The Deep Enders, page 18
“I still can’t believe we found him,” Murph said brightly as he poured bottled water over his head to cool down. But Micki looked troubled.
“It’s such a shame,” she said. “To come all that way to Australia, only to die alone in the desert.”
“Ironic, isn’t it?” Murph tempered his enthusiasm. “Such a pity that the rain didn’t come earlier. He probably would have survived.”
“It’s a terrible thing to lose those you love,” Micki said quietly, and they all knew she wasn’t talking about de Horst anymore.
“Yeah,” Murph said and thought of home.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be morose. It’s amazing you found his body.” She looked at the boys. “I’ve just had too much time to think today, and I’m really missing Mum and Dad.”
Banjo put his arms around her and squeezed. It was the first time Murph had seen them hug, and he was again struck by the absurdity of an Aboriginal boy with a Japanese sister.
Only in Broome, he thought.
Banjo stepped back and looked down at her foot.
“How’s the ankle?”
“Hmmm,” she said, curling her bottom lip to say not great. “Better than it was yesterday.”
“Can you make it back to town?” Murph asked.
“I’ll have to,” she said with determination in her voice, then tapped her kendo stick on the ground. “At least I’ve got a walking stick.”
Murph gave a half-smile and leaned closer to inspect a Japanese character painted below the stick’s leather grip.
“It says courage in Japanese,” she explained. “I need it whenever I leave the house.”
They packed their bags, doused the blackened campfire, and retraced their steps toward the dirt road that led back to town. It was brutally hot without a breath of wind, and before long, the boys’ wet clothes had dried out—only to be soaked again with sweat. The one benefit of the heat was that it had baked the ground dry, so they reached the dusty track in good time.
Banjo led the way as they trudged the long red line that snaked through the bush. Murph and Micki walked side-by-side a little way behind, sticking to the edge of the road, ready to leap for cover at the first hint of a vehicle.
Murph glanced at Micki, the sweat plastering wisps of dark hair to the side of her face, a long strand caught in the corner of her mouth. Although the day’s rest had helped her twisted ankle, the limp was getting noticeably worse the farther they traveled. She tried her best not to show the pain, refusing to make a fuss. Murph liked that about her…in fact, there were a lot of things that he liked about Micki. She was gutsy, headstrong, and despite the sweat and desert grime, Murph thought she looked beautiful.
And yet, he still felt edgy. Micki was a friend, but she was also Japanese, a fugitive from the law—and forbidden! If they were caught, all three of them would be arrested. Murph checked the road behind them. It was empty, like every other time before that he’d looked. As he turned back, he caught her eye.
“All clear so far.” He tried to sound nonchalant.
Micki gave him a playful shove in the arm.
“What?”
“Don’t be so worried,” she chided him.
“I’m not,” he fibbed. “Just being safe.”
“Just being safe,” she mimicked his accent.
“Hey.”
“So who’s Katarina?” Micki said out of the blue.
“Huh?”
“You were worried Banjo was gonna blow up Katarina the other night.” She raised a teasing eyebrow.
“Oh yeah, Katarina’s a Dutch girl I met a couple of times.” Murph tried to pass it off as nothing.
He knelt to tie a flapping shoelace, grateful it meant he could avoid her gaze.
“She’s very pretty.”
“Who?”
“Who! C’mon, Murph. Katarina.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“So have you talked to her?”
“Ummm, a little bit,” he said, tying off the lace and standing up again.
“Gee, you’re a funny one, Murph Turner.” She wrinkled her nose and flashed a lovely smile that fizzled his teenage brain.
“Am I?”
Then, Micki suddenly leaned in and kissed him.
Her soft lips planted right on his and lingered there. Murph’s green eyes shot wide with surprise; he pulled away after a moment, instantly feeling his cheeks burning.
“Wha’ was that for?” he whispered, urgently checking that Banjo wasn’t watching.
“For everything,” she said with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “And for being a bonzer friend.”
