there were no thoughts in my mind in need of speech. But Marg had appointed herself my chief therapist and was determined I would talk to her. So she brought in flash cards, the kind a pre-school teacher uses, and made me repeat their sounds until gradually my vocal cords began to work again.

Then there was a physiotherapist with an exercise regime. He slowly coerced disused muscles to return to work. A month after Christmas I took my first tentative steps across the hospital floor. After that progression was rapid and by the end of February I was pronounced cured, if a bit enfeebled.

On the first day of March I was discharged from hospital and booked into a small motel, to take over my own life again. Everyone was calling me the 'Miracle Man', he who walked again after five spinal fractures and a broken skull, not to mention broken ribs and a smashed liver.

It all passed me by, I was as good as medicine could make me, awake and alive, functioning again in a physical sense. I now I had a life to lead but did not know what.

Lots of people wanted to talk to me, to ask me questions and write my story, newspapers, publishers, and the inveterate curious to name a few. But I had nothing to say. I was MB, nowhere man, a real nobody. I wondered if my life would forever stay that way.

It is strange to be dropped in a foreign land without any connections. I needed nothing; I had over twenty thousand in cash remaining and a promise of more if I wanted to chase it. My body only pained slightly, mild headaches now and then, neck stiffness and a few body aches. But it was trivial and I could feel strength returning. Each day I walked out, at first doing an hour of slow and steady walking and some swimming, then building up to two hours. After a month I would head off in the early morning and walk off in random directions until I got home around lunch time. Then I would sleep for a couple hours to let my body rebuild its strength before I did light activity and watched TV in the evening and into the night. I got a few friendly smiles from strangers but felt little need to interact, and no one tried to push it. I also used buses to go further afield, mainly to learn the geography.

I had been out of hospital for about a month when one night there was a knock on the door. I had never had a visitor before and assumed it was just a hotel attendant, wanting to check something.

Instead it was an unfamiliar man with a cowboy hat. He extended an arm which I duly shook, saying his name was Max Brandt. I must have looked perplexed, unsure what to do next, because he asked if he could come in and share a cup of tea. So I invited him in. After a few preliminary courtesies he asked me, "Can you tell me what really happened?

It was not an aggressive question, just inquisitive, but I knew it was more than a polite inquiry. I shook my head, "I wish I knew. I cannot remember."

He asked, Can you remember anything?

I told him of fragments of memories of a bull, with me on it, crashing into steel post and rails, head first, of how I knew the bull was dead in that instant and was glad and how I thought I would die too, but then nothing, neither of any life before or what came after.

He said, "Perhaps I can help you. I think I have found out a thing or two. And, by the way, I am glad you killed that bull, it was evil, it deserved to die."

And so we talked. Gradually he told me who he was and who was I.

He had been Jimmy's friend and Jimmy had told him about me, not much really, but from him he got the name MB, bits of my life in Australia and how I could ride and had taught Jimmy my rodeo tricks.

Then he had told me how he had met me as Michael Brown, one day at breakfast where I had proposed to sponsor the Jimmy Memorial Ride and how he had agreed and persuaded the Rodeo Committee to run the event. Then I had disappeared but another MB had magically appeared, in the guise of Michael Bartlett, to do the ride of his life to take the prize. But this too had ended in tragedy, bull dead and rider almost dead.

At first he had not suspected the connection, but when the stories had emerged about the mysterious MB, mystery rider without an identity, it had dawned on him. After all these were his own initials that Jimmy had joked about though he was always called Max.

So he thought I was the elusive MB from Australia, he even showed me a newspaper photograph from a rodeo event in Toowoomba in which the resemblance to a younger me was strong.

He said he had no intention of telling others what he knew, but he was glad, glad for a dead bull, glad for Hank and his minions brought to account. He suspected but was not certain it was all my doing, letters to the Dallas Morning News and the Washington Post, deliberately killing the bull, even causing the disappearance of Hank, the stock handler and the rodeo clown.

And he was one hundred percent sure of my Australian back story, my role in the Chilean Rodeo. He did not ask me to confirm it; he just told me what I knew. He asked if I needed any help to get on with my life.

Of course I could neither confirm or deny, but it was useful to know.

I asked him what he planned to do, if what he said was true.

He said, "Nothing but to say thank you, this vengeance tastes sweet."

He brought me to his ranch where I stayed for a month, while a passport was obtained in my Australian name. He also lodged a form for me to claim my winnings. Now the bent Committee Members were in jail awaiting trial there was no objection and soon I was richer by a hundred thousand.

Each day I rode out with him and rebuilt my strength and balance. It felt good to be astride a horse again and, even though I could not remember, my brain knew what to do.

So at last I returned to Australia and flew in to Brisbane, my former place of departure, returned in the name of Mark Brown who had flown out to the US about six months ago, at least that is what my passport said.

# Chapter 23 - A Place called Home

It is funny to be returned to the place you call home without any memory. Memory is identity and without it there is none. But with identity comes all the baggage, the good and the bad and it slowly pulls you back to the place you were before.

For the first month after I returned I had no memory and no baggage. In Brisbane I found a key and number to a safety deposit box in my name. When I opened it I found a few things I had left there for safekeeping that formed some residue of my former life, a mix of bits and pieces and old records and things I had written. I discovered from old papers and notebooks I had mostly worked in the NT and North Queensland and so that is where I headed.

I could not remember former places I had worked or jobs I had done, however I had a whole lot of buried knowledge returning about how to do things, basic mechanics, repairs of machinery, other manual tasks and I had a re-issued driver's license as Mark Brown. So I bought a utility in that name and worked my way north, going from town to town along the coast, picking up bits of work that more than paid keep and fuel along the way.

Near Rockhampton I saw a sign for a Crocodile Farm. Immediately there came a compulsion to go there, a buried familiarity. So I spent two days there, playing at being a tourist, but mostly sitting in the shade beside pools of water and waiting until the creatures came and spoke to me.

Nobody had ever told me that crocodiles could talk to me and yet I knew they could. And, as they spoke, they connected to unknown parts of my brain that I could no longer talk to. As they spoke with these, I began to see parts of myself as I had existed before.

Most of what I saw I decided I did not like, but knowledge cannot be reversed, so slowly parts of that earlier being started to inhabit my mind again in a predatory sort of way. Coming from out of nowhere I would feel emotions of rage and vengeance, pain and punishment, start to form.

A large part of me said I did not want to know or be this other person again. Yet knowing is still knowing; it can never be undone. So, as I drove on, I was half the Mark of old and a half of something new.

I drove inland and did some prospecting, something I found I inherently understood from another source of buried knowledge. I found I had a right to mine a patch of land out past there in my things and wanted to see it.

I drove out and found abandoned diggings. They were much older than I was so it seemed I had never been to this place before. I set to work and, in a week, had uncovered some good quality gems which I knew I could trade. I decided to return to the coast and keep heading north.

Another buried compulsion which came back was a desire to visit the reef and dive with the sharks and coloured fish. So I started to spend my spare money on diving and snorkelling trips, building on old small knowledge as I went. There was something in that place below the water, cut away from the world above, that was balm to my soul.

In Airlie Beach I got a job servicing air-conditioners in the flash resorts and the offshore islands. It was a perfect job, work hard in the day, dive or swim in the early morning or late afternoon and listen to music and dance into the night. My dealings with girls were limited, quite a few encouraged me, but there was little reciprocal desire on my part, it was not aversion but a sort of polite disinterest, plus a half awareness of many others in past lives.

I made three trips out to Hamilton Island, a resort serviced by a ferry from the town. I liked it there and would mostly stay for a night or two, doing all the urgent jobs at one major resort at a time.

On my third trip I saw her, she who would tear me back into my past life.

# Chapter 24 - Amanda

I am in the bar at a flash resort. The night is getting late and I am sipping a Rum and Coke. There is a moment of electricity when someone new and exciting crosses your path, they are unaware and you are unaware and yet the sparks flash and the magnets of attraction draw.

So it was with Amanda.

She was the type who wears their supreme attractiveness as a badge of honour, knowing their power to draw and change men, confident in being in control of themselves and of others. That was she.

I pretended to be indifferent, to barely see her and not notice her. But when indifference is a sham they see and know and you know they know.

On the first night she was with another girl from the resort, a Canadian I had seen before, perhaps on my last trip. At her coaxing they both came over together, being chatty and encouraging, making the moves of available girls looking for some fun and excitement. I knew, right from the outset, she was both danger and intrigue, but I was not ready to play.

Her friend came along for the ride but all the interest and focus came from Amanda. She was mid-sized with mid brown hair, a well-shaped body and a pretty face. She was hot and she knew it. She had 'ten out of ten' sex appeal. It was there on offer, but out of immediate reach, as if to tantalise and say. 'I may let you have me that way but you will have to work hard to get there and it will come at a high cost.' Perhaps the price would be a nice meal and expensive wine, perhaps an expensive necklace, a thing that she would encourage you to place and leave on her naked body before you got to taste her other delights.

She told me she was a student at New Jersey University, on a gap year, on a working holiday, travelling the world and experiencing what it had to offer. As she spoke I knew there was more to it, I sensed a tissue of lies was mixed in amongst the truth. I knew and I think she knew I knew.

But she was in a strange land far from her native home and did not really care. As for me, it made me more intrigued to know the back story. Perhaps I would find out when the time was right.

There was a thing about American accents that had got to me, since my last trip, particularly those of the more uppity states of the north east, New York and New Hampshire had it, but also parts of Virginia and New Jersey where it mixed with a dash of the south, giving a doubly sexy sound. It was different to the Texas twang and a part of my male being found it infinitely alluring. It was a thing I now missed, a root of familiarity from my sojourn in that place and I could feel it pull me towards her.

But I was determined not to come easy, she too would have to work to bring me towards her, not quite throw herself at me but understand that two can play that game and both have power. And for now I would use my power. So after a short half hour of chat I told her I had a big day of work tomorrow and would beg off for an early night. I sensed her chagrin and saw her hide disappointment. She would not take no easily.

I knew, if more was destined, I would see her again.

A week later I had to make a second trip the same place to finish off another wing of the resort. There was only a day's work in it and I could have caught the first ferry out and the last ferry back to town.

But I thought I would come a night early on spec to see if this Amanda was still around. I had thought of her several times in the week and knew she was there for the taking if I put my mind to it. Over the last week many of my other memories had come flooding back, most particularly sexual ones of encounters with girls in many places.

