Butchers Creek
Over the years I have written and published going on for 2000 short stories with accompanying grey-scale water color sketches. From this week I will offer for a while, some of my longer stories in two or three parts. To view the complete story it will be necessary to keep in contact.
Butchers Creek
_____________________________
It was early morning in Melbourne Lilliput Lane . A
screwed up paper bag and a torn fish and chip paper tumbled along that narrow
dusty street.
In front of a ramshackle motor vehicle depot, a shabby
passenger bus was parked in the scanty shade of a spindly olive tree.
Veteran driver, Brody Kray, lounged in the driver’s
seat of his aged machine, waiting to begin his weekly excursion to Butchers
Creek, a small isolated community, far beyond the outskirts of the city. Glancing at his wrist watch, he noted there was
still enough time for him to roll a smoke.
Digging a packet of Park Drive tobacco
and tissue papers from his shirt pocket, he deftly fashioned a cigarette with
one hand. Striking a match on the side
of his boot, he cupped both hands around the flame, drawing tobacco smoke deep
into his lungs. In the course of a
hacking cough, he leaned back into the grubby torn leather seat. With a sigh he closed his eyes, savoring the
tangy taste of smoke rolling across his tongue.
Flicking ash onto the floor, he caught the pleasant
whiff of cooking smells coming from a fast-food joint in an adjoining street. It reminded him he had missed breakfast.
He was about to
spit loose tobacco fibre off the tip of his tongue, when a late passenger
pushed through the open door, dragging a tattered back-pack.
“Cuttin’ it a bit fine ain’t ya mate”? Brody barked,
the remnants of his cigarette flapping on his bottom lip. “I was about to push off ___ goin’ far?”
Brody’s questioning grin, exposed a mouthful of
chipped and nicotine stained teeth.
“End of the line, I guess.” His passenger
responded.
“That’ll cost you forty bucks, Jack.”
“Right,” said the passenger, producing a wad of twenty
dollar notes. “The name’s not Jack.” He said, slipping a couple of twenties off
the roll. Keep the change.”
Brody palmed the notes, while staring at the roll
disappearing back into the passenger’s pocket.
“Gee, man,” he mumbled, licking his lips. “You’re all bloody heart ain’t ya. Last of the big spender’s, aye?” Obviously
Brody was pissed off at not receiving a tip.
"Thank you Brody,” said the
passenger. “For your information, the
name’s Finch, ___ Jeremy Finch.”
“Ah. Huh.” Slapping the cracked
steering wheel with a calloused hand, Brody tried desperately not to laugh.
“You did say Finch.” Spitting his
soggy cigarette butt onto the floor, __ “Finch, as in bird, eh?”
“Yeah, that’s the one.” Jeremy
smiled.
Squinting at his passenger, Brody
cocked his head onto the side. “Say,
Jack, you ain’t, by any chance, a kin of old Dickey, are ya?”
“What? ____ Old, Dickey Bird,” whooped Jeremy. “Cripes, I had lunch with that chirpy little
bastard the other day. He’s one of me old mum’s relation’s,
y’no. Know him well, do you?”
Dust rose from Brody’s shorts, as he slapped his
skinny thighs and laughed out loud.
“Awe, shit Finchy! That’s the biggest line of bull
dust I’ve ever heard. You’re just too
slick for an old untaught bum like me.”
Looking at Jeremy, he lifted his hat to run dirty
fingers through his hair.
“For Christ’s sake man, don’t just stand there; find
yourself a seat and we’ll get goin’.”
Still chuckling, Brody turned his
attention to firing up the motor. With
nicotine stained fingers, he twisted a corroded ignition key. A couple of red lights blinked in a rust encrusted
dashboard.
Under the bonnet, a starter motor
rattled like a stone crusher. It was on
the third attempt, with a deep throated cough, all six 1939 cylinders
ignited. Clouds of black foul-smelling
smoke belched up through the floor boards, from an encrusted exhaust, held in
place with lengths of number eight wire.
Before Jeremy could reach a spare seat, after
clambering over mail bags and small parcels, Brody let the clutch out. Mumbling vulgar expletives, he was thrown
towards a seat between two other passengers, and just managing to stop him self
from flying through the rear window. A
quick glance in the driver’s direction, Jeremy saw Brody in the rear vision
mirror, grinning from ear to ear.
At a guess, Jeremy thought the driver would be around
fifty five. His skin was like aged
leather, suggesting he spent most of his life in the outdoors.
Reminiscent of an overgrown bramble hedge, large
untrimmed eyebrows hid piercing blue eyes.
Cauliflower ears and a misshapen nose gave an impression he may have had
a run in with the mother-in-law. Clumps of dirty blond hair stuck out
from under a battered ex-army hat, while several days’ growth of multicolored whiskers, adorned his spade like jaw.
The name ‘Brody’ was stitched in red across the pocket
of a khaki shirt, whilst skinny hairy legs, resembling twigs on a Birch tree,
protruded from a pair of baggy oil stained shorts.