“Yeah, yeah, no worries,” he said a little too quickly, scuffing at the dirt as his cheeks flushed.
“C’mon, let’s catch up,” Micki smiled, clearly enjoying his embarrassment, and, forgetting her injured ankle, she bounced ahead to her brother. It was only for a moment, though, and she gasped in pain as she reached Banjo, quickly clasping his shoulder for balance.
Murph barely noticed, his mind fogged in a swirl of warm thoughts. Girls were hard enough to figure out at the best of times, let alone in this crazy situation. Here he was, thinking she was mad at him, and then she kissed him! He’d be okay if she did it again too—and he briefly let his imagination take him there.
The unmistakable rumble of a vehicle in the distance snapped him back to reality. All three of them heard it in the same instant, whirling around to see a milky red dust cloud rising into the clear blue sky behind a US military truck!
Chapter
27
Micki scrambled off the road and crouched behind a huge boab tree, as wide at the base as a small car. The boys walked on ahead so that she wouldn’t be spotted even if the vehicle stopped. Then they waited as the truck, olive green with a white star on the hood, rumbled closer.
“This is bad if they find her,” Murph murmured.
“She’ll be all right, brudder; jus’ follow my lead,” Banjo said, then stepped into the middle of the road and waved his arms above his head.
“What are you doing?” Murph hissed.
“Her ankle’s gettin’ worse with every step,” he said out of the corner of his mouth as he waved. “We jus’ might get lucky here.”
The truck pulled to a stop, and they were instantly enveloped in a choking cloud. Murph’s heart was trying to bust free of his chest as he glanced back at the boab, but it had disappeared in the grit.
“What’s doin’, Murph?” A familiar voice from the truck cab made him jump.
Squinting through the dust, Murph recognized the US lieutenant who rescued him from Finch’s grip outside Sun Pictures. He leaned out the passenger side window while a second soldier sat behind the steering wheel.
“Hi there,” Murph called back as casually as he could. “Lieutenant Boscovich, isn’t it?”
“That’s right, son,” the officer said. “Need a ride?”
“Um, in the front or the back, sir?” Murph hesitated.
“The back’s full of equipment, but we can all cram up front.”
“Too right,” Banjo chimed in. “It’s as hot as hades out here.”
“Well then, jump in, boys.”
Murph opened the passenger door and climbed the step to the cab. From the corner of his eye, he saw Banjo give a subtle wave. A second later, Micki dashed under the cover of dust to the rear of the truck, opened the canvas flap, and silently clambered aboard. Banjo waited until she was in, then jumped into the truck cabin next to Murph. The engine roared and the truck lurched forward.
“The name’s Banjo,” he said with a dusty smile.
“Hahwahya, son. I’m Pete Boscovich.” He shook Banjo’s hand and then introduced the GI behind the wheel. “And this here’s Corporal Boogsy Grimshaw.”
The driver gave the boys a friendly wink.
“Howdy, boys. I met y’all a few days back at the roadblock,” Boogsy drawled, a smoke hanging from his crooked bottom lip.
“That’s right,” Murph said, recognizing the purple scar and bent nose. “I thought I knew you from somewhere.”
“It’s real hard to forget a thing of great beauty.” Boogsy flashed a goofy grin. “Hawaii, right?”
“Yeah, Honolulu.” Murph didn’t mention Pearl Harbor, but everyone thought it.
Lt. Boscovich cocked his head as he considered the teenagers—miles from town in the roasting sun.
“Don’t you guys feel the heat?”
“Yeah, I’m sweatin’ like a bag of cats at a greyhound race.” Banjo smirked while the Americans looked at each other, bewildered.
Murph got it first, then Boogsy, who guffawed so hard that his cigarette dropped into his lap. He was so busy patting it out that he drove straight through a pothole and everyone in the cabin bounced on their seat. In the back, Micki almost flew out onto the road, only just managing to grab a railing. She squealed as her knees thumped onto the trailer floor, but thankfully, it was drowned out by a chorus of yelps and cussing from the front of the truck.