It was as if she had reawakened a sexual part of my identity. Now I wanted to take control of that part of me again and put it back to work. I particularly remembered Vic and I meeting girls while travelling along byways and highways of the NT and sharing pleasure with them during trips out and back to stations. Sometimes it was a night or two at a roadhouse, sometimes a bush trip for a few days. It was surprising how many could not wait to see outback starry nights, lying on their backs with me above them in a swag. Many were visitors from other lands, and often they told of boyfriends or husbands who waited back home.

So I decided that it was time to take her on such a trip if she chose to come. But I would call the real shots not her. It was obvious this one liked to play with men, to control them and get them to do her bidding, this time the tables would be put in reverse.

Having remembered Vic made me want to see him again. He was one of my true friends, one of few.

So I texted, "Bout time for a catch-up old mate. How are you placed?"

Next day his reply came back, 'So long thought you'd died. Need help with station musters NE Alice in 2 weeks. How about see you out there."

Rather than text back I picked up the phone and called. In a minute it was sorted. We would meet a fortnight from this weekend at Urandangie pub. From there it was on out to Lake Nash where the first job was the next Monday. He would bring his chopper and I could catch the scrags on the ground. Lake Nash has plenty of gear and would supply a bull catcher.

So I would offer to take Amanda with me to western Queensland for a week, out past Longreach where I had a lease on an abandoned opal mine that I thought was worth digging out. It would not be an exciting trip but I would find out whether she had any true grit and, if it worked out, she could come on with me and meet Vic. And if not I would put her back on the bus with a gift of two and send her back to the coast and her own life.

As my memories returned so too did a harder part of me, something that would not bend to other people and would take no shit. It was like I was at a fork in the road, I could go one way to become kinder and more decent, or I could go back to what I was before, like a dog returning to its own puke.

In making Amanda choose like that I sowed the final seeds of my own destruction as well as hers, whereas perhaps a bit more kindness could have changed her too, in the same way that kindness gentles a mad horse. The problem was that she was too like me which I was too blind to see.

Anyway the day I returned to Hamilton Island, there she was at the bar. When I came in she was sitting reading a book, her back to me, unaware and beautiful in her simplicity.

I bought a drink for me and a drink for her, remembered from last time, a Mohito, only this time with the best Caribbean Rum in a double shot. She looked surprised and pleased to see me. We chatted for a long time in the pleasant way when friends re-meet.

Then I made my offer, come with me if you want, not please. But if you want you can meet me on the ferry back tomorrow night and we will go on from there. I knew she would come, it was made as a challenge and she was bored here and loved a challenge. So she took the bait and came.

I kept out of sight on the ferry for half the trip, just to make her sweat and feel desire. When I showed myself her relief was evident and from then she was mine. I had booked us a room in an upmarket place in the town, perfect to wine, dine and seduce. I did not offer her a separate room or her own bed, she needed to know at the outset that if she came with me this was part of the deal, tonight I would fuck her and then decide if I liked her enough to bring her along, if not I would leave her behind and go alone.

It was not really seduction; she bathed when we reached the room and emerged in a shimmery silk dress that left nothing to the imagination. When I asked who would get to take that off her tonight, she said she hoped it would be me. So I did it, right there and then.

I almost tore off her dress to get to her naked body, we fucked and then we wined and dined, then fucked some more. It was surprisingly wonderful to reconnect to that part of my body and my mind. She was one of the best, soft but an adventuress in the best way. Before we did it she told me she was on the pill and I did not need to wear a condom, so I took her at her word.

That night, and for a couple nights after, I felt something for her that I would have called the beginnings of love, if not messed up by what came after. I thought she felt it too. Perhaps in a way she did, though later other things took its place.

But of course we were kindred souls, both showing the world what we wanted others to see, with precious little of what is called honesty and each with our own different agendas put in front of all else.

The next day we headed out to the Badlands, that emptiest part of south west Queensland where few live and even fewer live well and make money. On the way we stopped for a meeting with a gem trader and I bought two fantastic rubies, each the size of a pea with a fabulous colour. They cost me twenty big ones each and I had in mind when I bought them to give them as gifts to my new bedfellow, if and when she went on her way or we became something more.

But at the same time I could see an avaricious gleam in her eyes, as if she wanted them and still more. It made me nervous for our future if she saw me as a generous benefactor to fall into her sphere of influence and accede to whatever wishes and desires she had.

That night we came to our destination, an abandoned opal mine diggings in the Coopers Creek catchment, south of Longreach and in the middle of a barren nowhere land east of Windorah. It was a place of broken stony hills and scrubby trees, dotted with abandoned mine shafts over which I held a paper mining lease, bought for a peppercorn after others had abandoned these diggings as worthless. But, based on past experience in finding opals not too far south, along the Barcoo River in similar country, I thought it was a good place to look further. So I had paid a spatial mapping company some good money over a year past. It had come up with a list of most promising sites to which I had bought the mining rights.

My plan to explore had been interrupted by my trip to America, but now I was back it on my work list. I thought to share a chance at another bonanza with Amanda. I told her it would be a hard week in a harsh place but if, at the end, what we found was worthwhile we would share the spoils. I also told her that if she got tired of it I would take her back to Longreach to catch her own bus out. It was as much a test for her as it was for me, to see if after a few days I still liked her company and she still liked me.

She started out in good heart on the first day but her hands were soft and her stamina was low. So, by lunch time, with the start of blisters it was plain the digging game for buried treasure had lost its shine.

She tried a couple walks but, after warnings of snakes and mine shafts and the sharp grass that stabbed her soft skin, that too was another failure.

I was happy to leave her to amuse herself, if nothing else it was a test of her patience and stamina. For a couple days she sat in the shade and read books. But by day three the complaining began, 'Is there nothing else to do around here, are there no other places, is there nothing to see? Is there no good food, why do the birds squawk in the trees?'

I politely reassured her it was exactly as I told her, I was finding good bits of opal, it was only for a week, she would feel better if she did something, if not to dig as least to sort through what I had got. This met with a mix of stony silence and increasing anger, "Do you think I am your slave?"

By day five it had turned seriously nasty. I demand you take me out of here, how dare you keep my trapped out here. I could feel my own anger begin to simmer. I knew I had at least ten thousand dollars' worth of saleable opals in a bucket, perhaps even twice that. Her share of five thousand dollars plus was hers in another day or two. I had only asked for a week of her life and this seemed to me to be a good return for a week of minor hardship.

I said, "Stay patient for two more days and we will pack up and go to Mount Isa, stay in a nice place with a swimming pool, spa and room service."

She asked where Mount Isa was. I pointed to a spot on a map.

She looked with disdain, "What stay in a shithole like that? It's still in the middle of nowhere. I want to go back to the coast. I want you to take me!"

The simmering of my anger rose higher and rather than treat her with kindness in this hostile land I ignored her and went back to work, working until late in the night. By the end of the night I had finished my digging. I thought to placate her with leaving a day early, to give her pleasure in the night and then tell her in the morning we were finished and could pack up and head to the town; that we would be there by that night.

Now it was she who was angry, when I came to lie beside her she turned her back and pushed me away.

So I turned away from her, made a bed on her own, too tired to argue

In the morning for a change she was up before me. She had packed up her few things and was sitting in the front seat of the truck, saying. "I demand we leave now."

I said, "Fine, I will drive you to Longreach this morning and leave you there. There is a train to Rockhampton each week and I am told there is a daily bus as well. You can take your pick." I could feel a slow burning rage within me start to burn brighter.

"You must be joking," she replied. "You brought me all the way out here. Now you can take me all the way back. If you take me to Longreach and leave me there I will go straight to the police station and tell them you abducted me, brought me out here and raped me, then kept me here for days and would not let me go. See how it feels when they come after you and arrest you for that. What is it for rape? Ten years! And for kidnapping? Another ten! See how you like that! And I found out last night I am pregnant with your baby. What do you plan to do about that?

I could feel the rage burn bright. "My offer to take you anywhere has just gone away. You go fuck yourself. It is ten miles down that road to where you may find a car to give you a lift, at least one or two come by each day. It is straight down there the way we came in. If you want to get out of here use your own fucking legs and walk, I will not help you anymore."

I picked up a water bottle and handed it to her. And take that, I would not want you to get thirsty."

I turned and walked away. My patience was gone and I needed to calm down. I was sick of her lies and done with talking. It was her problem.

I heard a clatter of footsteps. I looked around to see her running at me holding a big kitchen knife as if to stab me. I should have stepped aside, have taken the knife and told her to calm down, I should have been kind. But now my anger was boiling. I reefed her hand aside. As her head passed my side, I hit. I could have softened it, just knocked her down. Instead I hit her with a killing blow, the way I had been taught in unarmed combat by a mercenary all those years ago. Where her neck joined her head I felt the bone give. She fell down and moved no more.

With the act the anger was gone. I looked at her body lying there, small and fragile, still in the dust, no breath, no movement. I wondered at what I had done. She was no threat to me, yet I had killed her. Why, Why, Why?

I picked her up with all the love I could not give her in life. I dressed her in her pretty dress, the shimmery silk one. I cradled her form in my arms and walked south for an hour, to a place where three river branches met in a pool below a little rocky hillside. It had a view beyond scrub to water that I hoped she would like. In a cave on the hill I buried her; it was an old abandoned entrance to a mine. I carried a stick of gelignite as I did not want her to be disturbed. So I closed the entrance with a dull thud and left her behind.

Back at the camp I gathered up her possessions. In her bag I found some letters, a passport and twenty thousand dollars. I read the letters and wrote these names and addresses in her diary, thinking perhaps I should write and tell them she could never return. I returned them to her bag with the other things except her passport which I kept to occasionally remember her face.

I walked for a mile in the opposite direction. Here in another old mine shaft I dropped them and with another bang I sealed them inside.

# Chapter 25 - Cathy

As the months went by my memories strung together filling in the gaps. This was both good and bad. The good was I gradually regained the whole of my former self. The bad was the more I regained the less I liked what I found.

I made myself two promises, remembering the vengeance I had taken in America and the needless killings of Josie and Amanda. I would continue to kill any rotten ones I found, the predators, the abusers, the killers of others. But I would never again kill someone whose worst crime was to threaten me with words, to expose me in some way or do me minor harm, those who acted in anger or rage but had not done me or others I cared for real harm.

