He slumped the kid into the passenger seat and levered in his legs. Sidney’s arm had not left his chest. ‘You right, mate?’ Vernon tried again to lever up the pincered arm and again was unsuccessful. It looked a right mess. He tried to jog from the passenger side to his and only managed his awkward shuffle. He climbed in and took off down the road, hoping to God Sidney would wake up enough to tell him the way.

The farmstead was all darkness. As he approached he dimmed the lights and slowed to a crawl. Before he got too close he stopped the car. The kid was breathing raggedly next to him and between his clenched fist, across his chest, oozed a sticky mess. He’d managed to provide weak directions but beyond that he’d just been moaning. In the dark his blood the colour of ink spilled from a pen.

‘I’m going to take you in and get you some help. But I want you to tell your old man what happened. What really happened.’

The kid laughed a bit and coughed. ‘You mean, you bringing me home at gunpoint?’

‘Yeah. That if you want to. But also the kangaroo. That’s not my doing.’

The kid only sat back and shook his head and clenched his teeth harder, judging by the muscle in his jaw.

Vernon put the car in gear and drove to the front of the house. At one end of the verandah a pig carcass swinging like it had been smacked.

He shut the engine off. Opened the car door and stood next to it. Almost immediately exploding from the house came Ernie. Storming down the driveway, his cheeks red, easy to see even in the night. Vernon reached into the back seat, took the shotgun and was quick to bring it up, aiming it at the man’s chest. Vernon limped towards him hesitantly.

‘Ernie. Ernie!’ Vernon said.

Ernie did not appear to see the shotgun until he was almost upon the car. He stopped in his tracks, scuffing the dirt.

‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Well,’ Vernon said, suddenly indecisive.

‘You intend to use that thing or hold it there like you’re watering the bloody garden?’

Vernon looked in at the boy in his car, shifted his weight from his worst knee to his less worse. Without moving the gun he said, ‘Your boy’s in there.’

‘Where the hell’s the windscreen?’ Ernie said. He leaned into the car. ‘You alright in there, son?’

‘I’m alright.’ Then a grunt. ‘No. Not really. I’m not.’

Ernie, with a contained ferocity Vernon found himself intimidated by, said, ‘Did you hurt my boy?’

‘No, mate, we hit a roo coming back.’

‘Coming back?’

‘Yeah. Coming back.’

He leaned in again and said to Sidney, ‘Who is this bastard?’

‘He had a gun on me.’

‘So you didn’t see Melbourne?’

A groan. ‘Just get me out, would you?’

‘He has the gun on me now, mate, case you can’t see.’