“At a half past the hour of two…”

Cat Wallin paused to suck on a long thin poxed cigarillo. Her tanned tight gullied face faded to the grey wire of real hair pertruding the sullied brown of her wayward wig. Her oversized fingers belonged to hands on the ends of bony arms. Her shoulders joined by a flat chest. Her arms were bolted on with pulled large nipples. Under her vest they stood. As she sucked she held her ground, though her body was caught in concentration. In the other hand was her morning flaggon, half empty for the second time. The potion was flat and brown and bitter.

“The desert’s a red cunt, except it’s bigger, stretching forever, miles and miles of the very worse heat. In the shade time seems slow, and that’s a wicked cruel mock for time’s like the bush, it burns fast. If caught out of the shade, out in the sun, time skits quick, you’re dead before you know it. Its then that things appear out of the haze. Only then, insects, bites worse than snakes and they fly in gangs some of them big, and others got nets, more legs and gruesome faces and you don’t want to quarrel when one bite turns you cripple and you die twice quicker than frying in a pan."

"The ground’s bits a bone beneath your feet, stractched up, crippling you as you walk, stones only bitsy bigger than sand, and weed holding it all together, barb wire weed that can rip your boots apart. She’s the wicked kingdom of a devil, all sores an all that worse punishment than a judge can reap out."

"Ya know, God’s a fat fella, wears a wig and that’s something that don’t change cause sometime he’s out here with a rope ready to hang you from the span of a church."

"This place is torment if you want it to be. But when the sun’s gone slow, just afore lights out, the land’s bashful, blushes like a virgin. She’s a beauty then and makes you want to stay."

"You know, an old fella once told me, if you turned your back on the sea and walk til you can’t pace another step, till you’ve walked further than ever before, days longer than you could have dreamt and you aint got no more to give. Then strain your eyes that little bit more. If that means staring right dead into the sun, then do it. Let that white heat pierce your eyes and then you’ll see it - Goorlie right there, right in the heart."

"Now I reckon, it was some time, on a Wednesday afternoon, round about the hour of two six tired horses came out of the haze, dragging a coach that had shrunk too small for the load. They hated to sleep cause the sun was always there. They hated to eat cause their oats were always burnt and their skin was so tight for them it showed off all their bones. Their carriage was packed so high with barrels, it was enough to make a strong man bawk, they creaked and swayed and inside they slopped and lapped. The flies hung about them like buzzards."

"The driver, his jaw was stuck forward his hat pulled over his eyes, he fished flies with his whip. At his side a clay bottle with a cork. He was the worst company, never said a word, not a whoa, not a hey, called the horses ‘cuntie’. What a sore sight in hell he was cause he never jumped down to take a leak so the smell was awful bad."

"Right on top of the great pile of barrels, that great mountain; cause in these old day folks don’t know the limits of a body and that aint no end of a lie, I should know cause mi backs crooked from rutting on rocks. Well, right on top of that great pile of barrels - a man and a chest and a couple bags that shouldn’t rightly be there. You’ll never see nags so angry, heads bent in a temper cause the work was hard at the best of times and then some red burnt skin ‘Paddy’ needed a trip out here making this coach more heavy than it needed to be and for a while wouldn’t stop talking, for a long old while could have been a hundred miles he jabbered about a load of things that didn’t make a damn bit of sense.”

Elvin Pardon shifted in his chair his head tipped forward over his note nook, his pencil impatient to start again. He looked up. Through the wood dust he could have been a young angel with stubble struggling to grow. He looked at Cat as she stared ahead of herself into the raw wooden walls which was probably as far as her eyes could see ‘anyways cause she’s a one that don’t have much use for eyes, at least not them kinds that we have that only notice solid things. She's a most professional tart. She don’t need to see nothing solid, just feels to know its there, give it a rub, let it twitch, it’ll sneeze in her hand – that’s how they all go to sleep in the end.’

“Mrs Wallin?” coughed Elvin.

“Oh Yeah.” She didn’t even bother to try and focus. “On a Wednesday afternoon at a half past the hour of two, in the blazing sun, O’Connell, arrived. Starch dry.”

“At a half past the hour?”

“Of two- In the blazing sun. O’Connell- A man ripped raw by the swarming sand with a squint gashed sharply through both eyes arrived with a gentlemanly swagger.”

Elvin scraped at his pad like it needed a scratch, it sounded like the meanies could have been trying to eat from her wig through her head and it made Cat’s tongue flick nervously through the gaps in her teeth.

“Where did you say you were from your honour Mr Pardon Sir?”

“I’m a journalist not a judge Mrs Wallin.”

“A journo?” She nodded upwards.

“From the Western Standard.”

Cat peered through the smoke. “Is that so?”

“That’s right Mrs Wallin.’

Her eyes streaked red in quiet panick, “And what is that ya wants, Mr Pardon.”

“There’s a tale that this fella O’Connell’s been committing land fraud. A lot of respectable blokes have been robbed of a lot of money. It’s a story and I mean to tell it.”

‘You got a thirst for a tale Mr Pardon, sir.”

“Not me Mrs Wallin,” he mopped his brow. “I’m just a glass from which people drink.”

His answer raised her eyes and felt the cavity behind.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

“Of course you wouldn’t Mrs Wallin. Please.”

‘At a half past the hour-”

“I got that bit.”

Cat quaked. “A tall slender man came out of the desert, arrived arrid, bent dry, brittle from the relentless sun. He did not drink. Not a drop of the supplies. He could not drink, but a small ration- from a flask of sour fresh water, which he kept at his side at all times. He could not drink not a drop. Though the flask, at his side would make him list and lean. And fall to the extreme depths of the darkest depression and at these times he was a most difficult man. Consumed and destructive. Not a soul could relieve him. Not a drop could revive him. At these times-’

“Yes?”

‘He was- A most difficult man.’

Elvin Pardon looked up the tip of his hat shadowed his eyes. “At a half past the hour of two" he re-scribbled, "O’Connell arrived.”

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