I stepped back not at all from what I had done to Hank, I knew a bullet between the eyes would have been a kinder end than the crocodiles. But then again, at a certain point, pain and suffering must be repaid with similar, like for like or equivalent. Justice would never be served by self-serving governments; it was we the citizens who must act. But I would never again casually harm ones who merely threatened me in fear, loss or anger. Other Josie's and Amanda's must be safe in the future from me.

A year passed, it was a year of friendships mixed with loneliness. Vic was my steadfast friend and our times together were good times. In the late dry season I mustered on the rough hill country in the north of VRD with his help and that of the station manager, Buck. Along the way we went from casual acquaintances to firm friends and also got to know his wife Julie, really well.

I already knew some stations really well in the Barkly, Gulf and Alice, so it was nice to form similar friendships in this part of the world. I had done a fair bit of work around the southern VRD and across into the Kimberley, but the top part extending across to the back of the Daly River was an area I knew only in parts. It felt good to gradually fill in the gaps.

Over the summer when the station work was quiet I would return to my work as a gem trader, moving mainly between the rough hills around the Alice and sometimes venturing into the Kimberley, and taking the stones I gathered to Cooper Pedy for sale.

From Cooper Pedy I would often go on to Adelaide for a few days. It was the city in which I felt most at home, having been the first place I escaped to as a young teenager. I did not really have friends there and while I could have stayed in an upmarket hotel, I mostly stayed in backpacker places as I liked the ebb and flow of life and nations that washed through these, the mix of unfamiliar accents and the sense of adventure.

It was part way through the next year when I met Cathy at one of these places. She was a mix of English and Scottish, where traces of Scottish brogue washed through her upmarket English mannerisms, she had a quintessential English sense of politeness and good manners that I found strange but very appealing, particularly in the female form.

I saw her in passing over a couple days, a glimpse at a breakfast with a nodded hello, the next day an exchange of names over coffee, a late night pass and half smile in a corridor. I don't think she really noticed me but I could not help but be aware of her. There was a guarded part in her manner around men that drew me, as if she knew what danger a man could be and had worked out a way to deal with their attentions, her trademark polite half smile was a way of keeping distance, not unfriendly but not inviting more.

And she had a look that drew me. It was a look my Bella had. Cathy was smaller but had a similarly good figure. She had her short wavy hair in a bob, coloured with a red rinse and fringing a pert face. But most of all she had the Bella expression, hauteur mixed with fun, vulnerability mixed with braveness, that I found incredibly appealing.

I did not think a chance would come to develop things between us. I was kept back by a sense that this was one who had been badly damaged in some way by men. It made me careful, not wanting to hurt her any further.

The chance came unexpectedly on my last night before heading back north. She had been chatting to another couple I knew slightly, a shared meal or two. They were chatting to Cathy in the sitting room, along with another girl, a Canadian, who I had also chatted to in passing.

I was sitting in the opposite corner, reading the paper and catching up on the day's news. I had decided to go around the corner to the bar and read it over a beer. I waved to the couple I knew the best as I walked out.

They asked, "Heading out?"

"Just to the bar round the corner. I need beer to help my eyes read."

The bloke said, "Beer o'clock, sounds good. Mind if I come?

"I nodded, "Welcome, come one or come all." As I stood up to walk out I heard the Canadian girl ask Cathy if she would come too.

I half expected her to refuse but instead she said, "That would be nice."

So the group all came. I held the door open for them then followed, a few steps behind. I had not been really looking to be part of a crowd but it would have been churlish to back out for no reason so I came along, walking to one side of the couple holding hands while Cathy and her friend walked to the other side. At the bar I found myself sitting side by side with her on one side of a table. The couple sat opposite and the Canadian girl sat at the end.

I took the initiative and bought a round of drinks. Then the man from the couple said it was his turn and went off to get the next round. While he was away, his partner went off to the bathroom with the Canadian girl. I thought Cathy would follow but she did not. So we were there for a couple minutes alone. In her best English manners she asked me what my plans were.

I told her I was driving to Alice the next day as I had cattle station work to do around there and I was going via Coober Pedy, the famed opal town.

This caught her interest. She said she had read the book, 'A Town Like Alice' and it had piqued her curiosity to go there. So she asked me what it was like, as well as what there was between here and there if one made a trip. She was thinking of catching the train and asked what I thought of that.

As we talked I felt a small spark grow between us, more the sort of affection of strangers to fellow travellers than other. But it seemed she enjoyed talking to me. After this drink the others made their excuses and said they had to go, they had an evening engagement with other friends.

I was happy to stay but expected Cathy would leave with them.

Yet she did not, she stayed and talked, as if human contact was a thing she craved after being alone for too long on her own. I felt the same, taking simple pleasure in her easy company.

Another hour went by and she suddenly looked at her watch. "I think it is time for me to go, after talking to you I now must make plans for tomorrow. You have convinced me to go there. I want to take that train ride to the Alice. You have my interest piqued and I would like to see it."

"Why don't you come with me? There is room for two, and the biggest advantage of this trip is you will get your own tour guide and along with your own private space each night."

She smiled, a genuine warm smile, saying, "Thank you for your kind offer but I am an independent soul and I like best to do things on my own."

I thought that was it, a polite but firm rebuttal. I finished my part in our conversation by saying, "Well if you get to Alice and need a tour guide of the local town my offer still stands."

She nodded, "Give me your contact details. You never know, I may take up your offer." I wrote my phone number and the name Mark on the back of the drinks coaster and she put it in her bag, maybe to be looked at again, but much more likely to be forgotten.

We walked back through the foyer of the backpacker place, side by side but not talking. I expected, when we reached the lift, we would say goodbye.

As we passed the counter attendant she asked, almost as a matter of course, "Are there any letters for me?"

The attendant did a quick sort through the mail and pulled out an envelope. "Indeed there is Madam, express post so perhaps it is urgent."

I waited to the side, not wanting to intrude but feeling it would be impolite to walk away without saying goodbye. I watched her open the envelope, initial anticipation turned to interest then suddenly an expression of horror, soon replaced by a mix of anger and fear. It seemed to shake her to her core, whatever the contents were.

I felt concern for her and walked over, wanting to offer my support, perhaps a word of comfort in her shock. "Are you OK Cathy? Is it bad news? Is there anything I can do?"

It took her a second to answer, she looked quite stunned.

At last she looked at me with a bright, brittle smile. "Is the offer to go with you still open. If so, could we go tonight rather than wait for morning?"

"Well my car is just around the corner. We can be loaded and on our way in less than half an hour, I replied."

It was a trip over three days to Coober Pedy, then after that we had one more wonderful day sandwiched between two amazing nights. The first night we drove for a couple hours to the old mining town of Burra, walked the town in the late dusk and retired to our separate motel rooms.

I called her early next morning to drive on. It was dark and cold and at first she seemed sleepy, but did not grumble. Instead she tucked her legs under her like a little mannequin and sat there gazing at the landscape that opened around us in apparent wonder. Half an hour into our drive the first light came to the eastern sky and soon flushes of coloured light rose up into the sky. She gazed in total delight as the magic of a new day unfolded, and I saw it with her own fresh eyes too.

Breakfast was a big plate of fried eggs and bacon which we both ate ravenously, then we went to the stockman outfitters to buy her some more suitable attire for her bush outing. We made it to Wilpaena Pound for lunch and in the afternoon walked the ten kilometre circle around the rim of the huge old crater, watching the play of sunlight and shadows on the ancient mountains. Cathy was clearly not used to walking so far but she battled on without complaint, a couple times laughing at her own fatigue along with the rebellion of her legs which she told me, by the end, felt like jelly.

We ate dinner together in the hotel restaurant, where she proved to be a warm, friendly dinner companion, sharing odd stories about life in London and some of the foibles of high flying corporate executives she had worked for. We were both very private about our early lives. I sensed dark secrets she did not want to share as it was with me.

When I saw her starting to yawn I told her of my plans for the morning, to go hunting in the high mountains of the Flinders Ranges, with a quarry of goats. I asked her if she wanted to come, saying she was welcome to stay in bed and I would be back around lunch time. However if she came she would be rising at four am.

I said, "If you come you may get to shoot a goat if that is something you would like. Even if not you will witness some great scenery, like today but in higher mountains, and with luck there will be another sunrise to rival today."

She smiled at me and said, "I am not naturally an early riser but with that offer of another sunrise, how could I refuse. Plus, as a child, my father would sometimes take me hunting in the Scottish hills and I loved it too.

"So, yes, please call me and don't take 'too tired' as a morning excuse."

She was good to her word and, in the cold pre-dawn got out of bed, cold and sleepy but unfazed. It was a magical day, just us, like the early hunters of this land in millennia past, living in our separate place of shared wonder. By lunch time we had snared three goats of which she had shot one, which we now brought with us, a gift to my Coober Pedy friends.

We were tired again that night though much closer in mood and spirit. For half an hour we sat on a couch by the fire together, she resting her hand on my knee and her head on my shoulder as we talked. I think if I had asked she would have come to my bed but I did not. This was too good to spoil.

So we went to our separate beds and dreamed our separate dreams. Again, when I called her in the dawn, she came with me on our trip.

It was early afternoon when we pulled into Coober Pedy. I had grown used to this odd town on my many trips, but to her it was an anachronism, a town in the desert, so many styles, so much individualism, so much gaudy.

It had little of beauty but was visibly prosperous, all the opal shops with their thronging visitors, something like an ugly Arabian bazaar in the heart of Australia. I pulled up at the front of my friends, Nikko and Athena's, house. They were a Greek couple, who had prospered with the town through trading opals. Our goats were for them, for a feast tonight to mark the engagement of their daughter, Cassandra, to another local boy Stefan.

When I rang yesterday afternoon to tell Nikko of my hunting success I told him I would deliver the goats this afternoon, intending to continue on our way. But he had insisted I must come to the party, and when I told him I had a travelling companion, he said she must come too.

I agreed and said I would book us rooms in a hotel for that night.

He would not hear of it, he said Athena would make us up beds instead.

When we arrived, after being served refreshments, I went with Nikko to get the goats and put them on to roast while Athena showed Cathy the house and her room.

I had stayed here before on several occasions when in town. Each time Athena had given me an Attic Room with lovely Mediterranean décor and a view across the tops of the town, but the house had several other empty bedrooms. I assumed I would be given one of these, while Cathy the new guest, got my regular room. I did not say any more and when Cathy and Athena returned Cathy said to all, "Our room has such a lovely view out across the town and I love its Greek architecture."