“Eyes on the road, Corporal,” Lt. Boscovich chided as the passengers rearranged themselves on the bench seat.
“Yes, sir.”
“So tell me, boys,” the lieutenant turned to them, “what mischief have you been up to all the way out here?”
Banjo glanced at Murph.
“It’s okay; he’s the one who rescued me from Finch.”
“You sure?”
Murph nodded as the soldiers watched on curiously.
“We were searching for that Dutch guy lost in the desert,” he said.
“Oh yeah, we heard all about him,” Lt. Boscovich said. “Some nice reward money was being thrown around.”
“Yep—and we found him,” Murph said emphatically, letting the statement hang in the air.
“You found him?” The lieutenant was surprised.
“Found his corpse washed up on a riverbank.”
“Don’t get us wrong, sir, it’s sad that he died,” Banjo jumped in. “But if there’s gonna be a reward, I’m okay that we get it.”
Lt. Boscovich looked at the corporal then turned back to the boys, trying to process the situation.
“Guys, I don’t know how to break this to you,” he said seriously.
“Break what?”
“That’s not de Horst you found.”
“Whatya talkin’ about?” Banjo said indignantly. “Who else could it have been?”
“That, I don’t know, but the Dutch search party found de Horst this morning twenty clicks south of Broome. The whole town’s been buzzing with the news all day.”
Murph and Banjo deflated in their seats like a couple of untied balloons.
“Are you sure?” Murph asked flatly, but he already knew the answer.
“Yep, they found him by a waterhole, as happy as a pig in poop,” Corp. Boogsy said. “He’d been living with a tribe of Aborigines, eating fresh-cooked kangaroo and roots.”
“Oh,” Murph said, feeling guilty that he sounded so disappointed. “Well, that’s good news he’s alive.”
“Yep, and the bad news is we’re still broke,” Banjo said with a good-natured laugh.
“I’m sorry you guys missed out on the reward,” Lt. Boscovich said. “But the big question now is, whose body did you find by the river?”
The teenagers racked their brains for an answer. Then Banjo remembered the evidence that he’d recovered, and, wriggling on his seat, he unbuttoned the coin pocket and removed the silver ring. The river had washed off some of the grime and the ornate pattern peeked through.
“Who’d you belong to then?” Banjo mused as it glinted in the afternoon sunlight. Murph carefully took the ring and rubbed it on his shirt until he could make out a tiny Oriental dragon engraved into the surface.
“From what I’ve heard, Broome’s a lot like an Old West cowboy town,” Lt. Boscovich offered. “So there could be any number of vagrants, crims, or drunks who’ve gone missing over the years.”
Murph rolled the ring in his fingers and noticed an inscription on the inside, a Chinese character that he couldn’t read, and next to that, the initials “PC.”
“PC,” he read out loud.
“PC,” Banjo repeated thoughtfully.
Murph studied the ring as the truck trundled on.
“Oh no,” he gasped as everything fell into place.
A very dark place.
Chapter
28
The harsh scrub rushed past as Murph stared at the silver ring, trying to hear himself think over the warning bells clanging inside his brain.
“I know who he is,” Murph said, and every eye in the truck cabin fixed on him.
Corp. Boogsy Grimshaw slowed the truck as the ashen-faced teenager ran his thumb over the dragon pattern.
“Well, who was it?” Banjo asked.
“The inscription says PC.”
“Yeah?”
“PC was Pete Cho,” Murph said emphatically. “The old skipper of the Azure!”
Banjo took the ring, squinting at the engraving.
“Pete Cho,” Banjo thought out loud. “You mean old China Pete?”
“Yeah, think about it. Who else could it be?”
Banjo blew on the ring and wiped away the grit.
“But I thought your dad said China Pete took off to Perth after he gambled away the Azure,” Banjo said. “What the hell would he be doin’ miles upstream in the middle of the desert?”