Only four passengers were on this
week’s jaunt to Butcher’s Creek, five counting Jeremy. Seating arrangements comprised of a crude
timber bench seat, covered with a stained multicolored canvas sheet, either
side of the bus. How anyone could endure such a journey and still smile, was
beyond Jeremy. Floor space in the
middle, apart from parcel freight, several ten gallon drums of oil took up
valuable space.
The old bus rattled along the well-used gravel
road. Dust clouds, suspended in the
morning’s heat, marked the vehicle’s progress toward distant bush clad slopes.
Jeremy did not know about the
others, but by the halfway mark of their journey, his tailbone felt bruised and
sore. To make matters worse, each side
window on this aging contraption refused to budge, most likely jammed shut with
rust and grime. A ventilator, rusted
into the roof, stubbornly refused all
efforts to be pressed into service.
On a seat directly opposite Jeremy, Abel Dempster, a
tall skinny man, sat leaning back with his eyes closed. Hands, the size of dinner plates lay casually in his
lap.
A white collar, cutting into the wrinkled skin of his
long skinny neck, confirmed he was a preacher by profession. Under a dark blue pinstripe single breasted
suit, two sizes too small, he wore a pink shirt, with a loosely knotted green
tie. Obviously, color coordination was
not one of his strong points. A pair of over-sized white sneakers with shabby sole’s, worn over red and blue stripped
socks, gave the impression he could easily have been a kin to Pluto.
Coated with a thin layer of dust, a black narrow
brimmed hat, decorated with a small yellow rose tucked under the band, balanced
at a jaunty angle. Thin lips, partially
hidden by an unkempt moustache, appeared to be moving, as if he were talking to
himself. Perhaps he was pleading for
divine deliverance, into the unknown.
In striking contrast his youngest daughter, Agnes, sat
by his side. At nineteen, she was a
fresh faced little thing, with hazel eyes and an hour glass figure. About 170cm
tall, her brown hair was severely tied back into a ponytail. Wearing skin tight pale green jeans, into which she
had obviously been poured. A wide black leather belt, pulled tight around her
waist, exposed every sensuous curve.
Generous breasts, moving provocatively
to the rhythm of the lurching bus, strained at the buttons of her yellow shirt.
Aware her bouncing bosom induced a
state of ecstasy in one of the other male passengers. She responded to his leering, by pouting and patting her hair, as she subtly flirted
with Mitch Morgan.
This duo, father and daughter were
without previous knowledge of the area.
Yet, they had blindly answered a call to re-establish a Parish at
Butchers Creek, a shallow isolated valley, more than two hundred and fifty kilometers inland from Melbourne
Several years before, this small
community was almost decimated by raging floods. Town fathers, keen to re-establish the faith
back into this area, gave the unlikely duo assurances, until repairs were
completed on the old church; an abandoned shop in the Main
Street could become a temporary alternative venue, for Sunday
Worship.
Jeremy smiled to himself. As soon as the locals see this man of God and
his sexy daughter step off the bus, goodness knows what they will think? He was willing to lay a small wager the local
young bucks, would be drooling in their eagerness, to develop relations with
Agnes.
Mitch Morgan, a chubby little man with several days’ growth
of dark whiskers, sat on Jeremy’s right.
With lust in his eyes, his undivided attention appeared to be on Agnes
and her lively breasts.
In an effort to introduce himself, he nodded to
Jeremy.
“Name’s, Mitch.
Visiting our metropolis for a couple of days, are you? Got friends at the Creek?”
“Hello, Mitch.” Responded Jeremy, “No __ No friends in your
little town, not yet anyway. So, I’ll be
staying at one of your local pubs for a while.
At least until I decide what I want to do?”
Jeremy had heard through the
grapevine, investment opportunities lay in Butchers Creek, and could be worth
his while to take a look
“No kidding!” Mitch declared, with a surprised look. “Wait
till you see the place, you may change your mind.”
“Well, I dare say it can’t be any worse than some other places I have been in recent
years. How many hotels have you got
there, anyway?”
Mitch leaned back in his seat,
wiping his sweaty face with a grubby handkerchief, before pushing sausage like
fingers through his greasy hair. “Only
the one,” he replied, never once taking his eyes off Agnes’s cleavage. His rumpled brown suit jacket hung open,
exposing sweat stains to his crumpled blue shirt. A prominent stomach flopped over a narrow
leather belt and a bulbous nose, crisscrossed with thin red broken veins,
resembled street lights in Melbourne City
“What do you do for a living, Mitch?" Jeremy asked, stifling a yawn.
“Why. __ Are you, a cop?” Mitch rubbed a sweaty finger through his
scruffy mustache.
“Me? ___ No.
I’m not a cop!”
“Sure?”
“Look mate,” Jeremy glared. “I was passing the time of day. If you want to be a smart-arse, well ___
?”
Suitably rebuked, Mitch said. “Sorry. I happen to be a barman at the
Charter.”
“Okay?” Jeremy made a mental note, as a knobbly hand
tapped him on the shoulder. The old man
sitting beside him, was offering his battered silver hip flask.
“Name’s, Reg Smith.
Want a snifter, before I scoff the lot?”
The fumes, emitting from the neck of that flask were
potent; a mere teaspoonful of the stuff would most likely have dissolved the
wheel nuts on this old bus.
End of part one
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