I half wondered what she meant but did not really think about it. If I had realised that we were to share I would have arranged another as I would not have wanted Cathy to think this was done by me. But that was not to be.

The night turned into a great party; food, wine, songs and dancing to excess; happiness shared by all. Cathy partook with gusto in all parts and I marvelled at her stamina after the long day. In the quiet time after guests departed we sat there around the lounge, savouring the last of the night.

Now Cathy looked totally whacked. She was yawning as she sat by my side, her hand resting lightly on my arm.

Athena said, "Lady Catherine is tired Mark, now you must show her to her bed and Nikko and I too will go to our bed."

I felt a flash of embarrassment at the idea I would escort Catherine to her bed chamber, but the stairs were high and her gait was unsteady, so I held her with my arm around her shoulder as we climbed the three flights of stairs. As we reached the top landing, and I opened the door, she swayed in a tipsy manner and learned into me saying. "That feels good with your arm around me, like that.

Looking inside I could see my things and hers both laid out for the night. I realised what Athena had assumed. But it did not feel right. So I walked Cathy over, pulled back the covers and tucked her in, then took a pillow, found a blanket in the cupboard and made my bed on the floor.

I woke in the early dawn to movement. I looked up to see Cathy, half asleep, stumble over her bag as she walked across the bedroom floor. She still looked part drunk from the night before. I jumped up and put an arm around her to steady her and sat her back down on the side of the bed.

I went to pull away but she took my hand and said, "Stay with me. I think I am still half drunk and have the start of a bad hangover. Sometimes, when I was a little girl in the night my Mum and Dad would bring me into bed and cuddle me and mind me to make me feel better. Will you hold and mind me now in the last of the night.

She lay down and moved part way across the bed, making a space for me, which she indicated for me to lie in. So I lay beside her and she turned her back to me and pushed her body against mine. Then she took my hands and placed them around her, one lying over her shoulders and the other coming under her side and resting on the silky soft place of her lower belly. She still had her clothes on but she lifted up her shirt and placed my fingers touching her bare skin just below her belly button. I stroked her gently as she fell asleep.

I woke in the full light of the morning, unmoved, from a sound sleep. I realised Cathy was awake too and had taken my hand pressed against her belly. She was stroking it and pressing it harder against her while her own body pushed back. It was incredibly sexual and arousing. My early morning erection was instantly hard against her. She briefly pushed her buttocks against it before rolling to face me and kissing me on the nose.

"Thank you for minding me in the night. I know I will sick later but I feel unbelievably comfy right now. My past experience with men has not been so good. It is wonderful to find one I can trust."

As I looked at her lovely face, a bare inch from my own, I said. "I am glad you trust me. I am first and foremost your friend. But when I feel you, lying here, your body touching mine, I am not so sure I can trust myself so much. But I will try to pretend there is no gorgeous woman lying here, arousing me.

She looked down at my belly. "Oh that, I don't mind about that, you are definitely a man. What I mean is that I trust you because you have not tried to make me do anything I don't want to do. That is something very precious.

"And I think I want that part of you too," she said, taking my hand and bringing it to her breast while she undid the buttons on her shirt, then slid my hand inside and over the bare skin of her nipple. I stroked and felt it grow hard and rubbery.

I pulled her hard against me and she moaned, but then she pulled back saying. "Before we both decide we want that to happen, there is something I must tell you about me, it is something very private. It will be hard as I have never told another. But I need you to know. Just keep holding me like you are and I will try and find the courage to speak it."

So slowly and haltingly at first, then gradually more clearly, she told me the terrible story of what had happened to her and her sister as little girls. She mostly told it in the third person, as if it happened to another, perhaps it was easier that way.

It was the story of two little girls, sisters and best friends, she the younger by just over a year. I was about how their trusted uncle had abused their trust, at first touching them. Then, when her older sister began to mature, her uncle had taken her for a walk in the woods and raped her.

The following day they found their sister dead in the lake, it was said to be an accident, but it tore the family apart. The uncle had said nothing, and was not seen for a while.

But a year later he came back, just as she was beginning to mature too. On a day when her parents were away he raped her too. Then he told her how he had done the same to her sister the day before she died. He said that at first her sister had tried to stop him, but he had held her down until she did not fight anymore and had given in and let him have his pleasure. Then he said that he had been disappointed when her sister died, as he wanted to keep doing with her sister, and then with her when she was old enough too.

When it was done to Cathy her uncle said he was pleased now she was grown up and ready for him to do this. So, even though her sister was gone, he was pleased he could keep doing it with her instead.

After that Cathy had run away and never let him touch her again. But what happened had messed up something inside her, she ended up doing it with lots of men, at first to escape her shame and then for money. In the end she had become a high class prostitute. But she had never told her parents of any of it, at first she could not bear for them to know why her sister had died. And, as a prostitute, she was too ashamed to tell them of that either.

So she lived in London and made no friends, and just went to Scotland once a month to visit her parents. They still invited the uncle around, though she always kept away from him. Finally, a few months ago, she had decided she could not bear this double life and that she would come to Australia to get away from it all, to start a new life on her own, where no one knew who she was. She had some savings and had stayed for a while in Adelaide to look around and see if she could live here.

She had recently decided to buy a house here and make this her new home. But, that afternoon, when she came back from the drink, there was a letter from her mother saying her Uncle wanted to visit her in Australia, her mother had given him her address and he was due to arrive any day. So that was when she had asked him to take her away with him.

The story went on for a long time but it was finally done. All the time she lay in the circle of my arms and I gently caressed her, the way a mother would a child. At the end she took a slow deep breath, "Thank you for just listening and letting me talk, not interrupting, but letting me say it in my own time and way. I am not sure if I can ever tell another, but it is good to have trusted someone with it."

Part of me felt a profound sympathy for her, the awful plight she had lived through and the goodness she had shown. Another part of me felt murderous rage for this man. I had never been profoundly affected by a desire for vengeance since I had returned from the US. I thought it was finished at that point, yes I still believed in vengeance, and would act again if needed. But I had seen no need. Now I saw another monstrous man, like the ones I had killed before but in fact worse.

There was something about the act of a man who abused the trust of one child, his sister's child, his own niece, and raped her, then came back again and did it to her sister with no remorse. It cried out to me to act.

I said, "I have killed men before, evil men like him. Would you like me to go to Adelaide and find him and put him in a hole in the ground. No one will know and he will never bother you again."

She shook her head, "No, to take revenge for what he has done will solve nothing. I cannot change my past. I must learn to live with it, however hard.

I could not let it go so easily. "That man is rotten to the core. He deserves to die, one day soon he will. Please let me do it."

She looked at me with imploring eyes and put her finger to my lips, and then cupped my face in her hands, staring with her eyes, eyes that would not look away. "Please stop Mark, No, I said No. It is not for you to do."

I tried to look away but she held me, her eyes boring into mine. Slowly the rage abated, she was a good person. I could not hurt her further. I would not act while she stayed with me. But if anything ever happened to her, then I would fulfil this destiny.

With this path forward I could look at her with honesty and say "No, I understand this is not what you want."

"Thank you, Mark, thank you," she said as she kissed me lightly.

I pulled her in to me, wrapped my arms around her and held her tight, not speaking for a long, long time. She wrapped her arms around me and moulded her body to me; I could feel every inch of her vulnerable softness. There was a dreamy goodness to it despite the badness of what was said.

At last she wriggled a bit and kissed me on the nose then returned my hand to her breast, saying. Now I am ready to be loved by you the way a man loves a woman, if you still want me.

The power of her body and her trust almost took my breath away. For a moment I was lost in craving for her as she rubbed her pelvis against me. But I knew I could not take her yet.

She had trusted me with her most private, intimate secret. I must do the same for her. I must tell her of Belle, Josie and what I had done, the killing. In her there was no badness, just the consequences of other evil. What I had done was so much worse. I doubted she would want me after.

But that must wait for another night, the sun was getting high and we must away. So I told her I wanted her but we must wait for tonight.

It was nearing lunch even so before we left. There was an obligatory cooked breakfast that Athena had made, there was a tour of the opal shop with an opal pressed into Cathy's hand that she could not refuse, there was an invitation to return soon and again have the bed, "maybe even together make a baby in there," that was what Athena said.

I thought Cathy would be embarrassed but she just laughed. You know, I have thought about having a baby sometime, do you think Mark would really make a good father?

Athena nodded furiously and Nikko shook his head.

But at last we were away. We drove through the afternoon and kept going as the evening softened the sky.

Cathy had dropped all reserve, she sat right next to me, often touching me, her arm linking mine or sometimes running her hand through my hair, saying, "I can't wait until tonight, I want to feel your body inside of mine."

And I wanted it too. But yet a story must be told.

We stopped at Marla Bore for dinner. I thought we might go a little further, maybe another fifty miles before we stopped. But once the lights were out of sight, Cathy pulled me to her and said. "It is time to stop now. I have tried hard to be patient, but I do not want to wait any longer for it to be tonight. Let us make camp. Before you talk any further let us make love.

"Then when that is done you may tell me whatever your heart desires. You have heard my story. I know there is nothing you can say to me that will change what I feel for you.

"So I want to use this body that God has given me, along with all my skill learned in giving myself to other men, to give you as much pleasure as I know how to, before I hear from you.

Of course she knew how to be a seductress, she had made a living out of it; she was the best and did things to arouse me I had never dreamed off. But this was not that, mere lust or sex for its own sake. It was a man and woman making love in the most tender and simple way, a place of trust, comfort and goodness where we each healed the other of the hurt in our own small way. After we had finished and lay still together I told her my story, the parts of the Elfin Queen and Belle. I was not ready yet to tell of Josie or Amanda, but I hoped in time I might. This part alone was enough for one night.

When my story was said she spoke, giving her best words of wisdom.

"I have started again, Mark, so also must you.

"One day you will find her, your own true queen.

"You will travel with her to a place never seen.

"Would that queen was me, perhaps in time it can be.

"But first I must heal myself, fix my own broken soul

"For beginning this I thank you my friend of all worlds."

Then we made love again and fell into a deep dreamless sleep of contentment, bodies tightly wrapped together in total intimacy.

But somewhere in the dark hours an alien presence invaded my dreams. It was my crocodile totem, hungry and seeking sustenance. It whispered to me. You cannot let this man go, you must punish him, you will, you will.

