Read Black Tide for Free Online Page B

and death. Fellas do anythin. Anythin.’
    Cam was reading the Age. Neither of us said anything.
    Harry opened the ashtray that held the wine gums and chose one. ‘Prime example that Wes Gales. Dangerous little bastard. Hard. Cut the teeth over the border, Mindarie, Halidon, places like that. Out to buggery.’
    We were in the big navy BMW, tenth in line at an intersection that didn’t allow more than seven or eight through at a time. The green arrow came on. Harry revved the machine. The first car was slow off the mark. It wasn’t even going to be eight this time.
    The car ahead of us went through on red. Two lanes of traffic started coming at us.
    ‘Bugger this,’ said Harry. He put his foot down, took the BMW into a screaming righthand turn. We passed across the face of death, alive by a metre or so.
    ‘Sluggish,’ Harry said. ‘Tuned by these galahs just the other day. Charge like proctologists. Cheaper to keep a horse in trainin. Wes Gales. Wonder what happened to him? Saw him stick his whip up a fella’s arse once. On the favourite, Mavourneen’s Kiss, good name that, went around on her a few times. We’re just at the school at Flemington, Wes pulls the arm back and rams it up him. Hole in one. The fella, Carter, he gives a big squeak, sits down, that’s it, runs near last, poor sod. Stable wants his clangers on a plate.’
    ‘Good old days,’ said Cam. He didn’t look up from the newspaper.
    ‘Hard old days. Inside the door, Carter takes a swing at Wes. Big mistake. Wes slaps him a few, knocks him down, gives him a bit of grace with the slipper.’
    ‘How’d the stewards like that?’ I said.
    31

    ‘Not a word said to the stewards. Had to look after yourself back then. I said to Gales, he was lookin pleased, I said, “Wes, you wouldn’t put the stick up my arse, would you?’’
    He says, “Only do it to blokes don’t enjoy it.’’’
    ‘Cheeky,’ said Cam.
    Harry straddled lanes, preparing to take the vehicle between a semi-trailer and a truck carrying huge sheets of glass. ‘My word,’ he said. ‘So I king-hit him. They got the doctor in, the boy’s that slow to start answerin questions. Know yer name, what day’s it and suchlike.’
    ‘That would’ve got the stewards’ attention,’ said Cam.
    ‘No. Hoops’ business. Monkeys fightin, that’s the attitude then. Anyway, the little shit wasn’t goin to dob. Told em he fell over gettin his boot off, hit his chin on the locker.’
    It wasn’t hard to think of Harry Strang king-hitting someone, even now. Not when you looked at the set of his shoulders, the big hands on the leather-covered steering wheel.
    What was hard to accept was that Harry’s 20-year riding career had ended at Deauville in 1961 with him winning by three lengths on Lord Conover’s Leneave Vale. A few yards beyond the post, the horse pitched forward, folding at the knees, stone dead. Harry went with him, crushing all the ribs on his left side and breaking his left arm in two places. He made a complete recovery, but he left Europe, came home, housekeeper with him, never rode again. It was as if the fall had given him extra time. He was almost unlined, clear eyes, vigour in the walk.
    The drive became less nerve-racking when the traffic thinned after the airport turn-off.
    ‘Put on that John Denver,’ Harry said. ‘Don’t mind which.’
    ‘Do I have to?’ Cam said. ‘Can we vote on it?’
    ‘Yes and no,’ said Harry. ‘There’s a good fella.’
    ‘Rocky Mountain High’ came at us from speakers everywhere: roof, seat backs, side panels, window ledges. It was like being embalmed in Rocky Mountain High jelly.
    ‘Went up in one of them little planes, this bloke,’ Harry said. ‘Can’t get a hang of why.
    Come down like a duck full of shot. Tragedy.’
    ‘There’s a silver lining,’ said Cam. ‘He won’t be making any more recordings.’
    Harry shook his head. ‘No ear, some people.’
    32

    In self-defence, I fell asleep soon after the Melton