“Dad said no one saw China Pete again. Everyone believed that he’d taken off to the city because that’s what…Finch…told ’em.”
And the puzzle pieces clicked into place.
“Finch!” they said in unison.
Boogsy Grimshaw puffed furiously on his smoke as he nursed the truck along the rugged track, he and Lt. Boscovich listening intently while the boys outlined the evidence. By the time the tires eased onto the main road, everyone in the cab was convinced the case against Finch was watertight.
“So Finch rubbed out China Pete and then invented the story about winning his half of the boat in a card game?” the lieutenant summarized.
“Yeah, then he must’ve driven outta town and dumped the body in a dry gully. His dirty secret stayed hidden until the stormwater washed it downstream,” Murph said.
“And all this time, Finch’s been throwin’ his weight around on the boat and mouthin’ off at us,” Banjo growled.
“What a piece o’ work!” Corp. Boogsy gripped the steering wheel. “I’d like to pay a visit to this guy Finch on a dark night.”
“So what do we do now?” Banjo asked.
Murph had already figured that much out.
“We gotta get to my dad fast,” he said firmly. “Finch’s up to something, and we know he’s willing to kill for it. So we grab Dad and go straight to the cops.”
“It might be a good id-eah if we tag along too,” Lt. Boscovich said, and the corporal nodded.
The boys were grateful for any help, but the promise of a military escort was cut short by an air-raid siren that sounded as the town appeared in the distance.
“Not again,” Murph groaned. “Another drill?”
“Prob’ly,” Corp. Boogsy sighed but checked out the windshield just in case.
“Sorry, boys, but we’ll have to drop you off and get back to base ASAP. Rules is rules.” Lt. Boscovich grunted. “Whatever happens, do not confront Finch on yah own. We’ll be back to help as soon as we get the all cle-ah.”
“Thanks, lieutenant,” Murph said.
“Awright, guys, we’d better drop ya here,” Corp. Boogsy said, gearing down the truck on the edge of town. “Y’all stay safe.”
Banjo shot a worried look at Murph, his eyes flicking to the back of the truck. She’d never make it home in broad daylight. Murph gave a single nod.
“Uhh, any chance that you could drop us in Japtown?” he ventured. “It’s not far.”
Lt. Boscovich hesitated and peered up at the sky—blue and empty—then he nodded at the young driver.
“Awright, we’ll bend the rules just this once. It’s not that fah anyway. Bang a right up ahead, Corporal.”
The truck rolled downtown as the air-raid siren emptied the streets. By the time they pulled up, the haunting siren was the only evidence that Broome was inhabited at all.
“This’ll have to do, I’m afraid, fellas,” Lt. Boscovich said. “We really gotta report in to HQ.”
“Thanks for the ride, sir,” Murph said as they climbed down from the cabin.
“Go get your dad then straight to the police, all right, pal?” Lt. Boscovich shouted as they drove off. “I’ll swing by your house later to check that everything’s okay.”
The truck had barely pulled away before Banjo was squinting around, trying to spot his sister in the dust.
“Micki?” he whispered as the truck disappeared around the corner. “Sis, where are ya?”
The siren droned as dust drifted over the empty street.
“She must have got out; she would’ve known this was her only chance,” Banjo tried to convince himself.
He ran farther along the street, saying her name louder as he checked behind a low fence. Across the road, a curtain cracked open, and Murph noticed one of the town’s Filipino fishermen peeking out, wondering about the commotion.
“We gotta go before anyone gets suspicious,” Murph said, jogging toward him.
“Sis?” Banjo ignored him, calling louder. He ran ahead to check behind a row of palm trees. Murph grabbed his arm and dragged him toward their street.
“What if she fell asleep, brudder?” Banjo said in a panic. “That truck’s headed to army headquarters!”
“There’s nothing we can do right now.”
“Murph, if they catch a Japanese national at HQ, they won’t just lock her up,” Banjo rasped. “They’ll treat her as a spy!”