I think I must have tossed and turned as I dreamed, perhaps I muttered these words. I do not know but it seemed like this dream went on and on. At last, when it was over and the noise of the evil spirit fell silent, I slept a deep and dreamless sleep again, hoping and expecting to see her bright smile in the early morning light.

But when I awoke the sun was well up and she was not there. I thought she must have just got up and got dressed, perhaps gone for a walk. Her bags were still here, though I could not be sure whether she had taken things from them. And the clothes she discarded last night as a prelude to our lovemaking still lay on the ground beside our bed. But of course she could have taken others and I would not know.

I searched our camp, and I searched the surrounding bush and scrub, at first at random and then systematically. There was nothing to give a clue. There were a few smallish footprints around the camp and the car which I thought were hers. The track back to the main road was a bare one hundred metres, but it was hard baked clay. There was no sign on it of any tracks but that was meaningless. I wished I had a dog that could track her but did not.

I drove back to Marla Bore and asked if anyone had seen her there, with a thread of hope she had just walked back there, it was only a kilometre and one could faintly hear the generator from our camp. I thought it may have prompted her to walk back along the road. But again there was nothing.

I had a terrible fear gripping my chest. How could she just vanish?

I remembered the awful dreams dominated by my predator alter ego.

Could I have done something to her, harmed her in some way under the possession of that crocodile creature. It was impossible to know anything for sure, but if I had done something I thought there must be a sign somewhere. There was nothing to see except a handful of small footprints in otherwise undisturbed earth.

I drove up and down the highway for a few kilometres, going slowly and calling her name, lest she had taken shelter and was sitting in shade or cover.

But still nothing, nothing, nothing, no one, nowhere!

At last, after three hours of fruitless searching, I drove to Alice Springs, stopping and searching at each roadhouse and other roadside stops for any sign. It all came up empty. By the time I reached Alice I knew I had lost her and it was beyond my wits and skill to find her. I just hoped I had not done something more to harm her.

At first I felt sad and lost at her absence. It felt like she was another in an endless procession of women I had known briefly, started to love and lost. Each one left yet another part of a gaping empty hole in my heart.

But as days and weeks went by it morphed into a thing hard and angry; burning rage against the man who had raped her and irreparably damaged her soul all those years ago. And alongside it was a desire for vengeance.

A week after she vanished I flew Darwin. I drove to the Mary River, to a place of many large crocodiles. I had come here before; there was one very ancient and wise crocodile whose advice I most valued and he had many brothers who shared his wisdom.

I sat by a waterhole in this crocodile place and communed with their predator spirits. I told them of my anger and desire to deal with this man as I had with Hank and others before, to find him and end it for him.

They told me it was the role of our kind, predators, to cull the defective, whether old, weak or infirm or because things they had done deprived them of the right to live. They shared my view it was fitting to find this man and finish him, turn him into a pile of refuse fit only for animals to scavenge.

So over the next month my resolve hardened, I knew what I must do.

It may not bring her back but it would set some things to right. I would exact justice on her behalf, on behalf of her sister and for all the others this man had harmed of whom I did not know. I knew there would be others, I did not know their names but this was for them too.

# Chapter 26 - A Final Retribution

I brooded about how to find and deal with this man as I went about my work, but not for long. I had no need to work. I had plenty of money to pay people to find him. I had confidence in my ability to deal with him once found. So now was the right time for action.

First I must make some temporary arrangements for those work jobs I was engaged or had agreed to do. I had several months work booked up over the rest of the dry season and could not leave people in the lurch.

What I first needed to do was get information about this man from his homeland, his village or at the least the village of his sister. I knew that Cathy had grown up in the Scottish highlands and both her mother and father were from somewhere up there. I had picked that much up in conversations with her. I had her parents address from the letter her mother had written, which still sat on the dashboard of the car. And she had left her passport behind too. It sat in a small wallet with some other of her things. I did not know whether this was deliberate or accidental, it seemed strange for her to leave it if she had run away and yet I had no other better explanation.

I did not believe she had wandered off into the bush and got lost. Away from our camp, with the hard packed road into it, the sand was mostly soft and loose. If she had headed out across it I would have seen her tracks.

But still she had left her passport, other identity and credit cards and some cash, both UK pounds and Australian dollars.

It felt like she had done something similar to what I had done in my earlier life; made a decision to become a new person with a new name.

So I slowly formed the view she had left all parts of her old life behind, except perhaps the clothes she was wearing. She was clever and resourceful. I had told her some of what I had done with other identities, so perhaps she had taken the idea and run with it.

I re-organised my future jobs and bought myself two weeks with nothing to do. I flew to Darwin and on the England, with only a brief touchdown in Dubai. From London I flew to Edinburgh, closest international airport to her home and hired a car to travel to her home village. It was now over a month since she had gone, I wondered if it was known she was missing here.

Sure enough the local paper had her story, "Local girl gone missing in Adelaide, with her photo, but this one showed her with long dark hair. It did not say much, just that she was last seen having a drink with friends at a backpacker hostel in Adelaide, that she had collected her mail including an express mail envelope and then she vanished, that she had looked visibly upset after reading the letter but had not told anyone more than she was checking out early, and to keep the money for the extra two nights.

There was a suggestion that she had a drink with friends including a man called Mark on that night and the friends other than Mark confirmed that conversation, all friendly and harmless banter.

Mark was understood to live somewhere in the Outback, perhaps the Northern Territory or Queensland, though he had also talked about working in the Kimberly. He had left the next day, a week before anyone had raised the alarm. His surname was not known, just a squiggle in the register that looked like a B, but there was no suggestion that he had anything to do with her disappearance.

So it was a mystery but her parents were clearly very worried about her safety, they said she was a good girl and kept in touch regularly, so it was unlike her to just disappear and they held fears for her safety. However the police opinion was there was no evidence of foul play and it was most likely she had just changed her plans, gone to another destination and would get back in touch soon.

The good thing about her being in the media was that it was relatively easy to find out her family, the story about her long dead sister was known, there were no other siblings but some cousins who lived nearby. There was strong community sympathy for her parents in having lost both daughters in tragic circumstances, though there was still hope for Cathy. But, knowing she was a good girl who regularly kept in touch, their concern was growing and hope she would turn up unharmed was shrinking.

Part of me wanted to bring some solace to her parents, tell them she had left with me, that the last time I had seen her she was fine. But even though the time and place of her vanishing was different she was still missing.

It would be cruel to raise their hopes unless something real was known.

What I really wanted to know about was her mother's brother. I knew it was a brother on the mother's side but did not know a name. However, once I found out the village of her mother, the place where she had grown up, the local pub soon gave me that name. I played the low beat banter. "Heard a girl is gone missing from down the road and her mother grew up here. Does anyone around here have any idea what happened?

Of course the local publican had plenty of ideas, some half believable, some weird and some just plain wrong. But along the way he gave me the full family history, she was in the middle of two brothers, the older brother, Eric, still ran the family farm, the younger brother George, ten years younger he was, a late arrival, had gone off and joined the army and these days was rarely seen hereabouts. I even got a name for the military part he served with, though it was hardly reliable, Special Operations, Iraq was what they said. However with a first name and surname this part of tracing would not be too hard.

A bit harder was a photo but in due course someone found a picture of him in his military uniform when home on leave. It was probably taken about a decade ago. There was also a second one of him as a teenage boy in a local football team. From the date on that I worked out he was about fifteen years older than his nieces. Neither picture was great photography but it gave me a general start in knowing how he might look now.

I also inquired circuitously about his relationships and sexual proclivities. "Looks like a bit of a lad, I am sure he was a good one with the ladies."

All I got in reply was he went off to the army at an early age and since then, other than an odd visit to his sister or brother, was rarely seen around here. So whatever wild oats he had chosen to sow were here unknown.

On my return to London I engage a local investigator to go digging, get all his military records along with anything held by other authorities. I most particularly wanted to know there were any rumours or charges of sexual molestation, particularly of minors. I also asked him to pull the coronial report and any police reports from the death of Cathy's sister and see if there were suspicious circumstances, signs of rape or other evidence which may be useful. Back then DNA was not around; perhaps it could be useful now.

This was all done in a week, so in the second week I returned to Dubai and got in touch with my old mate, Abdul, nephew of the sheik. I explained my need for some local investigation. Again I wanted to know both about his military service and what his pastimes were, did he hunt, did he drink or do drugs, did he go to brothels, did he like girls or boys, were any underage or were there any allegations of violence.

Abdul was happy to do this at no charge, but I told him it was a personal matter of family honour and utmost secrecy. I insisted I pay in full with no discounts but I needed his help to keep absolute silence in who we engaged and what they did.

"But of course," he replied, as I left him with a packet containing one hundred thousand US dollars in used notes.

I returned to Australia and three months went by as I continued with station work. Now that the wheels were rolling I was content to let events take their course. I had no doubt that when Christmas was come and the work here was done I would know all I needed to know.

In the end it took longer but the results were fruitful. Going back to the original report of her sister's death, the coronial had found the child had evidence of multiple prior sexual penetrations but no visible damage or tearing. So it looked as if the sexual activity had been ongoing. Still it raised a red flag in a twelve year old girl, and could be a motivation for suicide if it was found out. But there were no obvious suspects, her uncle was briefly looked at but appeared to have an alibi as he was at army base accordingly to the log sheet. They were very circumspect in questioning the parents and others on the farm as there was no evidence it had happened there, it could have been at school and she had also been away to three school camps in the last year. Then there were her contacts in and around the village. But they had taken swabs and, if there was still DNA, it could be tested for. So an anonymous request was made for a DNA test which had come up positive, meaning the uncle was now in the frame for having had sex with a twelve year old girl as of a month ago. They had not yet issued a warrant for his arrest on that charge but it was coming. The care related to the shock this may cause the parents, particularly now the second sister was missing. However a request had been made for a suppression order on the charges to allow an arrest to be made without public disclosure.

There was also a suggestion that he may have had some involvement is the disappearance of the sister. Even though he had not arrived in Adelaide when she was last seen, coming two days later, and there was no evidence he had met her, it was still considered a significant event that she had vanished around the time of his arrival. However, as he had only stayed for a day and then flown back to Sydney, the evidence was weak.

As to his military service, it was rated 'Commendable', and his Special Operations services in the Middle East had been highly commended.

However his private life was a darker book, he had a predilection for visiting brothels and liked underage girls, offering big amounts of money to procure them. And he was active on internet porn sites, and had been tracked particularly searching out prepubescent and just pubescent girls. There were also suggestions that, when on service in Croatia he had bought the use of two underage girls from a black market site, and then he had got one to bring another friend to a party and raped her too. He had bought his way out of this one with a smart lawyer and some big dollars, leading to charges being dropped. But there was no doubt he was guilty as first charged.

So the man was a scumbag and the man had form. The question was: Where was he now? The British Military had been informed and asked to bring him back from his current posting in the Middle East to assist the police with an investigation of criminal matters. It was made as a request but was clearly not optional; it was just done this way to keep it under the radar.

It seemed at first he was working undercover and could not be quickly extracted. But after a month the military advised that he appeared to be absent without leave and they were unable to locate him. So it seemed he had gone to ground, but where? The military refused to disclose his last known location due to operational sensitivity.

So by Christmas this is what I knew. It seemed it called for another trip to the Middle East and putting Abdul's contacts to more detailed use.

A week later I met him at the farm where I had once worked. Our history went long back, we each knew each other's secrets and would never tell.

So I decided to level with him, sometimes truth is best among brothers. After I had told him the story he evidenced distaste, "This is clearly a bad man. In our country we would behead him. What do you want us to do?"

I explained my plan and he nodded in satisfaction. "It is how you say, not quite an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth, but fitting and equivalent as a punishment for his crime. He added as an afterthought. If she was my sister, I would first castrate him like a bull with a knife. Then I would hang him in the public square until the crows ate his soft bits before I killed him."

It was not quite what I had in mind but I smiled.

I returned to Australia and continued waiting. A month went by, then two, then three, then four. In the fifth month, as the Arabian Desert was really heating up the word came.

"He is found. He is hiding in a souk in Oman, in the city of Salalah.

"We will watch him until you come.

"Travel safe and be careful, the Omanis are our friends and we do not want to upset them. It was signed by Abdul.

A week later I flew into Muscat and then on to Salalah. It is a city of over 300,000, a thriving Arabian metropolis. I first hired a car and a driver to take me around, teach me my way and how to navigate the labyrinth of streets particularly near the souk. I kept away from where George was holed up, happy to let others do the watching for now.

After a week I felt I knew my way around and was becoming a familiar enough figure to draw much notice. I had taken to wearing Arab dress, both for comfort in the heat and to fit in, though tourists were common.

I also darkened my skin, dyed my hair black, left my beard part shaved to come closer to a local in appearance. I wore a distinct pale purple **dishdasha tunic with an overvest in a checked purple pattern and a matching** **ghuthra or headscarf. It was a slightly unusual colour and pattern, distinctive but not too much of a stand out. With time people would get used to seeing it around.**

**In the markets I bought a range of good, mainly clothes and perfumes, particularly myrrh and frankincense, for which the city is famous. From my previous time living in this part of the world my Arabic was passable for everyday conversation though clearly not local which suited me fine.**

**My back story was I was working for an importer in Muscat and had been asked to collect a good range of samples of different items which he may wish to export. I also had a forged official document, provided to by Abdul, which purported to be a copy of an export license for certain goods from the country of Oman, duly authorised in Muscat. As the two main cities of Oman are well apart it was not subject to much close scrutiny, after all business is business and should be allowed to flourish.**

**In the second week I ventured into the part of the souk where my target was reported to stay and on the third day I sighted him.**

**He looked remarkably well and prosperous, obviously he had not fallen onto hard times. By now I had a good pattern of his movements from my observers and was nearly ready for the snatch. In the late afternoon his normal pattern was to emerge from the AL HISN souk and walk along the beach for half an hour before he returned to his residence. Sometimes he went alone, sometimes with a companion, a man or perhaps a young boy or girl dressed in traditional garb, He was easy to pick out, despite wearing an Arabic robe his head was left uncovered with distinctive hair of mid brown and a touch of red.**

**He looked somewhat like the pictures I had seen of warrior knights from the middle ages, with his flowing white gown, Anglo Saxon hair and features. He was a strong looking, square built and barrel chested man, still well in the prime of life, with even handsome features, though on the edge of becoming dissolute. It was easy to see how dominant he would be to a small girl, half way to becoming a woman.**

**As I looked at him I felt a visceral hate rise in my gut. Despite an external appearance of civility, this was an evil man who deserved his planned fate. Still I would do this part slowly and carefully. He clearly had some powerful friends remaining and I did not want to cause trouble for my friend Abdul. For a week I observed his patterns, some days the beach walk path was busy, but other days not, it depended on the wind. On some days a blustery wind howled off the Arabian Gulf, whipping the waves and making a mist of spray and blowing the sand into ones face. This kept most others away but did not deter him, though on these days he wore sun glasses to keep the grit out of his eyes. His walks on these days reminded me of a Scottish gentleman walking his highland estate, oblivious to wind and rain as he charged on.**

**I decided that the next of these blustery days was my day to act.**

**He always walked to the far end of the beach where a small grove of trees gave shelter. Here on a windy day he was almost obscured from sight once a hundred yards away by the salt mist on the wind. Each day I could time his arrival here within five minutes. So I would park at the trees at the furthest end and wait until he came. By the time the mist and dusk settled and anyone came looking we would be long gone.**

**I hired an almost new four wheel drive from the airport and dispensed with my chauffeur guide and small car, telling him I may need his services again in about a week, but for now I was going on a short trip to Muscat.**

**He nodded, "Inshallah."**

**The next day was hot and still so I stayed away, as was the next, though this day a late afternoon breeze began to blow. It augured well for the day after. Sure enough, on this day the wind was howling, spraying sand and mist over the beach and almost obscuring the view. My only concern was whether the weather was so bad that he may stay at home, though he had never done this before. I parked my car on the other side of the tree grove and waited, fifteen minutes before he was due.**

**My visibility was poor, a bare fifty metres so I got out and moved closer, holding my noose in one hand, my syringe in my pocket. Just when I was beginning to wonder where he was he appeared out of the mist, striding forward undeterred. I pressed my shape into the line of tree trunks doubting he would see me.**

**He reached the end and stood looking out to sea for a few seconds before he flexed his hands and turned to look back the way he had come. From my past counts he would wait for another fifteen to twenty seconds before he started to walk back. I put a knuckle duster on one hand and kept my noose in the other. I approached fast, using the howling wind to best advantage to hide any sound. When I was about five metres away, his patience was at and end and he began to move. This was not ideal. I would use the knuckle duster first instead.**

**He was on his third step when I hit him from behind, not a killing blow but enough to stun. He stumbled forward, muttering, "What the fuck?" as he turned to see where the threat was. I did not have a perfect grip as the noose went over his head and he got a couple fingers in it before I pulled. It was a struggle and he was strong. He let out a half muffled shout before I got the noose to bite. But anger drove me on. Slowly I tightened it and watched his face go purple.**

**A second later it was over. Not ideal but done.**

**I injected him with muscle relaxant, cuffed him before he woke, gagged him and hooded his eyes. He could still breathe but only just. Then again I did not care if he died. I would only keep him alive to offer him British justice. If refused, I would give him death with maximum pain.**

**I drove my car to where he lay and hauled him inside. It had dark tinted windows to keep out the glare. I drove to the desert and left him there.**

# Chapter 27 - Meeting the New Queen

Now I am back in my land from where I have been.

I am breathless with wonder at what I have seen.

Is she Bella or Cathy or my own new queen?

She looks like one and she looks like the other.

I know deep down that she looks like my mother.

A memory from childhood springs into my mind.

It is not her either but the likeness is kind.

I feel like a stalker but that is not my intent.

And yet I must keep her whatever her bent.

I know where she's going. I will soon find her there.

And win her I must, if only I dare.

This one I must keep, too many have gone.

I will woo her and charm her until she stays on.

I know it is destiny when I look at her face.

I dare not harm her, have it end in disgrace.

From deep in my heart I make a new troth.

I will keep you from harm whatever the cost.

So I meet her once and I meet her twice and then we are lovers.

They say lightning does not strike twice but from the moments her blue eyes connect with mine I am captivated and bound to her future. And each time she looks at me I am struck by lightning again.

Our journey is magical, our lovemaking has magic more. She has only to look at me and I want her all over again. For a minute I can believe we have a future and then it all comes crashing down.

I will tell a few bits, I cannot tell it all. And some parts are written in my diary and do not need to be told again. But this may help me remember her and make sense of that time, the scattered reflections from parts of my life.

What are those most special moments of knowing her? They are many, but it is enough to remember just some.

First re-meeting in a pale blue bikini, covering almost nothing: electricity between us as we sit side by side: we walk in the forest, we go by the ocean, Here dolphins emerge like two twins side by side:

We soon join our bodies, making love in the waves.

Then beach horse rides where we gallop in freedom, two spirits set free to fly in the wind: whispered goodbyes at a place of her leaving, hugging each other until we return.

Wondrous re-meeting in the valley of rainbows, watching shadows in dusk from millennia past: a night to remember as we listen to dingoes: nights in the cold when our bodies are warm: of a flight in a chopper and a night on the river. Each is a diamond burnt bright in the stars.

Now it is over, but never forgotten.

More joy in a week than most live in a life.

# Chapter 28- No Way to a Future

When she first asks me to tell her about my life I ask her to trust me.

And for a while she does. But trust needs nurture and truth.

I neither nurture nor tell truth enough. I see warning signs but I ignore them. Each time I see trust grow weak with new knowledge, I think it can be rebuilt by love alone. We love ever more intensely. But without truth it is a charade.

Opportunities to give her truth are many. Some I see, some I do not.

I do not know she has found the multiple number plates, even though she has. I do not know she has found out about my multiple identities but she has discovered that too. I do not know that she found out about the four girls passports hidden away, but it is so.

But I do know I should tell her when she asks about my family. And I do know I should tell her when she asks about my former lovers. And I do know I should tell her I love her when she shows me love. But, each time, when the chance is given I do not take it until it is too late.

Along the way with her I have learnt something: that love given in return for love by itself is not enough. Without truth as well, love is doomed to fail, it cannot build itself on half-truths and lies.

Without my honesty she becomes deceptive and tells half-truths too.

It is not because she does not love me. It is because, in giving me her love she needs to know who I am. And when I will not tell her she sets out to find out another way. And when I find out what she knows I cannot bear the truth. Not because the truth is what she thinks, but because I cannot bear that she did not trust me, although I have not given her the basis for trust.

So here we are on the day my world has imploded. I have just seen her holding her phone and reading from its screen. We have had a magical night on the river of big crocodiles, running the tides and being together battling the elements. She is one cool dude, one tough woman, game for anything, and smart to boot. Finally in the small hours we have had time and space to talk and we have shared more than ever before. She knows I have strange ways but she does not judge, she says she is willing to accept me as I am and wants to try and build a life together with me. I say I want that too. It is not quite the love word but it is close and she understands.

That morning, after a night without sleep, we are too exhausted to talk or even make love. But it is a good exhaustion, the exhaustion that comes from work well done. Instead we drive to a shady place alongside the river and in that shade and comfort we fall asleep, arms entwined in love.

But when I wake up I see her looking at her phone. And I see her looking at me with fear. The first real fear of me she has ever shown. I need to know why. I need to know what is on her phone. I ask her to show me, she will not.

I talk of trust but in that moment I have not trusted her. So I use my strength to take her phone and read what it says. And, with that, my whole world has fallen apart. The text on her phone asks her friend about two of the girls whose passports I have. If she has found them she had found the other two passports as well, passports of four missing girls.

Her text merely asks about what happened to two of the girls, Amanda and Cathy. The reply confirms that serious fears are held for their safety, and that a person called Mark may be involved in their disappearance. It does not say murder but the implications are clear. Backpacker horror stories abound, those found dead and murdered on their outback travels. And if I have killed these two then of course I have killed the others as well.

I can see in her eyes a mass murderer who captures and kills girls at will.

But when I confront her she fights back, not physically but verbally.

Her words cut into my heart with terrible effect.

I grip her arms, lift her bodily from the car. She stands there, feet spread on the ground, head a foot below mine, mute but shaking with emotion. For seconds she has fear in her blue eyes. Then looks like she will cry, her eyes glisten. Then comes a blast of anger.

I will not let her go, I demand an answer. "Look at me. Tell me why? And How? Did you search my bags? Did you look through my papers? What?"

The silence continues as she struggles for control. At last she answers, _"Because I needed to know; a man has captured me, heart, body and soul and I need to know who he is._

" _In answer to how: the passports. I found the passports. I didn't set out to find them, I was looking for matches to light the fire, but then this box was in my hand and I opened it. Four photos of beautiful girls. You had their passports. They had come to Australia, they had no exit stamps. What was I supposed to think?_

" _Then the small matter of who are you? There is a Mark Butler, a Mark Brown, a Mark Brooks, and of course a Mark Bennett. They all look like you, they all have the same initials, and they all have matching numberplates and licenses. Which one is really you? Are any of them you? Are none of them?_

" _Perhaps you're Robert Redford and live in California? Perhaps you're a transsexual with a gender change and name change. Tell me, who are you!_

" _I tried to ask you who you were but you wouldn't tell me, instead you got so angry. But despite everything I'd found I couldn't believe you were capable of this. No, not you, not the Mark I knew, not the Mark I loved. He's no monster. But I had to know. That's why I asked someone who would actually give me answers._

" _Did you kill them out of convenience? Or was it for excitement—a cheap thrill? Did you shoot them for sport? Did you tie them up and watch them die? Did you do it with a smile?"_

" _Are you just a murderer, or are you a sadistic rapist pig as well?"_

I know these words are said with anger but the pain is no less. My own anger enfolds me, overwhelming all else. In that first moment I could have killed her, like with Amanda, my rage is burning so bright.

My fist flies towards her, nothing held back. If it hits her with all my force it will kill her. But she does not fight back, just stands and watches with an incredible calmness, almost a trust. It stops me in a last instant. The power goes from my arm. It stops a bare inch short.

She looks at me with contempt and spits in my face.

My rage floods again, but this time another part of me holds it back so I slap her with an open hand, restraining my force. It still knocks her flying. She lies in the dirt, her lip is cut, blood dribbles from her mouth.

I am ashamed but still seething with anger. It is the first time I have hit her or physically hurt her. I have done a very bad thing.

But I still need to restrain her, stop her before she runs away, not to hurt her further but to give me time to think. I know we have passed a tipping point. There is no way back, but I do not know what to do now.

So I take the handcuffs I have in the car. I have brought them back from my vengeance quest. Now I put them on her, then take a rope and tie her feet and lock her in the car. It is in the shade and I wind the windows down an inch. She will be safe here for now. I need to go by myself and think.

I take my notebook with me and walk to the river. The water is still, the breeze is cool, the small birds twitter and swoop. There is peace out here but no peace inside me.

For an hour I sit. At first I remember then I write.

I remember a life in all its good and bad. It is like an old movie as it flows through my mind.

First the small boy, setting out to follow the Breaker, killing to escape and taking pleasure in it.

Learning to ride, learning to fight, with JJ and Fred as my teachers.

Gaining my first family and crocodile totem in the land of Baru.

My first woman, not quite love, but lust on the beach of Gove, splashing in the waves, rolling together in the sand.

I skip forward to Arabia, learning to kill, taught by a mercenary, done for a reason but murder just the same. I remember the satisfaction of a hunter as the bullet strikes home and a man goes down, easy and painless for me. The dirty wars in Africa and my first true act of vengeance. I knew none other would act for these, victims of brutality, my friend and his family. So I took it on myself and the vengeance was sweet. Joy of a predator making its kill as I killed each in order, one by one. All but the one, the main betrayer. For him death was too good. He squealed like a pig as I cut away his balls and prick, leaving a bleeding hole. I leave him lying in the dust. I expect his death, but better if he lived, a mutilated eunuch bearing the scars of his betrayal. That vengeance was sweet.

The bullet in my arm, the head for the crocodile, a mix of pain and pleasure that I learned to endure.

The finding of love in the middle of Africa and a slow dwindling as the disease eats her away. Yet the birth of a son giving us both amazing joy.

Return to Australia, meeting my best true friend Vic. Our trips into vast empty places, the thrill of a muster, seeing bulls in a yard.

Queens of the outback and desert, first Elfin then Belle. Each loved and lost in barely an eye blink. Me carrying deep guilt for what I had done.

And coming with it a slow building of anger, hating the world for robbing me of love. Descent into madness, killing a Josie, my little sister. Terrible grief for what I had done.

Friendship of rodeo, the meeting of Jimmy, a new younger brother to follow my path. New rage and madness at his senseless killing. Then sweet taste of vengeance as I settle the score. I planned for my death yet live still despite it. I return to my homeland to build a new life.

Sweet times with Amanda, yet poisoned by selfishness, hers and mine both and in two equal parts. Shame at her killing, truly it was needless. Promising myself to do this no more.

The meeting of Cathy, love in an instant, yet so damaged it was unable to last. My final act of vengeance, killing a last monster, the predator in my soul savouring its pleasure, yet swearing it is my last.

My eyes roll back over what I have written, dots of remembrance in the ocean of life.

I look around again and stretch. My reflection is almost to end. The final chapter is the meeting of Susan. In my mind I tell again the story of her coming to Australia, the story of her travels, the story of how we have come to this place of no way out, no way to a future in which we both share.

Only one of us can go forward, I see this now clearly. And when choosing between us the choice cannot be for me.

I have written much of her already in my diary, but it is fragments of our lives, interspersed with other things. Now I write my own thumbnail sketch of her as I will remember her and how we have reached this place.

I remember my first sight of her blue eyes, I remember the outline of her body on the beach, toes in sand, hair thrown back like a Greek goddess. I remember my first sights of her body in that pale blue bikini as we swam in the coral and made love on the sand. I remember her smile as we flew in a helicopter, I remember our arms linked as we danced in the night. I cannot write further of her, the emotions are too overwhelming.

But as I remember I know one think so surely. It is that I love her and must harm her no more.

I find that writing helps to clear my mind and see things with clarity.

As I write I realise I should have seen the warning signs, the holes in the fabric of our magic. I did not want a fairy tale to end and chose to be blind.

In the distance I hear a crocodile bark, an alien but familiar presence.

It is not a big one but still it speaks to me. It calls out to me. 'Your time on this earth is over, it is time you joined with us and became part of our ancient totem, one of our ancestor dreamtime spirits."

My mind sees clearly. It is true. I now know what to do. All my acts of vengeance have been to others, I have pleasured in their pain, with little thought to what I have done or their suffering.

Now I see it was all indulgence which turned me into the real monster of my story. It locked me into an evil place without any escape but for one.

My final act of vengeance will be unto myself.

I pray it frees me from what I have become.

# Chapter 29 - Return to the Crocodiles

It is the final night of my life. I know this with certainty. I am sure I will be dead, re-joined to my spirit brothers before the sun is high in the sky.

It is a small hour in the morning, perhaps number three or four. I sit by the water and contemplate my future and my past. Do I feel fear? Perhaps a little, but it is OK, I know it will not stop me. I will not step back from what I must do. I hope my end will be quick and clean, but even if it is not it will not last for long. I have known plenty of pain, some which lasted for hours and days. This will not last for that long, minutes at most. I have seen plenty of people die, and have killed a good share myself. So I know what happens. Even if this is slower than I want it will still be fast.

Why am I writing it down? Is it not morbid to contemplate and tell of your own death. I am doing it partly to smooth the passage of inevitable time. It occupies my hands and mind while I wait.

I must wait until the sun begins to rise and she sees. She must see with her own eyes and know I am gone. It is not enough for me to be missing and her to never know why. Watching will tear her and hurt her inside. But still she must know. And I must try and say why. I have written her a goodbye note and left it with her passport, telling of my love and also of my will and other things I have given her. Of money she will have plenty. Oh that I could spend it with her and share more of her life. But, if I am certain of one thing, it is that it all ends here. There is no way forward than this for me.

Vengeance has done full circle and now it is my turn.

So I must reflect and write down my final part and what I have learned. I will leave my notebook buried here. The first half of this story is hidden in the wall of my unit in Alice Springs from when I returned, just after I had met her. It is the part I wrote before I knew her, though I added in a page in the front from when I first saw her.

When I sat in my room in Hong Kong and wrote, I thought I could tell my story in one notebook of 200 pages. Perhaps I could have, but the words kept flowing and then the notebook was full, part told. So, needing to finish, I went out and brought a second notebook and continued writing, until it was complete, up to when I came back to Australia.

Then I saw her and knew another chapter or two was required. I hoped they would be happily ever after chapters, but know now that can never be. Instead they are a chapter of promise, a chapter of defeat and now finally a chapter of ending.

I have called my story Vengeance; for that is its central theme. Until now it has been me taking vengeance against others. This final act is vengeance against me for what I have done.

The story in this notebook is a chronicle of how it has come to this.

So, as to what happened since I wrote the last chapter, I did that sitting on a rock overlooking the Victoria River, after our fight which ended with me handcuffing her and locking her in the car for two hours while I regained my composure and sought to resolve in my mind the plan to end it.

Then my dominant emotions were anger and betrayal, though I knew despite my apparent threats to her I could do her no further harm. But I had left her with fear and uncertainty as I could see no way forward but this final act and could not tell her that the act would consume me not her.

When we drove away I could see the fear and uncertainty still in her eyes and would have loved to take them away, but could not. But alongside that fear I also saw stubbornness and a will to fight on. In her anger she was as fearless and as stubborn as me. I am glad I have not broken that part of her spirit; she needs all that will to survive.

As for me, by then my anger was gone. There only remained a deep sadness it had come to this, the fracturing of our love into a million broken pieces that could never be joined.

Now our love is back in the most wonderful way, together we have created a future, a future still within her; the only part missing from the future is me. In time I will cease to matter, the future will grow on its own.

I know my friend, to whom I have entrusted her, will love her and care for her as much as would I. Will she love him too? I hope it is so, but that is a choice for her alone. But I think it will be so and if it is I will be glad. When you leave someone it is good if they are well provided and in safe hands.

But my words are allegories, spoken in riddles, now I must say what is so.

After we drove away from the Victoria River, was it only yesterday, I would have untied her hands and let her go. But I needed her to come with me, to witness the final scene, and so could not allow her to run away.

That is why I kept her restrained and drove through backroads, to keep her with me and keep her safe. And even then it almost failed, when she almost got run over by the truck. In that moment my fury boiled over.

I picked her up and caged her like an animal until we came to this place. And, even then, when I brought her out, her spirit was unbowed but anger was gone and I was glad.

When I hugged her and held her I knew it could not end like this, in that place of rage and hurt and she knew it too. I knew she thought I would kill her in the morning but yet she refused to allow it to overcome her love.

So we made our final peace, and gave our final love. I asked her to marry me and we both said yes we would. And, so it was, we were true to each other in our love. We both wished time could stand still in its perfection.

She implored me to give it a chance, for our life together to continue.

In my rejection of this plea she thought I was rejecting her, consigning her to the crocodiles. Part of me winced at her summation of my callousness. Another part of me saw the truth of her opinion. I had given another, yes he was a man and my enemy, to feed the alligators while he watched in helpless terror. So it was true I was capable of doing this to another person, just not to her. So I could not pretend in the face of her accusation that this was an action beyond me in the pursuit of vengeance.

I wished to give her the comfort of knowing that this was not a thing that I would ever let happen to her. Yet I could not relent to her imploring eyes; that would have been worse, to create in her false hope when there was none, for us to continue our love would only tear her apart in the questions she asked herself about my past.

So I am at a final decision point. There is but one way forward from here. I need to end it now, quickly and efficiently, in a way that leaves her no room for doubt about my fate. She needs to see this despite the pain it will cause. Because then, after grief, she will be free to move on with her own life.

So it was true love, but for one part night. In the end, part way to dawn, when the time for togetherness was over, I knew I must leave her.

In that love time I felt my spirit join with hers. I know we created new life together. I do not know how I know, but I do. It is a thing in me that sits out there in the place of spirits, beyond our human ken. In that knowledge I am glad, I wanted a child with her and soon one will come. I cannot be there to watch it grow, but the knowledge is legacy enough.

Vic will be a good father; she will be a good mother. I hope it is a girl who bears her likeness. The world does not need another likeness of me.

Now there is faint light in the sky, the dawn comes.

I have written all my words. There is no more to say.

It is feeding time of the crocodiles. Soon they will feed on me.

My spirit will join them in the land of ancestral beings, one amongst many of the dreamtime. This book I must bury and make myself ready.

I wish to hold her and love her once more but there no longer is time.

# Epilogue

So the story is there after all and you have read it and I have read it too.

As I read I found I cried way too much. This man did not ask for pity, he walked straight and tall until the day he died, unbowed and uncompromising. He did very many terrible things and yet he was not a man of malice, just one of unforgiving vengeance, to others and ultimately to himself.

Part of me wishes he could have learned more forgiveness in his path through life, but then perhaps he would not have been the man he was.

I think another could have never walked in his footsteps, along his rough and broken path through life and flourished, and flourish he did, despite all.

And I think he died happy, in fact I am glad I acted to end it, rather than letting a crocodile team his living body apart. Although not planned that way, it was a fitting kindness, similar in nature to what he did for Belle.

It is true, as he tells it, our final night was a brief interlude of exquisite joy. I am glad, as he looked back on our short time together, he concluded that he had known more joy in a week than most get in a full life. It was equally so for me too.

Of his foreknowledge of the new life created in that place, it is good he knew. He did get his wish for a daughter like me, Annie is painfully so. And I got his continuance in a boy so like him it sometimes takes my breath away. David, now a rambunctious ten year old, is the spitting image of his father, and he knows the story and thinks of his father with pride.

And then there is my Vic. It is strange how you can love two men equally and without jealousy between them. Some people may think it weird to be gifted from one to the other. I think it is a great honour, the double luck of meeting and loving the two most remarkable men possible.

Neither is there competition in me from the many women he loved. I know each saw something wonderful in him as he did in them. All could have given him something utterly unique and precious had not fate intervened. But even when it did, after grief, he moved on and loved again, without limit. Having read all this I know his love for me was a vast as my love for him, it was the quality of our time together not its length that counted.

Tonight Vic, myself and a few other well known friends will have a drink to remember him, now his full story is known.

We will all celebrate a life well lived in spite of all the pain.

# About the Author

Graham Wilson lives in Sydney Australia. He has completed and published eleven separate books, and also a range of combined novel box sets.

They comprise two series,

1. The Old Balmain House Series – three novels

2 The Crocodile Dreaming Series – five novels plus double prequel

along with a family memoir, Children of Arnhem's Kaleidoscope

The Old Balmain House Series starts with the novel, Little Lost Girl, which was previously titled, The Old Balmain House. Its setting is an old weatherboard cottage, in Sydney, where the author lived for seven years. Here a photo was discovered of a small girl who lived and died about 100 years ago. The book imagines the story of her life and family, based in the real Balmain, an early inner Sydney suburb, with its locations and historical events providing part of the story background. The second novel in this series, Lizzie's Tale, builds on the Balmain house setting, It is the story of a working class teenage girl who lives in this same house in the 1950s and 1960s, It tells of how, when pregnant, she is determined not to surrender her baby for adoption and of her struggle to survive in this unforgiving society. The third novel in this series, Devil's Choice, follows the next generation of the family in Lizzie's Tale. Lizzie's daughter is faced with the awful choice of whether to seek the help of one of her mother's rapists' in trying to save the life of her own daughter who is inflicted with an incurable disease.

The Crocodile Dreaming Series is based in Outback Australia. It starts with the first novel, 'An English Visitor' which tells the story of an English backpacker, Susan, who visits the Northern Territory and becomes captivated and in great danger from a man who loves crocodiles. The second book in the series, Crocodile Man, follows the consequences of the first book based around the discovery of this man's remains. The third book, Girl in an Empty Cage, is about Susan's struggle to retain her sanity in jail while her family and friends desperately try to find out what really happened on that fateful day before it is too late. In Lost Girl Diary Susan vanishes and it tells the story of the search for her and four other lost girls whose passports were found in the possession of the man she killed. The final book in the series, Dance of Shadows is the story of a girl who appears in a remote aboriginal community in North Queensland, without any memory except for a name. It tells how she rebuilds her life from an empty shell and how, as fragments of the past return, with them come dark shadows that threaten to overwhelm her.

A prequel to this series has just been published in two parts. It is the story of what made the man Mark, who is a central book character. Part 1 of this prequel, Return of the Breaker, (Crocodile's Child) tells part of the story of Mark's life, as written in by him in a notebook found after his death. Book 1 follows how the abused boy survives a difficult childhood and grows into a charming but dangerous man, who forges his own uncompromising path through life, seeking to follow in the footsteps of the Breaker, that famous horseman who has become an Australian legend of many other books and films. The real Breaker lived and died a century before, and his famous last words as he faced a firing squad at his execution were, "Shoot straight you bastards.' This man seeks to live and die with similar courage.

This book, 'Riding the Whirlpool,' completes Marks life story in its increasingly dark final chapters of a search for vengeance and retribution, which consumes him like a whirlpool, sucking him down ever deeper into the worst of his own human nature. It should be read after the original five books in the Crocodile Dreaming Series in order to properly understand it.

The book, Children of Arnhem's Kaleidoscope, is the story of the author's life in the Northern Territory: his childhood in an aboriginal community in remote Arnhem Land, in Australia's Northern Territory, of the people, danger and beauty of this place, and of its transformation over the last half century with the coming of aboriginal rights and the discovery or uranium. It also tells of his surviving an attack by a large crocodile and of his work over two decades in the outback of the NT.

Graham is planning a memoir about his family's connections with Ireland called Memories Only Remain and also is compiling information for a book about the early NT cattle industry, its people and its stories.

He also has a part written novel called 'Risk Free' centered around corporate greed, and at some stage he hopes to completed this and make it the first part of a new series.

He is also compiling stories set in inner Sydney, in the Rocks area, where he and his wife life, with their three fluffy dogs in one of Sydney's oldest houses. Many people have said to him. 'If only the walls could talk.' He hopes to one day tell some of their secrets.

Graham writes for the creative pleasure it brings him. He is particularly gratified each time an unknown person chooses to download and read something he has written and particularly write a review - good or bad, as this gives him an insight into what readers enjoy and helps him make ongoing improvements to his writing.

In his other life Graham is a veterinarian who works in wildlife conservation and for rural landholders. He lived a large part of his life in the Northern Territory and his books reflect this experience.

More information about Graham and his books and writing is available from the following sites:

Graham Wilson – Australian Author on Facebook

Graham Wilson Author Profile on Smashwords and Amazon

Graham Wilson's Publishing Web Page

www.beyondbeyondbooks.com.au

If you want to contact Graham directly please use the email:

grahambbbooks@gmail.com
